On Apr 21, 2010, at 11:08 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> The Great Depression lasted long enough, continuously, that
> slight improvements in conditions could generate the hope and the
> rising
> expectations that are so vital to left movements .
The recovery from 1933 to 1937 was very powerful. The unemployment rate fell from over 25% to around 11%, and GDP rose by 43% (or over 9% a year), surpassing the 1929 peak in 1936. And, as Bhaskar just pointed out, the politically interesting stuff didn't really start until 1934. That was the year of the Minneapolis general strike. A year later, the UAW was formed in 1935, and the Flint strike was 1936-37. Rising expectations are very dangerous from a bourgeois perspective. Best to keep the working class always a little off guard.
Doug