Energy, Entropy and the New Deal

Key to understanding the New Deal is understanding the critical role of resources: the rise of oil and hydro, and eventually nuclear power, and the decline of coal, railroads, and the center cities— all of which were integral to the Depression and then to the New Deal's reconstruction of America—electrification, paved roads, bridges and tunnels; airfields, trains and ships, including aircraft carriers.
The resource equation is again changing. Resources need to be used much more efficiently, which is to say with more public purpose and less conspicuous waste, including, of course, a military based on obsolete technologies, which are not only expensive and wasteful, but also militarily ineffective.

Dr. James K. Galbraith is a professor of Government at the University of Texas, Austin, where he currently heads to Texas Inequality Project. He previously served as the Executive Director of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, and an economist for House Banking Committee. He is the author of several books, including Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know (2016); The End of Normal: The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth (2014); Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis (2012).

His latest book is , co-authored with Jing Chen, (2025, University of Chicago Press) presents a framework for understanding these issues from the ground up.

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