Jim heartfield wrote:
> 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
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu