World War I states directly seized and ran vast industrial production

Evidence

During the war, the apparatus of governments’ industrial control was broad and diverse. In most instances, states directly seized the means of production in key war industries. Th is was the case for breweries, national shipyards, and most importantly the arms sector, where the government owned purposebuilt national shell and munition factories to make all types of munitions equipment, including airplanes, high explosives, and tear gas. In Britain, by spring 1918, there were more than 250 national factories, mines, and quarries (Tawney 1943, 2). Public investment was impressive; it dramatically reshaped the landscape to the point that “a whole countryside, as in the case of [the Southern Scottish town] Gretna, became a factory” (Wolfe 1923, 65; on Gretna see also Chiozza Money 1920, 62– 64). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 135

Categorization

• XREF: Documents the maximal state direction of the economy during wartime that the interwar austerity turn repudiates — the pivotal juxtaposition for Mattei’s argument about why austerity was chosen despite the demonstrated success of planning. — connects to: World War I turned British and Italian states into their economies’ chief producers — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 215; World War I victory hinged on industrial production capacity — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 118; World War I proved production relations could be deliberately changed — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 174 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• World War I victory hinged on industrial production capacity #expands (0.90) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 118
• World War I proved production relations could be deliberately changed #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 174
• Italian state expropriated industrial patents and plants during wartime #exemplifies (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 136
• Wartime state control proved economies are politically moldable #expands (0.80) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 29
• WWI’s state economic control revealed the economy’s inherent political nature #expands (0.80)
• World War I collapsed the economic-political divide and exposed markets’ inadequacy #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 104
• State control of labor made capitalist surplus extraction explicitly political during the war #exemplifies (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 186
• World War I dissolved the public-private boundary that protected capitalist property #expands (0.75) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 112
• War exposed the market’s self-regulating capacity as inadequate for total production #expands (0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 106