The Great Depression

The Great Depression and its lessons for today
(Coordinator Comment)

The global depression that followed the crash of 1929 inflicted untold suffering on the world's population. Its effects were especially deadly on poor and dependent populations. For example, whereas the overall American population increase in the 1930s as compared to the 1920s fell from 16% to 7%, the Native American population fell from 36% increase in the 1920's to only 0.4% in the 1930s. And if one looks at individual stories of Native Americans from the 1930s, they are truly frightening.

Following the crash of 1929, merchant marine shipping fell by 75% over the next few years. Were the same to happen again, there would not be enough oil to fuel industrial agriculture or the trucks that carry food. The shelves of grocery stores would quickly be stripped.

In some respects, most people are now in a much weaker position to survive a crash of the global economy than people were in 1929, because so few people are now living on the land and have the capacity to raise agricultural products. Instead, there has been an enormous migration of people from the countryside to the cities over the past half century. Agriculture has been left to big business which is, for the most part, dependent upon the global economy for fuel and markets, and which is not in a good position to survive an economic crash. What will people in the cities do if there is no food arriving in their super-markets? There is reason to fear a panic migration back into the countryside, but with no infrastructure to receive them.