The cause and results of the Great Depression The Great Depression of the 1930s greatly weakened the businessperson's position a the American ideal of the free individual, and big business lost respect. The Depression also need for emergency government action to help the needy on a scale never before created the en in the United States in peacetime, As a result, the idea that government should be small and inactive was largely abandoned. Moreover, the ideal of the free individual underwent some very important changes. The changes were started from stock market crash on the New York stock exchange, and as the failure of banks, people stopped buying. and it had reduced consumption and demand. In addition, thousands of families fled the Dust Bowl