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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

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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?

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[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The point was more that a community can enforce that "if they don't get it, no one will", which I think would put a lot of companies off from buying.

It wouldn't help the first few people get their home back, but after a couple rounds, the big corps will see that they end up losing money when the buy properties that are sacked a short time later. If there's one thing that will make a company change its behaviour, it's making them lose money through that behaviour.

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

Again, MAD only works when the damage is equally devastating on both sides.