Capitalism Unraveling: The
Great Depression
Strayer: Ways of the World
Chapter 21
The war loosened the hold of many
traditional values in Europe.
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enormous casualties promoted social mobility
women increasingly won the right to vote
flouting of sexual conventions
rise of a new consumerism
The Great Depression represented the
most influential postwar change.
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suggested that Europe ’s economy was
failing
worries about industrial capitalism
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it had generated individualist materialism
it had created enormous social inequalities
its instability caused great anxiety
The Great Depression represented the
most influential postwar change.
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the Great Depression hit in 1929
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contracting stock prices wiped out paper fortunes
many lost their life’s savings
world trade dropped 62 percent within a few
years; businesses contracted
unemployment soared; reached 30 percent in
Germany and the United States by 1932
Causes of the Great Depression:
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the American economy boomed in the 1920s
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by the end of the decade, factories and farms
produced more goods than could be sold
Europe was impoverished by WWI and didn’t
purchase many American products
Europe was recovering and produced more of its
own goods
speculative stock market had driven stock
prices up artificially high
when the stock market crashed, the whole
fragile economic network collapsed
Worldwide empires made the Great
Depression a worldwide problem.
The Depression was a major challenge to
governments.
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capitalist governments had thought that the
economy would regulate itself
the Soviet Union ’s economy had grown
throughout the 1930s
in response, some states turned to
“democratic socialism,” with greater
regulation of the economy and more equal
distribution of wealth
The Depression was a major challenge to
governments.
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the New Deal (1933–1942) in the United States
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Franklin Roosevelt’s administration launched a complex
series of reforms
influenced by the British economist John Maynard Keynes
Roosevelt ’s public spending programs permanently
changed the relationship between government, the private
economy, and individual citizens
didn’t work very well: the U.S. economy only improved with
massive government spending because of WWII
Nazi Germany and Japan coped the best with the
Depression