What made the Great Depression so great?

The usual narrative of the Great Depression in America is misleading. Interventionism, not the market, led to the world economic crisis of 1929.

The then President Herbert C. Hoover played a decisive role in the Great Depression. He did not pursue a laissez-faire policy. Instead, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 marked the height of protectionism in American trade policy. A deadly cocktail of an unstable monetary order, overwhelming debt problems and international mistrust was responsible for the extent of the crisis.

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