League for Social Reconstruction

The League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) was a circle of Canadian socialist intellectuals officially formed in 1932, though it had its beginnings during a camping retreat in 1931. These academics were advocating radical social and economic reforms and political education. Industrialization, urbanization, war, and the Great Depression provoked formation of the LSR. Industrialization promoted urbanization, and the creation of elaborate bureaucratic systems, and, from the perspective of the LSR, here began the problem. The complexities of economy and society had grown, but government was infused with laissez-faire ideology and did not regulate finance or industry, or, as the LSR believed, government regulations suited private rather than public interest.

Rationalistic moralism led the League to believe their expertise could stop the suffering of fellow Canadians, and rationalistic elitism led the League to believe they were best situated to unpack the intricacies of modern society. The League felt they should provide expert advice to government, but socialist ideology led the League to believe that Canadian government was debauched. Hence, in order to guide Canadians toward socialism, the LSR planned to institutionalize expert intellectual advice in an extra-political organization, and to act as an independent adjunct to public policy formation.

Promoting socialism, and working beyond politics, the LSR was able to transcend party alliances, and worked with both intellectuals and politicians to help quell the Depression through fiscal centralization and national social assistance. The significance of the League was its role as a concentrated group of intellectual elites who made social planning relevant in a Canadian context. The LSR formally disbanded in 1942 as the Canadian government was implementing a version of social planning as part of their World War II homefront plans.

The Canadian economy had boomed during the late 1920s and showed no sign of weakness, but during the 1930s the Great Depression swept across Canada and provoked mass unemployment, and this incited the LSR into action. The LSR believed that the roots of the Depression were laissez-faire capitalism and governance, and that the "free" market was anything but. Politicians worked closely with business, securing interest-free loans, developing tariffs, and managing labour disputes; in short: manipulating markets. A small group of political businessmen controlled public policy and economic development, and guided the centralization of finance and power into private hands. Widespread unemployment marked the Depression, and served to underscore financial inequity. In the eyes of the LSR, the problem facing Canada was not an economic depression, it was a corrupt political economy.