The lesson of the Depression was that if ordinary workers lacked jobs and adequate incomes, the economy would crash because too few people could afford to buy what businesses hoped to sell. This was demand-side economics and it laid heavy stress on spreading incomes and job opportunities broadly.

The supply-siders insisted that supply created its own demand. In plain English, this meant we should think less about labor and more about capital -- specifically, investors who created the means to produce the goods. If the New Dealers glorified the role of the worker, the supply-siders glorified the entrepreneur.