FDR was absolutely not a democratic socialist. He was a social democrat. He favored concessions to the working class to prevent them from revolting and overthrowing capitalism. The US was way behind Europe because the USSR showed workers everywhere what was possible and the US purged them all and sent them back to Europe, and the European bourgeoisie had to make concessions to the working class to prevent them from revolting and overthrowing capitalism. The US thought it had defended against this possibility with purges, but then the business cycle showed up and crashed the US economy, taking down the rest of the world with it. And they thought they could ride it out and let the working class suffer. But there was a real risk of class consciousness emerging and thus FDR presided over concessions to keep the people pacified
FDR was absolutely not a democratic socialist. He was a social democrat. He favored concessions to the working class to prevent them from revolting and overthrowing capitalism. The US was way behind Europe because the USSR showed workers everywhere what was possible and the US purged them all and sent them back to Europe, and the European bourgeoisie had to make concessions to the working class to prevent them from revolting and overthrowing capitalism. The US thought it had defended against this possibility with purges, but then the business cycle showed up and crashed the US economy, taking down the rest of the world with it. And they thought they could ride it out and let the working class suffer. But there was a real risk of class consciousness emerging and thus FDR presided over concessions to keep the people pacified
While there may be some truth here, I wouldn’t call The New Deal a “concession”. It was a complete paradigm shift about how government can work.