Some Differences between the Great Depression and the Recent Crisis: A Reappraisal

Abstract

In this paper we try to point out the lost opportunity on how to address the current crisis, forgetting principles and theories that were successfully applied in the Great Depression. After some considerations about the Stock Market Crash that began on October 24, 1929 and their catastrophic consequences, we analyze the reaction of European authorities to the present crisis, highlighting the financial costs and the loss of welfare that has led to the rescue of peripheral Eurozone countries. Our analysis is based on the interpretation in the framework of the present time of the work and thought of John Maynard Keynes. In this comparative analysis we find a strong contrast between the economic policy outlined in those times by our honorable English economist, and the presence of a recalcitrant single thought and the reductionist determinism that have characterized the economic policies bring about in the crisis years in our country and, in general, in the Eurozone area, given rise to an avoidable situation of austerity and recession we have suffered between 2008 and 2013. In the article we stand out the fact that the Great Depression was harsher and more terrible that the Financial Crisis of these last years, but better managed by the American Authorities, in clear contrast to what happened in our country in those times. In the present work it is valued the convenience of applying them to the difficult situation we are going through the economic policy that in those years of crisis was not wanted or we were not able to implement.