Overindulgence and the Great Depression

DRAWING vague parallelism can be perilous at times as what is said in a light vein can be misconstrued leading to serious sensitivities, as I gather.

My previous column on Hamlet did touch on issues at the home front rather mischievously and I had an insinuated comment from a reader who didn’t quite agree with the sarcasm he claims was present in the piece.

I am not apologising because if we do not make a parody of life, the world becomes a sad place to live in.

Having said that, here I am trying to make another connection, socially, with America’s 1920 era and the downward times we are living in now.

The 1920s was referred to as the “Roaring Twenties” and it was also known as the Jazz Age. It was a time that saw rapid change, artistic innovation and the antics of the high society never knew bounds.

Money was easy as business profits soared and this resulted in consumerism peaking exponentially. People also had more leisure time and to appease the pastime-seekers, dancing, jazz music and theatre became popular.

The “Roaring Twenties” era was brought about by the Second Industrial Revolution where electricity and advanced machinery made factory production much more efficient.

If you look back, the 1920s was a boisterous period where lifestyle changed rapidly, financial access and technological progress made people too busy for anything else other than fun and extravagance.

There was over-dependence on production and there was a huge disparity between the rich and poor. While the bootleggers and the flappers were enjoying the frills abundantly made available to them, more than 60% of the population at that time was living below the poverty line. It is interesting to note that a mere 1% of the richest Americans owned 40% of the nation’s wealth and the imbalance was condoned during that age.

This is also a fascinating era for the women’s suffrage groups – the new age women called flappers emerged with illusions to break free and away from the norms and nonsensical societal pressures.

The flappers were typically young and single, urbanised and middle class women who enjoyed the city life. This was the age when more women started consuming liquor, smoking and went all out to fight the social prejudices against women.

In a way, the age of the flappers was a declaration of independence for women where many taboos were broken.

Incidentally, it is interesting to note that it was during this time that the ban on manufacturing and sale of intoxicating drinks were effected. The Prohibition as it is commonly known, is largely responsible for the mushrooming of underworld kingdoms where their main market was supplying booze illegally to the partyobsessed society. This perhaps is the beginning of organised crime where activities in the underworld developed.

Then came Black Tuesday, as it was called. On Oct 29, 1929, the stock market crashed with such steely vengeance, probably bringing the message that all is not well. From then on, poverty and suffering were widespread.

The crash set in motion a series of catastrophic events that led to the Great Depression, bringing an end to the false sense of prosperity among the rich in America. It must be known that while America rose in wealth, Europe was still reeling from the devastation of WW1 and was not as well off economically and that started having a domino effect on America as their market share in Europe declined dramatically.

There are other innumerable factors that contributed to the Great Depression but this is an ongoing debate which might still tantalise economists and financial analysts.

Why all this fuss about the “Roaring Twenties” and the Great Depression? Can you not see the connection? Aren’t we going down the disastrous path of overindulgence, with a dangerous fixation for affluence and materialism? With mass consumption, we have become a “consumer society” as it was then.

There were many novels written during this time that may be exciting reads to jolt us a little and F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is an American short story writer and novelist who lived during the Jazz Age and weathered the Great Depression. He left a legacy, The Great

Gatsby (1925), which is a biographical novel that must be read for its historic and literary values. The novel is a perfect representation of the “Roaring Twenties”.

I will dwell on this novel in greater detail in my next column.