I’m taking a political philosophy course and the professor, while not an economist, is interested in economics. He made the claim in class the other day that Nazi Germany was relatively capitalistic. I was going to respond, but I realized I didn’t have specific evidence to rebut his claim. It’s possible he was referring to corporatism, not capitalism, but either way I have no specifics. I’ve always assumed that Germany at the time was heavily intervenionist with nominal private control.
Does anyone have information about the economics of the Nazis and specifically what kind of policies they enacted?
Mises was first to identify NS Germany as socialist (aside from anyone that read Goebels’ newspaper column on Marxism). Omnipotent Government is largely about that.
I would say that Nazi Germany used more of a mixed economy approach. Much of the modern Social Democrats economic policies is very similar to Nazi Germany economics… here is a quich description of nazi econ.
And here is a quick read on Gordon’s article, Nazi Economics
I’ll definitely have to check that out. I’m currently making my way through Human Action and I’m going to read Socialism after that. I haven’t read much directly from Mises yet, but I’m really enjoying it and I actually can’t wait to get to some of his other works. I wish I started reading HA sooner. Thanks for the suggestion.
@ Isaac
That’s what I had always thought, but I guess I just couldn’t think of anything specific. I didn’t want to speak up and say Nazi Germany was not laissez faire and then have nothing to back me up. But I’m about to read the 2 links you posted, thanks!
Nazi Germany existed in an overall framework of an interventionist market economy, but the Nazis were socialists and identitarian welfarists. Like Stalinists, they did not want to outright abolish markets or money, but instead opted for strong state intervention to ‘guide’ the market while keeping nominal private property. They wanted a mixed market. They inherited an interventionist economy and the welfare state, but strongly advanced socialism and welfare, and were clearly anticapitalistic collectivists. The Nazis are usually seen as capitalists by the left because they opposed communism and in a certain sense defended capitalism against communism, but so did social democrats. Really the Nazis weren’t very interested in economics, and were rather ignorant of it. They simply printed money to pay for tanks, when that led to inflation they implemented price controls, when that led to shortages they blamed the war. They favored a ‘social’, collectivist, identitarian society and advanced much the same policies as modern social democrats. To get out of the depression they used new-deal-like stimulus spending and later war spending. And they kind of invented environmentalism.
Compared to the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany was relatively capitalistic. But in the eyes of a follower of Austrian-School economics, it was not very capitalistic at all.
Here’s another way of looking at it. In Mein Kampf, Hitler talks about how “capital” (which I assume he meant “business”) would not be the master of the national-socialist state, but rather its servant. So I’d hardly call him a proponent of free enterprise!
if you are interested in the economic history of nazi germany (beyond scoring poltiical points in a classroom discussion anyways) i recommend the book “the wages of destruction” by adam tooze.
That’s pretty much what I’ve heard about Germany at the time and it’s exactly what went through my head when my teacher stated that the Nazis were relatively capitalistic. I guess what I’m looking for is specific acts the Nazis took to implement controls, e.g. in December 1935 the price commodity x was forbidden to rise above some predeterminded level, or such and such industry was cartelized in the Spring of 1933, something like that so that I can point to specific Nazi policies.
@ Student
I actually ordered that book and I’m waiting for it to get here. Unfortunately I won’t be able to read it for a while because I’m working my way through some other material and school is getting pretty busy for me. Have you read the book?
These statistics are spread thin and remarkably hard to find, you’ll have to do some searching. Just don’t forget mentioning the general stuff too, because some people actually think the Nazis were like right-wing capitalist reactionaries.
Suspended the gold standard, embarked on huge public works programs, protectionism, expanded credit, instituted jobs programs, implemented wage and price controls, military Keynesianism, progressive taxation of capital, government restrictions on profit-making, gun control, capital controls, family planning, eugenics, penalized smoking, brought about national health care and unemployment insurance, imposed education standards, opposed states rights and ran huge deficits. Of course there were many socialistic policies in Nazi Germany that the Nazis hadn’t originated but inherited, like unemployment insurance, government pensions and state schools. They didn’t repeal any of those. Basically you can work the other way around: take a socialist policy, and then ask whether the Nazis were for or against it. They were pretty much on the socialist side of them all.
I am wondering when will certain individuals stop using the word ‘capitalism’ with a political connotation. Answering your question: the Nazi State was a de facto owner of the factors of the production.