Recovering from partisan disaster

[El_Machinae]

"You should vote Liberal. I guess we need a total collapse before we can rebuild"

"Huh, both Japan and Germany were extremely rightwing and they're probably the best recovery stories in mod.... waitaminute, is that why you vote Conservative, because you want the Cons to ruin everything first?" was the reply.

It was funny to watch, but it did make me wonder, despite the silence it invoked in me. Every once in awhile, wingnuts get in control of a country and ruin it. And, sometimes, those nations end up recovering after the 'total disaster'. Is there any correlation between who ruined the country and the success of the recovery?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I think we can say, at least, that those who ruin a country, rarely are the ones who fix it.

 

[stinkubus]

Germany and Japan's ability to rebuild in the fashion they did was heavily influenced by the United States who rewrote both national constitutions after the war. Social Democratic welfare states were imposed and their ability to militarize was constrained. This factor was probably far more determinative because both impose serious limitations on their internal politics.

 

[amadeus]

The premise is flawed: Germany and Japan were already industrial economies, and who led them before the wars and then after the wars?

 

[stinkubus]

Neither of the ruling classes in West Germany or Japan were deposed, AFAIK. The Soviets had no compunctions about killing Nazis, tho.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Shoots grow after a forest fire.

I'd rather keep the forest, I'm sure the animals do too!

 

[El_Machinae]

The premise is flawed: Germany and Japan were already industrial economies, and who led them before the wars and then after the wars?

Can we control for that variable?

 

[stinkubus]

Can we control for that variable?

We can't run controlled experiments on human society. It's a big mistake, imo, to treat this stuff like science, and any attempt is a very reactionary frame because the idea that our relations are governed by immutable laws would mean that politics are actually pointless.

 

[amadeus]

Can we control for that variable?

Of course everything is a variable, but two cases immediately come to my mind: East Germany and Paraguay.

Various attempts have been made in explaining the discrepancy between West and East Germany: I’ve read arguments, and I don’t think they’re very strong, that the eastern parts of prewar Germany were already less industrial and more agricultural than that of say, the Ruhr region. I don’t think that alone, nor the expropriation of capital goods to the Soviet Union, explains why East Germany lagged behind the West.

In the case of Paraguay, it suffered terrible losses in the War of the Triple Alliance, proportionally greater than that of the Axis powers or occupied countries, but even a change in leadership the country didn’t recover.

Avoiding all of the moral questions (I think killing people and destroying infrastructure to pave the way for potential future growth is wrong) I still don’t think there’s a solid basis, even with the imperfect nature of social science, to say we can practice the broken windows parable on a national scale.

 

[Arwon]

"You should vote Liberal. I guess we need a total collapse before we can rebuild"

"Huh, both Japan and Germany were extremely rightwing and they're probably the best recovery stories in mod.... waitaminute, is that why you vote Conservative, because you want the Cons to ruin everything first?" was the reply.

It was funny to watch, but it did make me wonder, despite the silence it invoked in me. Every once in awhile, wingnuts get in control of a country and ruin it. And, sometimes, those nations end up recovering after the 'total disaster'. Is there any correlation between who ruined the country and the success of the recovery?

You can't just say "Liberal" without specifying what that means locally

 

[innonimatu]

Neither of the ruling classes in West Germany or Japan were deposed, AFAIK. The Soviets had no compunctions about killing Nazis, tho.

Plenty of former card-carrying nazis also evaded prosecution in eastern Germany. Apart from the notorious ones, people were needed to run the country. If they changed their ways and all that... applied in both germanys.

East Germany was most hit with the border movement, losing the industry in Silesia also.

There are some who argue that the general destruction of industry in continental Europe allowed for its rebuilding with more efficient technologies than those still in use in unscathed countries. I find that argument dubious. Places not destroyed have more resources available for investment.

 

[stinkubus]

There are some who argue that the general destruction of industry in continental Europe allowed for its rebuilding with more efficient technologies than those still in use in unscathed countries. I find that argument dubious. Places not destroyed have more resources available for investment.

I think at least part of this mentality comes from how we measure economic well being. Anyone opining on these issues would've been current or come of age after the concept of GDP was developed. If a hurricane wipes out a town that later rebuilds all that construction contributes to GDP even though any actual improvement is going to be marginal relative to the expense. It's a largely wasteful version of Keynesian stimulus although probably superior to the US militarized model.

And again conscious choices on the part of the United States also played a huge role. The Marshall Plan provided redevelopment assistance and left Africa for European colonization. To US planners the rebuilding of Europe and our new allies in the Pacific rim was viewed as a weapon in the cold war. Had the Soviets been damaged the point that the US didn't consider them a threat I don't know if a similar program would've been undertaken.

 

[Hygro]

We can't run controlled experiments on human society. It's a big mistake, imo, to treat this stuff like science, and any attempt is a very reactionary frame because the idea that our relations are governed by immutable laws would mean that politics are actually pointless.

Disagree on this point but agree on your total argument.

@El Mac, Japan's postwar recovery, and its subsequent economic formation, was driven, by American standards, by left leaning planning from what little I know.

 

[amadeus]

Japan's postwar recovery, and its subsequent economic formation, was driven, by American standards, by left leaning planning from what little I know.

I would strongly disagree with this. Bullet points being: Japan’s government was less interventionist as tax receipts were even lower than the U.S., favorable tax conditions for saving rather than consumption, the low value of the yen under Bretton Woods making exports more competitive, and what were lower labor costs in general compared to the other industrial economies.

The role of MITI, the old Ministry of International Trade and Industry, has long had its role overstated in the West. They did encourage the Japan Development Bank to make loans to the steel industries, but they also made some blunders too: they would not grant credit to a new company to import American transistors. That company? Sony! They also told another company that Japan had enough car manufacturers as it was and didn’t need another. That company? Honda!

 

[Hygro]

I don’t know much, but I have a friend who studied it in college and said the social economic formation within the companies was designed by some utopian American progressive. I know the macroeconomic policy was to push exports + suppress wages as part of a growth strategy, which is not left wing in any sense.

 

[Modder_Mode]

"You should vote Liberal. I guess we need a total collapse before we can rebuild"

"Huh, both Japan and Germany were extremely rightwing and they're probably the best recovery stories in mod.... waitaminute, is that why you vote Conservative, because you want the Cons to ruin everything first?" was the reply.

It was funny to watch, but it did make me wonder, despite the silence it invoked in me. Every once in awhile, wingnuts get in control of a country and ruin it. And, sometimes, those nations end up recovering after the 'total disaster'. Is there any correlation between who ruined the country and the success of the recovery?

You'll find that cultural diversity is a large contributing factor of when a society collapses rather than primarily partisan voting. The more diverse a country becomes the less social cohesion there is that keeps a country or society intact, the tribalism that ensues is counter-productive within the country and any enemies/adversaries of that country can take advantage of this instability.

 

[Senethro]

You'll find that cultural diversity is a large contributing factor of when a society collapses rather than primarily partisan voting. The more diverse a country becomes the less social cohesion there is that keeps a country or society intact, the tribalism that ensues is counter-productive within the country and any enemies/adversaries of that country can take advantage of this instability.

Therefore?

 

[Birdjaguar]

HBR article on Japan from 1981. Pretty interesting coverage of how and why Japan prospered.

https://hbr.org/1981/01/behind-japans-success

 

[El_Machinae]

@Modder_Mode, in the two examples in the OP, cultural diversity didn't seem to contribute to the collapse. Rather, the government behaved in a way that caused others initiate the collapse from the outside.

Of course everything is a variable, but two cases immediately come to my mind: East Germany and Paraguay.

Various attempts have been made in explaining the discrepancy between West and East Germany: I’ve read arguments, and I don’t think they’re very strong, that the eastern parts of prewar Germany were already less industrial and more agricultural than that of say, the Ruhr region. I don’t think that alone, nor the expropriation of capital goods to the Soviet Union, explains why East Germany lagged behind the West.

I think we often talk about the best policies to recover from a disaster. And, rightly, we are cognizant of what we want the rubble to look like before we discuss the odds of successful recovery. I was mostly wondering if the underlying politics before the disaster was predictive.

 

[stinkubus]

We can't know in advance how material conditions or institutional structures of power will be altered after the event in question, so I don't see how they could be predictive a priori unless neither are significantly altered.