A closer look
While everyone else was blaming economic depressions on poor people not buying enough stuff, Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky pointed the finger at capitalists obsessed with shiny new toys. He realized the business cycle was actually driven by industrial overinvestment. Executives borrow heavily to buy massive factory machines during boom times, only to realize later that they overbuilt and nobody actually wants their products. It’s basically the 19th-century version of over-hiring tech engineers and then immediately laying them off.
