America's Great Depression [Paperback]

Murray Newton Rothbard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1972

This staple of modern economic literature explains how the American Great Depression was not a crisis for capitalism but merely a downturn in the business cycle, generated by government intervention in the economy.

--This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Murray N. Rothbard, the author of 25 books and thousands of articles, was a historian, philosopher, and dean of the Austrian School of economics. The S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he was also Academic Vice President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 361 pages
• Publisher: Nash Pub; 2nd edition (1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0943940036
• ISBN-13: 978-0840250032
• ASIN: 0840250037
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,847,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

148 of 164 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable even after 40 years., March 11, 2002

By 

Lord Chimp (Monkey World) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Great Depression (Hardcover)

Economist Alan Reynolds wrote: "The terror of the Great Crash has been the failure to explain it." I wonder if he ever read this great book, which is now in its fifth edition. Murray Rothbard's exploration of this devastating economic calamity is both fascinating and pertinent.

Rothbard refutes key misconceptions about the market economy and the Hoover administration's interventionist policies. Was the Great Crash due to capitalism gone wild? Was President Hoover the proponent of laissez-faire that some continue to insist? Did his interventionist actions assuage the depression? _America's Great Depression_ will always be important because of the Great Depression's legacy. Many continue to believe that the free market economy is inevitably inclined to collapse. Also, the interventionist policies of Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt accelerated the growth of the welfare state.

Economists have always observed the relationship between money supplies and business cycles. Rothbard goes a few steps farther, applying the Austrian school's theory of the business cycle to the Federal Reserve's monetary policies during the 1920s. Rothbard spends the first part of the book detailing the credibility of the Austrian theory and dismantling other theories. He shows how artificial increases in the money supply creates harmful imbalances in the economy. With this premise, Rothbard explains that the Federal Reserve's inflationary abuse of the money supply in the "Roaring Twenties" set the economy up for an unsustainable growth spurt that ended in disaster in 1929. (The scary thing is that prices remained fairly stable and hid the effects of inflation with ruinous results.)

After talking money supplies and business cycles for a while, Rothbard turns his attention to President Hoover's actions to correct the problem. Despite good intentions, government involvement aggravated the Depression. The most damaging and glaring mistake of the Hoover administration was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which basically smashed the world's economy. But what else was done? How did different policies delay the economy's recovery? There's a lot to be learned here. In the end, the lesson Rothbard hopes to teach is that the best option for government in fixing a depression is "laissez-faire."

Since the book focuses only on the early part of the Depression (up to 1933), it's unfortunate that Rothbard didn't criticize President Roosevelt's interventionist policies, which eviscerated the economy while it struggled to recover. Rothbard would have had a field day examining the effects of the NRA, the AAA, the WPA, the CWA, the Wagner Act, and everything else the New Deal implemented that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Since this book was originally published in the 60s (1963, I think), many people probably sneered at it. After all, in a time when Keynsianism was trendy, who was willing to blame the government for the Great Depression? Praise to Rothbard for this important application of Austrian theory and his exposure of the government's clumsiness.

66 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Story Behind the Great Depression, August 16, 2003

By 

Susanna Hutcheson "Copywriting for the Discri... (Midwest U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America's Great Depression (Hardcover)

As a student of the boom and bust and subsequent Depression following the crash of 1929, I have read numerous books on this important subject. It is in knowing the past that we can control the future.

Most books cover the human aspect of this period in American history and that's important. And most of the books cover the events leading up to the crash and depression. But this is the only book I've read that exposes the dynamics behind the scenes that caused the crash and it's terrible crushing length and enormous suffering.

Rothbard explains in great detail how government butted in where it was not needed and created untold suffering. He explains how we allowed England to dictate to us and how in our desire to help Her, our government intentionally hurt its own citizens.

Rothbard was a great economist and a great proponent of the libertarian cause. His belief in Laissez-faire economics is behind his philosophy. It is Laissez-faire that created this country and it is the loss of it that has and is causing us grief and loss of liberty.

This is an excellent book. Published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, it is a book you'll want to read again and again. Austrian economics are exciting and workable and the Ludwin von Mises Institute is a dynamic proponent of this very workable economic philosophy.

If you are interested in economics and the Great Depression and its real causes, you must read this powerful, well written book.

57 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive work on causes of the Depression, September 26, 2004

By 

LMJ (NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Great Depression (Hardcover)

In "America's Great Depression", Professor Rothbard effectively demolishes the myths surrounding this tragic event. However, semi-literate pop-historians continue to ignore the fact that the depression was caused by government intervention. (Central bank manipulation is government intervention.) Rothbard's book stands out due to his refusal to reduce this complex event to a simple story of good (New Dealers, Socialists) versus evil ("capitalism"). Upon close examination of such accounts, it becomes clear that not only do "historians" get the facts wrong, they simply fail to comprehend them. Mainstream historians who refuse to even attempt to gain a basic understanding of economics have had their interpretations rendered embarrassingly obsolete by Rothbard.