Asklemmy

51504 readers

456 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

207

If a Great Depression happened again, would people still stand together like they did during the penny auctions? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by Yezzey@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

41 comments fedilink hide all child comments

During the Great Depression, when banks foreclosed on farms, neighbors often showed up at the auctions together.

They’d bid only a few cents, and return the land to the family that lost it. Sometimes a noose hung nearby as a warning to outsiders not to profit from someone else’s ruin.

It was rough, but it worked, communities protected each other when the system wouldn’t.

If a collapse like that happened today, do you think people would still stand together or has that kind of solidarity disappeared? Could it happen again?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 108 points 1 month ago (14 children)

They'd try, but there will be corporations bidding from thousands of miles away completely out of reach of any mob action these days.

If we reach penny auction status (and we will), it will be back to functional feudalism for most.

[–] Protoknuckles@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago (13 children)

At that point the community can just refuse to recognize the sale and not let the company onto the property after the sale. The key to these kinds of protests is to make the fight unprofitable.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 month ago

all it takes is a single call from the buyer and the place will be swatted

load more comments (12 replies)