Blind Fait in the Free Market
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To me, yes, I think that America had a blind faith in the free market, because although American society had a “users manuel” which was Smiths “The Wealth of Nations”, they obvisously didnt pay much attention to where Adam described the “cycle” of when things are good, theyre good, but a “high” always has its “low” and Americas low came in the early 1930s with the Depression. They were shocked to find that their nation was poor. The stock market crash was only the first symptom.
There were a few Americans that did suspect a major economic disaster to come around, but a majority of Americans were concerned with something else. The stock market boom in 1929 pulled about 10 million people into the “the market”. Many of them found pleasure in sitting back and wathing their money grow effortlessly. On Tuesday, October 29, 1929 millions of people who had watched their dollars grow, now found themselves to be poor. The nation suffered terribly. The gross domestic product (measure of the nations total output) fell by almost half from 1929 to 1933. (p. 100 “The Making of Economic Society) As a result of all this, the unemployment numbers rose dramatically. In 1929, the numbers reached 1.5 million. And by 1933, the number had risen eightfold. One person out of every four in the work force found themselves without a job.
Their blindness lead America to continue to believe that as long as they keep working, or investing their money in the stock market, they wont become poor. Well, this shows that you have to do more than just invest and earn money. Savings is a major part in the generation of wealth.