Monday, December 8, 2008

Liberal Fascist Economics

Was Nazi science good science?

Not the newest question under the sun. Not as if mlle. was sitting around wondering about it all day long. She finds the post she's referring to "disturbingly persuasive." The fun is from the commenariat.

What about Nazi economics? Militarization, mass infrastructure spending, removing Jews from top positions in the economy, and autarky -- seemed to work pretty well for them in the 1930s, no? Would a similar policy work here? Now that free trade/globalization/open borders immigration has taken us to the brink of a Great Depression 2.0, maybe it's worth considering.
Whooo. And Fred doesn't know when to stop.
Why not? Think about it: we run massive trade deficits. While other countries would reciprocate against our tariffs, on balance, the U.S. economy would benefit, as we are now net importers. Our manufacturing sector would expand, creating new high-paying blue collar jobs. At the same time, enforcing our immigration laws would raise wages for unskilled workers by reducing the supply of unskilled labor from Mexico and points south. And I don't think the economy would skip a beat if folks like Robert Rubin were asked to bow out.

Some more militarization wouldn't hurt either. Why not expand our ground forces by a couple million men? That would take a bite out of unemployment, and help raise civilian wages, by tightening up the labor pool, and with that many men we could finally clean out the nest of vipers that is the Pashtun areas of Pakistan.
Indeed. Ask Robert Rubin (& "folks" like him) to bow out, not on the basis of whatever the hell his/their policies might be, but because he's one of the "chosen people." There's pragmatism at work.

1 comment:

The Rioja Kid said...

Actually, Hitler's war-footing economy in the 1930s was probably the first example of a genuine Keynesian stimulus program, and was warmly praised by Keynes in an excruciatingly ill-judged preface to the 1936 German edition of the General Theory.