I always see people making that argument to say that government can plan the economy. What is the rebuttal to that? Is there a book or something you can indicate?
When it comes to specifically addressing Hitler’s impact on economic recovery in Germany, listen to this speech by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Especially in part 2 and 3, I think, he’s comparing the economic policies and ideas of Hitler and Roosevelt to explain why Germany didn’t slump as deep into the depression as the US.
For a general rebuttal of socialist planning, study the calculation problem.
I saw both sources, but it still didn’t get to the point. I would like something that explained more. The version that you get around is that the economy was horrible, then Hitler came, created jobs for everyone, stimulated the economy and it got good.
I’ve often thought a good thesis for somebody would be an economic analysis of the Third Reich. I think what stimulated the German economy was when Hitler cancelled the reparations under Versailles. Of course, as his rule continued, government consumption of private wealth grew and at the end there was rationing and shortage.
The version that you get around is that the economy was horrible, then Hitler came, created jobs for everyone, stimulated the economy and it got good.
Unfortunately, that’s not the way things happened. Why did unemployment rates plummet even before Hitler rose to power?
Furthermore, where did Hitler get the money to create all those jobs? The German Reich was heavily indebted when WW II broke out. They even used sophisticated financial tricks to pimp their credit ratings and conceal their rearmament policies.
Of course, if you amount masses of debt, you can keep an economy running for a while. Still, you don’t know what exactly to produce to make people happy - meaning they will have to import stuff from abroad to keep their living standards (or accept that their livings standards decline). Because you don’t engage in meaningful international trade with your planned economy, this will increase overall prices, meaning you’ll have to go even more into debt for higher wages.
At some point, this Ponzi scheme breaks down or you start a war. Guess what happened.
So f**king what if the economy got “good.” (You’d have to look at the other sources provided here to answer that).
The bottom line is, even if you could demonstrate that Germany broke free from the depression you’d still have one enormous moral obstacle to surmount. (Even setting aside, for the time-being, the not insignificant plight of 6M people systematically exterminated - which is itself a moral obstacle of uber-epic proportions)
That obstacle is: what gives one individual, or one group of individuals claiming to act in concert, the moral right to impose their volition upon everyone else?
You can find the answer to that elsewhere on this forum.
The beauty of libertarianism is that we don’t have to appeal to efficacy. Even if you could “prove” the superior efficacy of a planned, coerced economy, you’ve got to demonstrate that it’s also a morally appropriate form of social organization.
I know about the moral side, what i want is an analysis of what happened at that time. What did Hitler did, did he actually diminished the government control at the beginning or not, did the economy recovered in spite of Hitler, things like that.
The issue raised about the MEFO notes seems to suggest that whatever “good” happened in the German economy was a complete and total fiction. It was ENRON or Bernard Madoff with the added bonus of Totalitarianism
They inflated the hell out of their economy building weapons of destruction on a large scale, duping the international community in the process, and then used those weapons to destroy most of Europe. In the long run, surely, you can see that this process is not sustainable.
If you’re inquiring as to how inflation (the MEFO notes constituted de facto inflation) there’s plenty of writing here on the topic, I’ve written a primer on the subject that was well-received. If you want a URL, let me know.
However, in light of the moral conundrum posed by fascism and the stain of jew-extermination, I don’t understand why any of this matters.
This seem to me to be intellectual lazy, with all due respect. It is dishonest of him to change the point in contention to one in which he thinks he is superior, or whenever it is convenient to do so. Moreover, this is somewhat of a slippery slope, no?
I suppose it could be considered lazy to re-frame the debate as such.
I simply wanted to point out the obvious, which is, even if Hitler’s Germany was an economic Dynamo, we have to judge the entire corpus of the Reich’s actions and policies, within which that economic success allegedly happened. We can’t just say “They gave us Volkswagen” and call it a day.
Right?
Sometimes, it’s not worth debating the actual point of contention. I consider “Was Hitler’s Germany successful, economically?” to be one such topic. I’m willing to concede, for the sake of argument, that the Reich was economically successful, in order to move on to to the next (and IMO) more important topic.
(NB: I did respond to the actual question in subsequent post)
cheers.
Of course, but that doesn’t mean we need to concede the point of economics.
If you would like a detailed account of the Third Reich there is one by Richard J. Evans, “The Third Reich in Power”
He accurately explains the failure of wage and price controls, and demonstrates that “full employment” was achieved through manipulation of data, irrational public works, and government intervention (is this the USA or Germany I forgot?)
I recommend the book to any person serious in their fear of tyranny and oppression.
Duly noted!
The book collectivist economic planning, edited by Hayek is good. Different chapters by different authors including Hayek and Mises.
This was just on the front page recently:
Nazi Economi Policy - http://mises.org/daily/3274
I only skimmed through part of it the other day, so I don’t know if it answers your questions.
Hitler broke the labor unions and allowed wages to fall. He also stopped funding the government with the printing press. The Hoppe lecture cited earlier is informative and I recommend it also.
Well since the Germans elimanted the competion of the jewish buissness owners, that helped the germans, but really by the end their policy led to their economic destruction. They also killed over 10 million innocent people to boot.
The nazi economy was never in fact fixed. There might have been jobs, yey starvation ran rampant, there were incessant shortages, and various other problems…
Does that sound good to you?
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I read it, didn’t help much to answer my question.
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Hoppes lecture did help, but i was expecting a more deep analysis, he only pointed out somethings that HItler did.
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“The Third Reich in Power” sounds like a good book, but i can’t find it for free, isn’t there other sources?