Professor Elam

Times change but the behavior of people does
not. Vivid parallels exist  between
the behavior of people in this time period and in previous  periods that reflect the same social
mood. The periods of 1920-29, 1954-1966, and 1982-2000 were expansionary and
creative. Wealth was created and the mood was upbeat. But such expansion led to
abuses of the financial system. 
After each period the reaction was the same, financial markets crashed,
and the US entered a period of stagnation. Governments clamped down on the
‘cows once they were out of the barn’ so to speak. For example the Securities
Acts of 1933 and 1934 were passed when no one was interested in securities,
indeed the Dow had dropped 90%. 
And so the periods of 1930-1941, 1966-1982, and 2000-probably 2014 will
be periods of lesser economic activity. The moods of the public will be
remarkably the same however for these three periods.

Fred
Astaire and Ginger Rogers made a string of
famous movies in the 1930s. Flying Down
to Rio in 1933 set the pace with an exotic location; note it appeared after
the very bottom of the eventual stock market crash in 1931-32. The movies
featured elaborate dance scenes amid opulent splendor of sets and costumes. The
same thing is being re created again on Dancing
with the Stars, a popular television program. For a modest admission price
in the Thirties, one could enter another world of the movie theater and leave
the Depression. In this way Hollywood offers an escape from the front page bad
news on the economy.

But the predominant theme of these periods is
dissatisfaction leading to anger. This resulted in ‘protest’ songs and social
movements in all three periods.

Woody Guthrie’ songs were about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression,
earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". His son Arlo
Guthrie rose to fame in the next stagnation era post 1966 beginning with Alice’s Restaurant, a long parody on law
enforcement at the time. Peter, Paul, and Mary observed that the answers to
such questions were ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’
The centerpiece was of course the famous I
Have a Dream Speech by Martin Luther King delivered to a crowd at the
Lincoln Memorial. That set the stage for various protests since. The Tea Party
Movement, just now beginning, has already visited Washington, DC.

Such protests can become violent. One of Douglas MacArthur's most
controversial acts came in 1932, when President Hoover ordered him to
disperse the "Bonus Army"
of veterans who had converged on the capital in protest of government policy.
MacArthur was criticized for using excessive force to disperse the protesters,
an act during which US troops killed several veterans. One can see the same
sort of activity with ACORN and unions today.  A similar incident resulted in student deaths at Kent State
University in the late 1960s.

Viet Nam War Protestors sought to disrupt the Democrat
Convention in Chicago. They succeeded. 
Dubbed the Chicago Seven, they were put on trial the following year for
inciting a riot. The trial became a cause celeb for the New Left as the
defendants succeeded in disrupting the trial as they did the Convention. They
were found not guilty. This trial is surely the antecedent for the proposal to
try various 9/11 terrorists in New York City. The precedent is that such trials
do not have certain outcomes.

The ultimate act of violence is war. The greatest war
ever, WW II,  began in Europe in
the 1930s.  The Viet Nam conflict
drug on through multiple administrations.  Now Iraq and Afghanistan offer a similar lack of resolution
which is confounding multiple administrations. The stagflation of Lyndon
Johnson and Gerald Ford has resurfaced as the nation hemorrhages money in war
and social spending while unemployment grows.

Expect more not less government social engineering. Social
Security began in the 1930s. George McGovern hatched the idea of a guaranteed
income of $6,000 for everyone in his 1972 Presidential campaign. That idea
marches on in the form of guaranteed ‘living wages’ via a government mandated
minimum wage. The government is now bent on a ‘universal health insurance
plan.’

Do not wonder at the social ‘changes’ developing now, they
have all happened before in periods of similar social mood.