Who Admires Hitler's Economy?

[Jim heartfield]

In message <386E68A4.CFEFA5AD at ecst.csuchico.edu>, Michael Perelman
<michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> writes
>Doug,
>
>I do not disagree with either you or Kalecki.  Nor was I recommending
>Hitler's policy.  The point was that economic planning, even of the perverse
>sort that the Nazis used, has the potential to increase production
>substantially.  In that sense, I made my separation of the political of
>economic aspects of Hitler's economic policy.  When you read somebody who is
>there in the middle of it, such as Sohn-Rethel, you can see how the political
>aspects really messed up economic performance.  For example the Nazis had
>little appreciation of the potential of the sort of modern technology that a
>company like Siemens represented.

The German state derivation theorists, Elmar Altvater et al, did a
calculation on the economic effects of the Fascist mobilisation of
Labour. Using Marxist categories of necessary labour time and surplus
value, they estimated that the rate of exploitation was multiplied many
times (I'll dig up the numbers for you if you are interested). This new
regime of accumulation they argued, was the material base of the post-
war boom. Certainly it is true that Fascism wrecked the economy insofar
as it entered into a phase of autarkic growth with disastrous
consequences ('first we will pump oil out of Russia and then we will
pump blood' German officers told Ilya Ehrenburg - but failing to secure
Russia as a colony, the German economy was forced into perverse growth
to supplement those resources no longer available through world trade).
But it is also true that Fascism was a 'resolution' of the main obstacle
to German capitalism, the working class. 

In message <v04220804b494150ff38c@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes

quoting Henry


>>Like Lynn Turgeon, I was impressed with Silverman, Dan P. 1997. Hitler's
>>Economy: Nazi Work Creation Programs, 1933-1936 (Cambridge: Harvard
>>University Press).  The book suggests that, if you filter out the racist
>>elements, Hitler's economic policy were, in effect, a clearer version of
>>the New Deal.

Paul Mattick sr wrote contemporaneously on the New deal to the effect
that it was a lot closer to Fascism than was generally recognised -
though to the detriment of the New Deal rather than the elevation of
Hitler.

The militaristic mobilisation of labour and imaginary transcendence of
capitalism are all pretty similar. The difference is that Roosevelt's
New Deal integrated East and Southern Europeans into the nation while
isolating blacks. Hitler integrated Southern and Eastern Germans while
rounding up Jews. I don't mean to cross the line of saying they were
equivalents: America remained a democracy, however bruised. But nor was
fascism something that arrived from another dimension - it arose out of
the needs of capital.
-- 
Jim heartfield