THE ECONOMIC ABYSS

Eric Hobsbawn shows us in detail in this chapter how and why the economic catastrophe on the New York Stock Exchange was as he himself names it an event of extraordinary magnitude that supposed little less than the collapse of the world capitalist economy. To begin with shows a series of events that are generated from this crisis in the interwar period, develops the thesis that as the old world was devastated after the First World War and full of debts with the United States. Although the bourgeoisie knew that as I call them Kondratiev long waves in which there were descending faces the economy flourished rapidly, only the Socialists saw in these the very contradiction of the system, and although the technical progress during the depression Globalization of the economy if it stagnated, for this shows us as under the percentage of migrations.

To see more clearly the great impact we see as it appeared more states the commercial relations between these were really low and the capital flows, the value of the currency was extraordinarily radioed with this what they were left were the indebtedness and the falls to the job, Which began to affect until they realized that production was greater than demand and took out a large amount of loans in the United States, since as this country was the one that handled the largest trade is higher production, import and export. This resulted in policies of protectionism in all countries as the tax systems had collapsed and they needed in addition to guarantee the establishment of their economic, help the entrepreneurs of their countries to grow, as the unemployment was so great another.

Consequences of the great depression were modern security systems. As previously mentioned the United States had an economic hegemony that after the world war also made it the largest creditor, for this reason it was in the treaty to demand what it cost the war and the "reparations" for the great crisis that The payments were interrupted and only Finland paid the entire debt, since in the great depression all this fell. On the other hand the technological innovations of this time as the plastic and the entertainment by the scarce use the cinema took the cities. To end the great depression brought with it a period of reforms that in some cases were left wing mainly in America and in others of right mainly in Europe as it was the turn of the governments to face the great crisis. The great depression was the great step to the second world war and in the ranks of the different movements around the world you could see the millions of unemployed, since it was the fall of the liberal bourgeoisie of the nineteenth and eighteenth century only three options appeared With force a Marxist communism to which many did not want to migrate by interests, Fascism that after the one of Hitler nobody wanted and the one that sounded to them more was a reformed capitalism.

Eric Hobsbawm, "The Economic Abyss" in 20th Century History, Barcelona, ​​Critique, pp. 92-115.