<u>These two quotes pronounced by President Herbert Hoover, express his viewpoint on the Great Depression</u> and his opinion about the different formulas adopted to overcome it:
- <em>"Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.
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- <em>"You cannot extend the mastery of government over the daily life of a people without somewhere making it master of people's souls and thoughts.… Every step in that direction poisons the very roots of liberalism. It poisons political equality, free speech, free press, and equality of opportunity. It is the road not to more liberty but to less liberty."</em>
Hoover became one of the main detractors of Roosevelt's New Deal which, based on Keynesian economics, fostered goverment interventionism in order to boost the depressed demand levels as the mechanism to create employment and economic growth. Such interventionism was materialized by increasing public spending.
In opposition, supporters of free markets and<em> laisez-faire</em> economic policies, such as Hoover, criticized this recovery plan because they believed that markets on their own would reach the most efficient outcomes and that the country would get innecessarily indebted. Moreover, they believed that the situation would be worsened by interventionist policies that hampered certain individual liberties.
In addition to the freedom of speech and the right to vote for the president, the Declaration of Independence intended to end British rule and primarily grant citizens the right to self-govern. After being dissatisfied with British rule, and initiating the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence intended to guarantee the right of citizens based on natural law, to have the right to self-govern and they are capable of doing so.
The answer is: B.
