For months now, reports and commentaries about the global financial crisis have compared recent developments to the Great Depression. While almost no one has a reliable memory of what life was like in the 1930s, media reports overflow with declarations that we're reliving that crisis. Fortunes are lost, people are forlorn, and doom is ahead. Alarmingly, this is not treated as a bad thing, according to the analysts, because they view the 1930s as an epoch of serious social advancement.

Why are they so anxious to experience misery? Perhaps they're bored by their lives and want some defining crisis? Or, they want the chance to prove they can be as noble as their parents or grandparents. Perhaps, more darkly, they resent the advancements of recent decades, and want to see some “justice” restored.

I can only speculate why this nostalgia is so common, but I know that it's all misplaced. The 1930s were the most miserable period of the past 100 years. In the stock market collapse and the failure of industries that followed, millions of people lost more than wealth. They lost hope, or lost their way.

Worse, governments took advantage of citizens' despair to expand state power. In the United States, this resulted in a reckless assault on private business and a careless handling of individual rights. In Europe and elsewhere, the effects were deadly.

Today's situation is not nearly as dire as the 1930s. What we're living through is simply a crisis of capital — a cash shortage — that, through the extraordinary immediacy of our era, has transpired into a crisis of confidence. The first of these requires a market correction; the second requires an attitude adjustment.

One reason we're different than our 1930s predecessors is that we have easy access to vastly more information. We may be confounded by change, but we understand how and why it has happened. We don't have to look for new solutions or change our principles to address the problem. We know what has worked in the past, and what has failed. We don't have to remain confused and accept the conclusions of others.

Far from wishing for a return to the past, we should recognize the advantages of our own time. Along with information, we have universal communication. We can locate suppliers, partners, and customers to build and grow new ventures. We can learn and share the ideas that shape our future, rather than capitulate to those who want to define it for us.

“We believe the only way to predict the future is to try to create it,” declares Fraser Steel chief operating officer Baxter Stephenson in our issue (see p. 12.) “Rather than just feeling bad about what's going on in the economy — we can't control that — we focus on the things we can control, and identify pockets of opportunities, and put our resources into efforts to capture new business.”

Compare Stephenson's optimism to the messages from the federal officials? Presented with the problem of economic decline, they prescribe restraint rather than growth. They recommend tighter regulations on labor, trade, financing, and environmental standards. They'll make it harder for businesses and workers to regain confidence.

Recognizing citizens' frustration, elected officials look for individuals to blame or indict. Challenged to foster confidence, they project indecision and uncertainty. Their proposals expect individuals and enterprises to conform, not to innovate. They use impressions of the past to instruct us, not expectations of the future that will empower us.

Living in the past dulls our awareness to new ideas, and it weakens our determination to define our own futures.