Permanent War Economy - Question of Deliberate Policy

Question of Deliberate Policy

Some authors emphasise that the permanent arms economy was not something planned by capitalists. It was like a lucky fate, which came upon monopoly capitalism by special circumstances, which cannot be repeated at will or by planning. This contrasts with the view of the German Marxist Alfred Sohn-Rethel who with a rather similar theory claims that the idea of an arms economy was applied rather deliberately in the Germany of the 1930s to fend off a crisis for German capitalism. Based on analyses which were in fact influenced by Marxist theory, German capitalists came to the conclusion – according to Alfred Sohn-Rethel – that only arms expenditures as a kind of waste could “save” German capitalism for the moment. Thus, they decided to opt for Adolf Hitler and his promises of increasing military expenditures.

Read more about this topic:  Permanent War Economy

Famous quotes containing the words question of, question, deliberate and/or policy:

    The moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is already fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility, there is no question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this question, or condescends to these evidences. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: “Is it true in and for itself?”
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.
    W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)

    Make Policy Not Coffee
    Feminist political button, c. 1970. ?....