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> China is very aware that America's huge industrial mobilization for WWII is what pulled it out of the Great Depression. I don’t think this is a valid point.

> China is very aware that America's huge industrial mobilization for WWII is what pulled it out of the Great Depression. I don’t think this is a valid point. 1. China’s economy is not anywhere near as bad as the US and the Globe in the Great Depression 2. Despite the fact people say this fact, it’s debated among economists if this is true. Many say the production of the war just “hid” the economic issues and that the depression didn’t truly end until after the war. And most importantly: 3. That is very anecdotal. There are many many many examples of nations in economic turmoil and a major war making things way worse. See: Russia in World War I

hnfong 3y ago
I'm wondering whether "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" is just a falsehood repeated many times. If it is generally feasible to use war as a way to fix an economy, why can't nations just declare war on an imagined enemy (eg. shoot nukes at Mars or send stormtroopers to the Moon)? Arguably the space race was just doing that, but it didn't seem to fix the economy of the Soviet Union. In the case of WWII, it seems to me, as a layman, the post-war dominance of the US came from the fact that the US didn't engage in the war until the very end, and economies of other developed nations were simply decimated by the war and recovered less quickly than the US. Maybe war can boost GDP numbers in the short term, but it's quite obvious that from history, at least if you lose a war, it's going to set back your economy, and in no way going to make it better.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  You can bet that the results on Russia's economy are being watched with hawk eyes from across the Chinese border.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). Not sure this really applies too almost all industrial wars to any degree. Of course there might be some indirect benefits, like wars generally make political/social/economics reforms much easier (which I guess might be both a good and a bad thing)
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). That is exactly Putin's playbook for Ukraine.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      What makes you say that? I mean there is a lot of murder and destruction but I don't see how even he could've expected that could ever be directly profitable. A single tank is probably worth more than whatever you can loot from at least a medium size village (maybe even a small town) in Ukraine. Stuff just isn't worth that much these days compared to the 100s BC.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        The land has worth, the ability to control more of the fossil fuel streams to the West has value, the ability to hold a large chunk of the world's grain production has value, the population has value (in the most cynical sense of the word). Lots of people have been taken across the border into Russia proper including large numbers of children. This is fairly well documented. Also, Ukraine was on average richer per capita than Russia so to take down that neighbor may have looked like a nice way to make themselves look better.
        qwytw 3y ago
        > Ukraine was on average richer per capita I'm not sure that was ever the case since at least 1990. In fact the complete opposite, Russian GDP per capita was always at least 2x larger than Ukraine's. It was even almost 4x higher just before Russia started the war in 2014. Of course Russian GDP is/was heavily inflated by fossil fuel and raw material exports but still.. Ukraine was and is a very poor country by European standards (basically in the 90s and 2000s they had all the corruption etc. Russia had if not worse just without the oil/gas revenue). > world's grain production has value Yes, but but being able to sell gas and oil to Europe economically has much more value. And well, I'm not saying that people don't have "economic value" but people who hate you and don't want to be part of your country can possibly have negative value. I just don't see how could this war could've ever been economically/financially "rational" unless putin was utterly delusional and certain that they could decapitate the government in Kiev in a week and install a puppet regime without any western sanctions.

hnfong 3y ago

I'm wondering whether "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" is just a falsehood repeated many times. If it is generally feasible to use war as a way to fix an economy, why can't nations just declare war on an imagined enemy (eg. shoot nukes at Mars or send stormtroopers to the Moon)? Arguably the space race was just doing that, but it didn't seem to fix the economy of the Soviet Union. In the case of WWII, it seems to me, as a layman, the post-war dominance of the US came from the fact that the US didn't engage in the war until the very end, and economies of other developed nations were simply decimated by the war and recovered less quickly than the US. Maybe war can boost GDP numbers in the short term, but it's quite obvious that from history, at least if you lose a war, it's going to set back your economy, and in no way going to make it better.

jacquesm 3y ago
You can bet that the results on Russia's economy are being watched with hawk eyes from across the Chinese border.
qwytw 3y ago
> "waging a war to get out of an economic depression" I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). Not sure this really applies too almost all industrial wars to any degree. Of course there might be some indirect benefits, like wars generally make political/social/economics reforms much easier (which I guess might be both a good and a bad thing)
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > I guess it used to be true back in the ancient times when you could sack cities steal all of their stuff and enslave the entire population (well.. at least those you didn't murder anyway). That is exactly Putin's playbook for Ukraine.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    What makes you say that? I mean there is a lot of murder and destruction but I don't see how even he could've expected that could ever be directly profitable. A single tank is probably worth more than whatever you can loot from at least a medium size village (maybe even a small town) in Ukraine. Stuff just isn't worth that much these days compared to the 100s BC.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      The land has worth, the ability to control more of the fossil fuel streams to the West has value, the ability to hold a large chunk of the world's grain production has value, the population has value (in the most cynical sense of the word). Lots of people have been taken across the border into Russia proper including large numbers of children. This is fairly well documented. Also, Ukraine was on average richer per capita than Russia so to take down that neighbor may have looked like a nice way to make themselves look better.
      - qwytw 3y ago
        > Ukraine was on average richer per capita I'm not sure that was ever the case since at least 1990. In fact the complete opposite, Russian GDP per capita was always at least 2x larger than Ukraine's. It was even almost 4x higher just before Russia started the war in 2014. Of course Russian GDP is/was heavily inflated by fossil fuel and raw material exports but still.. Ukraine was and is a very poor country by European standards (basically in the 90s and 2000s they had all the corruption etc. Russia had if not worse just without the oil/gas revenue). > world's grain production has value Yes, but but being able to sell gas and oil to Europe economically has much more value. And well, I'm not saying that people don't have "economic value" but people who hate you and don't want to be part of your country can possibly have negative value. I just don't see how could this war could've ever been economically/financially "rational" unless putin was utterly delusional and certain that they could decapitate the government in Kiev in a week and install a puppet regime without any western sanctions.