German trade unions proposed a Keynesian reflation plan that the SPD hierarchy actively destroyed

Evidence

In fact, for the SPD, good economic policy meant being more orthodox than the liberals they argued against. As SPD member and one time vice president of the Reichstag Wilhelm Dittmann put it in a speech to the SPD faithful, “We want the current situation [the crisis] to develop further, and can only follow in the general direction that these tendencies show us.” In response to this structuralist fatalism, the German trade unions began to agitate for an alternative “full-fledged Keynesian type assault on the depression” in direct opposition to SPD policies. This reflationary policy took form under the aegis of the so-called WTB plan (named after the formulators’ initials), which the unions pressed hard upon the SPD and the government. Brüning ignored the plan and pressed on with austerity. But the SPD hierarchy set out to destroy it since it offended their faith. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 530

Categorization

• XREF: The WTB plan is an early Keynesian counter-alternative to austerity doctrine — the kind of lost policy alternative Mattei documents being foreclosed. — connects to: Weimar’s compromise order collapsed once economic crisis intervened — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 928; Repeated austerity and SPD rigidity did more to empower Hitler than inflation memory — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 533
• DEFINE: WTB plan is a specific named proposal (after the formulators’ initials) worth distinguishing within the interwar reflation debate.

Broader Connections

• Repeated austerity and SPD rigidity did more to empower Hitler than inflation memory #corroborates (0.80) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 533