information:classification, stylistic:style_transfer, structural:expansion
Historiography and evaluation of New Deal policies

Historians debating the New Deal have generally been divided between progressives who support it, conservatives who oppose it, and some New Left historians who complain it was too favorable to capitalism and did too little for minorities. There is consensus on only a few points, with most commentators favorable toward the CCC and hostile toward the NRA.

Consensus historians of the 1950s, such as Richard Hofstadter, according to Lary May:

Progressive historians argue that Roosevelt restored hope and self-respect to tens of millions of desperate people, built labor unions, upgraded the national infrastructure, and saved capitalism in his first term when he could have destroyed it and easily nationalized the banks and the railroads. Historians generally agree that apart from building up labor unions, the New Deal did not substantially alter the distribution of power within American capitalism. "The New Deal brought about limited change in the nation's power structure". The New Deal preserved democracy in the United States in a historic period of uncertainty and crises when in many other countries democracy failed.

The most common arguments can be summarized as follows: