On le sait maintenant, et nous nous inscrivons compl\u00e8tement dans cette appr\u00e9ciation, l’importance de la r\u00e9f\u00e9rence de la Grande D\u00e9pression des ann\u00e9es 1930 pour accompagner notre appr\u00e9ciation de la crise. La hantise, plut\u00f4t que la m\u00e9moire, en est la marque essentielle; les titres des textes qui rappellent la grande catastrophe des ann\u00e9es 1930 font grand usage<\/a> du mot. C’est le cas d’un universitaire britannique, de l’universit\u00e9 du Sussex, Clive Webb, qui nous fait une description tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressante de la Grande D\u00e9pression, sous le titre \u00abHaunted by History<\/em>\u00bb, dans le Guardian<\/em> d’aujourd’hui<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tIl y a de nombreux passages et d\u00e9tails int\u00e9ressants dans ce texte, y compris sur la situation actuelle aux USA. On notera, comme exemple de ce type de r\u00e9f\u00e9rence \u00e0 la situation actuelle, la d\u00e9vastation incroyable que les pratiques du capitalisme US sans le moindre contr\u00f4le ont exerc\u00e9 dans les minorit\u00e9s, amenant une connotation raciste dans l’escroquerie qui nous \u00e9difie sur l’\u00e9tat de la chose dans l’American Dream<\/em>; l’int\u00e9gration raciale dans le chef de l’escroquerie caputaliste est sans aucun doute achev\u00e9e, au-del\u00e0 de toute esp\u00e9rance: \u00abOnce again, minorities, still overrepresented among America’s poor, have borne the brunt of the economic burden that now afflicts Americans. Sub-prime mortgage lenders aggressively targeted minorities who otherwise were unable to afford their own homes. According to the Harvard University’s Joint Centre for Housing Studies, 55% of African Americans and 45% of Latinos who became homeowners in 2005 did so through sub-prime mortgages, compared with only 17% of whites. The sub-prime mortgage crisis has hit minorities hard, with many suffering foreclosures. Last year, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed a lawsuit against sub-prime mortgage lenders it accuses of institutionalised racism because of their predatory behaviour.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tC’est \u00e9videmment sa dimension historique qui reste l’attrait essentiel du texte. Parmi les divers aspects du domaine, on retiendra la conclusion qui s’attache \u00e0 un point particulier de la comparaison entre les situations de 1933 et de 2008.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abThere is one further lesson from history that the federal government will need to consider should economic conditions deteriorate further. Although much of the blame for the current crisis is attributable to the recklessness of Wall Street, bailing out the economic elites will not address the problems that afflict Main Street. The New Deal programmes of the Roosevelt administration represented an unprecedented expansion of government intervention in the economy. Yet they failed to work. Although Washington provided relief and opportunities to millions of Americans, the country remained in a perilous state. On the eve of US intervention in the second world war, nine million Americans were still out of work.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbPerhaps the most frightening lesson of history is that the mobilisation for war and the factory-employment opportunities it created accomplished what government economic reform programmes could not. By contrast, the current military conflict in which the US is embroiled only compounds its economic problems. The expenditure of billions of dollars on the war on terror drains resources that could be spent on the domestic economy, imposing a tax burden on ordinary people that restricts their disposable income. Nothing less than a radical restructuring of the economy, from the grassroots up, will fix today’s mess.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n