Guaporense wrote:The paper's conclusions are the following:
- the idea that Europe had a different system of manufacturing than the US at the time (1930's-1940's) is wrong.
Good to see you have some reading comprehension.
- instead, they used the same technologies and had similar distribution of stocks of industrial machines of different types.
Nope. Then it all goes south again.
"This process of catching-up, however, was dramatically reversed during World War II. Over a period of no more than four years the American stock expanded by over eighty percent and growth was markedly concentrated in key categories of mass production equipment. It appears that it was only in this period that mass production machinery came to truly dominate US metal-working. German investment, albeit moving in the same direction, failed to match the new intensity of American commitment to mass production in some key machinery classes."
In other words, the end result was a
dissimilar distribution of industrial machines of different types.
- there was some technological difference in 1930, when the US had relatively more modern types of machines, between 1930 and 1945, the technological difference decreased, however. But even in 1930 the difference was not that big, as the German worker had 78% of the value of machine tools invested per worker than the 1930 American worker and the composition of the stock of machine tools was similar.
And now you're back to rewriting what your "citation" actually says. Haven't you learned yet?
"For 1930, we find a remarkable similarity in machine to worker ratios between Germany and the United States. There are differences in certain key areas. However, the US stock of metal-working tools is not yet distinguished by a clear commitment to mass production technology. For the period after 1935, until the early 1940s, our data suggest a remarkable degree of convergence. The American stock stagnated. In some areas, there was disinvestment. And the average age of machinery rose dramatically. By contrast, Germany entered a period of rapid catch-up, which appears to have continued into the early years of the war. By 1940, German metal-working came close to matching its American counterpart in terms of the number of workers employed and the quantity and types of machines installed. German machines were, on average, far younger."
Your statement, if correctly written to summarize the paper, would be,
"there was
little technological difference in 1930, when the US had relatively
more machines,
between 1935 and the early 1940s, the
American stock stagnated, however.
Meanwhile, Germany invested heavily and caught up to the United States by 1940."
Then of course, we're back to the previous passage. So, instead of your non sequitur "But even in 1930 the difference was not that big, as the German worker had 78% of the value of machine tools invested per worker than the 1930 American worker and the composition of the stock of machine tools was similar." it should read,
"However, in the next four years American investment concentrated in key areas of machine tool production, which German investment failed to match."
- they don't know actually how to explain why US manufacturing productivity was greater than Europe's, since the difference is usually attributed to the difference in manufacturing type (mass production vs craft production) and they refuted precisely that conjecture in the paper.
Sigh. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
"We find it more convincing to explain the persistent productivity differentials between the US and Germany in terms of the more general
differences between the American and European economies. In particular, we would invoke the abundance of low cost energy sources and the larger scale of production in US industry...Though American and German metal-working firms used similar numbers of essentially similar machines, it is more than possible that the American machines were more productive because they tended to be bigger, because they were more commonly equipped with direct electric drives and because they were employed on larger production runs. There is strong evidence showing a substantial difference both in the installed horsepower in American and German industry and the quantity of electric power actually consumed in manufacturing...German industry was well-equipped both with labour and machines, but both its workers and its machines made do with less power. There is also good evidence to suggest that batch sizes in American production were significantly larger, across all scales of production. A similar number of machines of similar type could thus be employed more productively in the US. This in turn would have warranted the purchase of machines that were larger and more high-powered."
That actually looks like a reasonable explanation from them as to why US manufacturing productivity was greater than Europe's", i.e. Germany's.
How does the paper's data that Germany's stock of machine tools was 103% of the US's in 1945 while the value of that stock, using 1942 German prices, was ca. 90% of the US is made wrong by "understanding" after all?
You might try writing a coherent question first. Then you might notice the "paper's data" actually indicates your cherished metric of "Germany's stock of machine tools" isn't a reasonable metric at all.
If there is any way measure of a country's capital stock related to the production of war related equipment is the stock of machine tools installed in the country or it's value. Economists such as Galbraith made the point that Germany's war effort was inefficient based on precisely that data: Germany's stock of machine tools was 3 times the UK's machine tool stock but the output of military equipment was not much larger than the UK's.
Yet again, the paper actually says the opposite. Machine tools "were a technology proudly displayed and easily transferred from one place
to another. Despite their iconic status, they may not, therefore, hold the key to explaining the trans-Atlantic productivity gap."
The reason why it was not much larger was simply because the Wehrmacht had different needs than the British armed forces and they had different strategies and different perceptions of the required demands for equipment. Also, the civilian labor force in Germany was not 3 times larger but only 1.5 times larger than the UK's. So they lacked the labor force to utilize all that industrial capital stock.
Sorry, but that "reason" is simply your invention, unsupported by anything in the paper. On the other hand, yes, indeed, labor remains an important factor - much more so than machine tool stocks, RM expenditures, or differing needs and strategies.
I can only conclude that your definition of "understading" appears to be: "an interpretation of a paper that fits a US centric ideology of American exceptionalism." So the authors of the paper did not understand it either.
So then, why the continued trolling on this non-issue of "American exceptionalism"? In case you haven't noticed, you and your ilk are the only ones to keep bringing it up.
Nobody here has ever said that Germany got "cheated" out of winning.
I see you don't read posts very carefully.
It astonishes you that there are people in the world that do not have a US centric ideology?
Yes, given that you are the one bringing it up, rather than using factual information, actually supported by the "citations" you misquote.
It astonishes me that there exists such a US centric ideology in the first place, I discovered it's existence while talking in forums about WW2 back in 2009.
Which forum would that be? Not this one certainly.
Of course, a part of the ideology is to dehumanize the people who do not share it by labeling them as "people with inferiority complexes, vanity, lack of critical thinking".
Um, no, sorry, if that was so I would be dehumanizing much of the current American electorate.
Individually, I am just saying was that Germany's strategy in WW2 was rational and consistent with the country's resources vis their potential enemies. The fact that the Allies won was not due to Germany's faults but due to the incredible Allied effort (specially the USSR's) that resulted into their, very costly, victory. And I don't think you actually would disagree with me.
Yes, I would agree with your second sentence. However, if I were to agree with the first, then I would have to argue America's strategy in the GWOT has been rational and consistent with the country's resources, which is incorrect and unsupportable. Fundamentally, the willful choice to go to war is irrational and inconsistent with an efficient use of a country's resources. War is destructive rather than constructive.
