America’s Great Depression: My Takeaways

Having gone through Rothbard’s very interesting book on the Great Depression, 

it is time to summarize for me: What did I take away from it?

1. It’s a valid approach to summarize chapter by chapter for your own pleasure. This did greatly help me to really finish the book, which I did not achieve on 3 previous trials. Summarizing also helped me to gain understanding of the material presented.
2. While I have a tendency towards Austrian Theory of the business cycle, I am no expert on the field. Summarizing the book does not mean I can agree or disagree on the main topics or even some details of the book, as I simply have neither the background-knowledge nor the time to do any scientific examination on any of the points taken within.
3.  Having studied business administration, which included lessons on economics, I stand ashamed on how little I know about the Great Depression.
4. After finishing the book , I am several hours of podcasts further on studying the topcic – and several articles, too. There are much more interesting aspects on the topic than Rothbard (could have) covered in his book. I will for sure continue to improve my knowledge on the field.
5. The whole inflationary / deflationary cycle plays in my view a major role in the business cycle. After finishing he book, I am even more inclined to see the Austrian Theory as valid: government intervention and monetary policy create the first part of the business cycle – the inflationary boom. And I also see the catastrophic outcome of Hoovers interventionist actions on the state of the US and world economy.
6. Still there are other, additional causes of the Great Depression – other economic theories also seem to have valid points. While non-intervention seems to be the right policy if you start with a balanced economy, that has not be intervened upon previously – things get more complicated when you do not have ideal starting conditions.
7. So once you are in a crisis – like in 1929 or today – it obviously is not easy to define the right measures. For sure, Hoover did take the wrong actions on some fields: higher tariffs, not allowing wage rates to adopt, interventionist actions siding part of the economy only (banks, rail-roads, …), banning immigration …
   On other fields I am not so sure: public works as long as they are temporary and create infrastructure really needed (which maybe 50 % of government infrastructure projects not do); pubic relief programs (still allowing wage rates to adjust, but maybe avoiding the impact of adjustments going too far thus hitting the consumption level too hard); change of monetary policy from inflation to ….to whatever (how do you get a drug addict to being sober? Controlled, slow reduction of the intake? Or sudden reduction to zero? He should take no drugs at the end – but what way to reach this goal would harm him less?)
8. This is all an almost-academic discussion. I opted to invest hours of my time to gain a little bit more of understanding. What good does it do to the decisions our political leaders will take today? Did they ever gain the level of insight I have – as limited as it might be? How much does the average man on the street with one vote to take to the ballot on the next occasion - care?

To summarize: I do not see any short term trade-takeaways here. I see, I have to learn much more to gain better understanding. I fear (and know) that the whole subject has little influence on the average man-on-the-street or even the average politician. As Mark Twain said: ‘History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.‘ I am afraid, we are doomed to make not the same, but similar errors leading to comparable harm.