Would there be much more immigrants in Eastern Europe right now if it wasn't for Communism?

If the IMF numbers are to be believed...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
1980 Communist Poland GDP per capita: 4753
1980 Germany GDP per capita: 11273

So the ratio Germany to Poland during the height of Communism is (3/1) worse than today (1.7/1) and in 1938 (3/1) as the map on the last page showed. There's definitely post comunist development but the EU subsidies and extra trust in the Polish economy due to being inside the EU should not be ignored. Without WW2 and the Cold War there is no EU.

Without WWII and the Cold War we could expect more contacts, trade and movement between Germany and Poland, and between Poland and the rest of the world. Most likely there would be economic convergence, Poland slowly or more quickly catching up to Germany, depending on its policies. Compare to an example up north: in 1917, the GDP per capita was only half of that in Finland, a recently independent more eastern state, than in Sweden, a traditionally independent regional economic powerhouse. All through the 20th century Finland played catch-up (even if suffering disproportionately more due to WWIi) and by the 1980 came very close to Sweden. Germany and Poland would share a similar dynamic - especially if we remember that avoiding the massive destruction of WWII the Polish economy would be a lot stronger going into the 50s than IOTL.
 
Without WWII and the Cold War we could expect more contacts, trade and movement between Germany and Poland, and between Poland and the rest of the world. Most likely there would be economic convergence, Poland slowly or more quickly catching up to Germany, depending on its policies. Compare to an example up north: in 1917, the GDP per capita was only half of that in Finland, a recently independent more eastern state, than in Sweden, a traditionally independent regional economic powerhouse. All through the 20th century Finland played catch-up (even if suffering disproportionately more due to WWIi) and by the 1980 came very close to Sweden.
IMO we all would have less "contacts" than today, it's only the post war world which enabled relatively free flow of goods and services and those were enabled by institutions set up in the aftermath by the USA. Without those you'll still have large trade barriers everywhere to keep the powerful local industrialists safe from foreign competition. Today average WTO tariffs on goods are like 9 %, in the 1930s they were around 40-50 % (USA for example).

1939-2017 Poland would have more trade contact with Germany, but it will be most likely for less money, but also the total trade contact of Germany itself will be far broader set up, they'll have extensive trade with the Soviet Union, the Baltics and with China and so on, all those countries which were basically off limits during the Cold War.

Germany and Poland would share a similar dynamic - especially if we remember that avoiding the massive destruction of WWII the Polish economy would be a lot stronger going into the 50s than IOTL.
But no destruction in Germany means that Germany too will go into the 50s much stronger. And here's an extra - Germany doesnt lose the trademarks, intellectual property and patents, they'd be moving into the 50s far stronger than they did IOTL even if you correct for the destruction of the war itself.

The problem is that Germany by 1950 has about 150 years worth of head start, since Poland got swallowed by Tzarist Russia there was no one in charge willing to improve the education or economy there until 1918, the development in Germany in the meanwhile added up nicely.
 
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IMO we all would have less "contacts" than today, it's only the post war world which enabled relatively free flow of goods and services and those were enabled by institutions set up in the aftermath by the USA. Without those you'll still have large trade barriers everywhere to keep the powerful local industrialists safe from foreign competition. Today average WTO tariffs on goods are like 9 %, in the 1930s they were around 40-50 % (USA for example).

1939-2017 Poland would have more trade contact with Germany, but it will be most likely for less money, but also the total trade contact of Germany itself will be far broader set up, they'll have extensive trade with the Soviet Union, the Baltics and with China and so on, all those countries which were basically off limits during the Cold War.

I don't think we should expect the idea of free (or at least more free) trade in Europe to be entirely stillborn ITTL. No WWII and no Cold War does not mean an end to history. Europe would have a joint trade organisation or several, with a vested interest to work towards lesser trade barriers. I think it would be realistic to expect a gradual opening up of the borders and the diminishing of the trade barriers in Europe - even if it would not be to the extent it is in the EU today. Necessarily, there would be more economic activity in a non-Communist Eastern Europe than there was IOTL under the boundaries set up by Moscow and Comecon, so the trade between nations would be greater anyway - IMHO the question is about how much bigger the Eastern European economies would be, not if they would be.
 
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I don't think we should expect the idea of free (or at least more free) trade in Europe to be entirely stillborn ITTL. No WWII and no Cold War does not mean an end to history. Europe woudl have a joint trade organisation or several, with a vested interest to work towards lesser trade barriers. I think it would be realistic to expect a gradual opening up of the borders and the diminishing of the trade barriers in Europe - even if it would not be to the extent it is in the EU today. Necessarily, there would be more economic activity in a non-Communist Eastern Europe than there was IOTL under the boundaries set up by Moscow and Comecon, so the trade between nations would be greater anyway - IMHO the question is about how much bigger the Eastern European economies would be, not if they would be.
You'd have several competing imperial Systems - the British trade system, the French one, the Soviet one and the pseudo-imperial German one, they'd all be competing for short term gains, you can have multiple ones collaborating but in the end it's everyone for himself because there's no higher authority to show the way. Poland fall into the German economical orbit and most likely become a battleground state once the Soviets get their shit together to be able to trade with the rest of the world.

The problem of the European Communist system was not the economic activity itself, it was no different than in the 30s compared to the rest of the world, the problem was that their currencies became worthless because they focused on heavy industry and resource extraction and imported the consumer goods, deficit after deficit in an age before bailouts and "too big to fail", so they got the collapse and stagnation (those nations which did not get money from the West) in the 90s and recovery in the 00s as resource extraction got profitable again due to Chinas hunger for everything.
 
You'd have several competing imperial Systems - the British trade system, the French one, the Soviet one and the pseudo-imperial German one, they'd all be competing for short term gains, you can have multiple ones collaborating but in the end it's everyone for himself because there's no higher authority to show the way. Poland fall into the German economical orbit and most likely become a battleground state once the Soviets get their shit together to be able to trade with the rest of the world.

We can't really know how stringent this competition would be, how solid or porous the borders between blocs are and how various things would affect the European trade blocs - decolonization for example or the development of trade unions and the growth of multinational corporations. Generally, as private capital would increasingly account for the trade instead of national planning, almost axiomatically, the push would be towards comparative liberalization like IOTL. Unless the major European nations become centrally planned economies like the USSR or its satellites, of course, whic I see as a less likely development. Remember that if we avoid a world war or even two of them, the European nations would lose one or two periods of time that tended to boost the state-run centralization and national planning of the economy through wartime expediency. In many ways, the post-WWII Europe was built on the wartime experiences of government-directed economic development. Lose such disruptions and the trends they affected, and ITTL European economies might in some ways be even surprisingly liberal in comparison to the OTL.


The problem of the European Communist system was not the economic activity itself, it was no different than in the 30s compared to the rest of the world, the problem was that their currencies became worthless because they focused on heavy industry and resource extraction and imported the consumer goods, deficit after deficit in an age before bailouts and "too big to fail", so they got the collapse and stagnation (those nations which did not get money from the West) in the 90s and recovery in the 00s as resource extraction got profitable again due to Chinas hunger for everything.

If the Eastern European economic activity is geared towards producing goods to domestic and foreign markets to answer an actual demand instead of just fulfilling essentially political, government-set quotas, then the system is already healthier and more competitive than the Warsaw Pact systems IOTL. ITTL, Eastern Europe will produce a lot of consumer goods in various fields, and will in many things be able to compete with Western Europe at the very least in price but sometimes also in quality (at least in terms of the price/quality ratio). Even if there are trade barriers in Europe, Eastern European economies will be more developed than IOTL simply because they are geared towards the markets unlike IOTL - never mind if their wider market access might be in many ways lacking.
 
We can't really know how stringent this competition would be, how solid or porous the borders between blocs are and how various things would affect the European trade blocs - decolonization for example or the development of trade unions and the growth of multinational corporations. Generally, as private capital would increasingly account for the trade instead of national planning, almost axiomatically, the push would be towards comparative liberalization like IOTL. Unless the major European nations become centrally planned economies like the USSR or its satellites, of course, whic I see as a less likely development. Remember that if we avoid a world war or even two of them, the European nations would lose one or two periods of time that tended to boost the state-run centralization and national planning of the economy through wartime expediency. In many ways, the post-WWII Europe was built on the wartime experiences of government-directed economic development. Lose such disruptions and the trends they affected, and ITTL European economies might in some ways be even surprisingly liberal in comparison to the OTL.

If the Eastern European economic activity is geared towards producing goods to domestic and foreign markets to answer an actual demand instead of just fulfilling essentially political, government-set quotas, then the system is already healthier and more competitive than the Warsaw Pact systems IOTL. ITTL, Eastern Europe will produce a lot of consumer goods in various fields, and will in many things be able to compete with Western Europe at the very least in price but sometimes also in quality (at least in terms of the price/quality ratio). Even if there are trade barriers in Europe, Eastern European economies will be more developed than IOTL simply because they are geared towards the markets unlike IOTL - never mind if their wider market access might be in many ways lacking.
Yeah, it all depends on how Europe looks like without the war, you're thinking about less government in peoples lives giving entrepreneurs more range of movement to act, i on the other hand think of a multi sided Cold War with lots of wealth pissed away due to trying to hold the colonies together (UK, France), rampant militarization to make up for weaknesses (Germany) and because you're working with ineffective economic theories (USSR).
 
In response to several arguments presented herein, I would argue that some form of European economic union was in the cards, the Germans would be pursuing their Customs Union, the French and British and USSR would seek opportunity and allies, so you have a lot of bilateral trade agreements crosscutting the efforts to unify. By the 2000s and beyond we might finally be seeing the sort of political integration that is the EU but I think economic unity potentially comes a generation earlier. For example a Poland, be it the rump Congress emerging in a CPs "victory" to the Republic never succumbing to either Germany or the USSR, might be the poor backwater for cheap labor and dirty industry but I doubt it stagnates there. In fact I would argue that it looks like Canada, actually having higher per capita GDP than Germany just smaller, benefitting from it bridging east to west, it is Europe's (and Germany's especially) window to the USSR. The Baltic republics would be the same if not more so given they are the sea ports. One can argue that a Romania might surge forward on oil wealth then stagnate as its reserves fall off. Bulgaria might get wealthy on the Europe to Ottoman (Turkey) and beyond trade. And so forth. The economies of Eastern Europe will evolve, some win big, some do fine and some drop the ball. I do not think the British ever build an Imperial Union, free trade will reign and perhaps they rather than the USA builds the global "free trade" environment. The USA and Germany are both export driven industrial powers, the USA has a better internal market, so Germany will be as protectionist inwardly but likely more "free trade" on the global stage. I am not confident that France can build an insular bloc so it too will trade heavily. Thus the only isolated "trade" bloc would be the USSR, and without a captive East Europe it either goes into autarky or gets more engaging.

The biggest driver will not be the tariff barriers but the liberalization on immigration, even if only for work rather than settlement. It is the trickier issue really. Language will be a barrier but here I imagine that English is still a strong global language for commerce, German is common in sciences and engineering, French is preferred in diplomacy and other elitist circles, so one of these three will be spoken by someone in the room. I would hope that the notions of letting the best folks move to the jobs takes hold a generation earlier and this will feed European integration, not perhaps governance but in the spirit that Europe is a whole. That would be rather healthy.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
In response to several arguments presented herein, I would argue that some form of European economic union was in the cards, the Germans would be pursuing their Customs Union, the French and British and USSR would seek opportunity and allies, so you have a lot of bilateral trade agreements crosscutting the efforts to unify. By the 2000s and beyond we might finally be seeing the sort of political integration that is the EU but I think economic unity potentially comes a generation earlier. For example a Poland, be it the rump Congress emerging in a CPs "victory" to the Republic never succumbing to either Germany or the USSR, might be the poor backwater for cheap labor and dirty industry but I doubt it stagnates there. In fact I would argue that it looks like Canada, actually having higher per capita GDP than Germany just smaller, benefitting from it bridging east to west, it is Europe's (and Germany's especially) window to the USSR. The Baltic republics would be the same if not more so given they are the sea ports. One can argue that a Romania might surge forward on oil wealth then stagnate as its reserves fall off. Bulgaria might get wealthy on the Europe to Ottoman (Turkey) and beyond trade. And so forth. The economies of Eastern Europe will evolve, some win big, some do fine and some drop the ball. I do not think the British ever build an Imperial Union, free trade will reign and perhaps they rather than the USA builds the global "free trade" environment. The USA and Germany are both export driven industrial powers, the USA has a better internal market, so Germany will be as protectionist inwardly but likely more "free trade" on the global stage. I am not confident that France can build an insular bloc so it too will trade heavily. Thus the only isolated "trade" bloc would be the USSR, and without a captive East Europe it either goes into autarky or gets more engaging.

The biggest driver will not be the tariff barriers but the liberalization on immigration, even if only for work rather than settlement. It is the trickier issue really. Language will be a barrier but here I imagine that English is still a strong global language for commerce, German is common in sciences and engineering, French is preferred in diplomacy and other elitist circles, so one of these three will be spoken by someone in the room. I would hope that the notions of letting the best folks move to the jobs takes hold a generation earlier and this will feed European integration, not perhaps governance but in the spirit that Europe is a whole. That would be rather healthy.
Why would the Baltic states be a window to the USSR? St Petersburg exists you know.
 
I think that it is possible that you might manage to even get some sort of European integration going. There was talk pre-Nazi of some sort of Franco-German accord. Anything is imaginable.

It's just that, without specifying what exactly happens to eastern Europe and all of Europe, I don't think it's possible to be very specific about what outcomes are possible. Practically all you can say is that, assuming eastern Europe gets to enjoy substantially more open and functional politics than OTL, it's quite likely to have seen substantially more immigration at an earlier date. (Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, and Latvia, particularly, seem likely to be more attractive on account of their likely relative wealth.) We really can't go into more detail without becoming highly specific about the scenario.
 
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