The 1929 Wall Street crash was a defining moment. It precipitated the slump of 1929-31, the deepest slump ever experienced by capitalism. Of course, the bourgeois economists attempt to cover up the real reasons for the slump. The aim of this talk is to explain not only what happened but its causes in the endemic crisis of capitalist overproduction.

Rob Sewell in this talk will explore the consequences of the slump and how it also ushered in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Above all, we need to learn the lessons for today, which have never been more relevant with many of the symptoms of the crash emerging at this time.

Reading list

Books

• Robert Galbraith – The Great Crash 1929: The Classic Study of that Disaster (English)

Articles

• James Kilby – “The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression: Lessons for today” (English)
• Karl Marx – “Theories of Surplus Value” (Chapter 8, Part 7 – Rodbertus’s Erroneous Views Regarding the Factors Which Determine the Rate of Profit and the Rate of Rent) (English)
• Rob Sewell – “The Organic Crisis of Capitalism” (English)
• Rob Sewell – “‘Under-consumption’ and the Marxist Theory of Crisis – Part One” (English)
• Adam Booth – “The anarchic AI race: boom, bubble, and burst” (English)
• Niklas Albin Svensson – “What the stock market bubble can tell us about the state of the US economy” (English)
• Ted Grant – “Will there be a slump?” (English)
• Andréas Coste – La crise de 1929 et la « Grande dépression » des années 30 (French)
• Andréas Coste – « Crédit privé » et IA : où en est la bulle spéculative ? (French)