German economy & industry without the World Wars?

Medics weren't lower middle class, if there wasn't a great landowner in your village, then your medic would usually be the wealthiest person there. The Doktorwagen wasn't a lower middle class car, thus.

Other than that, yes, I know about the boulevard revolution (but consider how many towns were utterly unaffected by that), motorways may not be implausible without the two world wars and the Nazis, but they're certainly not a given.

Improving infrastructure more gradually can mean a lot of things and doesn't have to cater exclusively to cars and lorries.
 
Medics weren't lower middle class, if there wasn't a great landowner in your village, then your medic would usually be the wealthiest person there. The Doktorwagen wasn't a lower middle class car, thus.
I was using the term "middle class" in the Edwardian era sense, i.e. factory owners at the top down to academics, lawyers and physicians at the bottom with the term upper class reserved for the high nobility sitting in the House of Lords, even the landed gentry was considered just middle class back then. This all changed when New Labour started applying the term middle class to skilled workers in their campeign, but that wasn't until the 1990's even IOTL and many a country physician was barely making a living back then.
 
Can we be sure about this? I only want to question this and dont say that I have an answer.

Just that OTL after the Great Depression fascism and non democrative movements were on the rise. Can we be sure that in this alternate timeline there wont be a change that leads to totalitatian states/dictatures. The technological means of that were created OTL and would be created TTL.

Also it was the world wars that largely discredited rabid nationalism. Without them how long will that remain an incredibly powerful force? Could it be harvested for the above goals? Is it impossible for example a tsarist Russia to limp along as an absolutist monarchy till the means of stregthening the governments grip become available?

What im trying to say is that I wouldnt take it for certain that everyone is moving toward democracy and eventually everyone will get there.

I was projecting the trends to 1914 forward just 5-10 years. What happens 15 to 20 years out in the volitile era we call the Depression is a different matter.

The radicalization of the middle-class & their shift to the right was aggravated/ changed by the circumstance of the Great War. Absent the war and the accompanying economic stress the middle and upper classes have less pressure to discard the still prevalent Liberal attitudes of the latter 19th Century.

*Note that I am using the term liberal in its 19th or early 20th Century European meaning. Not the demogogic hack usage in the late 20th Century US
 
I was using the term "middle class" in the Edwardian era sense, i.e. factory owners at the top down to academics, lawyers and physicians at the bottom with the term upper class reserved for the high nobility sitting in the House of Lords, even the landed gentry was considered just middle class back then. This all changed when New Labour started applying the term middle class to skilled workers in their campeign, but that wasn't until the 1990's even IOTL and many a country physician was barely making a living back then.
Ah, OK. Well, at least over here the term "Mittelschicht" has been used with a rather wide meaning from the late 1950s onwards, including vast stretches of white collar workers.
 
You need to think of class in terms of social status rather than income. As a C18th English song points out, a Kentish yeoman farmer had a larger income than a landed gentleman in the North of England and in the C19th and early C20th the "labour aristocracy", mainly printers and skilled machinists, could afford domestic servants and had larger incomes than most white collar workers and small shopkeepers.
 
The absence of the OTL world wars are huge PODs, so there are likely to be significant consequences. However, the concept of the Autobahn is not exactly splitting the atom. The development of automobile infrastruture could conceivable be either faster or slower, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't see any modern state being shackled to rail forever.

Long island in NY was already prototyping limited access highways before WWI, so an Autobahn-style system becomes inevitable somewhere. While the US is likely where a system begins, it may be into the 1950s or 1960s before the first such system appears, especially as there might not be a Great Depression requiring remedy in the form of labor-intensive infrastructure projects.
 

Anchises

Banned
I didnt say that it would suceed. But by 1914 the sozialist were becoming the leading power of the Reichtag. I dont assume that this election result would change for the worse for the socialists. The conservatives might prefer either fascism - or some other rightist-absolutist idea to socialists. Part of the liberals - especially the monetarily better off when facing rule by socialism might prefer - i dont say they would - a rightist absolutist regime that leaves them more money.

So when faced by a socialist led state - which they were - the rightist antidemocrats especially if they get a charismatic leader might have enough of a base to give it at least a try.

And mostly Im not sure that the yunkers will go down without a fight.

I agree that Germany is the least likely to go down this path but i wouldnt say its impossible.

The SPD, through gerrymandering and a restricted franchise "only" became the strongest party by a relatively small margin despite a winning the popular vote by a much bigger margin. So the SPD has to reach electoral and constitutional reform if they ever hope to reach the chancellorship.

This can only happen in cooperation with both left- and right wing liberals. So the SPD has no real chance of realizing their economic goals for at least a decade or two.

In a surviving German Empire, the historical shift of the SPD away from marxism to left-center social democracy is likely to happen much faster than in Weimar and the FRG. This is caused by demographic, economic and systemic trends.

So if the SPD is in a position to seriously "take over" they are probably relatively tame center-left. The SPD/USPD split is still going to happen, Luxemburg won't stay in a reformist SPD forever.

Demographic and economic trends will force the SPD to broaden their electoral appeal. White collar workers will rapidly grow as a demographic, the same is true for high qualified industry jobs. The SPD as a marxist special interest party for the "industrial proletariat" won't be able to win elections in the 30s, especially not if we see another more radical party on the left.

And a left-center progressive party there is no way that the right would try to overthrow the democratic order. Not after decades with a working parliament.
 
China and perhaps parts of Africa not withstanding, this world will have known no major war since Napoleon's time, two centuries of peace will be a powerful reason *not* to do anything too radical. Especially as the lack of warfare and overall violence will mean a population much more sensitive to its effects.
 
Long island in NY was already prototyping limited access highways before WWI, so an Autobahn-style system becomes inevitable somewhere. While the US is likely where a system begins, it may be into the 1950s or 1960s before the first such system appears, especially as there might not be a Great Depression requiring remedy in the form of labor-intensive infrastructure projects.
New York's parkways were a very different beast, though. But I agree that the US might pioneer freeways, but if that's delayed there by, say, two decades, that means th rest of the world might not look at all as Autobahn-ed as it does today.
 

kernals12

Banned
One interesting effect of no world wars is on the development of the welfare state. After each war, governments mostly left the high tax rates in place and diverted spending from war to social programs. It's hard to get people to except large tax increases during peacetime so maybe safety nets are less generous than IOTL.
 
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