@Akshay @vaurora your gift link wants me to subscribe, maybe I should just buy the book instead (and add it to the backlog, behind the rest of Bicycling Science, spouse's book, Zivarts, Tapia, and a bunch of R textbooks).

My handwaving theory is "blame Milton Friedman" and "blame Reagan and Thatcher". A whole lot of big-money conservatives were (and still are) mad at FDR showing what big government could accomplish.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."