Apocalypse Dow: The Search for Scapegoats

October 11, 2008

“This notion that great misadventures are the work of great and devious adventurers, and the latter can and must be found if we are to be saved, is a popular one of our time. Since the search for the architect of the Wall Street debacle, we have had a hue and cry for the man who let the Russians into Western Europe, the man who lost China, and the man who thwarted MacArthur in Korea. While this may be a harmless avocation, it does not suggest an especially good view of historical processes. No one was responsible for the great Wall Street Crash. No one engineered the speculation that preceded it. Both were the product of the free choice and decisions of thousands of individuals. The latter were not led to the slaughter. They were impelled to it by the seminal lunacy which has always seized people who are seized in turn with the notion that they can become very rich. There were many Wall Streeters who helped foster this insanity, and some of them will appear among the heroes of these pages. There was none who caused it.”

- From ‘The Great Crash: 1929’ by John Kenneth Galbraith

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