I'm not familiar enough with economic history to give you a proper answer. I know there were all sorts of tremendous bank failures in this country during the 19th century. I know that the '30s on the West coast were hardly the great depression that the rest of the country felt. I know the depression was world-wide...and that in many other countries it was far worse than here.
Maybe the depression of the '30s was so bad due to an accumulation of things. Maybe it was a result of the world-wide integration of the economy. Maybe it was the result of the unrestrained and unregulated boom of the '20s. Maybe it was due to Smoot-Hawley. Maybe to an uninformed and misguided response of the monetary authorities.
All these reasons and many more have been advanced as causes. I can't figure out which ones - if any - are correct.
I'll stick with my original response. I don't know whether things would have been better or worse had the government not intervened. I don't know whether the Europeans should be criticized for their welfare state - or whether it will turn out that we can handle the down-side of capitalism better than they can. I'm hoping that Bush's Iraq strategy will obviate the need to find out.
Unlikely. Highly distributed economic systems provide greater scope for capital reallocation in the event of large-scale malinvestment, while simultaneously buffering random-walk behaviour and seasonal cycles characteristic of subordinate economic sectors. All other things being equal, cyclic behaviour and uncontrolled feedback effects are more pronounced the smaller and more closed the system.
Maybe it was the result of the unrestrained and unregulated boom of the '20s.
What caused that boom? Did it have anything to do with soft money? What made the money "soft"? Did that have anything to do with the Federal Reserve Act and government "reformers" attempt to "fix" the financial system?
Maybe it was due to Smoot-Hawley. Maybe to an uninformed and misguided response of the monetary authorities.
Those would be two concrete examples of the federal government screwing things up, certainly.