I know it is impossible, but it is cool to think about it, right? Would Germany still become fascist? Would Japan invade China?
What if the Great Depression never happened?
- Thread starter Polskamoze
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This is a bit of a "chicken and egg" question. That is to say, the "corporatist" approach to economic policy taken by the US government - one characterized by high tariffs, high income taxes, high levels of government spending, and "industrial policy" - that turned the recession of 1929 into the Great Depression also served to convince both National Socialists in Germany and militarists in Japan that the same sort of policies would bring prosperity to their countries. However, because the German and Japanese economies were much smaller and less diversified than that of the United States, doing these things in Germany and Japan required the conquest of neighboring countries.
So, if President Hoover had listened to Andrew Mellon, and treated the recession of 1929 with the same sort of low-tax, low-spending, laissez-faire, laissez-passer policies that cured the (much deeper) recession of 1921, then both German and Japanese economists might have been less well disposed to corporatist policies. This, in turn, would have weakened the arguments of both National Socialists in Germany and militarists in Japan.
To put things another way, the big impetus for both German National Socialism and Japanese expansionism was the idea that "we need to go out and conquer more territory so we can survive in world of large autarkic economies."
So, if President Hoover had listened to Andrew Mellon, and treated the recession of 1929 with the same sort of low-tax, low-spending, laissez-faire, laissez-passer policies that cured the (much deeper) recession of 1921, then both German and Japanese economists might have been less well disposed to corporatist policies. This, in turn, would have weakened the arguments of both National Socialists in Germany and militarists in Japan.
To put things another way, the big impetus for both German National Socialism and Japanese expansionism was the idea that "we need to go out and conquer more territory so we can survive in world of large autarkic economies."
Civil rights would have advanced faster,the 1920s looked like the early 1950s in regards to the civil Rights movement,the depression delayed that.The KKK was having internal power struggles at the time so resistance wouldn't be as unified.
I think the Keynesian approach has a lot to recommend itself. As I understand, increased government spending helps to recharge a stagnant economy. That is, priming the pump and the array of New Deal alphabet soup programs help to add to and increase an upward spiral.
Whereas increased tariffs and increased taxes during a recession add to a downward spiral.
Fantastic! A bunch of people would still be alive! 
But pure utopian and high trajectory fiction is actually rather boring (unless it somehow plays off dystopian as one of two struggling possibilities).
No question which is better to live under! For a time on the business lecture circuit, the story of the supposed Chinese curse of "interesting times" was told, although I suspect this is in whole or in part an urban legend.
But pure utopian and high trajectory fiction is actually rather boring (unless it somehow plays off dystopian as one of two struggling possibilities).No question which is better to live under! For a time on the business lecture circuit, the story of the supposed Chinese curse of "interesting times" was told, although I suspect this is in whole or in part an urban legend.
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What is the POD?
A more aggressive fed combined with the US avoiding significant deflation and no trade war, perhaps resulting in a downturn no worse (albeit different) than the one in 1920?
A more aggressive fed combined with the US avoiding significant deflation and no trade war, perhaps resulting in a downturn no worse (albeit different) than the one in 1920?
Herbert Hoover wins reelection and the Democrats continue to seem totally hapless, I suppose. The 1920s was interesting in that there genuinely seemed like there was no path for the Democrats to take back power. I presume that would continue if a big fat old recession couldn't win them the Presidency.
At the state level the floods of 1925 & 1927 showed how morbund some state governments were. While the divide was was not Democrat/Republican the aftermath of those catastrophic floods saw a change in local & state government in the Mississippi River basin. ie: Huey Long would have not gone that far had the flood not shaken confidence in the New Orleans elites that ran Louisiana.
Nation wide the established political leaders were becoming more & more stuck in the ides they had learned forty years earlier. Had they not f...d up the bubble of the 1920s they'd have fallen over some other issue.
The Tricky Turnaround !!
Yes, initially a very positive change.
And we even get past earlier globalization and the loss of many good-paying manufacturing jobs in rich countries. And we handle automation and the whole metaphor of "having a job," and we do so rather easily and comfortably.
But then, some greater crisis happens for which we are unprepared.
Yes, initially a very positive change.
And we even get past earlier globalization and the loss of many good-paying manufacturing jobs in rich countries. And we handle automation and the whole metaphor of "having a job," and we do so rather easily and comfortably.
But then, some greater crisis happens for which we are unprepared.
What does protectionism and high taxes have to do with corporatism? I'm not sure you know what corporatism means, I think you mean State Capitalism.
Corporatism is a system of social organization. It comes from the Latin word for body. It means a system whereby social corporations (not for profit companies) are organized based in different groups in society. You'll find corporatism in the doctrine of Fascism not the Smoot Holley tarrif act.
I think this member has in mind that these are all different ways to louse up a free enterprise, laissez faire system, and this is a perfectly credible position. It just doesn't happen to be my position.
The Nazi takeover of Germany doesn't happen. Hitler and the NSDAP had been campaigning since 1923, and never cracked 5% of the vote until the Depression began to bite. Germany may lapse into authoritarianism, but no wild-hair-on-fire radicals like the Nazis will get anywhere near the levers of power.
The Solid South crumbles a generation sooner. There were cracks in the Democrats' absolute domination of the South in the 1920s. For instance, the first Republican U.S. Representative from Texas since Reconstruction was elected in 1920, and re-elected five times. The next was elected in 1954 (not counting a special election in 1950). Hoover carried Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia in 1928. Basically, the attachment to the Democrats formed by Confederate nostalgia and the struggle to overturn Reconstruction was ceasing to bind. (As did black attachment to the Party of Lincoln. "What have you done for us lately?" is a powerful mantra.) But the Depression-era landslides for Roosevelt swept away any Republican growth, and cemented the institutional dominance of the Democrats in state politics for a long additional period.
OTL, the fall of the Southern Democrats took 50 years, from the mid-1950s to the 2000s; it would take as long without the Depression, but would begin 30 years sooner. A possible knock-on from this is the development of a significant Republican faction in the white-supremacist ruling element of the South, which means a significant white-supremacist faction in the GOP. Until 1948, the national Democratic Party was silent on civil rights for blacks, being hostage to its Southern wing. Republicans occasionally spoke out on issues such as lynching, but couldn't be arsed actually to do anything. The vestigial Republican state organizations in the South were represented at the national conventions, and traded their votes for Republican inaction. When the South started shifting OTL, the white-supremacy regime was already on the back foot, and by the mid-1960s had been defeated. (With the passage of the 24th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they could no longer monopolize votes or enforce segregation.) Post-1965 Southern Republicans didn't have to take explicit positions on these issues, and the national party could continue its moderate but sustained support for civil rights measures.
Assume no Depression, and growth of the GOP in the South to respectable levels in the 1930s-1950s. That means Southern Republicans join the white-supremacy regime explicitly, and as with the Democrats before 1948, the national party would become entangled with Jim Crow. Not a pretty picture.
Another effect could be on the Hollywood film industry. OTL, the Depression made labor dirt cheap; the studios could afford enormous numbers of extras and craft workers for "big" productions. In a more prosperous era, some of those productions would be economically impossible. (General prosperity would increase box office revenue, but not as much as the cost of labor would go up, IMO.)
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I understand that, I'm just saying that that member used an incorrect term. I've heard that mistake many times, confusing Corporatism/Corporativism for State Capitalism/Crony Capitalism. Considering that vast differences between those things I thought it would be best to clarify. I've learned a lot of things from being corrected by people, peer review is what keeps us accurate and honest in my opinion.
A great place to visit and probably to live!
But . . . a great utopia is usually boring to read about, I'm sorry, but it is.
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the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) said:
"Wars and storms are best to read of, but peace and calms are better to endure"
https://books.google.com/books?id=G...peace and calms are better to endure"&f=false
"Wars and storms are best to read of, but peace and calms are better to endure"
https://books.google.com/books?id=G...peace and calms are better to endure"&f=false
When I hear the term corporatism, I'm think of government by, for, and of the corporations. That is, I'm thinking crony capitalism.
If the distinction's vital, maybe we need other terms not prone to this kind of confusion.
Deleted member 1487
Depends why it doesn't happen. No WW1 is almost necessary or at least no US entry. Wilson and the Democrats then stay in power and avoid the sorts of policies that caused the Depression, plus there is less economic overexpansion without US entry into the war. Either way there is no WW2 at we know it, no Nazis and a very different world in general, but OP really needs to say why the Great Depression doesn't happen, because there needs to be a POD that goes far enough back to prevent the political and economic reasons for it.
I'm aware that any form of government can go to hell in a handbasket and end up bad.
But, it actually sounds pretty good. That you'd have multiple centers of power, harder to corrupt, the acknowledgement that not everything is for profit, that there are also broader human goals, etc.
On the other hand, I think the Nazis were largely successful in taking over universities. That would not be my idea of multiple power centers.
I think Mussolini and the fascist party tried to take control of the universities and every other institution in Italy.