At least in part, the Great Depression was caused by underlying weaknesses and imbalances within the U.S. economy that had been obscured by the boom psychology and speculative euphoria of the 1920s. The Depression exposed those weaknesses, as it did the inability of the nation's political and financial institutions to cope with the vicious downward economic cycle that had set in by 1930. Prior to the Great Depression, governments traditionally took little or no action in times of business downturn, relying instead on impersonal market forces to achieve the necessary economic correction. But market forces alone proved unable to achieve the desired recovery in the early years of the Great Depression, and this painful discovery eventually inspired some fundamental changes in the United States' economic structure.
The Great Depression
As I read these words, it is impossible not to see a mirror of what we have been seeing for the last four years. It seems that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, but what does that mean?
If the Great Depression is any indication, unemployment will continue to go up, people will continue to lose their property and homes. Loans will become scarce, credit unavailable to most and the only people insulated from this reality will be the very rich. In the Great Depression family income dropped by 40 percent.
Too many workers chasing too few jobs depressed wages. People couldn't afford to buy goods and products sat on shelves gathering dust. There was anger against any immigrants who were accused of stealing American jobs.
And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression.
John Steinbeck- Grapes of Wrath
The Administration responded slowly and poorly. Hoovervilles cropped up all over the place. It wasn't until the next Administration was willing to take bold steps which I believe narrowly averted armed rebellion against the government.
So far there has been no bold movement to save the union and to preserve the compact between the government and the people. Instead we have seen a rise of selfishness an erosion of rights and the fraying of the safety net for those who are at the greatest risk.
The government programs put into place as a result of the lessons of the Great Depression are under direct attack. Soon, those of us unlucky enough to lose our jobs or to get sick will be in grave risk of falling through the ever widening gaps in that safety net. When enough of us fall, what then?
How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him – he has known a fear beyond every other.
John Steinbeck - Grapes of Wrath
What will happen to us as a Nation? What will this do to our perceptions of ourselves and our place in the world as more and more of us fall into poverty and hunger? How will the grand experiment survive?