The greatest depression in history began in 1929, bringing massive unemployment, withering prices, and a stagnated economy. Unlike his predecessors, Herbert Hoover took action. No president before him had dared to stimulate the economy for fear of throwing it hopelessly out of balance. But Hoover's policies, for all his good intentions, remained too wedded to the old order to make any difference. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal offered no revolution in public policy; in many ways it was quite conservative. It sought ultimately to reform capitalism by modifying some of the excesses that led to the Great Depression. If there were a revolutionary aspect, however, it lay in the New Deal's willingness to commit government to compensating for swings in the economy and to supporting those in need. The New Deal marshaled the government activism and executive leadership of Progressivism, but with none of the moralizing that often accompanied progressive reform. Through the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration founded the modern liberal state.