"When Roosevelt came along, I approved of his program, generally. I figured an economic system should work for people, not vice versa"
About this Quote
Shriver’s line is a quiet manifesto dressed up as common sense: the economy isn’t a natural force to be obeyed, it’s a tool to be redesigned. By invoking Roosevelt, he’s not just name-dropping FDR’s popularity; he’s anchoring himself in the New Deal’s moral claim that government can step in when markets fail and still call itself American. “I approved... generally” is doing political work too. It signals pragmatism over ideology, the kind of centrist-liberal posture that tries to preempt accusations of doctrinaire statism while still defending bold public action.
The pivot - “should work for people, not vice versa” - flips the usual hierarchy. It’s an inversion that turns economic “discipline” (austerity, wage restraint, unemployment as ‘necessary’) into a kind of civic insult. Subtext: if citizens are being asked to accept misery to satisfy an abstract system, the system has become a cult. That reversal also clarifies Shriver’s own career logic. As the first director of the Peace Corps and a key architect of the War on Poverty era, he trafficked in programs that treated opportunity as an engineered outcome, not a lucky break.
Context matters: Shriver came of age amid Depression trauma, wartime mobilization, and postwar abundance - decades when Americans watched the state both fail catastrophically and then successfully reorganize society at scale. The quote’s intent is to claim that legacy against a recurring counterargument: that markets are neutral and government is meddling. Shriver insists the meddling is the point.
The pivot - “should work for people, not vice versa” - flips the usual hierarchy. It’s an inversion that turns economic “discipline” (austerity, wage restraint, unemployment as ‘necessary’) into a kind of civic insult. Subtext: if citizens are being asked to accept misery to satisfy an abstract system, the system has become a cult. That reversal also clarifies Shriver’s own career logic. As the first director of the Peace Corps and a key architect of the War on Poverty era, he trafficked in programs that treated opportunity as an engineered outcome, not a lucky break.
Context matters: Shriver came of age amid Depression trauma, wartime mobilization, and postwar abundance - decades when Americans watched the state both fail catastrophically and then successfully reorganize society at scale. The quote’s intent is to claim that legacy against a recurring counterargument: that markets are neutral and government is meddling. Shriver insists the meddling is the point.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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