podcast capitalism

During this podcast, the hosts discuss how the United States government and corporations worked together to create a wartime economy during World War II. They mention that the Great Depression had a stranglehold on the economy, but the war provided an opportunity to solve the job shortage and labor surplus. The government invested heavily in military spending, which boosted the economy. They also discuss how the government focused on converting businesses to war production, but it took some time for the full effect to be seen. Pearl Harbor helped boost morale and further incentivized businesses to contribute to the war effort. The hosts also mention how World War II led to the creation of new civilian jobs and increased industrial productivity. They highlight the government's partnership approach rather than imposing control, and how women and people of color were incentivized to join the workforce. Overall, the war had a positive impact on the economy, and citizens didn't feel much sa Hello and welcome to the 422nd biannual podcast of the Military-Industrial Complex and You. This is Tucker Garalski followed by Braylee Anders, Cassidy Pottis, and Chloe Baker. And today we are going to talk about how the United States government worked alongside the corporations of the United States to retrofit and create a wartime economy to best benefit the United States against Axis powers while basically future-proofing the economy to better handle the after-war outcome and basically creating themselves as a first-place position in the New World hegemony. Okay, so our first topic that we will be discussing will be how the Great Depression still had a stranglehold on the United States economy, thus creating a shadow that normal means could not quite overcome, to where then, to an extent, the Second World War almost presented an opportunity to solve the problem of a job shortage and a labor surplus. Thus, then, we see that once the war came to be, that then this labor shortage was more or less solved because of the need for defense output and arms output to accommodate the war for not only the United States military, but for other militaries such as the British military and the Soviet military. Yeah. I think going back to, like you said, you have the Great Depression, you have that labor surplus and that job shortage, I think, you know, even after New Deal and then that second New Deal, there's still kind of that, like, I think it's like 1937-38, that sort of recessionary period where things have started to pick back up again, but now they're falling back again. You know, the looming war and being able to, or like, you know, how Tucker said, have the opportunity to produce wartime materials for multiple different countries and, you know, for themselves would really boost that economy. So to pull from Levy, his 14th chapter, FDR's May 1938 request for $1.1 billion in naval appropriation to expand the U.S. fleet by 20%, and then that 1938 Air Corps Expansion Act called for almost tripling the size of the U.S. fleet. And for the fiscal year of 1939, the U.S. military spending was $650 million, but then within, by the spring of 1940, Congress authorized a $6.5 billion in military spending. And the federal government invested $1.4 billion in fresh manufacturing construction. So I think, you know, even in just the span of three or four years, the U.S. government is increasing its military budget, you know, tenfold. So, you know, that's going to do good things for any economy, let alone an economy that's been dampened by a depression for however many years. Yes, no, to write off the coattails of that, that, yes, no, the United States did see themselves vastly changing their overall economy to be a very wartime-based economy, but this so much differed from other countries. For instance, of Germany, that you have the situation of the U.S. economy, globalization was one of capital-intensive and thus labor-saving variety, while with Germany and Axis powers was more of a labor-intensive strategy. That is because what you see with the United States strategy is almost this socialist mixed with laissez-faire to where none of the dangers of a profit loss are, you know, best investments take place because such things as profit and the funding was already guaranteed by the U.S. government, and therefore you kind of see with this go-co agreement of government- Government-owned. Government-owned corporate-operated companies to where such things as manufacturing or just the construction of new plants or the reopening of older plants was done by the U.S. government without these companies having to worry about the cost involved. Therefore then these ideas of it still wasn't directly controlled by the U.S. government are these, there were not strict systems in place to make sure that production was at these very specific points with a very specific amount of money, as we kind of saw with later situations in the Soviet Union to make sure that manufacturing was at an equal level to the amount being put in, to where then because of the fact that, again, they were not only producing for the United States, but for other allied powers, that then these allied powers would not be able to pay so much immediately, but, you know, as we saw with the First World War, these are debts then agreed to be paid off in a certain amount of time or over the course of many years, and they would then place the United States in an even better place after the outcome of the Second World War, and therefore setting themselves up to be in a prime place to take over as the world hegemony. So taking back from what Chloe said earlier in the years of, like, the 1938, the market kind of crashing, the companies started, they were very hesitant to turn to war production. The United States declared war. They didn't want to lose the consumer market share from their competitors that they had just gained back. They were just afraid to lose that because, you know, the other companies may have not turned to the war effort. So the government really focused on converting, included plans like the Ruther Plan. They tried to make automakers to turn into aircraft. It didn't really work. Converting the companies didn't finally take full effect until, like, 1942, so later into the war year. And then another added fact would be that Pearl Harbor did help in converting businesses just to boost the morale after such a horrible incident. This is all information that can be found from, like, the Economic History Association. I think that's a really good transition into the economic growth and industrial productivity that came after the Great Depression going into World War II with 17 million new civilian jobs being created and industrial productivity in itself being increased by 96%. World War II provided the ideological breakthrough that finally allowed the U.S. government to surmount the Great Depression. A fact I'd like to bring up is that even though the government intervened far more deeply in World War I with imposing wage and price controls than they did in World War II, and in World War I they definitely tried to help the economy much more, raising funds through war bonds, rationing goods, compelling industries to work for war production. FDR negotiated a sense of partnership rather than simply imposing the government's will. That, like, community sense, you know, that we're contributing to, that was the whole idea, that was what was being pushed, that we're, you know, be a part of your country, be patriotic, support the war effort in any way that you can. So, you know, I think... So, like, also, like, the military had almost free reign of control over their spending for, like, what they would need. In one way, the war administration was able to gauge the federal spending, would be comparing the military spending to the GDP that had rose very sharply during the war. And, like Braley said, with the 17 million new jobs, a lot of them would be marketed to, like, the aerospace, to the atomic energy, and others. How, you know, women and people of color were incentivized to join the workforce, especially women, you know, with these, like, government safety nets and paying for childcare, so women are more incentivized to take up those jobs. And, you know, all of the men were going overseas, so there are a bunch of vacant jobs, you know, so you've got a change in the workforce on top of all of these new jobs being created, and now you've got mass production happening, so I think it just is a huge kickstart of the economy after being, you know, dead for however many years. Yeah, it really added to the industrial and economical, like, spirit lifting, I guess. I don't know how to word that. Yeah. I think that's where so many people wanted to work. They wanted to be able to be the provider for their house. Women weren't just wanting to sit down and, like, they wanted to break that stereotype that had been pushed onto them, and that's something that a lot of people don't see coming, like, don't visually see in World War II, is that women and people of color were getting their, like, stand. They were being able to take the stand that they wanted to. And ultimately, that's why you see the decisions made by the U.S. government and retrofitting or changing their economy to better fit this war can be seen first with a total military spending as of the fiscal year of 1941 would be $12 billion, which was a tenfold increase since 1938. And ultimately, with how the economy more or less panned out was that the common, everyday U.S. citizen didn't really feel much of an effect from the war. As for a 1945 Gallup poll, of almost two-thirds of civilians admitted they had not made any real sacrifice for the war. Again, this can be kind of reinforcing that idea of this almost socialistic approach to the relationship between the U.S. government and the corporations of not quite a communist thing where the government has control over these corporations, but almost a mutual agreement to where the government removes any chances of risk or detriments to a corporation, to where a profit is more or less guaranteed regardless of these corporations' productivity or output or the cost they put. And that concludes the 422nd biannual podcast of the Military-Industrial Complex and You. And again, this is Tucker Garalski signing out, followed by Brayley Anders, Cassidy Potters, and Chloe Baker. Have a good day.