What Future for Inequality?

2021 ◽  
pp. 449-462
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
The State ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Laissez Faire

Because the struggle over inequality is the principal defining issue of history, it will also be the defining issue of humanity’s future. This concluding chapter briefly surveys reasons for pessimism and optimism concerning future inequality. On the side of pessimism, since the rise of the state 5,500 years ago, elites have almost always taken all of producers’ surpluses, leaving them with bare subsistence. Only partial delegitimation of elites’ ideology during the Great Depression led to 40 years of political measures reducing inequality. The resurgence of laissez-faire ideology and inequality over the past 45 years does not inspire optimism. Yet enormous progress has been made over the course of human history, and especially in the past several centuries. This has been especially impressive in the development of science and human critical faculties which privilege rule by reason. This book goes to press amidst growing awareness of inequality’s unfairness and negative consequences.

Anatolian Peasants in the Great Depression 1929–1933

2000 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 79-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elif Akçetin
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Stock Market ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Stock Market Crash ◽  
Sudden Drop ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Area Of Study

The effects of the Great Depression of 1929 on peasants in Turkey is an area of study that has remained neglected, despite the fact that peasants then constituted 75 percent of the population. The reason why the condition of peasants has not attracted much attention is the dramatic change between the economic policies of the 1920s and those of the 1930s. The immediate consequence of the stock-market crash and the sudden drop in prices was the shrinkage of international trade. Governments dealt with the depression by implementing quotas on imports, and liberal economic policies were no longer considered successful. Protectionism became the most popular policy for the management of economies in difficulty. The change in economic policies during this period constituted a break with the past and therefore has been the principal focus of studies on the Great Depression.

Our Daily Bread: ‘Cooperation’, ‘Independence’ and Politics in Mid-1930s Cinema

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Neve
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Production History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cooperative Activity ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter revisits and explores the production history of director King Vidor’s independently made movie, Our Daily Bread (1934), its ideological and aesthetic motifs, and its exhibition and reception in the United States and beyond, not least its apparent failure at the box office. It further considers the relationship between the film and contemporary advocacy of cooperative activity as a response to the Great Depression, notably by the California Cooperative League, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign for the state governorship. It also assesses the movie in relation to Vidor’s own cooperative vision through its emphasis on individuals and community as a solution to the Great Depression and the significant absence of the state in this agency.

The Elusive Harmony between Government and Market Roles

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
Vito Tanzi
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
The State ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
New Harmony ◽  
The 1960S

At any moment in time there ought to be some harmony between the intervention of the state that the market requires (to correct its market failures), and that citizens demand (to promote equity and a desirable income distribution) and the actual government intervention. This chapter argues that such harmony may have existed in the years when laissez faire was in place and was broadly accepted by those who had political power. The harmony became less and less evident in the later decades of the nineteenth century and during the Great Depression. There seemed to have been greater harmony in the 1960s. That harmony went down in the late 1970s and in the 1980s. It might have been partly restored in the 1990s, with a different conception of the role of the state, with less state and more market, at least in some countries. The harmony broke down again with the Great Recession in 2008–10, There is now, once again, a search for a new paradigm that would indicate the existence of a new harmony.

scholarly journals The euro and the recent European crisis vis-à-vis the gold standard and the great depression: institutionalities, specificities and interfaces

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIULIANO CONTENTO DE OLIVEIRA ◽  
PAULO JOSÉ WHITAKER WOLF
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Lender Of Last Resort ◽  
Central European ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
European Crisis ◽  
Harmful Effects

ABSTRACT The paper aims to establish interfaces between the Great Depression of the 1930s under the Gold Standard and the recent European Crisis under the Euro. It is argued that, despite their specificities, both crises revealed the potentially harmful effects, in economic and social terms, of institutional arrangements that considerably reduce the autonomy of monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies of participating countries, without being accompanied by increased cooperation between them, which should be led by a global (in the case of the Great Depression) or regional (in the case of the European Crisis) hegemonic power, which is not only capable of, but is also willing to act as a buyer and lender of last resort, especially in circumstances characterized by increased uncertainty, the deterioration of the general state of expectations and increased liquidity preference. In fact, central European countries in the past and peripheral European countries nowadays were effectively pushed toward deflationary adjustments in which a reduction of prices and wages was accompanied by a reduction of output and employment levels. Thus, in the absence of the possibility of restoring the autonomy of economic policy, the overcome of the crisis necessarily requires, both before - under the Gold Standard - and nowadays - under the Euro -, joint actions aimed to assure that the responsibility for the adjustment will be equally distributed among all the economies, in order to avoid that some of them benefit at the expense of the others in this process.

scholarly journals The Great Depression analogy

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bordo ◽  
Harold James
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Human History ◽  
Industrial Activity ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The World ◽  
Bank Of England ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Economic Outlook

In the discussion of our contemporary economic disease, the Great Depression analogy refuses to go away. Almost every policy-maker referred to conditions that had ‘not been seen since the Great Depression’, even before the failure of Lehman. Some even went further – the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England notably called the crisis the worst ‘financial crisis in human history’. In its April 2009 World Economic Outlook, the IMF looked explicitly at the analogy not only in the collapse of financial confidence, but also in the rapid decline of trade and industrial activity across the world. In general, history rather than economic theory seems to offer a guide in interpreting wildly surprising and inherently unpredictable events. Some observers, notably Paul Krugman, have concluded that a Dark Age of macroeconomics has set in.

Food-Crop Marketing Boards in Tropical Africa

1987 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. Jones
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Food Crop ◽  
World War ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Agricultural Marketing ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
African Populations ◽  
Made In

Agricultural marketing boards in tropical Africa are heirlooms of the Great Depression and World War II, when colonial governments found their principal sources of revenue severely reduced and both European and African populations financially distressed. Marketing boards are of British origin, but similar efforts were made in French and Belgian Africa. The rationale for intervention is clouded; some of the principal reasons have faded into the past or were never openly expressed.1

Creating the Reserve Army? The Immigration Program of Sao Paulo, 1886–1930

1978 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-209
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Holloway
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
State Government ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
The State ◽  
Immigration Policies ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Relationship

This paper analyzes the relationship among coffee labor needs, the flow of immigrants to Sao Paulo, and the immigration policies of the state government from the decline of slavery in the 1880s to the onset of the Great Depression. Generally, the study seeks to determine to what degree and by what criteria the immigration program of São Paulo may be considered a “success”. The author uses this, then to help specify the changing relationship between the coffee planters and the state government.

scholarly journals How Much Does Political Uncertainty Matter? The Case of Louisiana under Huey Long

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Mathy ◽  
Nicolas L. Ziebarth
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Stock Price ◽  
Price Volatility ◽  
The State ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Political Uncertainty ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Employment Data

We study the effect of political uncertainty on economic outcomes using the case of Huey Long's tenure as governor and senator of Louisiana during the Great Depression. Based on primary sources, we construct two well-established measures of uncertainty specifically for Louisiana: stock price volatility and newspaper mentions of terms related to “uncertainty” and the economy. Combining these uncertainty measures with employment data from the Census of Manufactures, we attempt to identify the effects of political uncertainty using the state of Mississippi as a control group. We find little support for a negative effect from political uncertainty in Huey Long's Louisiana.

Economics in Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith ◽  
Richard Parker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This book presents a compelling and accessible history of economic ideas, from Aristotle through the twentieth century. Examining theories of the past that have a continuing modern resonance, the book shows that economics is not a timeless, objective science, but is continually evolving as it is shaped by specific times and places. From Adam Smith's theories during the Industrial Revolution to those of John Maynard Keynes after the Great Depression, the book demonstrates that if economic ideas are to remain relevant, they must continually adapt to the world they inhabit. A lively examination of economic thought in historical context, the book shows how the field has evolved across the centuries.

scholarly journals The Macroeconomist as Scientist and Engineer

2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Gregory Mankiw
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Look Ahead ◽  
History Of ◽  
Recurrent Theme

The subfield of macroeconomics was born, not as a science, but more as a type of engineering. The problem that gave birth to our field was the Great Depression. God put macroeconomists on earth not to propose and test elegant theories but to solve practical problems. This essay offers a brief history of macroeconomics, together with an evaluation of what we have learned. My premise is that the field has evolved through the efforts of two types of macroeconomists—those who understand the field as a type of engineering and those who would like it to be more of a science. While the early macroeconomists were engineers trying to solve practical problems, the macroeconomists of the past several decades have been more interested in developing analytic tools and establishing theoretical principles. These tools and principles, however, have been slow to find their way into applications. As the field of macroeconomics has evolved, one recurrent theme has been the interaction—sometimes productive and sometimes not— between the scientists and the engineers. John Maynard Keynes (1931) famously opined, “If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.” As we look ahead, “humble” and “competent” remain ideals toward which macroeconomists can aspire.

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