ABSTRACT
In a sense the state is always in crisis. A pragmatic politician, with the viewpoint of an insider, once described government as “just one damned crisis after another.” This sense of tension exists wherever groups of men are struggling to seize or hold power. But sometimes in history there is a crisis period in which not only is the power of some particular government at stake, but the form of the state itself and the maintenance of the prevailing culture. One characteristic of the crisis state, and part of its peculiar mélange of paradoxes, is that the groups and leaders who compose the crisis governments are all playing unaccustomed roles. They have been forced into these roles by the powerful thrust of economic necessity and political ideals. Thus President Roosevelt had a chance in 1933 to socialize the mechanisms of banking, credit, and investment.
