World War II Did Not End the Great Depression (Let's dispel ourselves of this recurring myth)

Real Clear Markets ^ | 6/16/2009 | John Tamny

[cotton1706]

Well, unemployment disappeared overnight and we were at full production.

[MaggieCarta]

...To presume that productivity would multiply thanks to government largess is the equivalent of assuming that a thief could aid a convenience store by first stealing $20 from the store, then returning later in the day to spend it.

What a wonderfully apt analogy--Congresscritters and theives.

Thanks for posting this article.

[txroadkill]

BTTT. Good read

[ArtyFO]

I know the depression was felt by my family until some time during the Korean War. We didn’t have electric lights or running water until 1951.

[theKid51]

Ping

[Uncle Hal]

WW II did end the depression. No matter what this guy says.

[ziravan]

Government spending during the War and the War itself did not create a recovery. The War was a holding pattern that took care of the issue of unemployment be removing millions from the job market.

That said, rationing during the War created pent-up demand and the end of the War and re-allocation of resources to the private sector allowed the fulfillment of that demand to create economic growth and recovery.

So, the War IS tangentially responsible for ending the Depression. I understand the author’s point, that GOVERNMENT SPENDING didn’t end the Depression. It’s too simplistic to try to divorce the cause and effect of WWII from the recovery that corresponds with its beginning. That correlation exists for good reason.

Much better to directly attack the premise that government spending ended the Depression than to rail that people don’t “get it” that the recovery had nothing to do with WWII. It did, but not because of government spending.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Well, unemployment disappeared overnight and we were at full production.

I can't tell if you are being serious.

Millions of men in uniform are not "employed". Not in the sense that their employment is economically productive. No goods and services are being produced.

[EyeGuy]

Interesting article.

More important would be to absolutely dispel the Leftist mythology, the accepted explanation by most, that the heroic FDR’s socialism ended the Great Depression.

[Tax-chick]

You can’t dispel yourself, although you can learn, yourself, to spell.

[Welcome2thejungle]

I was just going to say that. WWII put everyone to work. And I guess in that sense it ended the Depression. The New Deal did not end it. If anything it made it worse.

[SeekAndFind]

WW II did end the depression. No matter what this guy says.

If going to war will end a depression, then I guess this is a solution we should consider.

[cotton1706]

I was being serious. The military men were not the only people “working”. America broke all production and productivity records. There was no downturn until after the war.

My point was that the bad times were over

[Cooter]

Amity Shlaes observed in The Forgotten Man that FDR knew a “war on business and a war against Europe could not happen at the same time,”

In that sense, I'll give WWII credit.

[raygunfan]

Harry Dexter White? that commie p.o.s.

[the long march]

If you didn’t have electric lights or running water then you lived in what we now call rural America. The TVA and other programs to bring electricity to communities and farms out side of the urban centers had its largest year in 1956.

Even though I live in a city we spent summers in the mountains and there was not electricity in that small town until the early 1960s.

The electrification or lack thereof was NOT due to the Depression

[RainMan]

My contention has always been, that WWII ended the depression, not because of Government spending, but because of the men taken out of unemployement and put into service. That level of government employment is not sustainable however.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Amity Shlaes observed in The Forgotten Man that FDR knew a

“war on business and a war against Europe could not happen at the same time,”

In that sense, I'll give WWII credit.

WWII did throttle back the New Deal.

The New Dealers' War:

FDR and the War Within World War II
by Thomas Fleming

[mjp]

I know the depression was felt by my family until some time during the Korean War. We didn’t have electric lights or running water until 1951.

World War 2 was accompanied by full employment under conditions of impoverishment. This was due to a combination of inflation and wage and price controls. These control prevented the increase in prices of wages and products that would normally occur under inflation. This, then, allowed for larger volumes of spending for labor and products, and the purchase of larger quantities of labor and products.

Full employment under conditions of prosperity was made possible only by the return of peace. The restoration of peace made possible a radical reduction in government spending and thus in the portion of the output of the economic system absorbed by the government. It also put and end to the government’s massive printing of money.