A major factor in the Great Depression, and one that is not much examined any more, is the fact that a widespread drought was also occurring in the western plains, and the Dust Bowl was one of the results, as marginal land that had been forced into farming no longer got the natural moisture to sustain its function. That in turn caused a great migration within the US, and considerable development of forms of irrigation and farmland utilization. Conservation, they called it, and it was a mighty force to stave off the very worst of the collapse of agriculture, but then, the philosophy took a nasty little turn, and “conservation” became the locking up of natural resources “for the future”.
A future that was miserly, marked by hoarding and artificial scarcities, until very little was allowed to be dribbled out, permitting a meager existence but no growth.
“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday […] it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. [...] The eyeless crature at the other table swallowed it fanatically. passionately, with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyone who should suggest that last week the ration had been thirty grams. Syme, too-in some more double complex way, involving doublethink-Syme, swallow it. Was he, then, alone in the possession of a memory?”
― Orwell George, 1984
“””Conservation, they called it, and it was a mighty force to stave off the very worst of the collapse of agriculture, but then, the philosophy took a nasty little turn, and “conservation” became the locking up of natural resources “for the future”.
A future that was miserly, marked by hoarding and artificial scarcities, until very little was allowed to be dribbled out, permitting a meager existence but no growth.”””
That seems to me to be extremely well put together, as though it is a quotable line from a good novel.