Doug Henwood wrote:
But, looking at history, the odds are that it’s not 1929 all over again. To claim it is, Strahl should really try to put together some evidence into a coherent argument instead of mocking people who lack his vision. He, like many others, seems almost to *want* a crackup, because it might make the somnolent masses wake up and finally come around to embracing revolutionary socialism. But they could just as easily become jackbooted xenophobes or crazed survivalists.
As a psychological matter, however, it might be the case that a social context in which such a crackup was a real possibility would also be one in which the latter kind of individuality was much more likely to emerge than the former.
If opportunities for money-making and private wealth canalize dangerous human proclivities, their destruction can lead to very nasty consequences.
If a crisis of the kind that would do this is more likely the smaller the degree of sublimation involved in the investment system, the more likely it is that the consequence would be jackboots (as in 1929).
One difference between 1929 and now is that then there was at least one economist who understood this.
Ted
