“Hanania is arguing that because unionization hurts businesses, unions have decided to give up their selfish pursuits, or governments cut them loose.”
That’s not what I argued. I think these institutions are so pathological that they don’t adjust to reality and end up making everyone but perhaps their corrupt bosses much worse off.
The way unions declined is not they stopped being selfish but through the capitalist process where they get outcompeted. This probably hasn’t happened as much in Europe because government coercion in favor of unions is stronger.
I agree in my article, that "The ability of capitalism to defeat communism in the Cold War was in part due to its greater efficiency." That argument would also apply to the phenomenon of unionization.
I ask a more detailed question: "But why wouldn’t the same argument apply to the expansion of government itself? Why don’t governments recognize the cost of bureaucracy and regulation to the economy, and start cutting them loose?"
"The answer is robots. Robots de-unionized the country." This hit unions hard, but had little to no effect on other forms of government economic coercion, like the DMV, Civil Rights, or general regulation.
I agree that automation is a part of the capitalist process, since "Robots are a product of capitalism." My purpose is to get a bit more granular and detailed in the specific methods by which capitalism undermined unions, besides general "competition," which doesn't seem to undermine public teacher's unions, for example.
I also wonder if the Amazon internal research showing how diversity reduces unionization could contribute to the fact that Europe is more unionized than America. But you could be right that Europe is simply more ideologically leftist than the United States. Thanks for your response. Looking forward to the rest of your series on this topic.
Neither this article, nor Hanania‘s article are actually about trade unions. This one, with its fairly typical conflagration of fascism and socialism believed only by online American libertarians - is about government and state intervention in the economy. Trade unions are about working people who organise, and that’s it. People in those organised unions can believe what they want, otherwise. Many would be socially conservative, and to confuse the working guy with upper class liberalism is as ahistorical as assuming he’s a natural fascist or communist.
That some of these organisations were criminal, that others were coercive and so on is besides the point. That’s true of any organisation, it’s true of the corporate forces (often armed) who acted against the unions, and it’s true of most parties in the democratic system.
I asked you a direct question from a materialistic perspective. Please defend your position with material evidence and less ad hominem, calling me a badly educated American libertarian.
But it’s too stupid to answer. It’s like arguing with a creationist who denies the fossil evidence and that the earth is 6,000 years old. It takes far longer to argue against this nonsense, arguing with people who are not even wrong is pointless.
Hilarious that you follow Walt Bismarck, Nate Silver, Razib Khan, Noah Smith, Niccolo Soldo, Rachel Haywire, Cremieux, Scott Alexander, Second City Bureaucrat... But like, someone asking you to differentiate between socialism and fascism is too scary!
It’s too stupid to answer, as I said. It would take too much time. Also stop stalking other people’s following groups, weirdo but you are right that I need to unfollow a lot of people.
What do you think of Orwell's comments on Moseley, that in an English context (and by extension, an Anglo-American context) bully boys in uniform look ludicrous and are more figures of fun than people to take seriously?
FDR only seems conservative when compared to pre Stalin Bolshevism. He desegregated the government and laid all the groundwork for the civil rights movement. One suspects he would be very proud of what his country has turned into almost a century after his death.
One wonders what the future would look like if the Soviets were allowed to join the axis powers…
I agree that FDR's "conservatism" is an illusion in retrospect. But FDR's segregationist vice president, John Nance Garner, was instrumental for his coalition. Federal segregation wasn't the historical norm after the Civil War. Wilson resegregated the government; it had already been desegregated:
"The question of federal segregation was first discussed in high administration circles at a closed cabinet meeting on April 11, 1913. At the Cabinet meeting Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson argued for segregating the Railway Mail Service. He was disturbed by whites and African Americans working in the Railway Mail Service train cars. The workers shared glasses, towels, and washrooms." (https://postalmuseum.si.edu/research-articles/the-history-and-experience-of-african-americans-in-america%E2%80%99s-postal-service-3)
Regarding a Nazi-Soviet alliance, I am convinced by the Icebreaker thesis, but I am also convinced that Hitler would never give up the dream of Lebensraum. Both powers were necessarily going to backstab each other at some point -- the only question is who would pull the trigger first. An alliance wouldn't have prevented that, but simply made the betrayal greater.
The issue was deeply geopolitical and ideological. Both powers were expansionist. Suggesting a Nazi-Soviet alliance is sort of like suggesting that native Americans ally with colonial Europeans. That did sometimes happen, but "Manifest Destiny" would have eventually resurfaced.
There is one picture of Nazi Heinz Guderian smiling together with Jewish Soviet commander Semyon Krivoshein at the Nazi-Soviet parade in 1939. If you look at that picture, do you believe that those two men could have ever fought side-by-side without one eventually betraying the other? Catholic aristocrats in Germany tried to assassinate Hitler -- but the Jewish Soviet command would have played nice? Color me skeptical.
I think that such a betrayal might have been tempered in scope when the extent of American power and opposition to the axis forces became clear. Or if an axis alliance developed nuclear weapons as a mutual defense measure and then found options for war limited. Maybe I should write a novel about it.
Britain could have been contained by focusing on the Mediterranean. No naval invasion was required. Statistically, the German high command was no less intelligent than any other nation's leadership. Ad hominem non-withstanding.
Britain was also running every deficit imaginable, leading to the loss of its empire shortly after the war.
It sounds like you're arguing that I thought a Nazi-Soviet alliance was possible. If you read through my comments in the very post I'm responding to, you'll find that's exactly was I was just arguing against.
My specific point is that the Nazis didn't need Russia's resources to immobilize Britain. "There is no way Germany is going to fight the Anglos without the resources of Russia." It had sufficient resources. The problem was that a Russian invasion was imminent.
Ludendorff did not have the same level of economic and media control that the British or French exercised. His power was hamstrung by the monarchy, and to an extent by conservatives like Hindenburg and Catholic aristocrats in Bavaria and Austria. Ludendorff, in fact, never "takes over" as undisputed dictator. The problem from 1914 to 1917 is that the Germany economy was not nationalized for "total war."
Instead of assertions, let us speak in facts, dates, and events. The 1916 Berlin strike could have never happened within Ludendorff "in charge." He did not have sufficient reach over the civilian government. This situation only started to change in 1917, and by then, it was too late.
Consider the French mutiny of 1917. The French were worse in many respects than the Germans in maintaining national unity and morale. But there was no mention in the French press of the mutiny, because the French had total control over their media. The Germans, as a result, were completely unaware that a French mutiny had occurred, and were unable to take advantage of the chaos. The German media, by contrast, persistently allowed for criticism of Ludendorff. He was scapegoated by the press throughout the war. It was a disaster for morale, and accelerated the (inevitable) collapse.
You're criticizing Ludendorff on some strategic error, "keeping troops in the east to feed the starving Germans." Whether or not you are correct on this point, this is irrelevant to my argument. I am not suggesting that each strategic decision of Ludendorff was perfect (we could debate each battle endlessly!) but that the overall structure of the German economy was insufficient to maximize the German war machine. This is something Ludendorff despaired over, but was powerless to change.
Regarding the Nazis, in almost every engagement, the Nazis inflicted greater casualties on the enemy than they received. This is impossible to achieve with mere "luck, looting, and complete mismanagement." Unless your argument is that the Soviets, British, Americans, and French had greater levels of "complete mismanagement."
FDR was an incredibly intelligent and gifted man, and was clearly capable of Machiavellianism: his entire political career was Machiavellian. How else can you explain working with segregationists to help Stalin, without the word Machiavellian? You seem to have a bias for underestimating the intelligence of your ideological enemies.
American geo-strategic interests aligned with communism, so it is difficult speculate on the internal motivations of the relevant actors without evidence. China was not "lost" by FDR. The Sino-Soviet Split already had begun by 1956. Nixon arrived in China in 1972.
Without Lend-Lease, the Soviet Union would have fallen. I don't believe that ideological anti-communism and the denigration of German military management is helpful for analyzing the facts. The dual hatred of both communists and Germans was shared by Churchill, and such conservative, narrow-minded attitudes lost Britain the empire.
The Russian war effort was less "intense" because of a lack of centralization, but for the average citizen, the experience was more intense, so perhaps a different word can be used.
I disagree that access to America would change (war/GDP)%. It would increase GDP, but not war/GDP. Germany had access to those markets until 1917, but obviously American investors favored Britain.
You mention your number for Britain is inflated, because it only measures British GDP but not empire GDP. I tried to adjust for that, but got wildly different figures from Boston University. They claim the total GDP in 1914 was at most (including Canada, Australia, India) £7 billion pounds:
This gives a total ratio of 46.4% of war/GDP. Not as high as 52%, but still beating the other figures you provide.
One of the reasons behind France's bad performance is that the Germans occupied 40% of France's steel processing plants in the first few months of war. France was also politically divided and had a mutiny. Austria-Hungary was, like Russia, extremely poorly centralized.
The "Ludendorff plan" would have been to not only match Britain's performance, but to exceed it. In practical terms, I don't think he could have increased German war production by more than 20%. He does mention in his memoirs that the army was constantly plagued with all kinds of shortages, including ammo and mortar. Given that so many of the battles were extremely close, with heavy casualties on both sides, small percentage increases in efficiency could have yielded compound results over several years.
The problem for Ludendorff was the political will did not exist to centralize the economy under single party rule. I don't think it was possible, given the opposition of the monarchy. This is somewhat like the complaints of Prigozhin that Shoigu did not supply his troops because he was corrupt.
1. It was never "under Ludendorff." You're evading my point.
2. Britain had a command economy during WWI and WWII.
3. The Nazis defeated France, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece. They would have defeated the Soviets without Lend-Lease. It's funny that you call the Poles "third rate" and the Soviets a "mismanaged mess." So who exactly was better than the Germans at managing a war? The British and Americans? By what margin? Show me the casualty rates, and get back to me on that one.
4. "They got themselves in a war they couldn't possibly win" -- that says nothing about their ability to manage the war once it began. The Soviet invasion was inevitable, and the German invasion prolonged their defeat by several years.
The Soviets would not have survived without Lend Lease.
5. The post-war transition went according to FDR's plan. MacArthur was anti-FDR and that's why he claimed it was "botched." He was sacked for being obtuse. You seem to adopt the same attitude.
“Hanania is arguing that because unionization hurts businesses, unions have decided to give up their selfish pursuits, or governments cut them loose.”
That’s not what I argued. I think these institutions are so pathological that they don’t adjust to reality and end up making everyone but perhaps their corrupt bosses much worse off.
The way unions declined is not they stopped being selfish but through the capitalist process where they get outcompeted. This probably hasn’t happened as much in Europe because government coercion in favor of unions is stronger.
I agree in my article, that "The ability of capitalism to defeat communism in the Cold War was in part due to its greater efficiency." That argument would also apply to the phenomenon of unionization.
I ask a more detailed question: "But why wouldn’t the same argument apply to the expansion of government itself? Why don’t governments recognize the cost of bureaucracy and regulation to the economy, and start cutting them loose?"
"The answer is robots. Robots de-unionized the country." This hit unions hard, but had little to no effect on other forms of government economic coercion, like the DMV, Civil Rights, or general regulation.
I agree that automation is a part of the capitalist process, since "Robots are a product of capitalism." My purpose is to get a bit more granular and detailed in the specific methods by which capitalism undermined unions, besides general "competition," which doesn't seem to undermine public teacher's unions, for example.
I also wonder if the Amazon internal research showing how diversity reduces unionization could contribute to the fact that Europe is more unionized than America. But you could be right that Europe is simply more ideologically leftist than the United States. Thanks for your response. Looking forward to the rest of your series on this topic.
Neither this article, nor Hanania‘s article are actually about trade unions. This one, with its fairly typical conflagration of fascism and socialism believed only by online American libertarians - is about government and state intervention in the economy. Trade unions are about working people who organise, and that’s it. People in those organised unions can believe what they want, otherwise. Many would be socially conservative, and to confuse the working guy with upper class liberalism is as ahistorical as assuming he’s a natural fascist or communist.
That some of these organisations were criminal, that others were coercive and so on is besides the point. That’s true of any organisation, it’s true of the corporate forces (often armed) who acted against the unions, and it’s true of most parties in the democratic system.
Do you disagree that fascism, from an economic perspective, shared many features with socialism?
I agree that this the general badly educated American libertarian slant, but that’s it.
I asked you a direct question from a materialistic perspective. Please defend your position with material evidence and less ad hominem, calling me a badly educated American libertarian.
But it’s too stupid to answer. It’s like arguing with a creationist who denies the fossil evidence and that the earth is 6,000 years old. It takes far longer to argue against this nonsense, arguing with people who are not even wrong is pointless.
Best we all just unfollow.
Hilarious that you follow Walt Bismarck, Nate Silver, Razib Khan, Noah Smith, Niccolo Soldo, Rachel Haywire, Cremieux, Scott Alexander, Second City Bureaucrat... But like, someone asking you to differentiate between socialism and fascism is too scary!
It’s too stupid to answer, as I said. It would take too much time. Also stop stalking other people’s following groups, weirdo but you are right that I need to unfollow a lot of people.
If you were truly interested in saving time, you wouldn't reply at all. I think you see me as a scarecrow to scapegoat and beat up on.
What do you think of Orwell's comments on Moseley, that in an English context (and by extension, an Anglo-American context) bully boys in uniform look ludicrous and are more figures of fun than people to take seriously?
FDR only seems conservative when compared to pre Stalin Bolshevism. He desegregated the government and laid all the groundwork for the civil rights movement. One suspects he would be very proud of what his country has turned into almost a century after his death.
One wonders what the future would look like if the Soviets were allowed to join the axis powers…
I agree that FDR's "conservatism" is an illusion in retrospect. But FDR's segregationist vice president, John Nance Garner, was instrumental for his coalition. Federal segregation wasn't the historical norm after the Civil War. Wilson resegregated the government; it had already been desegregated:
"The question of federal segregation was first discussed in high administration circles at a closed cabinet meeting on April 11, 1913. At the Cabinet meeting Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson argued for segregating the Railway Mail Service. He was disturbed by whites and African Americans working in the Railway Mail Service train cars. The workers shared glasses, towels, and washrooms." (https://postalmuseum.si.edu/research-articles/the-history-and-experience-of-african-americans-in-america%E2%80%99s-postal-service-3)
Regarding a Nazi-Soviet alliance, I am convinced by the Icebreaker thesis, but I am also convinced that Hitler would never give up the dream of Lebensraum. Both powers were necessarily going to backstab each other at some point -- the only question is who would pull the trigger first. An alliance wouldn't have prevented that, but simply made the betrayal greater.
The issue was deeply geopolitical and ideological. Both powers were expansionist. Suggesting a Nazi-Soviet alliance is sort of like suggesting that native Americans ally with colonial Europeans. That did sometimes happen, but "Manifest Destiny" would have eventually resurfaced.
There is one picture of Nazi Heinz Guderian smiling together with Jewish Soviet commander Semyon Krivoshein at the Nazi-Soviet parade in 1939. If you look at that picture, do you believe that those two men could have ever fought side-by-side without one eventually betraying the other? Catholic aristocrats in Germany tried to assassinate Hitler -- but the Jewish Soviet command would have played nice? Color me skeptical.
I think that such a betrayal might have been tempered in scope when the extent of American power and opposition to the axis forces became clear. Or if an axis alliance developed nuclear weapons as a mutual defense measure and then found options for war limited. Maybe I should write a novel about it.
Go off king
Britain could have been contained by focusing on the Mediterranean. No naval invasion was required. Statistically, the German high command was no less intelligent than any other nation's leadership. Ad hominem non-withstanding.
Britain was also running every deficit imaginable, leading to the loss of its empire shortly after the war.
It sounds like you're arguing that I thought a Nazi-Soviet alliance was possible. If you read through my comments in the very post I'm responding to, you'll find that's exactly was I was just arguing against.
My specific point is that the Nazis didn't need Russia's resources to immobilize Britain. "There is no way Germany is going to fight the Anglos without the resources of Russia." It had sufficient resources. The problem was that a Russian invasion was imminent.
We don’t know what exactly the betrayal would have looked like.
What do you think it would look like?
I have not!
Ludendorff did not have the same level of economic and media control that the British or French exercised. His power was hamstrung by the monarchy, and to an extent by conservatives like Hindenburg and Catholic aristocrats in Bavaria and Austria. Ludendorff, in fact, never "takes over" as undisputed dictator. The problem from 1914 to 1917 is that the Germany economy was not nationalized for "total war."
Instead of assertions, let us speak in facts, dates, and events. The 1916 Berlin strike could have never happened within Ludendorff "in charge." He did not have sufficient reach over the civilian government. This situation only started to change in 1917, and by then, it was too late.
Consider the French mutiny of 1917. The French were worse in many respects than the Germans in maintaining national unity and morale. But there was no mention in the French press of the mutiny, because the French had total control over their media. The Germans, as a result, were completely unaware that a French mutiny had occurred, and were unable to take advantage of the chaos. The German media, by contrast, persistently allowed for criticism of Ludendorff. He was scapegoated by the press throughout the war. It was a disaster for morale, and accelerated the (inevitable) collapse.
You're criticizing Ludendorff on some strategic error, "keeping troops in the east to feed the starving Germans." Whether or not you are correct on this point, this is irrelevant to my argument. I am not suggesting that each strategic decision of Ludendorff was perfect (we could debate each battle endlessly!) but that the overall structure of the German economy was insufficient to maximize the German war machine. This is something Ludendorff despaired over, but was powerless to change.
Regarding the Nazis, in almost every engagement, the Nazis inflicted greater casualties on the enemy than they received. This is impossible to achieve with mere "luck, looting, and complete mismanagement." Unless your argument is that the Soviets, British, Americans, and French had greater levels of "complete mismanagement."
FDR was an incredibly intelligent and gifted man, and was clearly capable of Machiavellianism: his entire political career was Machiavellian. How else can you explain working with segregationists to help Stalin, without the word Machiavellian? You seem to have a bias for underestimating the intelligence of your ideological enemies.
American geo-strategic interests aligned with communism, so it is difficult speculate on the internal motivations of the relevant actors without evidence. China was not "lost" by FDR. The Sino-Soviet Split already had begun by 1956. Nixon arrived in China in 1972.
Without Lend-Lease, the Soviet Union would have fallen. I don't believe that ideological anti-communism and the denigration of German military management is helpful for analyzing the facts. The dual hatred of both communists and Germans was shared by Churchill, and such conservative, narrow-minded attitudes lost Britain the empire.
Yeah I would like to see some GDP numbers. Do you have them?
The Russian war effort was less "intense" because of a lack of centralization, but for the average citizen, the experience was more intense, so perhaps a different word can be used.
I disagree that access to America would change (war/GDP)%. It would increase GDP, but not war/GDP. Germany had access to those markets until 1917, but obviously American investors favored Britain.
You mention your number for Britain is inflated, because it only measures British GDP but not empire GDP. I tried to adjust for that, but got wildly different figures from Boston University. They claim the total GDP in 1914 was at most (including Canada, Australia, India) £7 billion pounds:
https://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/april03.html
Not sure if the discrepancy here is because of conversion to USD?
I also looked up cost of war:
http://www.eastsussexww1.org.uk/cost-first-world-war/index.html
£3.251 billion pounds.
This gives a total ratio of 46.4% of war/GDP. Not as high as 52%, but still beating the other figures you provide.
One of the reasons behind France's bad performance is that the Germans occupied 40% of France's steel processing plants in the first few months of war. France was also politically divided and had a mutiny. Austria-Hungary was, like Russia, extremely poorly centralized.
The "Ludendorff plan" would have been to not only match Britain's performance, but to exceed it. In practical terms, I don't think he could have increased German war production by more than 20%. He does mention in his memoirs that the army was constantly plagued with all kinds of shortages, including ammo and mortar. Given that so many of the battles were extremely close, with heavy casualties on both sides, small percentage increases in efficiency could have yielded compound results over several years.
The problem for Ludendorff was the political will did not exist to centralize the economy under single party rule. I don't think it was possible, given the opposition of the monarchy. This is somewhat like the complaints of Prigozhin that Shoigu did not supply his troops because he was corrupt.
1. It was never "under Ludendorff." You're evading my point.
2. Britain had a command economy during WWI and WWII.
3. The Nazis defeated France, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Greece. They would have defeated the Soviets without Lend-Lease. It's funny that you call the Poles "third rate" and the Soviets a "mismanaged mess." So who exactly was better than the Germans at managing a war? The British and Americans? By what margin? Show me the casualty rates, and get back to me on that one.
4. "They got themselves in a war they couldn't possibly win" -- that says nothing about their ability to manage the war once it began. The Soviet invasion was inevitable, and the German invasion prolonged their defeat by several years.
The Soviets would not have survived without Lend Lease.
5. The post-war transition went according to FDR's plan. MacArthur was anti-FDR and that's why he claimed it was "botched." He was sacked for being obtuse. You seem to adopt the same attitude.
Why do you deny that the British utilized a total war economy? Do you have any evidence for this claim?