The onset of the Great Depression forced the corporate liberals to change their modus operandi. As the welfare-capitalist–associational amalgam proved incapable of effectively addressing unemployment and resultant dislocation, the corporate liberals—reluctantly at first, then with greater enthusiasm—increasingly turned to the federal government for help. The new emphasis on extensive collaboration between big business and big government was a means to a familiar end: corporate liberals still wanted to achieve order, efficiency, and prosperity within the framework of a modified, strengthened corporate capitalism, while retaining maximum managerial autonomy. The difference was the resort to constant, sustained interaction with the state, rather than sporadic, rather informal approaches. Although corporate liberals recognized that the expanding federal authority might become oppressive, they considered this unlikely and were therefore willing to join hands.

The corporate liberals’ conception of government's place crystallized in the period from 1930 to 1933, as the national economy continued to deteriorate despite their best efforts to stop it. Government, they said, should endorse and promote industrial self-regulation. Government might also provide money for infrastructural improvements, institutional development, and reemployment. A public–private welfare system became a distinct possibility. This formulation required that government respect the primacy of free enterprise and private property while simultaneously providing assistance in several crucial respects. Unless government and business acted in concert, corporate liberals reasoned, recovery would be delayed—with increasing danger to the capitalist system.

Gerard Swope now viewed trade associationalism as the proper means of bringing about industrial self-regulation. The Swope Plan of September 1931 proposed the establishment of trade associations in every industry. After that, a super trade association, or national economic council,would be formed, and exchange of information among all organizations would be encouraged. Once analysis of supply-and-demand conditions was completed, excessive competition could be eliminated and a prosperous stability fostered through establishment of production quotas, market sharing, and price fixing.Antitrust laws that got in the way were to be suspended.

Swope intended that business dominate the process, but he allowed a place for labor and a mechanism to safeguard the public. Workers were to receive expanded company welfare benefits, including unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, and life and disability insurance. Although the Swope Plan made no direct mention of a role for independent trade unions, it did include a general assertion that execution of the plan should be “by the joint participation and joint administration of management and employees.”