Milton Friedman on the Great Depression

Milton Friedman at a conference of bankers:

There is hardly any view that is more widespread than the view that somehow or another the Great Depression was produced by a failure of private business. That view is held, not only by those who are in favor of greater role of government, it is held by almost everybody. I venture to suggest you that if you go to any bankers, the people who are here today at this banking conference, and if you talk to them, I’d venture to say, nine out of ten of them, if they didn’t, hadn’t heard what I’m going to say, that nine out of ten of them would say, “Well, of course, the Great Depression was a failure of private business. It was due to an overextension. Over speculation of the 1920s. Or it was due to an excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy at the expense of the poor in the 1920s. Or it was due to speculative investment abroad or whatever. But it was a failure of private business. And government had to step in in order to rescue private business from its own failure.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. …The Great Depression was not [my emphasis] produced by a failure of business. On the contrary, it was [my emphasis]produced by a failure of government and a failure of government in an area in which responsibility had been assigned to governments since the founding of this country. The Constitution of the United States, it gives Congress the power to coin money and set the value thereof. And it was in the management of this fundamental function of government that governments failed and produced the Great Depression.

Source: Milton Friedman Part IV: Unapologetic & Unafraid

Mr. Friedman got it exactly right. The reader might want to refer to my blog entry “FDR, The Great Depression and The New Deal.”