European economics without Nazism, WW2 and Stalin going West

Dr. No · Jan 26, 2008

Once I read that Estonia used to be among the wealthiest countries in Europe and that Czechoslovakia was an economic powerhouse as well then. I even "fear" that they might have been richer than the German Reich then.

But due to the Iron Curtain, economic performance was poor in the East due to the introduction of socialism. And as Nazi Germany used to treat its conquered territories like fiefdoms or colonies (a miracle if they didn't), at least the Eastern nationes were already affected from the loss to freely prosper before the Soviets came in.

So WI Germany kept the rule of law after WW1 and median Europe had neither been affected by the Nazis nor by the Soviets importing communism? How would the individual nations stand at economically, in a sense of a ranking?

You may even remind that the "economic miracle" of Western Europe in OTL had its source in WW2-related things like men dying in action causing a scarcity in the workforces making wages higher etc.

@ Glen: I read the Weimar World timeline carefully, but there was nothing about economics.

Dr. No · Nov 8, 2008

I definitely go nuts on not getting an answer on this subject.

Faeelin · Nov 8, 2008

Estonia was almost certainly not richer than Germany.

Arafeel · Nov 8, 2008

Czechoslovakia did very vell upp until the german occuption, it hadde one of the higest standars of lving in the World and hadde the third largest military industrial complex in europ.
I not sure what you mean by "richer", estonia having a higher standard oflving that germany in the 20`s and 30`s i can belive, but that the estonia economi being bigger in terms of vaule of production and exsport i find hard to belive.

ninebucks · Nov 8, 2008

Without the Bretton Woods reforms after the War, the world will still be made up of economically protectionist states. The idea that economic interdependence can lead to a stable peace will have never been proved and so international affairs will be much more tense on every level. Colonialism never ends because the idea that world powers can benefit from independent nations is considered to be nonsensical.

So we'll have a sustained economic order where the powerful get to protect their interests by any means, and the weak have no recourse to improve their lot but through warfare. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and entrenched interests get entrenchedier.

Tyr · Nov 8, 2008

Depends what era you're on about for whether Estonia was richer than Germany. It was certainly pretty rich but it would only definatly be richer during Germany's big down spells....for the up spells...It was probally richer than the poor parts of Germany but not the richer parts.

Faeelin · Nov 8, 2008

ninebucks said:
Without the Bretton Woods reforms after the War, the world will still be made up of economically protectionist states.

But that assumes that the world is locked in stone; before the depression tariffs were on their way down in Europe; Germany and France had negotiated a Most-Favored Nation Treaty, and there was talk of a European-wide conference to lower customs.

The idea that economic interdependence can lead to a stable peace will have never been proved and so international affairs will be much more tense on every level.

This is a good old fashioned liberal idea, and so nothing new.

CanadianGoose · Nov 10, 2008

Communism, among other things, acted as a great leveller in EE, lifting underdeveloped regions and supressing developed ones. I would say that SE Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, some areas of Hungary) would actually be worse off. Czech and East Germans would be significantly better off, Poland somewhat better. Baltics are mixed bag. IOTL their economic situation tended to fluctuate wildly depending on health of their main export markets, each of those countries went through couple of periods when significant part of population suffered from undernutrition. However, they were mostly better off than 1930s USSR. So I would say that their success depends on their policies ITTL. They have chances to remain agrarian outposts of Great Europe, they have chances to be real dragons (not of today's paper variety, having current balance deficits which make pre-1998 Thailand look like models of financial health).

Valdemar II · Nov 10, 2008

Germany and Czechoslovakia would have a BNP per capita, which would lie in top 10, and would together with Benelux be the economical centre of Europe, the Baltic states especially Estonia and Latvia would be integrated part of the Nordic countries with a economy comparetive to Finland (at least per capita). The rest of the Nordic countries would look somewhat as they do today, just a little richer. Poland would be a lot richer but still the second poorest country around the Baltic Sea (USSR would be on a first place). Hungary would also be richer, but would likely have a economy comparetive with Spain. Italy and France would be worse off, but in France cases not by much, while Romania, Greece and Bulgaria would look like richer Turkeys (which would be where they're today). Yugoslavia would likely be split in a rich Slovenia, a middleincome Serbia and Croatia, while Albania would be Albania. Iberia would likely look somewhat as it does today. Oh and UK would likely still be stuck in the decolonsation, so while it would be little richer it would have a lot smaller growth in after 1980, and London would be slowly loosing it position as the worlds dominating economical centre to Frankfurt and New York.

Beside that Europa would be even more dominating on the international marked, while USA would be less so, without the dominans in many industries WWII and the Marshall Help created.

Likely we would see some Economical Communities, a North and Central European dominated by Germany, a Francophone one and a Commonwealth one, while slowly a pan-European EFTA would be created.

CanadianGoose · Nov 11, 2008

Valdemar II said:
Baltic states especially Estonia and Latvia would be integrated part of the Nordic countries with a economy comparetive to Finland (at least per capita).

May be yes, may be no. Baltics were always underdeveloped comparing with Finland, even when they were under the same Russian rule, so I'm not certain how could they magically shoot up to Finnish level ITTL (this "Estonian GDP per capita was equal to Finnish" bogeyman looks like a mythical creature on so many levels, starting with sources for this statement, which are "patriotic Estonian research", i.e. writings of Soviet-trained propagandists). Besides, a lot of Finnish IOTL prosperity originates in extremely close Soviet-Finnish cooperation IOTL (USSR was by far biggest trading partner and Nokia nearly collapsed after USSR went down), when Finland had access to Soviet resources at deeply discounted prices and was receiving decent prices in hard currency for it's industrial exports in USSR. Estonians IOTL showed willingness to sacrifice their economic advantages to satisfy nationalistic pride (killing Russian transit to get rid of Bronze Soldier), so I'm pretty sure this cooperation is ASB in alternate TL.

Valdemar II said:
Poland would be a lot richer but still the second poorest country around the Baltic Sea (USSR would be on a first place).

A lot? Depends on definition of this "lot", my Wilno Poles pals described society where urban lower classes routinely went to bed hungry. I would say that pre-WWI GDP numbers for Western gubernias of Russian Empire would be strong prediction, although pre-WWI Polish industry was relatively competitive only on Russian market and largely collapsed in 1920s.

Valdemar II said:
Romania, Greece and Bulgaria would look like richer Turkeys (which would be where they're today).

IOTL Greece benefited from the Cold War enormously, but ITTL Cold War does not go away, so Greece would likely be where it is now. Bulgaria and Romania at par with Turkey today, and probably will always be, give or take 20%. BTW, there was pretty strong illegal immigration from Romania to USSR post-WWII, which is another way of saying that even war-ravaged USSR wasn't so bad for ordinary Romanian before Romanian Communism kicked in.

Zajir · Nov 11, 2008

Without a great european war, the western nations could keep their colonies, they might be richer today.

Faeelin · Nov 12, 2008

CanadianGoose said:
May be yes, may be no. Baltics were always underdeveloped comparing with Finland, even when they were under the same Russian rule, so I'm not certain how could they magically shoot up to Finnish level ITTL (this "Estonian GDP per capita was equal to Finnish" bogeyman looks like a mythical creature on so many levels, starting with sources for this statement, which are "patriotic Estonian research", i.e. writings of Soviet-trained propagandists).

Well, look at the rapid economic develop of the Baltic nations right now. Convergence isn't a creature of myth and legend, it happens all the time. I'm curious why this wouldn't be the case.

Besides, a lot of Finnish IOTL prosperity originates in extremely close Soviet-Finnish cooperation IOTL (USSR was by far biggest trading partner and Nokia nearly collapsed after USSR went down), when Finland had access to Soviet resources at deeply discounted prices and was receiving decent prices in hard currency for it's industrial exports in USSR.

Cite? I ask because I'm curious about it.

Estonians IOTL showed willingness to sacrifice their economic advantages to satisfy nationalistic pride (killing Russian transit to get rid of Bronze Soldier), so I'm pretty sure this cooperation is ASB in alternate TL.

Why so? Estonia had extensive ties with the rest of Europe, and indeed the world, in the 1930s.

A lot? Depends on definition of this "lot", my Wilno Poles pals described society where urban lower classes routinely went to bed hungry.

When was this?

BTW, I find your argument that "economic trends pre 1939 would have continued indefinitely" a bit odd.

Faeelin · Nov 12, 2008

Zajir said:
Without a great european war, the western nations could keep their colonies, they might be richer today.

Why would a bunch of Vietnams increase their wealth?

Zajir · Nov 12, 2008

Faeelin said:
Why would a bunch of Vietnams increase their wealth?

With the colonies firmly within thier hands colonial powers like France and Britain, could become essentialy self-sufficient nations, taking raw materials from their colonies not external trade and producing goods in the mother country, and than sell this good back to thier colonies.
They would not be dependent on outside trade,they would have all the resources they need in their colonies.

Faeelin · Nov 12, 2008

Zajir said:
With the colonies firmly within thier hands colonial powers like France and Britain, could become essentialy self-sufficient nations, taking raw materials from their colonies not external trade and producing in the mother country, and than sell this good back to thier colonies.
They would not be dependent on outside trade, have all the resources they need in their colonies.

But they can trade with their colonies when they become independent, and do.

Michele · Nov 12, 2008

Zajir said:
Without a great european war, the western nations could keep their colonies, they might be richer today.

Britain, for one, was already going ahead to relinquish your colonies, you know. It's not as if it had to leave India because of the war.
And the solution to your issue about a raw-materials-vs-finished-products-in-a-sheltered-system was the Commonwealth. It still works, today.

CanadianGoose · Nov 12, 2008

Faeelin said:
Well, look at the rapid economic develop of the Baltic nations right now. Convergence isn't a creature of myth and legend, it happens all the time. I'm curious why this wouldn't be the case.

Rapid economic development of the Baltics right now is (I'm not sure that Present tense is correct, they're in recession) based on consumer boom fueled by Swedish and Finnish credits. And guess what is collateral? Property built by USSR. Basically they're pawning Soviet assets. So, as impressive as it looks, this is not prediction of their performance IATL.

Faeelin said:
Cite? I ask because I'm curious about it.

Google on "Nokia USSR". Nokia was on the road to collapse in 1993-1994.

Faeelin said:
Why so? Estonia had extensive ties with the rest of Europe, and indeed the world, in the 1930s.

I'm not talking about ties with the rest of Europe. Finns enjoyed these ties too and were 20% under West European average GDP per capita by 1938 (see http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_03-2007.xls). They started to trade with USSR post-1945 and, everything else being the same, shot to 5-6% advantage over WE average by 1990. Estonians demonstrated willingness to sacrifice the advantage of Russian trade for ideological purposes. So, even assuming that "equality" bogeyman is true, wouldn't it be correct to suggest that Estonia would be at same "20% below WE" level it used to be according to most optimistic propagandists? Which places it above Portugal and below Spain.

By the way, the very same source gives same GDP per capita (within 1%) for Poland and USSR in 1938, so even statement that "Poland will be second-poorest Baltic country after USSR" is more of wishful thinking.

Faeelin said:
BTW, I find your argument that "economic trends pre 1939 would have continued indefinitely" a bit odd.

I'm not saying they must, but we should establish certain starting point and try to track tendencies, shouldn't we?

CanadianGoose · Nov 12, 2008

Michele said:
Britain, for one, was already going ahead to relinquish your colonies, you know. It's not as if it had to leave India because of the war.

War most certainly played a role.

V-J · Nov 12, 2008

Zajir said:
With the colonies firmly within thier hands colonial powers like France and Britain, could become essentialy self-sufficient nations,

Having colonies does not automatically equate to a true system of imperial preference/protectionism. That is something which has be deliberately implemented. And which essentially never really was, for a whole range of reasons, mostly to do with it not being a terribly good idea. (Certainly not in Britain - I can't speak for how far it went in France)

Zajir · Nov 12, 2008

V-J said:
Having colonies does not automatically equate to a true system of imperial preference/protectionism. That is something which has be deliberately implemented. And which essentially never really was, for a whole range of reasons, mostly to do with it not being a terribly good idea. (Certainly not in Britain - I can't speak for how far it went in France)

For what reasons is it not a good idea?