Great Depression (1873-1896)
The Great Depression or Long Depression or Great Deflation are the names for a global economic downturn in the years 1873 to 1896, first described by economic theorists of the 1920s. It started with the Vienna stock market crash in Austria-Hungary . The term founder crisis is also used for the situation in the German Reich , where the effects were comparatively moderate .
term
The name and actual existence of the “Great Depression” are scientifically controversial due to the overall slowdown in global economic growth in the last quarter of the 19th century. The economic development in the last quarter of the century is also described as a long deflation or as a slowdown in the overheated growth of the early years . The investigation of the political processes during this period has linked the fear of the crisis with the appearance of radical ( anti-Semitic ) movements and the “German nervousness” as a characteristic of Wilhelminism .
In the English-speaking world, the period from 1870 to 1890, when the prices of economic goods and labor fell sharply, is known as the Great Deflation. It had a negative impact on established industrial societies such as Great Britain , while at the same time it brought huge growth to the United States , which was only in the early stages of industrialization . It was one of the few periods of deflationary economic growth there .
Business cycle 1873–1896
Until well into the 19th century, agricultural production determined business cycles . The economic well-being of the population was therefore primarily dependent on nature. This dependency was lost during the industrial revolution as trade, industry and finance increasingly came to the fore as economic factors. This was particularly true of the rapidly growing trade that stretched over great distances. Ups and downs thus became international phenomena. The fluctuation range of the stock market cycles tended to increase. After a long period of growth since 1850, the economy turned in 1873 with a rapid collapse in numerous financial markets , first in Vienna, then worldwide. The bear market ushered in a sharp turning point that lasted until 1879, which marked a transition from free trade to a protected market in most countries (exceptions were Great Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands) . An upward trend persisted in the early 1880s, before another violent second crisis that lasted until 1886 set in. After the collapse of Barings Bank in 1890, there was a further series of upswings and again slight downswings until 1896. After these upswings and downswings, a long upswing began that lasted until the beginning of World War I in 1914. During this phase, world trade increased significantly.
Effects
Economic theorists of the 1920s (particularly Nikolai Kondratjew , later Joseph Schumpeter and Hans Rosenberg ) understood the period from 1873 to 1896 as a coherent world economic crisis and referred to it as the "Great Depression", sometimes the "Long Depression". They saw it as part of a long wave (economic boom and boom) that lasted from 1850 to 1896. The term founder crisis is also used for the situation in the German Reich and Austria-Hungary. But this is less precisely defined in terms of time; it can only refer to the phase between 1873 and the end of the 1870s.
Some industries actually suffered severe recessions in the period between 1873 and 1896. Overall - albeit cooled down - the expansion of the world economy continued. World pig iron production, which had grown by 5.3 percent annually in the twenty-five years before 1873, then increased by 3.3 percent annually for thirteen years. The growth rate of world steam tonnage, which had been 7.3 percent annually from 1848 to 1873, fell between 1873 and 1896 to only 5.8 percent per year. In view of the economic indicators, there is more to be said in favor of a price crisis than a production crisis, which is why the alternative epoch term “Great Deflation” was proposed. As prices fell by around a third, real wages rose sharply, since wages did not fall to the same extent. Long-term growth across all economic movements was difficult to perceive for the individual. Even brief break-ins in an industry or production facility, unemployment, illness or death of a working family member could cause immediate hardship in view of the minimally developed social network.
Free competition was restricted by concentration phenomena such as trusts or cartels and organized by statutory regulations of the state. The economic disturbances were most evident in the industrialized countries of Western and Central Europe and in North America. It is believed that the UK was hardest hit; it lost its previously undisputed economic leadership role in essential areas to the German Reich. Its industrial rise, however, was not expressed in a growing sense of power among its own population. The unpredictable economic swings promoted the conviction that economic liberalism and the capitalist system were dysfunctional at all. The often anti-Semitic criticism of “ speculation ” reached its peak around 1890. A rampant feeling of crisis and the mass phenomenon of “irritability” arose from short but violently felt recessions. The collective experience of the time was thereby shaped much more strongly than by the long-term growth trend. The “German nervousness” became a much-discussed topic in the decades of Wilhelminism.
literature
- Jörg Fisch: Europe between growth and equality 1850–1914. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8001-2763-6 , pp. 241-242.
- Joachim Radkau : Nationalism and Nervousness. In: Wolfgang Hardtwig, Hans-Ulrich Wehler (Hrsg.): Kulturgeschichte heute. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1996, ISBN 3-525-36416-4 , pp. 284-315, especially p. 295.
- Volker Ullrich : The nervous great power 1871-1918. The rise and fall of the German Empire. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-596-11694-5 , pp. 41-45.
Web links
- German history in documents and images (DGDB): Bismarckian Germany (1866–1890): Demographic and economic development.
- Hans-Ulrich Wehler : The world economic growth disturbances from 1873-1896. ( Memento from May 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Claremont Institute for Economic Policy on Deflation: Claremont Conference on Deflation. ( Memento from January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Event from 26. – 28. April 2001 (PDF; 188 kB, English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Stürmer : The restless realm. Germany 1866-1918 . Siedler, Berlin 1994, p. 82.
- ^ Claremont Institute for Economic Policy on Deflation: Claremont Conference on Deflation. ( Memento from January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Ulrich Pfister: Origins of Globalization: The European World Economy since 1850 ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
