Nazi rule bought mass loyalty through full employment rather than material abundance

Evidence

National Socialism is built on full employment. That is its sole gift to the masses, and its significance must not be underestimated. The business cycle has not been brought to an end, of course, nor has the economic system been freed from periods of contraction. But state control over credit, money, and the labor market prevents slumps from taking the form of large-scale unemployment. Even if production should sag after the war and the inherent contradictions of monopoly capitalism should make it impossible to direct the flow of capital back into consumers’ goods, there will probably be no mass dismissals. Women will be sent back to the kitchen and invalids to their pensions … If necessary, the work will be distributed and labor time shortened, technical progress stopped or even reversed, wages lowered and prices raised. There are dozens of such devices available in an authoritarian regime … — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1190

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on ch17’s claim that workers compensated for meaningless jobs with glittering distractions — here the regime’s own compensation mechanism is full employment. — connects to: Nazi full employment came from rearmament, not their advertised work-creation schemes — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 533
• SHARE: Worth sending to someone studying how totalitarian regimes manufacture consent through employment guarantees rather than affluence.

Broader Connections

• Nazi full employment came from rearmament, not their advertised work-creation schemes #expands (0.80) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 533