Government, Economy, and Logistics of the Post War Period

The articles that we read this week were in my opinion divided into three separate categories.  The first reading, Outline of a Doctrine Of French Policy by Alexander Kojève, primary discussed government policies of the post war nations (primarily France).  The second article, The Consumer-Citizen, discussed the economic side of post war Europe and how certain citizens became critical of their actions.  The last reading for the week, Contesting Famine: Hunger and Nutrition in Occupied Japan, 1945-1952 brought light to the logistical issues of supplies and the emersion of the ‘black market’ as we saw in Germany at the conclusion of the War.  All the articles bring to the surface an aspect of post war World War II

In the Outline of a Doctrine Of French Policy, Kojève lists the struggles that France will endure, both short and long term consequences.  He summarizes that in short term “the immediate danger is the German danger, which is not military, but economic and thus political” and the long term consequence is “France will never again be able to repair the damages which it will necessarily suffer” in the event of a Third World War. (pg 3&4)  Kojève continues to give historical back grounds of other nations, specifically Germany and Russia, to illustrate how their government succeeded by bypassing 150 years of political steps to create a modern empire.  An empire will always conquer a nation state, he wrote, because the vast economic surplus will support a modern military in which the nation state cannot afford and thus cannot defend against.  In conclusion he states that if France continues to isolate it-self as a nation rather then empire and make no effort to press its politics across boarders it will be no match economically and militarily for surrounding empires, i.e. Germany.  When reading this I remembered that France did in fact have colonies around the world including Indochina which he mentions.  My question is if these colonies were so valuable to keep France an empire, why did France abandon them later on?

The second article surprised me the most for several reasons.  First off, according to the article the “Marshall Plan was neither the first nor the only re-sponse to defining the standard of living” for post war Europe.  Ever since grade school we were taught that the Marshal Plan was an economic stimulus plan to help the reconstruction of Europe and avoid post World War I effect. (339)  I learned that the economic stance put forth by the Marshal Plan was a ‘structured system’ to define “the standard of living appropriate for postwar Europeans” and as a result had a larger impact than just the economy. (339) The author then continues to talk about how Britain had a model of living as well known as the ‘social evils,’ this encouraged the populous of Britian to be weary of their actions in order to benefit the economy, fellow citizens, and therefore their nation.  In summary the article discussed how the standard of living was impacted by the structured (or in today’s terms, regulated) economy (some more than others) by the government. If “in sum, consumer sovereignty and the liberal system.. stand or fall together” and the author points out the success of the ‘structured’ policy, why are we still today having a debate of economic regulation if its proven to succeed? (343)  Did people complain of socialist acts by the government then? What defines ‘structured’ policy and communism?

The last article to be read discussed the logistical issues occupied Japan faced.  I will use this article to contrast both immediate post war Germany and the other articles discussed above.  In comparison to Germany, the nation faced some similar issues such as lack of food, work, and a growing black market to compensate; yet no mention of a large displaced people issue.  In comparison to the articles read this week, the similarities include a ‘structured’ system in which people are rationed in order to compensate for the lack of food, specifically 1946-1947.  The difference between the articles is that other nations did so not out of desperation and insufficiency, but as a way to strengthen, stabilize, and predict the economy.  The rest of the article discussed the logistics of supplying Japan in order to sustain them during the shortage and the failure to stop the back market from consuming the much needed food.  It mentions how large of an issue the black market played yet I did not see a clear answer as to how to resolve the issue, was there a plan?  If so what was it and was it ever implemented?

In conclusion all the articles discussed the post war situation in both Europe and the Pacific theater.  Each theater had its own issues but the underlying similarity between them all was the economy.  The first article discussed how a strong economy of an Empire could support a modern military in which a small nation state could not compete with.  The last two articles discussed a ‘structured economy’ in which regulation were imposed or suggested to the civilians to help stabilize and/or strengthen the nation.  It was clear that the economy was an important topic post war, without the ‘sructured’ economy the nations we discussed could not provide nor defend itself nor could it strengthen or stabilize. The government’s ‘structured’ economy proved to be of value in that the world did not see a repeat of WWI and nations were able to recover from the ashes.