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Japan and Germany success post-war were not due to US occupation but in spite of it. Both were pretty industrialized nations before the war and had highly skill

by csomar 2y ago

Japan and Germany success post-war were not due to US occupation but in spite of it. Both were pretty industrialized nations before the war and had highly skilled population. Their success afterward was a continuation of their previous trend but under a different regime.

bell-cot 2y ago
This, pretty much. Both the Germans and Japanese knew, in exhaustive detail, how to build and run a modern industrial country. And given the obvious alternative (sheltering in bombed-out smoking ruins, more-or-less) they very quickly decided to Do Whatever It Took to regain their former standards of living.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Germany also lost 5,533,000 men while France lost 217,600 and Britain 383,600.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    I believe you're only looking at military deaths. For purposes of rebuilding, civilian deaths (from all causes, including Germany's national suicide cult insanity shit) are at least as damaging. Similar for all the millions who lived, but were badly damaged themselves - mentally and/or physically.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      > you're only looking at military deaths Yes, and those are the younger, fit men. The people who work in industry.
- Yeul 2y ago
  This is what happened in the Netherlands. After the war the entire population genuinely believed that they were engaged in rebuilding the nation into something better. Turns out humans can do a lot if they work together- ofcourse it usually takes a near apocalyptic event. And it never lasts.
cgh 2y ago
That is deeply disingenuous. The Marshall Plan transferred massive aid and hugely sped up reconstruction in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan ‘The Marshall Plan made it possible for West Germany to return quickly to its traditional pattern of industrial production with a strong export sector. Without the plan, agriculture would have played a larger role in the recovery period, which itself would have been longer. With respect to Austria, Günter Bischof has noted that "the Austrian economy, injected with an overabundance of European Recovery Program funds, produced "miracle" growth figures that matched and at times surpassed the German ones."’ Aid to Japan was similarly crucial and amounted to billions of dollars. These payments were separate from the Marshall Plan, which focused on Europe. Pre-war Japan was not a free market economy and subsequently underwent massive reform. Honestly, I get that it’s cool to bash on the US (I am not American) but give credit where it’s due. US-led post-war reconstruction was of enormous and lasting significance.
- simonh 2y ago
  Disingenuous and wrong don’t mean the same thing. Nothing in that comment indicates malicious intent, even though I don’t agree with the opinion.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Germany got far, far less MP money than Britain or France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan Germany was also flattened far more. A better explanation for the "German Miracle" was they turned to free markets. As for Japan, the US occupation was advised by leftist professors, who deemed that big business was bad and small business was good. Japan remained prostrate under that policy. When it was changed to allow big business to operate again, Japan became a huge economic success story.
  - hnbad 2y ago
    A big part of the "German Miracle" is that while Germany got less money than Britain or France they assumed they'd have to pay all of it back and when they didn't, that created a massive windfall that was used to provide affordable loans to businesses and reconstruction efforts. The "KfW" still exists as a public credit bank today - most younger people aren't aware its name literally expands to "credit institute for reconstruction" in German. West Germany formally has a "social market economy" and while there have been pushes towards a "free market" economy those were largely the result of reforms from the 1980s onwards. I don't think "free markets" is a good explanation when looking at Germany vs Britain or France in the 1950s to 1970s.
Maxatar 2y ago
That argument is plausible if not for the fact that East Germany was pretty destitute compared to West Germany.
- csomar 2y ago
  Given that East Germany was/is still behind West Germany kinda support my point no?
  - jjk166 2y ago
    How would it?
- hnbad 2y ago
  The US and its Cold War allies wanted to use West Germany as a strategic partner against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union wanted to stripmine East Germany for reparations. Before the end of WW2, the Soviet Union had received large amounts of military aid from the Allies. After WW2 Europe continued to receive aid in the form of the Marshall Plan, which provided heavy discounts on US exports and loans that were mostly forgiven later on. West Germany's economic boom was in part due to the German government expecting to have to pay the loans back in full and thus setting up a public fund that provided credit to businesses and the rebuilding effort rather than paying them out as direct subisidies to industry. When the loans were eventually forgiven this created a massive windfall. The successor program to the Marshall Plan was explicitly tied to "defeating communism" and focused on military development, which resulted in West Germany rearming despite earlier decisions that the country should be demilitarized. This change of plan was extremely controversial within West Germany and debates around the military involvement of Germany continues to this day. In East Germany on the other hand, the rebuilding effort happened despite the Soviet Union not with the help of it. Reparations continued even after a lot of the industry had been dismantled and shipped to Eastern Europe while the isolation from Western Europe provided limited opportunities for export and the scarcity of resources meant a lot of early industry was built to provide for the population rather than trade. Given the conditions, East Germany performed remarkably well, although of course it had a despotic government that would literally shoot its own citizens rather than allow them to leave for greener pastures. The US was also extremely hands-off on West German politics after the immediate occupation era. Presumably a major factor was that the US didn't have as much skin in the game as its European allies whereas e.g. France literally had been occupied by Germans during the war, resulting in much stronger resentment. It's also worth noting that one of the plans for post-war Germany by the Western allies was full deindustrialization to a greater extent than what the Soviet Union ended up implementing with the explicit goal of turning Germany into an agrarian state incapable of forming a military for the forseeable future. This became less interesting as the divisions between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies became clearer but it wasn't entirely unlikely.
cdavid 2y ago
It is true both countries were already industrious, but it was far from a given they could go back to their former self. They were both utterly destroyed, and things could have gone really badly, especially in Japan. I can't find the reference right but I remember reading average adult calorie intake to drop to ~1200 kcals in 1947/1948 in "embracing defeat" by John Dower. That period has a huge influence on Japan to this day, including architecture of Tokyo through black market. Both Japan and Germany had strong military govt culture, and became reliably democratic at the end of the allies occupation.
- csomar 2y ago
  Sure things could have gone wrong. They did, for example, for Ukraine or most of Eastern Europe. But my point is, were these countries not previously industrialized, they probably wouldn’t have fared as they did now.
- uticus 2y ago
  > …adult calorie intake to drop… Thus, Ramen
  - nox101 2y ago
    I guess this was a joke? But if not, fyi, ramen is from China. Sure, the Japanese have made it their own but even the Japanese don't list it in restaurant guides as Japanese food. There's a section for "Japanese food (和食)" and a separate section for "Chinese Food and Ramen" (中華閭里とラーメン) or it's in a separate category. It's still often called "Chinese Soba" (中華蕎麦） https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A1%E3...
    - uticus 2y ago
      Not a joke, but I should have worded it better. ‘Thus’ incorrectly implies invention, I meant it as consequence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramen#Post-war_popularization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramen#Post-war_popularization
    - 2y ago
pfannkuchen 2y ago
US occupation probably did shift energy away from militarism and towards economy though, no? Wars that didn't happen would have hurt them and instead of happening the effort of the wars was put towards making stuff.
- csomar 2y ago
  Yes that helped speed up their recovery to their previous standard but I don’t think it created it.
- hnbad 2y ago
  It's a mixed back. Germany was supposed to be demilitarized following the immediate end of WW2 but the successor to the Marshall Plan (which was actually fairly short-lived relative to what many people seem to think) was a US program to rebuild the European military as a bullwark against communism. This led to a reversal on the decision that Germany should never have a military again although it was initially limited to purely defensive operations - a restriction that has been repeatedly weakened due to the insistence of its allies, including the US. A bigger difference between the two Germanies is that East German industry was mostly stripped for parts as part of reparations to the Soviet Union which continued for a long time whereas West Germany received active funding as part of the Marshall Plan. West Germany also had access to a lucrative market for exports whereas East Germany had to focus on reparations first, self-sustainability second and trade at a distant third with very bad returns.
FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
The US rewrote Japan's constitution and made massive changes in their society... https://www.cfr.org/japan-constitution/japans-postwar-constitution https://www.cfr.org/japan-constitution/japans-postwar-consti...
uticus 2y ago
Would love to hear more from this viewpoint. On the surface I don’t see how your argument is against the OP, isn’t it very conceivable that the “continuation of previous trend but under a different regime” was actually part of the occupation plan? Not arguing against you but the logic needs to be filled out some.

by csomar 2y ago

bell-cot 2y ago

This, pretty much. Both the Germans and Japanese knew, in exhaustive detail, how to build and run a modern industrial country. And given the obvious alternative (sheltering in bombed-out smoking ruins, more-or-less) they very quickly decided to Do Whatever It Took to regain their former standards of living.

WalterBright 2y ago
Germany also lost 5,533,000 men while France lost 217,600 and Britain 383,600.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  I believe you're only looking at military deaths. For purposes of rebuilding, civilian deaths (from all causes, including Germany's national suicide cult insanity shit) are at least as damaging. Similar for all the millions who lived, but were badly damaged themselves - mentally and/or physically.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    > you're only looking at military deaths Yes, and those are the younger, fit men. The people who work in industry.
Yeul 2y ago
This is what happened in the Netherlands. After the war the entire population genuinely believed that they were engaged in rebuilding the nation into something better. Turns out humans can do a lot if they work together- ofcourse it usually takes a near apocalyptic event. And it never lasts.

cgh 2y ago

That is deeply disingenuous. The Marshall Plan transferred massive aid and hugely sped up reconstruction in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan ‘The Marshall Plan made it possible for West Germany to return quickly to its traditional pattern of industrial production with a strong export sector. Without the plan, agriculture would have played a larger role in the recovery period, which itself would have been longer. With respect to Austria, Günter Bischof has noted that "the Austrian economy, injected with an overabundance of European Recovery Program funds, produced "miracle" growth figures that matched and at times surpassed the German ones."’ Aid to Japan was similarly crucial and amounted to billions of dollars. These payments were separate from the Marshall Plan, which focused on Europe. Pre-war Japan was not a free market economy and subsequently underwent massive reform. Honestly, I get that it’s cool to bash on the US (I am not American) but give credit where it’s due. US-led post-war reconstruction was of enormous and lasting significance.

simonh 2y ago
Disingenuous and wrong don’t mean the same thing. Nothing in that comment indicates malicious intent, even though I don’t agree with the opinion.
WalterBright 2y ago
Germany got far, far less MP money than Britain or France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan Germany was also flattened far more. A better explanation for the "German Miracle" was they turned to free markets. As for Japan, the US occupation was advised by leftist professors, who deemed that big business was bad and small business was good. Japan remained prostrate under that policy. When it was changed to allow big business to operate again, Japan became a huge economic success story.
- hnbad 2y ago
  A big part of the "German Miracle" is that while Germany got less money than Britain or France they assumed they'd have to pay all of it back and when they didn't, that created a massive windfall that was used to provide affordable loans to businesses and reconstruction efforts. The "KfW" still exists as a public credit bank today - most younger people aren't aware its name literally expands to "credit institute for reconstruction" in German. West Germany formally has a "social market economy" and while there have been pushes towards a "free market" economy those were largely the result of reforms from the 1980s onwards. I don't think "free markets" is a good explanation when looking at Germany vs Britain or France in the 1950s to 1970s.

Maxatar 2y ago

That argument is plausible if not for the fact that East Germany was pretty destitute compared to West Germany.

csomar 2y ago
Given that East Germany was/is still behind West Germany kinda support my point no?
- jjk166 2y ago
  How would it?
hnbad 2y ago
The US and its Cold War allies wanted to use West Germany as a strategic partner against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union wanted to stripmine East Germany for reparations. Before the end of WW2, the Soviet Union had received large amounts of military aid from the Allies. After WW2 Europe continued to receive aid in the form of the Marshall Plan, which provided heavy discounts on US exports and loans that were mostly forgiven later on. West Germany's economic boom was in part due to the German government expecting to have to pay the loans back in full and thus setting up a public fund that provided credit to businesses and the rebuilding effort rather than paying them out as direct subisidies to industry. When the loans were eventually forgiven this created a massive windfall. The successor program to the Marshall Plan was explicitly tied to "defeating communism" and focused on military development, which resulted in West Germany rearming despite earlier decisions that the country should be demilitarized. This change of plan was extremely controversial within West Germany and debates around the military involvement of Germany continues to this day. In East Germany on the other hand, the rebuilding effort happened despite the Soviet Union not with the help of it. Reparations continued even after a lot of the industry had been dismantled and shipped to Eastern Europe while the isolation from Western Europe provided limited opportunities for export and the scarcity of resources meant a lot of early industry was built to provide for the population rather than trade. Given the conditions, East Germany performed remarkably well, although of course it had a despotic government that would literally shoot its own citizens rather than allow them to leave for greener pastures. The US was also extremely hands-off on West German politics after the immediate occupation era. Presumably a major factor was that the US didn't have as much skin in the game as its European allies whereas e.g. France literally had been occupied by Germans during the war, resulting in much stronger resentment. It's also worth noting that one of the plans for post-war Germany by the Western allies was full deindustrialization to a greater extent than what the Soviet Union ended up implementing with the explicit goal of turning Germany into an agrarian state incapable of forming a military for the forseeable future. This became less interesting as the divisions between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies became clearer but it wasn't entirely unlikely.

cdavid 2y ago

It is true both countries were already industrious, but it was far from a given they could go back to their former self. They were both utterly destroyed, and things could have gone really badly, especially in Japan. I can't find the reference right but I remember reading average adult calorie intake to drop to ~1200 kcals in 1947/1948 in "embracing defeat" by John Dower. That period has a huge influence on Japan to this day, including architecture of Tokyo through black market. Both Japan and Germany had strong military govt culture, and became reliably democratic at the end of the allies occupation.

csomar 2y ago
Sure things could have gone wrong. They did, for example, for Ukraine or most of Eastern Europe. But my point is, were these countries not previously industrialized, they probably wouldn’t have fared as they did now.
uticus 2y ago
> …adult calorie intake to drop… Thus, Ramen
- nox101 2y ago
  I guess this was a joke? But if not, fyi, ramen is from China. Sure, the Japanese have made it their own but even the Japanese don't list it in restaurant guides as Japanese food. There's a section for "Japanese food (和食)" and a separate section for "Chinese Food and Ramen" (中華閭里とラーメン) or it's in a separate category. It's still often called "Chinese Soba" (中華蕎麦） https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A1%E3...
  - uticus 2y ago
    Not a joke, but I should have worded it better. ‘Thus’ incorrectly implies invention, I meant it as consequence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramen#Post-war_popularization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramen#Post-war_popularization
  - 2y ago

pfannkuchen 2y ago

US occupation probably did shift energy away from militarism and towards economy though, no? Wars that didn't happen would have hurt them and instead of happening the effort of the wars was put towards making stuff.

csomar 2y ago
Yes that helped speed up their recovery to their previous standard but I don’t think it created it.
hnbad 2y ago
It's a mixed back. Germany was supposed to be demilitarized following the immediate end of WW2 but the successor to the Marshall Plan (which was actually fairly short-lived relative to what many people seem to think) was a US program to rebuild the European military as a bullwark against communism. This led to a reversal on the decision that Germany should never have a military again although it was initially limited to purely defensive operations - a restriction that has been repeatedly weakened due to the insistence of its allies, including the US. A bigger difference between the two Germanies is that East German industry was mostly stripped for parts as part of reparations to the Soviet Union which continued for a long time whereas West Germany received active funding as part of the Marshall Plan. West Germany also had access to a lucrative market for exports whereas East Germany had to focus on reparations first, self-sustainability second and trade at a distant third with very bad returns.

FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago

The US rewrote Japan's constitution and made massive changes in their society... https://www.cfr.org/japan-constitution/japans-postwar-constitution https://www.cfr.org/japan-constitution/japans-postwar-consti...

uticus 2y ago

Would love to hear more from this viewpoint. On the surface I don’t see how your argument is against the OP, isn’t it very conceivable that the “continuation of previous trend but under a different regime” was actually part of the occupation plan? Not arguing against you but the logic needs to be filled out some.