> >[excerpt from Ken's post:] The last time I saw someone post
> >such an absurdity, I urged that all parties to the debate consult (German
> >left communist) Alfred Sohn-Rethel's Economics and Class Structure of Nazi
> >Germany.
[self-correction: the English title is Economy and Class Structure of Nazi Germany]
> [Daniel's reply:] Sounds a bit long and dense, care to give us a summary?
No, this book is clear, brief, and a pleasure to read; I wish I had a copy of it. My library and archive are still being held hostage in Mississippi. Here are some points from my 1980 reading notes:
"The essence of fascism is counter-revolution in late capitalism when the standards of bourgeois society are utterly discredited." Late capitalism's crisis included the situation where prices fell below the fixed costs of production, which could be resolved only by the shift to slave labor, reducing the cost of labor power below its value. "The overall situation can be summed up by saying that, paradoxically, the economically sound parts of the German economy were politically paralyzed, whilst only those economically paralyzed enjoyed political freedom of movement." ". . . The iron and steel magnates had slipped into a subordinate position . . . . Only a determined policy of re-armament could realize their aims and free the full productive potential of their plant from the restricting shackles of the market system, opening up the sluice-gates for an all-out resumption of protective activity." "Thyssen would have gladly accepted inflation, isolation, or every possible risk if he could at last secure his first orders for cannon; Hitler too, if he could only gain access to the state's coffers. So felt the many candidates of despair who faced economic disaster at the time." Facing this crisis, central banker and "democrat" Schacht secretly negotiated financing for the Harzburg Front by the desperate industrialists. Describing the Hitler transformation to absolute surplus value in Marxist terms, S-R wrote, "The rate of accumulation is raised by depressing the rate of consumption, and the surplus product cannot be of a consumable and marketable kind."
> [Daniel again]: For a start, all you're describing is the shift from
> a (more or less) liberal economy to a totalitarian one, and that doesn't
> really address the monetary question at all. For seconds, the Nazi
> economic miracle occurred between 1933 and 1936 in my book, ie: before the
> rearmament programme had really taken off in earnest.
The first point is that the totalitarian economy (slave labor) is what distinguished Nazism, and which does not exist in the U.S. today, which is exactly where Doug began in challenging Max and others, and which Daniel's post purported to refute by reference to monetarism as the defining feature rather than forced labor. Second, the monetary manipulations were trivial in this context and, in any case, no different in kind from what Schacht had done previously during the Weimar years, so not a distinctive feature of the Nazi economy. Third, the arms economy in the sense S-R described became paramount upon the Nazi seizure of power and the construction of the concentration camps, but could not occur openly until Hitler's consolidation of power because of the lingering Versailles constraints.
> > Davies
>
> Hang on, old boy, were we at college together? People tend to address me
> by my first name these days, or else to use "Mr."
Writers these days, except in the New York Times, do not ordinarily employ honorifics, and are instructed by our style sheets to use the surname only on second and subsequent references. Perhaps this post's switch to the familiar voice will be more acceptable, though it does not resonate for me as would the name of someone I know personally.
> > [Ken:] Anyone who regards Schacht's
> > monetary tricks as crucial must regard Alan Greenspan as the U.S.
> > sovereign
> > today.
>
> [Daniel] Yep, I confess. I certainly regard him as being every bit as
independent
> as Schacht, if that's what you mean.
>
> > [Ken] That inverts the relation between the ruling class and its
central
> >banker.
>
> [Daniel] A premis which might have been argued for rather than asserted.
(what > do you mean?)
If Daniel thinks that central bankers are in themselves the ruling class, or its determining sector, I think the discussion has sunk to the level of kindergarten for socialists, which doesn't interest me. Now that Clinton has reappointed Greenspan, the proof will be at hand when G becomes the scapegoat for the next crisis. Until then, certain doctrines must be agreed for useful discourse to proceed.
Ken Lawrence