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Sick Chickens and Blue Buzzards
Economist Steven Horwitz has a great post at
Liberty & Power telling the remarkable story of the
Schechter brothers, the Kosher butchers who fought FDR's New Deal
all the way to the Supreme Court and won:
As part of its legislation, the [National Recovery Administration] had all kinds of detailed codes for individual industries, describing to the letter how firms must do their business. The Schechters fell under the "Code of Fair Competition for the Live Poultry Industry of the Metropolitan Area in and About the City of New York" (and you thought Atlas Shrugged was fiction....). Among the things the code prohibited was "straight killing" which meant that customers could buy a whole or half coop of chickens, but did not have the right to make any selection of particular birds (such individual selecction was "straight killing").
This last rule was in direct conflict with Kashrut laws, which also served as an informal health code in the Jewish community. As [Amity] Shlaes points out, the phrase "glatt kosher" referred to the fact that the lungs of the animal were smooth (which is what "glatt" means) and therefore free of tuberculosis. Inspecting the lungs was part of the official process of conferring Kosher status on a butcher shop. Removing unhealthy animals from the stock was one of the core principles of keeping Kosher, and the rabbinical inspectors were fanatic about doing this. But so were customers. As Shlaes points out, individual customers, both retailers and their customers, had the right to refuse individual animals. This minimized the risk of an unhealthy animal getting through when both seller and buyer did such inspections. And it ensured that the kosher laws served as a health code, or perhaps something more like the Underwriters Laboratory or Good Housekeeping seal.
The Schechters, as you may have guessed, were targeted by the NRA enforcement crew. They were inspected repeatedly during the summer of 1934, which forced them to violate their own Kashrut practices, telling customers that they could not reject individual birds as keeping Kosher allowed. Not surprisingly, their deeply religious customer base began to dwindle. The constant inspection turned up a variety of violations, including allegations that they had, in fact, sold sick chickens (not surprising, if true, given that part of their own internal inspection process was negated by the NRA code itself!). They were also accused of “competing too hard” and keeping prices “too low."
Thankfully, the Supreme Court saw things differently, holding in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935), that, "It is not the province of the Court to consider the economic advantages or disadvantage of such a centralized system. It is sufficient to say that the Federal Constitution does not provide for it."
For more on why the New Deal wasn't so great after all, see here, here, and here.
Cool Cal|12.2.08 @ 5:58PM|#
I may be reading into things a bit, but does the NRA blue eagle have anything to do with (inspiration-wise) the blue eagle from the muppets who was always really serious?
Warty|12.2.08 @ 6:10PM|#
Oh, I read this a few days ago, and it seems apropos. I'd hate
to waste a rare opportunity to possibly contribute something
worthwhile to a thread.
Good Fascists and Bad
Fascists
Broken down, [fascism] includes these devices:
1. A government whose powers are unrestrained.
2. A leader who is a dictator, absolute in power but responsible to
the party which is a preferred elite.
3. An economic system in which production and distribution are
carried on by private owners but in accordance with plans made by
the state directly or under its immediate supervision.
4. These plans involve control of all the instruments of production
and distribution through great government bureaus which have the
power to make regulations or directives with the force of
law.
5. They involve also the comprehensive integration of government
and private finances, under which investment is directed and
regimented by the government, so that while ownership is private
and production is carried on by private owners there is a type of
socialization of investment, of the financial aspects of
production. By this means the state, which by law and by regulation
can exercise a powerful control over industry, can enormously
expand and complete that control by assuming the role of banker and
partner.
6. They involve also the device of creating streams of purchasing
power by federal government borrowing and spending as a permanent
institution.
7. As a necessary consequence of all this, militarism becomes an
inevitable part of the system since it provides the easiest means
of draining great numbers annually from the labor market and of
creating a tremendous industry for the production of arms for
defense, which industry is supported wholly by government borrowing
and spending.
8. Imperialism becomes an essential element of such a system where
that is possible - particularly in the strong states, since the
whole fascist system, despite its promises of abundance,
necessitates great financial and personal sacrifices, which people
cannot be induced to make in the interest of the ordinary
objectives of civil life and which they will submit to only when
they are presented with some national crusade or adventure on the
heroic model touching deeply the springs of chauvinistic pride,
interest, and feeling.
How do we score? I say 4 or 5 out of 8.
cunnivore|12.2.08 @ 6:18PM|#
Warty, that's kind of a strange list. 1-6 are criteria to define something as fascist, but 7-8 are just consequences of fascism, and thus not uniquely associated with fascism. There are many examples of militaristic societies, for instance, that were definitely not fascist.
|12.2.08 @ 6:41PM|#
As part of its legislation, the [National Recovery
Administration] had all kinds of detailed codes for individual
industries, describing to the letter how firms must do their
business.
Maybe they have some useful tips for running a car company.
SIV|12.2.08 @ 7:20PM|#
"Code of Fair Competition for the Live Poultry Industry of
the Metropolitan Area in and About the City of New York"
Try buying live poultry from a licensed business in a major urban
area now........
Then do the cosmotarian math.....
- live poultry + iPods = net gain in liberty!
|12.2.08 @ 8:19PM|#
One of the few times the Court saw fit to limit the commerce clause power of Congress, but then FDR threatened to pack the Court in '37 and they learned their lesson.
Thomas Paine\'s Goiter|12.2.08 @ 8:24PM|#
I'm guessing today's court would have broken towards the government.
Mad Max|12.2.08 @ 8:41PM|#
"The Schechters, as you may have guessed, were targeted by the
NRA enforcement crew. They were inspected repeatedly during the
summer of 1934, which forced them to violate their own Kashrut
practices, telling customers that they could not reject individual
birds as keeping Kosher allowed."
What is it with these Jews - always resisting the laws and
regulations put into place by their betters! No wonder FDR
restricted their immigration into the U.S. during this same
decade.
Seriously, where do these Jews get off, letting their religion get
in the way of great national projects? What happened to separation
of Church and State? Don't these Jews know that religion is
inherently superstitious and irrational - just like believe in
Santa Claus?
Urkobold™|12.2.08 @ 10:19PM|#
FOOLS! UNDERSTAND FIRST THAT FDR PRIVATELY REFERRED TO HIS PROGRAM AS THE "NUDE DEAL," AND YOU WILL TAKE THE FIRST, HALTING STEPS TOWARDS ENLIGHTENMENT.
Mike Laursen|12.3.08 @ 1:47AM|#
Maybe they have some useful tips for running a car
company.
Apparently, Henry Ford refused to sign on to the NRA automobile
code, despite the Administration orchestrating a Federal and state
boycott of purchases of Fords. A quote: "Hell, that Roosevelt
buzzard. I wouldn't put it on the car."
Mike Laursen|12.3.08 @ 1:51AM|#
Then do the cosmotarian math.....
Whoa, how are you dragging cosmotarians into a thread about the
1930s? The term "cosmotarian" was just made up about one or two
years ago.
Art-P.O.G.|12.3.08 @ 6:10AM|#
I may be reading into things a bit, but does the NRA blue eagle have anything to do with (inspiration-wise) the blue eagle from the muppets who was always really serious?
Ooh, good find. And "Sam the Eagle" is really patriotic and a humorless scold. Also, according to this, he resists palette-swapping, unlike those ninjas from Mortal Kombat.
Abdul|12.3.08 @ 8:29AM|#
Sounds like a great book:
The Schechter brothers: how two butchers stopped Roosevelt from
choking the chicken (industry).
Art-P.O.G.|12.3.08 @ 8:48AM|#
Sounds like a great book:
Hmmm...could be optioned to Hollywood, too. I could see it working as either a prestige picture or a screwball comedy.
|12.3.08 @ 9:40AM|#
If there is any hope at all of tarnishing the glorious myth that has been drummed into our heads for 60 years of how the prophet Roosevelt brought the sacred tablets of the New Deal down from on high and used them to save the universe it is with stories like these about minorities who were hurt by and/or opposed the New Deal. The progressives can hardly dismiss people like these Jewish butchers as "reactionary robber barons" defending their "class and race privileges" against "social justice."
dhex|12.3.08 @ 9:47AM|#
"Try buying live poultry from a licensed business in a major
urban area now........"
actually there are a lot of live kill joints in brooklyn, both
jewish and chinese, as well as halal butchers if that's your
thing.
plus there are some folk in queens, the bronx and brooklyn who do
keep live chickens.
|12.3.08 @ 10:24AM|#
I'm guessing today's court would have broken towards the
government.
No question at all. The myriad Commerce Clause cases giving the
national government all-but-plenary power over anything connected
with the economy make that perfectly clear.
The most SCOTUS has been able to rouse itself to do to limit the
Commerce Clause in the last 60-odd years is to require the Congress
to include a recital that a bill regulates something that affects
interstate commerce.
SIV|12.3.08 @ 11:15AM|#
Good to hear you can still buy live poultry in big cities. United Poultry Concerns is trying to stop it though
BDB|12.3.08 @ 4:42PM|#
Who the fuck wants to buy live poultry? I don't think there is a big market for that, anyway.
|12.3.08 @ 11:09PM|#
What is this stupid Cult Of Amity Shlaes here? Last I heard, she
was defending Phil Gramm's remark that America wasn't in a
recession, except "mentally." She ridiculed the view of "campaign
economists" that the economy was in a "Katrina" state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102543.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
(And pelase don't say she was right "at the time"--as the National
Bureau of Economic Research has determined, the recession had
started in December 2007, long before she wrote this.)
Of course Reason has also printed articles by James ("Dow 36000")
Glassman, so obviously, being spectacularly wrong is no more a
disqualification in Reasonland than it is among those Eeevul
Statists...
Alley|12.15.08 @ 2:56PM|#
Lots of people want to buy live poultry for many of the same reasons as before. You can pick your bird and you know it's fresh. There are lots of live poultry sellers in NYC, not just catering to the Kosher and Chinese markets but also African and West Indian immigrant communities. I've seen people raising live chickens in empty lots in East Harlem. I think if you're used to freshly killed chicken that you saw was healthy and kicking a couple of hours ago, the oozing, flabby, pink, god-knows-how-old slabs of meat sitting on styrofoam trays in the grocery story actually look pretty gross.
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