When Argentina went through economic hell in 2001, protests and riots erupted. Unemployment reached 25%. Even some of the formerly wealthy were out on the streets. The country was in freefall.
In this doc, Current producers Lauren Cerre and Tracey Chang posit that there are benefits to going through such a collapse. It forces people to find creative ways to live and work. Definitely worth checking out (skip ahead to 3:45 for the good stuff).
In Argentina for example, closed factories were reopened as employee-owned cooperatives which give workers better pay. People began swapping goods and services at trading clubs, some of which still exist. Enreprenueurs created startups. To paraphrase one Argentine interviewee from the program, when you struggle you get more creative. You don't waste time doing things that aren't productive.
One of the things that I noticed living in Argentina is that nothing that still works is ever thrown away or replaced. Thus you'll often see Fiats from the early 1980s, TVs from the 1970s and computers from the dawn of the Internet. And many old (some beautiful, some crumbling) homes and apartments. I'm sure this is partly due to frugality borne out of the crisis now eight years past.
Will the US learn its lesson from this recession? I think so. Adversity is a great teacher. Then again, you wonder how soon we'll forget.
