On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, michael perelman wrote:
> During most U.S. depression, capital has succeeded in preserving part of
> its prior gains by bearing down harder on workers, farmers, etc. Such was
> not the case during the Great Depression.
>
> Was there any reason, other than the existence of an alternative system,
> that made these concessions possible?
> ------
Prior to the wave of ameliorative New Deal legislation the individual
states may have been institutionally more capable of secession than
thereafter. Also, since modern production, communications and amenities
had by that time penetrated every part of the country, outright warlordism
here and there might have been quite feasible.
The Federal government did not have much means for projecting its will
in those days; for instance, nothing remotely like today's Air Force
existed until shortly before WW2.
This is purely speculative, of course; at this distance it's hard
to know whether such thoughts gave pause to anyone on Wall Street
or in Washington.
valis
"[There] is looming up a new and dark power;
the enterprises of the country are aggregating
vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital,
boldly marching, not for economical conquests only,
but for political power. The question will arise
and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine,
which shall rule - wealth or man; which shall lead -
money or intellect; who shall fill public stations -
educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of
corporate capital...."
-- Edward G. Ryan, Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court,
in an address to the 1873 graduating class
of the University of Wisconsin Law School
