Was the New Deal “Soviet”? Yes, in the best sense of the word. FDR tried to adopt parts of the Soviet system because suffering Americans recognized that the Soviet system worked better than ours. The best way to prevent a revolution is to treat the radicals as a corrective signal. Pull the system in the direction they are indicating. Their negative feedback will weaken after the system returns to sanity. Smashing the radicals simply forces others to turn radical.
Soviet capitalism and Western capitalism are similar as seen by a business making or selling things. Both are centered on profit.
The difference is control. Who lends money to the businesses, and thus holds power over the businesses? In the Soviet system the state provides the capital and holds the power. The state is interested in maintaining a healthy economy, and specifically obligated to keep everyone employed and productive. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his WORK.
In the western system Wall Street lends the money and holds the power. Wall Street HATES production and customers and employees, and constantly strives to eliminate them so it can function on pure numbers. Since 2008 Wall Street has been absorbing a huge part of the federal budget and using the money to kill real business through LBOs and share buybacks. In other words we have a state-funded business-killer, not a state-funded business-builder.
WPA and TVA and REA were equivalent to the Soviet Stroybank, tasked with funding the construction of crucial infrastructure. REA spawned its own little Gosbank in EHFA, which provided credit to farmers and customers to buy appliances.
The agricultural side of the New Deal spawned a far more successful and enduring Gosbank in the Farm Credit Agency, which is still strong though unrecognized. Farm Credit lends to farmers and farm-related businesses because NYC has always hated peasants. FCA still favors co-ops, as REA did.
Farm subsidies provided a more direct compensation for Wall Street’s perpetual attempts to ruin peasants with speculation. Equipoise.
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REA had a standard building for free-standing electrical coops. Most of its work was based inside existing farm coops that already had corporate structures and buildings.
Here’s the standard building, placed in my fake TVA village across the street from the town hall.
The REA building was deco, somewhat Wrightish, while TVA varied its architecture to suit local tastes.
The small upper floor was a meeting room. Here Polistra and friends are demonstrating uses of electricity. Build your own chick brooder, cook the chicken on the stove, listen to the Zenith while cooking.
REA’s main Stroybank job was building and fixing power lines to farm areas. The REA building had a garage for service trucks.
Polistra's Mill 