rising. This would have happened with or without the Wall Street Crash, so I
don’t think that the depression was caused by the Wall Street Crash.Many of the other causes are
inter-related, therefore it is hard to decide which is the most significant. I
think that the protectionist policies were a key cause as it was obvious that
the boom could not last forever on the sale of consumer goods in the USA, as
people would no longer have a desire to buy more and more of the same items.
Exporting the goods would have been a sensible suggestion. If the protectionist
tariffs had not have been introduced, then Europe could have been better off
and so could the USA. Then overproduction would not have been such a problem, as
the goods the Americans didn’t want could have been exported, the economy
wouldn’t have got worse so quickly and the boom could have lasted.Although the protectionist
policies were problematic I think that the unequal distribution of wealth was a
long term cause which played a very significant part in leading to the
depression. If the Americans had have bought the goods to start with then there
would have been no need to export them anyway. The boom was bound to come to an
end some time, as a large proportion of the country (farmers, blacks, coal
miners etc) could never afford the great new goods anyway. Only a small
minority of the country could honestly afford the goods ? the rest could not
afford them or bought on credit and fooled themselves. This meant that when the
minority had bought what they wanted, the surplus goods could not be sold to
the blacks, farmers, miners, textile workers and the 60% of the country living
below the poverty line, before exports were even thought about. If a larger
percentage could have afforded these goods then the boom could have continued
for longer.Overall, I would say that the depression was a result of
many linked reasons, leading from a reason which had been present for years ?
the fact that there were far too many poor people and far too few rich people
to keep the economic boom going.