We don’t have a lot of good history on this, but there’s basically only one instance of such a deep and lasting depression and it occurred after central banking was established, not before.
> there’s basically only one instance of such a deep and lasting depression
Because we didn’t measure for it. (18th-century GDP is post hoc estimated.) The 19th century, during the free banking era, featured multiple 30%+ drawdowns in business activity, greater than the Great Depression, albeit against a smaller baseline [1].
