Nation Topics - The Left | The Nation

New Deal progressives believed the economy should exist to serve society, not the other way around.

The US public is wonderfully diverse, but the arts are not equally accessible to all.

The Bush Administration's solutions for the subprime mortgage crisis are too little, too late. Americans need a New Deal-style agency to manage domestic reconstruction.

Most New Deal programs were anything but race- and gender-neutral in their impact. They were both racially discrminatory and a boon to many black Americans.

For Roosevelt, the New Deal was a way of advancing freedom, which depended on economic as much as political rights.

Today's relentless arguments against a higher minimum wage suggest that Roosevelt's battle is not yet won.

The New Deal spirit of "persistent experimentation" yielded impressive results for the country. American leaders can recapture that spirit.

The New Deal brought with it programs that served not only the good of the people and the economy but also the environment. We need that now more than ever.

What was it about the New Deal and Roosevelt that make the man and the era relevant today?

To commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New Deal, The Nation invited a panel of activists, writers, scholars and artists to reflect on its lasting lessons.