The Great Depression (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Well I thought I answered the challenge in two distinct and original ways. I guess both were wrong. It would be easier (since you know the answer, but it is not the answer) if you told us what you thought was the orthodox description of the start of the Great Depression. As far as I know there are lots. The common one (though not, I think, now the majority academic one -- how they hate common knowledge!) was the New York Stock Exchange collapse of September 1929.

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

Here's the BBC...

In 1929, the Wall Street Crash plunged the USA into economic depression. The Americans were alarmed, so they called in their loans to other countries and put up customs barriers to stop imports of foreign goods. This created a depression across the rest of the world.
-- The Depression of the 1930s

[Grant]

But you could argue that the cause of the depression was collapsing farm prices leading to bank foreclosures. (This is similar to today in that some argue that sub-Prime lending foreclosures started our current recession). The Wall Street crash was just a symptom.

Farm prices had been falling since 1920, possibly because so much agricultural land was no longer being used to produce food for horses.

So the depression started in 1920 but cheap interest rates meant we didn't notice until 1929 (again a bit like today).

[Grant]

What everyone seems to agree on is that since we abandoned the gold standard there have been no more depressions.

Mick's argument that it's all random certainly works for common or garden recessions, but depressions seem to require a government or central bank mistake (in any human timespan, although eventually we will encounter a depression which will send us back to the stone age!)

[Mick Harper]

The reason I questioned the whole existence of the Great Depression is because in Britain, though we subscribe to the prevailing paradigm thanks to our servile ascademics, the facts are rather different.

Britain had been in something of a depression ever since the post-War boom petered out c 1921. And thanks to having very strong trade unions (the General Strike et al) and Churchill's insistence on being on the Gold Standard (ie like being in the Euro today and not being able to devalue your currency) Britain couldn't get out of it by lowering costs.

However when other countries started going into recession (1929-31) both these factors were removed and Britain was able to actually start modestly growing again. But, and it is a huge but, this prosperity was confined to the south of the country and the basic industries of the north were still in a hopeless condition.

And of course it is the Jarrow Hunger Marchers that got into the newsreels (and formal history) rather than the smug carworkers of Oxford et al.

[Mick Harper]

[Hatty]

The Great Depression looks like an extension, or outcome, of the hyper-inflation of the 1920's. Perhaps it could be said that it began in 1919 at Versailles and ended in 1933 in Berlin.

[Mick Harper]

This is often put forward (mainly in Rise of Nazidom contexts) and is completely wrong. The German hyperinflation (which was a political put-up job by the Weimar Republic) was followed by nearly a decade of unexcelled German prosperity.

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

Passim. I think you mean I have committed llèse-majesté by criticising your chosen explanation (in advance and not knowing what it was!)

I disagree with your description of the German economy 1923-33 but since we are enjoined not to scotch a new theory before its full term, I leave you the stage to tell us what happened.

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

Shan't.