Financial Economy Crisis and Its Influence on Society - Essay Example

These periods in time had a demonstrable and defininitive impact upon how the economic cycle, the American dream, and risk taking came to be understood. Firstly, in order to understand the Industrial Revolution, it must be understood that this was a period of runaway growth for almost each and every industry within the United States. Although it is oftentimes tempting to assume that the Industrial Revolution was only concentric upon benefiting the moguls that owned the iron and steel mills throughout the Northeast, almost each and every sector of the American economy experienced a level of growth as a result of this point in time.

However, it must also be understood that the individual worker was at a distinct disadvantage for much of the Industrial Revolution. . ervasive spirit of the era was one that believed that the growth that was being experienced and exhibited throughout the economy could somehow continue to be sustainable in perpetuity. By way of comparison, the period of the Great Depression evidenced a distinctly different, arguably opposite, societal, economic, and political approach. As a result of the fact that there were few if any jobs, investment was drying up, trust and availability of the currency was drying up, and little if any safety net existed for the people of the era, a true level of malaise and “depression” set in and defined the era.

This is of course denoted with regards to such factors as the stagnation of the labor markets and the ultimate hardship that individuals felt with regards to the outlook for “bettering their position” in life. Obivously this has a direct correlation to the extent to which the “American dream” was believed to be a reality. Due to the fact that the means of creating “American way of life” was all but removed, it became incumbent upon the government and political sectors of the system to intervene and express the will of the people to fix the problems that were systemically plaguing and beleaguering the system.

Such a point of view is rather well represented within the famous film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Although a complex plot is woven around different types of hardship that cannot be defined purely economically, it is the economic hardship that is the final straw in prompting the main character towards the course of action that he takes. The economic hardship and the social fabric are two elements that are extensively represented within the film and two elements that factored heavily into how the Great Depression was felt within the United States