Overview
The Great Depression appears across several episodes of The Bob Zadek Show as a historical reference point invoked to argue about government policy, economic causation, and the proper scope of state action. Guests and host disagree about when the Depression ended, what caused it, and what lessons it yields. Don Boudreaux treats it as a case study in the failure of the New Deal and World War II to restore prosperity. Burton Abrams treats it as a case study in central-bank error and protectionism. Roger L. Martin treats it as a benchmark against which contemporary stagnation of median incomes can be measured. Bob Zadek invokes it in discussions of trade and of cryptocurrency to argue that government mistakes produce losses on a scale private-market failures do not.
When did it end?
In a 2011 episode, Don Boudreaux challenged what he called one of the great myths that still pervades the common psyche: that the New Deal got the United States out of the Great Depression. He stated that the New Deal did not get the country out of the Depression, noting that unemployment was still about 15% in 1940. He further argued that it was not even World War II that ended it; unemployment fell, he said, because a large number of people were conscripted into the military and because of a huge boom in military buildup. Boudreaux said that as far as he could tell the country did not get out of the Great Depression until 1946, and he attributed the postwar boom to the government rolling back its operation and deregulating in ways people were not expecting, following the death of Roosevelt, whom he described as having become basically an open socialist in office in his last few years. On Boudreaux’s account, the recovery had nothing to do with government spending or World War II and everything to do with entrepreneurial creativity made possible by economic freedom. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
Causes: the Federal Reserve and the Hawley-Smoot tariff
In a 2014 episode on the worst economic mistakes of the twentieth century, Burton Abrams described the Great Depression as an instance of the Federal Reserve’s bungling, which he said really exacerbated the recession and made it into a Great Depression. In the same discussion he identified the Hawley-Smoot Act as the worst tariff act ever imposed, which he said was partially responsible for creating World War II in addition to animosity across the globe, and which imposed enormous costs on the economy. Abrams framed these as among the obvious entries on a list of economic follies, identified through benefit-cost analysis weighing the benefits of a policy against its costs to society. Worst Ten Economic Mistakes of the 20th Century (2014)
Bob Zadek returned to the tariff theme in a 2017 episode on trade, introducing the vocabulary of foreign trade by noting that the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs were imposed during the Great Depression. He used the episode to define terms such as foreign trade, deficits, and fair and unfair trade, which he said are co-opted by people with a specific point of view. Trump Vs. Free Trade with Richard Epstein (2017)
Government action and private failure
In a 2018 episode on Bitcoin and blockchain, Bob Zadek invoked the Depression while questioning guest Stan Larimer about losses in cryptocurrency. Responding to a caller’s reference to suicides associated with Bitcoin, Zadek asked how many suicides there were as a direct result of the Great Depression in 1929, when so many people lost their value. He said government had a huge role to play with poorly thought-out governmental policies from tariff and trade wars and the like, and argued that the suicides and the profound loss in value in the Great Depression were all a result of government action and on a large scale. He contrasted this with private-market failures such as the hacking of Target or Equifax, which he said are large in absolute terms but very small relative to losses caused by failure of government. The Basics of Bitcoin & Blockchain with Stan Larimer (2018)
The farm bill’s origins
In a 2021 episode on welfare for the rich, Lisa Conyers traced the farm bill to the Great Depression, saying it had been around since 1933 and first started subsidizing farmers during the Depression because it was felt that farmers were really needed to grow food for Americans. She described the modern farm bill as passing every four years to the tune of almost a trillion dollars, going to farmers who do not need it, and including crop insurance that pays farmers whether they have a good season or not. She also noted that the bill includes food stamp funding, which she said is how it gets passed every four years. Welfare for the Rich? (2021)
A benchmark for stagnation
In a 2021 episode on democratic capitalism, Roger L. Martin invoked the Great Depression as a comparison for contemporary economic conditions. He described the Depression as a terrible time not only for America but for the world, during which median incomes dropped precipitously across many countries, and he noted that many countries went fascist or socialist while America stayed capitalist. Martin argued that the current stagnation of median incomes is worse than the Great Depression, lasting much longer with a less good recovery. He also discussed income inequality, saying that all the increase in America is the 99th percentile going gangbusters over the 50th rather than the poor getting poorer, and warning that if the 1% take too much of economic growth, the median will experience what they are experiencing now, with a century needed to double the median income of an American worker. When More is Not Better (2021)
Across episodes
The excerpts show no single developing argument about the Great Depression across episodes. Don Boudreaux (2011) argues about when it ended and what ended it; Burton Abrams (2014) and Bob Zadek (2017) discuss its causes in Federal Reserve policy and tariffs; Bob Zadek (2018) uses it to compare government and private losses; Lisa Conyers (2021) cites it as the origin of the farm bill; and Roger L. Martin (2021) uses it as a benchmark for present-day stagnation. Each speaker invokes the Depression for a different argument, and the excerpts do not show one treatment building on another.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not provide a sustained narrative of the Depression’s onset, its duration as agreed by the speakers, or its resolution. They do not name the specific legislation, agencies, or programs of the New Deal beyond the farm bill’s 1933 origin, nor do they give figures for the Depression’s unemployment rate at its worst. The speakers disagree about when the Depression ended, and the excerpts do not adjudicate that disagreement.