the political economy of germany in the twentieth century reviewed
This book covers the German economy, essentially between 1918 and 1970.
It is fairly sketchy and has weaknesses in analysis. It could be seen as a typical PhD thesis. It is a
useful introduction to the subject, but should be treated with caution.
the weimar
“...with over 300 paper mills and some 2000
printing presses working around the clock to produce
reichbank notes, it was impossible to provide the notes
necessary to insure transactions at the inflated prices...”
—
“...although [the Reichbank] president seriously
expressed the hope that the new high-speed presses soon
to be installed would help to overcome the currency
shortage...”
[p.22]
| Depreciation
of the mark |
| Period |
Index of
U.S. dollar rate of exchange (1913=100) |
| 1920 |
|
January |
1,542 |
|
| |
|
July |
940 |
|
| 1921 |
|
January |
1,545 |
|
| |
|
July |
1,826 |
|
| 1922 |
|
January |
4,569 |
|
| |
|
July |
11,750 |
|
| 1923 |
|
January |
427,900 |
|
| |
|
July |
8,415,000 |
|
| |
|
August |
110,000,000 |
|
| |
|
September |
2,354,000,000 |
|
| |
|
October |
601,430,000,000 |
|
| |
|
November |
219,400,000,000,000 |
|
“Put simply one can say: it took about five and
one-half years from the beginning of the war for the
mark to fall to about one-tenth of its pre-war value;
the next decrease to one-tenth took only two and one-half
years; the following one only 108 days; while in October
1923 the mark was down to ten percent of the value of
the previous period every 8 to 11 days.”
[pp19-20]
national socialism
There is a section on the National Socialist economy
[pp.53-87] which is a little incoherent and even borders on apologia. Hitler was
immature and consumed with
teenage-like dreams of revenge and empire.
To understand Hitler’s policies coherently,
it is necessary to realise that his every decision was directed to taking Germany to war as
set out in Mein Kamph. Motorways for quick military communications, technology for
armament, diplomacy to encourage wishful thinking in weak leaders intended as victims,
placating and seducing his own population with growing consumer goods while
planning to turn that population into a war machine, stealing the property
of Jews to pay his henchmen and increase foreign exchange - by the time of war,
600,000 of 800,000 German Jews had left the country, having to pay what amounted to bribes
to escape, while leaving behind their property.
The author seems to attempt to minimise Hitler’s
aggressive objectives by pointing out that Germany remained
short of some necessary raw materials, such as oil. But of course,
Hitler’s intention was to gain those assets by invasion
and conquest, and to enslave or kill the populations, while
milking the conquered nations where profitable.
The remaining 115 pages bring the survey up to 1970.
Three Golden Yaks for a useful introduction.
The political economy
of Germany in the twentieth century
by Karl Hardach |
|
|
University of California
Press, 2005, hbk
ISBN-10: 0520040236
ISBN-13: 978-0520040236
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
Original German edition: Wirtschaftsgeschichte
Deutchlande im 20.Jahrhundert, published
by Vandenhoeck & Rupreche, Göttingen, 1976
|
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2011.php#german_economy_in_20th_century_review_120312
|
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a useful tract/booklet on constitutions - pr and national socialism
Borrowing constitutional designs
by Cindy Skach is an analysis of what the author calls ‘semipresidential
constitutions’. That is constitutions where a president
shares power with a prime minister. The book is concerned with
incentives for conflict, cooperation and instability with such
constitutions.
Two main case studies are used: the German Weimar Republic
and the 4th/5th Republic constitutions in France since World War Two. Pertinent voting
systems are also discussed. (The book has approximately 130 pages of text.)
“...Weimar was an experiment with one of the purest
forms of proportional representation ever used to elect deputies
to a national parliament...” [p.38]
—
“...However, neither President Hindenburg, nor the Reichswehr
(the army), was willing to accept Brüning’s collaboration with
the SPD [Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands], which they considered
a move to the left. In any case, a Reichstag coalition could not be built, because
the SPD and now the DVP [Deutsche Volkspartei] preferred to remain in
the opposition rather than take responsibility for governing these times:
“Brüning found that many labor leaders privately endorsed his policies
but implored him to take all responsibility for wage reductions. Leaders of the SPD,
Business Party and DVP told him that they wanted his program to succeed but did not want
to vote for it in the Reichstag; they preferred to accept emergency decrees passively.
Brüning saw himself becoming a scapegoat, asked to bear responsibility for all the
painful measures considered necessary by the entire political and economic elite.” [p.61]
—
“... [1932] Von Papen also suspended certain civil liberties
in Prussia, including freedom of the press, freedom of assembly
and postal secrecy; and in Berlin and the entire province of
Brandenburg he suspended the inviolability of the home... [p.64]
The Weimar produced and elected Hitler.
The author has done her homework. She uses
a two-dimensional grid of left/right and religious/secular.
The circles represent the various levels of commitment of the
various parties to constitutional government, the centre of
the ‘target’ being the most committed.
She correctly labels the National Socialists
at the extreme left and secular ends.
It is interesting that academic liberals
generated the Weimar constitution. Such is the ascendancy
of theory over pragmatism!
The text is cogent and clear, but this book is no page-turner,
useful to its intended audience - thus 3½ Golden Yaks.
related material
authoritarianism
and liberty
Borrowing Constitutional
Designs: Constitutional Law in Weimar Germany and
the French Fifth Republic
by Cindy Skach |
|
|
Princeton University
Press, 2005, hbk
ISBN-10: 0691123454
ISBN-13: 978-0691123455
£26.55
[amazon.co.uk] {advert}
Princeton University Press, 2009, pbk
ISBN-10: 0691146721
ISBN-13: 978-0691146720
$20.95
[amazon.com] {advert}
Kindle edition
Princeton University Press, 2009, 724 KB
ASIN: B0051U9JJC
$15.86
[amazon.com] {advert} |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2011.php#constitutional_designs_010312
|
|
Willard L. Beaulac (1899-1990), two reviews
Franco,
silent ally in World War Two
Written by the number two in
the American Embassy in Spain during World War Two,
this book is a model of fluency and organisation
by someone right in the centre of the action. It
is also among one of the very best books of political
realism that I have read. The book’s author
went on to become ambassador to five different South
American countries.
| 
|
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
Southern Illinois University Press, 1986
ISBN-10: 0809312549
ISBN-13: 978-0809312542
|
|
| The
fractured continent
This book is not as well written
as Franco, silent ally, but it is still
very neat. It is packed with snippets of wise political
advice by a very experienced man of the world. This
book was written six years earlier than Franco,
silent ally.
“IN 1945, when I was serving in Paraguay, an
American writer visited Asuncion, the capital. He noticed
that most people were modestly and even poorly dressed,
that dwellings were far below United States standards,
that only the principal streets were paved, and that
there were few automobiles. The city's best hotel had
very simple accommodations, and the writer was unable
to find a really good restaurant. He was appalled at
what he considered Paraguay's poverty.
“About the same time another American visited
Paraguay. He was a businessman and banker, one of the
first presidents of the US government's Export-Import
Bank. He walked up and down Asuncion's streets and drove
out through the countryside. And he looked into the
eyes of Paraguayans. Later he said to me, "I hope
nothing we may do will change these people." The
banker remarked that Paraguayans seemed to be well-fed.
They were a sturdy, vigorous people. Their clothing
was usually very clean. While he noticed the scarcity
of automobiles he saw, too, that nearly everyone who
came in from the country had an animal to ride. He said
he would not soon forget the sight of a country woman
trotting into market on her burro, her baskets of vegetables
slung behind her, a black cigar in her mouth. To him
she was a free woman, one of nature's capitalists, self-confident
and independent. The banker saw in Paraguayans not poverty
but pride, an inner tranquility that he had missed in
many countries, possibly including his own.
“The writer thought the Paraguayan government,
and the government of the United States, should
do more to help Paraguay's masses who were living
in conditions that he considered intolerable.
The banker, who had come to Paraguay to see what
he might do to help, was expressing a wish that
his efforts, wise or unwise, successful or unsuccessful,
would not unwittingly offend the dignity of Paraguayans
or lessen their pride; that he would not needlessly
and thoughtlessly disrupt a way of life that,
simple as it was, and doubtless in part because
it was simple, brought rewards that were real
and lasting and that might not survive mere material
improvement, or the wrong kind of material improvement.”
[pp.95-96]
|
|
|
Fractured continent: Latin
America in Close Up
(Hoover Institution publication 225)
Hoover Institution Press,U.S., 1st edition, 1980
ISBN-10: 081797251X
ISBN-13: 978-0817972516
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2011.php#beaulac_140112
|
|
boomerang by michael lewis
I was looking at Michael Lewis’s
recent book on the bank crash, The
Big Short, and noted he’s published an
even more recent book on the sovereign debt development
- Boomerang. It looked
more interesting so I put out the hard earned on a copy.
The book is done in terms of reviews
of the ways the mess is having an impact on several societies.
Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany
and the USA.
- p.45
- The lowest ranked schools in Europe are in Greece.
The highest ranked schools are in Finland.
Greece ‘employs’ four times as many teachers
in their teacher-pupil ratio as Finland.
Greek parents assume they will need to employ tutors.
p.89- “...the short-term parking attendants at Dublin
Airport noticed their daily take had fallen. The lot
appeared full; they couldn't understand it; then they
noticed the cars never changed. They phoned the Dublin
police, who in turn traced the cars to Polish construction
workers, who has bought them with money borrowed from
the big Irish banks. The migrant workers had ditched
the cars and gone home. A few months later the Bank
of Ireland sent three collectors to Poland to see what
they could get back, but they had no luck. The Poles
were untraceable. But for their cars in the parking
lot, they might never have existed.”
p.146- “...the German losses are still being totted
up, but at the last count they stand at $21 billion
in the Icelandic banks, $100 billion in Irish banks,
$60 billion in various U.S. subprime-backed bonds and
some yet to be determined amount in Greek bonds...”
p.147- “...one view of the European debt crisis—the
Greek view—is that it is an elaborate attempt
by the German government on behalf of its banks to get
their money back without calling attention to what they
are up to. The German government gives money to the
European Union rescue fund so that it can give money
to the Irish government so that the Irish government
can give money to the Irish banks, so that the Irish
banks can repay their loans to the German banks...”
p.167- A lawsuit still going through the German courts is challenging
the legal status of the euro on constitutional grounds. The
lawsuit was instigated before the euro was formed!
No index, damn him; 212 pages.
I’d like to see him produce a second volume on other
countries like Italy, Portugal, the UK, Japan and Spain.
I’d buy that!
4 GoldenYaks, just - due to negatives such
as there being no index and it being too short.
Boomerang:
the meltdown tour
by Michael Lewis |
 |
£11.23
[amazon.co.uk] {advert}
amazon.com
Allen Lane, hbk, 2011
ISBN-10: 1846144841
ISBN-13: 978-1846144844
Kindle edition, B005PR44XC,
346 kb
£9.99
[amazon.co.uk] {advert}
$21.18
[amazon.com] {advert} |
The
Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
by Michael Lewis |
 |
$8.69
[amazon.com] {advert}
Penguin Books, pbk, 2011
ISBN-10: 0141043539
ISBN-13: 978-0141043531
US Kindle edition, 0393338827
$9.94
[amazon.com] {advert} |
 |
the web address for the article above is
https://www.abelard.org/news/review2011.php#boomerang_171111
|
|
|
