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Hitler’s Terrible Tariffs: By seeking to “liberate” Germans from a globalized world order, the Nazi government sent the national economy careening backwards—and drove up the price of eggs 600 percent.

www.theatlantic.com

Hitler’s Terrible Tariffs

Conservative @lemm.ee

Hitler’s Terrible Tariffs: By seeking to “liberate” Germans from a globalized world order, the Nazi government sent the national economy careening backwards—and drove up the price of eggs 600 percent.

155 comments
  • Fascists are nothing if not predictable. Tariffs arise naturally from far-right ultranationalism. There's a few reasons for this.

    One is that it plays directly into notions of national/racial exceptionalism. "Our country/race is better than all the rest. Other nations/races should have to pay exorbitant fees just to do business with us."

    Second is that it severs ties with international mechanisms of diplomacy and peacekeeping. It serves as a convenient way to detach a state from its allies (who stand in the way of its conquests). This is typified by events like the Japanese Empire's withdrawal from the League of Nations, in that case not over tariffs but a war of conquest, but tariffs can provide similar opportunities to break apart treaties and start preparing a populace for the conditions of all out war.

    Thirdly is that it stops trade with other nations. This forces manufacturing facilities to be bolstered in the nation, isolationism. This means that once all-out war is declared, the nation has the full-scale production facilities to create machines of war at the pace required to sustain large-scale conflicts. This creates the precarious situation of having more production than you do resources (because you can't trade for them anymore), but this problem is solved by conquering territories rich in natural resources.

    And fourth, it serves as a direct prelude to declaring all out war. Trade wars are nearly always present prior to full-scale conflicts in modern history. Both Nazi Germany and the fascist Empire of Japan were widely sanctioned internationally in the years leading up to the Western, Eastern, and Pacific fronts of World War 2. These trade wars actually served fascist interests in so far as they made the lives of their citizens already feel constrained and pressured. An escalation to all-out conflict wasn't that great a change when already all their sons were being drafted and common household goods were becoming scarce and rationed.

    Trump is not original. We've seen these events play out before under a variety of different circumstances. The move of economically isolating the United States from the rest of the world perfectly serves the fascist conquering aspirations of his Christian white nationalist voting base. They'll grumble about cost of goods, but they lap up his ultranationalist "making the world pay us" rhetoric like they're dying of thirst.

155 comments