(Relatively) Peaceful 20th Century

War isn't terrible. It certainly is not good, arguably bad. But it is not terrible. If it did not exist at all, life would not change much from 10,000 BC. Without any major conflicts, especially not a World War, we would not have Jets, Computers, Radios, Nuclear Energy (the best non-renewable source), and many other technologies. Now would be less futuristic than retrofuturistic.
There are also some benefits of not having a World War. Since imperialism was never defamed by the Germans and made difficult by the stress of bloodshed, the world is overall richer. Neither Africa nor southern/south-east Asia has a reputation of poverty as they are lead by the most powerful nations on Earth.
The people of these regions are still free as many (but not all) of these more powerful states are democratic, and will grant these regions some autonomy. The only reason there are so many nations today is because of things like the United Nations which exists as an anti-war measure after WW2.
When most people talk about a world without a WW1, they mostly think about the obvious, direct effects, but rarely the unexpected. What are some other consequences of a (relatively) Peaceful 20th Century?
 
What you're describing is an old, often repeated theory about human development. And while it sounds very appealing to suggest that conflict stimulates technological and social development, it is a overly-simplistic theory. And one not borne out by any type of demonstrable proof. Most human development is driven by basic human needs for food, health, security (on a personal basis, not a geopolitical sense), and meeting more secondary needs for pleasure and fulfillment.

I'll limit myself to your initial claims: jet engines, electronic computing, radio technology were all developed outside of purely military applications, and are based on outgrowths of practical scientific and engineering principles. One could even argue that military spending has stifled us in some ways; resources dedicated to killing people would have been better spent on infrastructure, agriculture, or heavy industry. And it goes without saying that the millions killed in any war are thus unable to contribute to an economy in any way.

A member from another thread several years ago said it best: what we got from the World Wars was impressive development in certain areas, but not in others. If we had a peaceful 20th century, we'd probably be at a similar level of technological development. Funding that went to the Manhattan Project would have been used elsewhere, and we'd have better (insert civilian product here....cancer drugs, cell phones, railroad engines, etc.). Rather than the diffused, sometimes un-directed R&D of civilian companies, we got the concerted, directed efforts of military funded companies. But anyone that has delved into military records will see just how wasteful those programs can be. Deadends in prototyping that don't work; squandered money on a half-dozen competing versions; failures of technology lacking in other, supporting technology; pointless endeavors in some general's or admiral's weird pet project.

So, to actually address your question: a peaceful 20th century sees us a relatively comparable level of technology. Several hundred million more people in Europe and its colonies (depending on how one measures a non-existent Spanish Flu; as well as knock-on effects to birth rates). Said colonies probably independent, but with much closer ties to former controllers. Perhaps even several more white-dominated states in south and east Africa; maybe even coastal Algeria as a constituent part of France. German-language of much greater importance in chemistry, physics, and engineering. Britain still declining, but resting more securely on its laurels as former Mistress of the Seas (and Finance and Banking). USA still rising to dominant position in most economic and technological metrics; but not AS dominant without the post-WWII void it was able to fill in currency, oil, trade, and colonial policies.

But: eugenics continues as a a semi-permissible policy of the ethno-nation state, without the shock that the Holocaust provided to wisen people up. Lots of minority and disadvantaged populations end up sterilized, institutionalized, or otherwise secluded from full participation in society.
European colonialism continues to exploit the resources and peoples more effectively without budgets diverted for the Wars.


To put a moral assessment: a much better century...but also somewhat worse century for some groups.
 
Without the war, tech will focus on agriculture, i.e tractors, refrigeration, millions will be alive and soldiers not in trenches will be home breeding children making more markets for agriculture.

Commercial radio and communications and civil transport will move ahead driven by greater resources available. Well off people want stuff. People will make them better stuff.

Even with peacetime military budgets, people will want advanced fire control and radar. All the great powers will be researching mil tech stuff still. With greater budgets in the 20s and 30s because the economies are in better shape without war.

I dispute the assumption that war drives tech. If it does, it's narrow and focused and temporary and losses ground because after the war people and economies are worse off.
 
In this universe, the US either remains isolationist or isn't the US. Luzon and The South Philipines each become their own states. However, Mexico attacking the States isn't unlikely, and the US would likely win, so they would gain Chihuahua, Senora, and Baja California (Renamed/Translated as Lower California or potentially South California). The Great Depression never happens. Overall, the US becomes more conservative and a Communist or Syndicalist US would not be surprising, and they would become the USSR of this timeline.
The most powerful nation in this universe is the UK. They have all of the British Empire (including a docile, plus new conquests in southern asia, like Siam, Nepal, and southern parts of China, but without Eastern Togoland, Tanzania, Southwest Africa, or Northern New Guinea. The UK would be powerful, but any kind of socialist uprising would destroy them.
France likely becomes socialist, especially if the US (if you can call them that) is syndicalist. If the French Republic doesn't exile, most of the colonies would be lost. Germany, the UK, and maybe more would rush to absorb their colonies. France would keep Algeria and Tunisia.
 
Without the war, tech will focus on agriculture, i.e tractors, refrigeration, millions will be alive and soldiers not in trenches will be home breeding children making more markets for agriculture.

Commercial radio and communications and civil transport will move ahead driven by greater resources available. Well off people want stuff. People will make them better stuff.

Even with peacetime military budgets, people will want advanced fire control and radar. All the great powers will be researching mil tech stuff still. With greater budgets in the 20s and 30s because the economies are in better shape without war.

I dispute the assumption that war drives tech. If it does, it's narrow and focused and temporary and losses ground because after the war people and economies are worse off.
I'd argue for the same points, to be honest.
Think of how many able-bodied men would be sent to study in universities or develop new tech ideas by their own if they had not been sent to die in the trenches...
 
There are also some benefits of not having a World War. Since imperialism was never defamed by the Germans and made difficult by the stress of bloodshed, the world is overall richer. Neither Africa nor southern/south-east Asia has a reputation of poverty as they are lead by the most powerful nations on Earth.
The people of these regions are still free as many (but not all) of these more powerful states are democratic, and will grant these regions some autonomy. The only reason there are so many nations today is because of things like the United Nations which exists as an anti-war measure after WW2.

I disagree with your notion that inhabitants of the Third World would be better off under the paternalism of the West. For all their rhetoric of a civilizing mission, colonialism was inherently an extractive endeavor. Infrastructure was only built insofar as it could facilitate commerce and the nature of commerce in the colonies was always to extract raw materials while keeping the colony underdeveloped industrially so as to be a captive market for the finished goods of the metropolitan. This meant that the majority of the beneficiaries of the colonial system were Western companies and businessmen, like plantation owners, mine owners and teak traders. Simply put, the colonies may have looked prosperous but the majority of the people did not benefit from the façade of prosperity.

I feel that many in the West underestimate the brutality of colonial rule, the willingness of the colonizer to use violence and acts of humiliation to keep the population in check. From Lyautey's scorched earth politices in Morocco to Reginald Dyer's massacre in Amritsar, the West was willing to cement it's rule by any means necessary, which is why I find your assumption that these "democratic" states would grant their colonies automony out of the goodness of their hearts difficult to believe. It is clear that Wilsonian principles of self determination did not apply outside of Europe.

The reason why there are so many post-colonial nations today is partly because no empire envisaged ever giving up their colonies and when independence came, it was often in a haphazard and suboptimal fashion. Britain had many chances to create a single entity from the British Raj, with a federalized structure and firm protections for minorities. With luck and foresight, it could even have remained as a dominion. Lord Mountbatten was in favour of a one-state solution for India but had to concede that by 1945, events had spiraled out of control and Britain had to accept a partition.

In short, the 20th Century without the 2 world wars would probably result in greater prosperity for Europe but less so for the rest of the world.
 
Think of how many able-bodied men would be sent to study in universities or develop new tech ideas by their own if they had not been sent to die in the trenches...
A 1% loss of population equates to a permanent loss of about 7% GDP per year for the next 30-40 years as that 1% is predominantly young males with an expected highly productive life in front of them.
 
In short, the 20th Century without the 2 world wars would probably result in greater prosperity for Europe but less so for the rest of the world.

The rest of the world would benefit too. Not until 1993 would trade, as a proportion of the global economy, reach the levels it had attained by 1913; the international flows of capital, not until 1996. Foreign investment only grew 5% from 1914-1930 compared to the 90% increases in the 15 years to 1914. While tariffs grew in the latter part of the 19th century they were largely overcome by technological advances and the free-trade areas within European empires. However, trade restrictions mushroomed after WWI, exacerbated by the rampant protectionist policies of the countries created by the break-up of the Ottoman, German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Protectionist impulses still lurk, however, often manifesting themselves in currency devaluations to "improve the balance of trade.”

wwQhMzS.jpg


World War I destroyed the global integration of capital markets. The Gold Standard never returned despite attempts after the war to revive it. The system of issuing bonds and shares internationally failed to recover from the war, and stock exchanges listed fewer international shares. The ownership of stocks and bonds from other countries shrank dramatically.

Te9FHad.jpg
 
I'd argue for the same points, to be honest.
Think of how many able-bodied men would be sent to study in universities or develop new tech ideas by their own if they had not been sent to die in the trenches...

Or the gas chambers. Or calculated brutality at the hands of the Germans/Japanese/Soviets/Italians/Romanians/insert war criminals of choice here.

It also hurt technological and economic growth that the calculated brutality of the twentieth century dictatorships disproportionately targeted the educated classes—the near-annihilation and disenfranchisement of the Polish intelligentsia is one of the more famous examples, as is Pol Pot’s campaign against the literate.

Now, genocides can still happen without the world wars—but must they? As brutal as the Tsars were, they didn’t quite match Stalin’s record. Without WWI/WWII, the totalitarian mass murders might never happen at all.
 
The rest of the world would benefit too. Not until 1993 would trade, as a proportion of the global economy, reach the levels it had attained by 1913; the international flows of capital, not until 1996. Foreign investment only grew 5% from 1914-1930 compared to the 90% increases in the 15 years to 1914. While tariffs grew in the latter part of the 19th century they were largely overcome by technological advances and the free-trade areas within European empires. However, trade restrictions mushroomed after WWI, exacerbated by the rampant protectionist policies of the countries created by the break-up of the Ottoman, German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Protectionist impulses still lurk, however, often manifesting themselves in currency devaluations to "improve the balance of trade.”

wwQhMzS.jpg


World War I destroyed the global integration of capital markets. The Gold Standard never returned despite attempts after the war to revive it. The system of issuing bonds and shares internationally failed to recover from the war, and stock exchanges listed fewer international shares. The ownership of stocks and bonds from other countries shrank dramatically.

Te9FHad.jpg
The classical gold standard in place before 1913 helped facilitate international trade and capital mobility by limiting fluctuations in exchange rates. However, the amount of world trade going on eventually would've outpaced the amount of gold, even without WW1. In a gold standard, the country with a trade deficit must pay for it by shipping physical bars of gold to the exporting country. As the net exporting country accumulates gold reserves, its currency will inflate and its exports will become less competitive. The country with the trade deficit experiences deflation of its currency that can cause unemployment, but also makes its exports more competitive on the world market.

In theory these gold transfers will make a country's trade deficits and surpluses sum to zero in the long run, but the gold standard couldn't adjust to the massive volumes of world trade or trade deficits in the major North Atlantic economies in the interwar period. A gold standard also significantly constrains policymakers like central banks, whose ability to adjust the money supply is limited by the amount of gold the country has.

On a related note about international trade patterns, the Leninist theory that competition for colonies contributed to WW1 doesn't really hold up well, it over-applies 18th century mercantilism to 500 years of European colonial relationships. After 1849 Britain practiced free trade with its Empire, and most other colonies were free to trade with areas outside the imperial metropole as well. Colonies before 1914 did trade a bit more with their respective metropoles relative to a default gravity model of trade (amount of bilateral trade is a function of two countries' distance and each country's GDP), but that's largely due to the colonial governments purchasing the inputs to build infrastructure (ex. the Indian Governor-General Ordering steel to build a railroad or something).

And it’s true. Colonies may have been acquired and exploited, but they were not the primary destination for the capital exports of the Great Powers. Far from it. The “external investment outlet for the surplus savings” of France and Germany was overwhelmingly Europe, the United States, and Latin America. These regions accounted for ~80% of cumulative French and German investments, with Europe dominant. For the UK, less than 20% of the total went to the so-called ‘dependent colonies’, a category which excludes the rich self-governing ‘white dominions’ which are obviously not part of the Global South today. Most of the 80% of British foreign investment took place in North America, Argentina, and Australasia. (Source)

table14.jpg
Open door = free trade, or uniform tariff policy for everyone. Assimilated = the colonies were treated as provinces of the metropolis, so the tariff policy for foreign goods was identical for metropolis and colony. Preferential = metropolitan goods were levied zero or nominal tariffs, whereas goods from other countries had higher duties.

table15.jpg cehme21-2.jpg
 
The rest of the world would benefit too. Not until 1993 would trade, as a proportion of the global economy, reach the levels it had attained by 1913; the international flows of capital, not until 1996. Foreign investment only grew 5% from 1914-1930 compared to the 90% increases in the 15 years to 1914. While tariffs grew in the latter part of the 19th century they were largely overcome by technological advances and the free-trade areas within European empires. However, trade restrictions mushroomed after WWI, exacerbated by the rampant protectionist policies of the countries created by the break-up of the Ottoman, German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Protectionist impulses still lurk, however, often manifesting themselves in currency devaluations to "improve the balance of trade.”

wwQhMzS.jpg


World War I destroyed the global integration of capital markets. The Gold Standard never returned despite attempts after the war to revive it. The system of issuing bonds and shares internationally failed to recover from the war, and stock exchanges listed fewer international shares. The ownership of stocks and bonds from other countries shrank dramatically.

Te9FHad.jpg
You say the "rest of the world", but most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America aren't mentioned there at all.
 
You say the "rest of the world", but most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America aren't mentioned there at all.

Exactly. Dorknought, I'm afraid that you have seemed to overlook my point that the international trade present in during the colonial era was extractive in nature and did not benefit the colonies. In fact, your statistics seem to completely prove my point, that without the 2 world wars and loss of empire, the Western powers would continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the world. The nature of trade in 1993, between sovereign countries including the rapidly industrializing countries of East Asia, was very different to the nature of trade in 1913.
 
. . . as is Pol Pot’s campaign against the literate. . .
It was even cruder than that. It was the rural tribal people defeating and then tyrannizing the city people.
cambodia_ethnic_1972.jpg

https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/cambodia_ethnic_1972.jpg
Cambodia 1972

The Khmer Loeu, medium orange region in the east, became the Khmer Rouge, at least the ones who didn’t slip across the border to Vietnam to escape conscription.

The city people were sent to regions in the country where famine was particularly severe. And it was famine and starvation (active verb) with the Khmer Rouge believing their own lie that they were succeeding in tripling rice production and selling rice to China based on this fiction.
http://cambodialpj.org/article/justice-and-starvation-in-cambodia-the-khmer-rouge-famine/
 
. . . France likely becomes socialist, especially if the US (if you can call them that) is syndicalist. . .
I’d like to read some AH in which we have mixed economies of a type which have never existed — but could have.

These could be lousy, could be pretty middle-of-the-road, or could wax optimistically. :)
 
You say the "rest of the world", but most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America aren't mentioned there at all.

Here is where UK's foreign investments were going:
2VgzeS1.jpg

As you can see the bulk was going to the Empire although a significant proportion was in the USA, Latin and South America.

From the earlier graph, there could be another £1,200 million of UK funds to invest by 1920 without WW1.
 
Exactly. Dorknought, I'm afraid that you have seemed to overlook my point that the international trade present in during the colonial era was extractive in nature and did not benefit the colonies. In fact, your statistics seem to completely prove my point, that without the 2 world wars and loss of empire, the Western powers would continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the world. The nature of trade in 1993, between sovereign countries including the rapidly industrializing countries of East Asia, was very different to the nature of trade in 1913.

Greater prosperity in Europe without the war would be entirely due to the lack of wealth destruction, double digit inflation, death or injury to millions of productive workers, erection of tariff walls, and collapse of international trade and investment. You have an over inflated perception of what 'colonies' were providing to this. Canada, Australia, NZ all progressed from Colonies to Self Governing Dominions due to the investment made in them, both human and capital. How was this not a benefit?
 
Here is where UK's foreign investments were going:
As you can see the bulk was going to the Empire although a significant proportion was in the USA, Latin and South America.

From the earlier graph, there could be another £1,200 million of UK funds to invest by 1920 without WW1.
What's actually meant by "investment"? It cant be productive capacity and industries, the steel output of India at independence was pathetically small.
 
What's actually meant by "investment"? It cant be productive capacity and industries, the steel output of India at independence was pathetically small.
Gas, tramways, electric power and light, railways, shipping mining, petroleum, nitrates, banks and other financial institutions, plantations or lands, manufacturing and trading etc. Return on investments from Argentina was 4.9%, Brazil 4.8%, Chile 5.9% but only 1.9% from Paraguay or 3.5% from Mexico/

In 1913, reflecting open trade, India was importing 2/3rds of its steel from Belgium and Germany.
 
I like these kind of graphs. I would like a reference if one is readily available.

Its from: The Problem of international investment : a report by a study group of members of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Oxford University Press, 1937.

Here is the relevant page.


ZIZgGTo.jpg


If you are interested in looking into this further there is:

War and the Private Investor: A Study in the Relations of International
Politics and International Private Investment.


Eugene Staley, Assistant Professor of Economics in the University of Chicago;
Professeur-Adjoint à l'Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva

DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC. Garden City, New York 1935
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