13 Comments

Wow, another great one - thank you! I love the side comment on debts, it rhymes with the approach raised by Matthew Klein and Michael Pettis that I think is fascinating with regard to the German economy.

Also, I love how the additional fiscal/monetary lens trickles down to the individual level through Separation Allowance (and the financial angle broadly) - a fascinating angle that is mostly ignored in Germany. I feel the standard approach (followed in schools etc.) is very psychological at best or even metaphysical/idealist, focuses on propaganda and a kind of vague "madness of the masses" narrative. Of course Arendt adds some nuances, but still. (A psychological lens of course also nicely fits late modernity thinking...)

I'm probably following only 20% of the argument here, but I wonder how the individual financial incentives through e.g. Seperation Allowances play out for Russia these days, where the general narrative here is similarly focused on Putin's propaganda and metaphysical ideas of Great Russia etc. How does the Russian economy shoulder the burdens of the war and maybe even redistributes it to keep some core interest groups motivated? Is this about the small money sent to families for their man to fight, about redistribution from oligarchs (+KGB power plays) to a few population groups, are people to bad off that it is quite "cheap" to win their favor, or is it really just about lies, power, and repression?

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The drawing of a parallel between Nazi Germany and East Asian Development states seems very problematic. Perhaps look at Robert Wade to get context. Or perhaps look to Japanese armament in the fifty years before WW2. Or think about the world's biggest and oldest military-industrial complex, which this year benefits from its biggest defence budget ever. And is rooted in every single constituency in its nation. Which again leads to a blind angle in the above discussion: the popular gratitude for the employment created by the arms industry. Especially in nations coming out of a crisis

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"When we think about regime stability, be it in Ukraine, or Russia, in China or Turkey, or for that matter in embattled Western states at moments of crisis..."

At some point I would like to see you set aside, for one moment, your own brilliant and extremely sophisticated crisis management strategies and consequent messaging to Western political/economic elites on how to guarantee an acceptable level of political stability in times of poly crisis and engage instead in a thought experiment in which you do the opposite--try to develop a fiscal sociology and cultural messaging narrative for the heterodox populist forces in the U.S. (now in the process of emerging)--with a potential title being "The Political economy of mainstream Democrat and Republican party authoritarianism and how to overcome it."

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A+...a definite two cups of coffee's worth of deep reading this morning.

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It goes back before Schumpeter, to Marx at leas.

I have long maintained that neoliberals (Muh Markets!) and Marxists have the same basic materialist philosophy in common, but they differ only as to the conclusions that reach as to Homo Economicus.

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thank you - thought provoking.

Along the claim that Aly is wrong and the plunder contributed only 25%-28% to the German war effort it would be good to see an assesement of the contribution squeezed from the jews as well as the contrbution of the progressive taxation - Aly claims that only 10% was paid by the "folk" which you seem to ridicule but offer only a very partial refutation.

it is definitely interesting to understand fiacal sourcing structure that enabled the Nazis to balance keeping folk if not happy at least patient. in a way you are saying that the Nazis respected the pact between the regime and its people and that hlped them to maintain their support throught rather than through coertion. A pretty Orwelian tradeoff - keep quiet and we wil ltake good care of you. sounds a bit like China (before the realestate collapse that is still taking place)

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Rome's welfare state, such as it was, was funded by plunder, too, as is America's today. The model is neither original nor sustainable.

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"To see how implausible the idea is, imagine for a second how unstable the international order would be if an aggressor could expect to fund anything like 70 percent of the costs of conquest out of conquest. War would pay for itself!"

I believe that was one of the claims made by the Bush regime at the start of the Iraq War.....

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Speer noted in his memoirs that they, the nazis, couldn't ask the population for the sacrifices that a democratic State (GB) was able to.

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It confirms my opinion of Germany as a collection of merchants more interested in commerce than anything else. Whatever fosters it, they are in favor of, anything that might limit it, they prevaricate, delay, or avoid getting involved as much as possible. Ukraine is just the latest example.

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a possible footnote to more than one of your arguments:it's ol'uncle schmitt once again,nehmen,teilen weiden,1968.

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