The Next Great Depression

Dorothea Lange

Margaret Bourke White

I love both of these photos because of the contrast between real struggles and wrecked expectations in each.

I sometimes wonder if people realize just how bad the Depression really was. It is being invoked so readily, and so glibly, by all the political chatterers these days to describe the magnitude of the current economic crisis. The official unemployment statistics from that time show that a quarter of the population was out of work. The real number may have been around 30%. About half the population lived in poverty or near poverty. The Depression was a global nation-wrecking catastrophe. It very nearly wrecked this country. It did wreck others (especially Germany).
Both of my parents were children during that time, and fared well compared to others. But, they remembered that time vividly. My mother's father was a country doctor in central Illinois who was one of the very few who would accept payment in barter from the local farmers. Visits were paid for in vegetables and preserves. Minor treatments were paid in chickens; major surgery in beef and dairy cattle. She remembers eating well during the Depression. My father's father was a minor sales manager with Western Union in Dallas, a position that was originally intended to be punishment for union sympathies, but which turned out to be a lifesaver in the Depression. My father remembers his mother hiring all kinds of strangers who showed up on the doorstep to do yard work and odd jobs.

The current economic meltdown is plenty bad enough, the worst since 1982 (anyone remember that one? I remember people camped out by the rails in rural Missouri waiting to hop freight trains to Texas to look for work; no, that wasn't 1932, but 1982). I really wonder if we are up for anything close to the magnitude of 1930 to 1940, and if we could survive it. So far, our governing classes remain bizarrely detached from it all. The Republicans apparently see nothing in it but political opportunity for them, a chance to to return to power. For once I agree with Andrew Sullivan:

This much is now clear. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.

I'm worried that the stimulus package might not be enough. The current conventional wisdom all over the air-waves is that World War II and not government spending ended the Depression; conveniently forgetting that World War II was itself a massive government spending program complete with government economic planning to meet the needs of the war effort.   The prosperity of the 50s and 60s was partly built on government military spending.  Cold War research and development built California, and made the fortunes of a few "big gubmint" hating Texas billionaires like Ross Perot .  

It's going to be a rough 4 years.