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You should be ashamed. There's not a bit of thought in your reply.

The Black Death has been portrayed as the bracing medicine which led to the Renaissance.
War as the bracing medicine which leads a society to dominance.
Communists thought that dispossession was the bracing medicine which would lead to heaven on earth.
Currently, Islamics espouse something similar.
All these bracing medicines share the idea that the suffering and death of many individuals will lead to a better world.

It may be true that capitalism - Janus-faced though it is - is the best that humanity can do. But the article asserts that the great Depression of the '30s (and by analogy all depressions) would have been shorter if the government had simply stayed out of it. That's completely unproven. It's just as likely that there would have been civil war and revolution.

It may be true that capitalism - Janus-faced though it is - is the best that humanity can do.

In terms of economic systems--yes.

But the article asserts that the great Depression of the '30s (and by analogy all depressions) would have been shorter if the government had simply stayed out of it. That's completely unproven. It's just as likely that there would have been civil war and revolution.

Actually it's completely proven. The Great Depression had the most government intervention in history and it was the longest. It was caused by government intervention--the Hawley Smoot trade bill killed world trade.

Study the business cycles of the 19th century in the US. There was a crash (that's what they were called before the euphemism "depression" was invented) every seven years or so. They were all over in a year or so. The 19th century averaged more growth than the 20th, despite the crashes. So the Great Depression would have lasted merely a year without the Hawley Smoot act and other monkey business from the Feds.

It's just as likely that there would have been civil war and revolution.

I assume you mean in the US. Describe this scenario you imagine was just as likely. I can't see it. We didn't have a civil war over depressions in the 19th century. Why would we in the 20th?

But the article asserts that the great Depression of the '30s (and by analogy all depressions) would have been shorter if the government had simply stayed out of it. That's completely unproven. It's just as likely that there would have been civil war and revolution.

Well, it is certainly prima facie interesting that the United States suffered by far it's worst ever economic crisis just sixteen years after the federal government passed the Federal Reserve Act, supposedly to abolish economic crises. There is a lesson in there somewhere.