A Theory of Great Depressions
I had wanted to study the Great Depression as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1970's. My pitch was that the Great Depression was a "Systemic Event" and therefore should be studied from the perspective of Systems Theory . I received two responses: (1) Systems Theory had a "bad reputation" in the Social Sciences and (2) the Great Depression was a topic reserved for elder statesmen in Economics and was not appropriate for a graduate student. I went on to apply Systems Theory to Late Nineteenth Century Development in Germany and emphasized the systemic issue of Stability . Today, I am at the end of my career, I'm still interested in the Great Depression and I don't need anyone's approval to study it. What I have found is that there is really no consistent theory of Great Depressions and that Systems Theory in the Social Sciences is, unfortunately, poorly defined (it is clearly defined in Environm...
