We're all struggling with how to think -- and what to do -- in the face of the "great recession."  An initial progressive response was to advocate better regulation; then Keynesian economic stimulus; now nationalization; perhaps in the future some kind of socialism.

One theme that has reverberated through periods of "hard times" in the past is the idea of "production for use."  It has appeared in the form of public works job creation; worker run enterprises; self-help mutual aid; and efforts to push the envelope on property rights that preve nt people from using the resources that are available to meet their needs.  Today production for use may find new applications - including working to save the planet from climate destruction.    

What are recessions, depressions, and economic "hard times"?

According to conventional economics, markets guide companies and investors to bring together labor and means of production to produce the goods and services that people need.  Notwithstanding numerous "market failures," something like that happens in capitalist economies during normal times.

But in times of economic crisis, recession, and depression, it doesn't work like that.  Instead, people lose their livelihoods, homes, and healthcare and slash their budgets for food and other necessities - even while workers who want to work are unemployed and underemployed and offices, factories, and construction sites lie idle.  As a result, people often begin thinking and doing things that they didn't think and do before.

Since 1900, the US experienced depressions and recessions in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1914, 1921, the whole decade of the 1930s, 1949, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1970, 1982, 1990, and 2002.

We don't know how severe current "great recession" will be.  One thing we know from hard times past, however, is that they are almost always declared over when they have barely begun.  Prosperity is always just around the corner.  True to form, as early as April, headlines like "Top U.S. officials offered reassurances that the worst of the economic downturn is likely over," began appearing in media outlets around the country. Maybe so.  But what should we do if it is not? 

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