was once a democratic country and a free country, but as we gain a deeper understanding of it, we will find that the United States is actually a country of capital. Three feet of ice does not freeze in a day. Although the United States has a unique geographical environment and democratic foundation, and at the beginning of its founding, it took the most advanced political theory at that time as the cornerstone of its development. However, as time goes by, the United States becomes more and more powerful. He also became more and more depraved.
The United States luckily emerged on the North American continent due to the struggle between Britain and France for hegemony. In less than a hundred years, it established a powerful empire that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west to dominate the Americas. After experiencing the baptism of in World War I on the European continent, it became a candidate leader of capitalist countries. However, just as the United States is booming, a crisis is quietly approaching.
The United States at the beginning of the 20th century had just "saved" Europe. After World War I , the world economy entered a stage of rapid development. Far away from the battlefield and unaffected by the war, the United States became the richest in the world at that time by exporting agricultural products. One of the countries that is immersed in the great "American Dream" from top to bottom. Hoover, who took over as President of the United States in 1929, is planning to fulfill his vow to the voters, so that American families will have chickens and cars.
In fact, this is not Hoover's optimism and confidence, but based on the speed of economic development in the United States at that time, all this seems to have become a definite fact, and Hoover also believes that it will not be long before he will become the most powerful person in American history. Great president.
October 24, 1929, was originally an ordinary Thursday. Fanatic investors came to the hall of the exchange early, waiting for the opening of the stock market.
Thanks to the economic upswing of the United States, many American families "got something for nothing" through the stock market. In the face of generous returns, hard work has become a symbol of stupidity. The trading center at that time was a cornucopia in people's eyes. However, after the opening of the market on the 24th, the stock plummeted, but people who were accustomed to making rapid progress did not take this matter to heart. It was not until the 29th that the stock continued to fall, and people began to realize the crisis hidden behind it.
No one knows which tomorrow or accident will come first. Even in the face of plummeting stock prices, many people are still blindly optimistic. However, all this is just the beginning. When you see the tip of the iceberg, you will see the hidden talents under the sea. is a real crisis. When people join the game of drumming and passing flowers, no one believes that they will be the last stick, but maybe what we take is just the last stick. The Great Depression of the World Economy The sharp drop on the 24th may have been a market adjustment, but the sharp drop in the following weeks made people realize that a stock market crash was coming.
In just a few weeks, US$30 billion evaporated from the US stock market. At that time, even the latest Ford sedan cost less than US$300.
The decline in the stock market caused a large number of investors to sell their stocks, but it was too late. Many people went bankrupt due to the stock market crash and had to live on the streets. But to this day, there are still different opinions on the cause of the stock market crash, but one thing is certain, this is an unprecedented crisis for Wall Street . Based on past experience, people at the time logically believed that overcapacity was the financial crisis. The culprit.
Then an astonishing scene in human history occurred. Farmers dumped large amounts of milk into rivers because the price of selling milk was far less than the cost of transportation. Thanks to the development of productivity, humans were so generous for the first time. But simply getting rid of the agricultural surplus did not save the decadent economy.
President Hoover finally fulfilled his campaign goal in another form. Hare appeared on the dining table of ordinary American families for a long time, and was nicknamed "Hoover Pig", and the promised car became a human-powered one. The pallet truck was nicknamed the "Hoover Car". To make matters worse, the stock market crash in the United States finally spread to the European continent. Unemployment and poverty became problems that plagued capitalist countries at that time.
Only those who have experienced ups and downs will truly yearn for a peaceful life. An unprecedented financial crisis spread from the United States to the entire world. The economic turmoil quickly spread to all aspects of society. Unemployed and bankrupt people flooded the streets, and the haze of war once again enveloped the land. The original sin of capitalism This economic crisis continued to ferment, and eventually became a powerful assistant for German fascism to come to power.
When domestic conflicts could not be reconciled, German fascists brazenly sent troops to recruit the unemployed into the army, blaming all conflicts on the profit-seeking Jews , in an attempt to divert domestic conflicts through war.
The situation in the United States is not optimistic either. Hoover's four-year term not only failed to make the American people wealthy, but also displaced the people, and finally left the office amidst a chorus of lamentations.
The successor Roosevelt has been deeply aware of the dangers of the free market. He used government employment to carry out large-scale infrastructure construction " work-for-relief" and carried out Roosevelt's New Deal, which not only reduced the unemployment rate, but also provided A decent job was offered to the unemployed.
The financial crisis of 1929 made economists aware of the dangers of letting capital develop. Although capital can promote the development of productivity to a certain extent, the premise of this development is always based on personal interests and is essentially a minority. Exploitation of the majority.
The original sin of capitalism is that we do not necessarily share blessings, and we do not share hardships. The series of problems caused by the financial crisis will not be borne solely by the initiator, but will need to be borne by the entire society. When capital makes profits, they gain nothing, but when a blizzard comes, no snowflake is innocent. Conclusion The so-called common sense often makes us fall into the trap of thinking. There must be a reasonable explanation behind the seemingly abnormal things. So far, all disasters that have occurred in human society are inseparable from the greed of a few people.
Although the desire for material things is our innate nature, this primitive impulse is precisely the core contradiction of human development. Limited resources can never fill the gap of desire.
The profit-seeking nature of capital results in it always being able to represent the interests of a few people, and can even sacrifice the interests of the majority for the interests of a few. The assumption of rational man in economics is based on self-interest from the beginning. Therefore, whether from the actual situation or theoretical research, private ownership and capitalism are just choices made by history to adapt to the level of development of productive forces, and we should not rely on them. Hope in capital.
