michael perelman quoted Galbraith (the father): > 38: "Marx's reference to the "capitalist crisis" gave the word an ominous > sound. The word panic, which was a partial synonym a half century ago, was > no more reassuring. As a result, the word depression was gradually brought > into use. This had a softer tone; it implied a yielding of the fabric of > business activity and not a crashing fall. During the great depression, the > word depression acquired from the event described an even more > unsatisfactory connotation. Therefore, the word recession was substituted > to connote an unfearsome fall in business activity. But this term > eventually acquired a foreboding quality and a recession in 1953-1954 was > widely characterized as a rolling readjustment. By the time of the Nixon > administration, the innovative phrase "growth recession" was brought into > use."
In general usage, a depression is not a synonym or euphemism for crisis or panic. "Panic" usually refers to financial collapses (including the necessitous demand for money that Marx highlighted), while "crisis" can refer to a more general macroeconomic phenomenon (including financial falls). The latter can be an acute recession or, in the case of a "structural crisis," a chronic problem. Not all recessions are crises, since some recessions are relatively mild. Of course, it's very hard to draw the line between mild and severe recessions. A depression seems to be either a severe recession (as between 1929 and 1933) or persistent stagnation during the aftermath (1933-WW2) or both. Originally, as JKG pointed out, "depression" meant something like a "dent." I think it was Herbert Hoover who tried to use it as euphemism in order to raise spirits (and in theory, help end the depression). A "rolling readjustment," on the other hand, is a classic euphemism for a relatively mild recession. To my mind, a "growth recession" is actually an admission of capitalist failure. It says that even if real GDP is rising, it may not be rising fast enough to keep unemployment rates (however measured) from going up. By the way, it seems to be the same as a "jobless recovery" or a "soft landing," except that the latter describes something that policy-makers desire. Rogoff's use of the term "financial repression" but not "labor repression" is standard, likely because so many economists play the market and/or own significant amounts of financial assets. R.J. Gordon, for example, is against inflation-indexing of wages but is in favor of it for bonds. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
