Post War Economics

• 1918-1929
• Post-war Economics are applied to the victors and the vanquished with the exception of two inner zone countries: The US and Japan.
• The rest of the countries suffer the following:
  • The veterans now suffer from PTSD (back then it was called shell shocked). Violence has become the norm, and it is tough to transition back into domesticity because of unemployment.
  • Changeover from a war to peacetime economy takes time and is expensive
  • Debt problems and reparations means that excess cash from the government for investment is unavailable. Everyone starts using the gold standard again.
  • Inner Zone states tend towards left-center politics: there are labor unions, a sacrifice of individual rights, and an increase in the women's suffrage movement.
  • There is an emphasis on the rewarding the sacrifice of people during the war, which leads to expectations of an increase in the welfare states. An expanded welfare state is expensive which causes high taxes. The 8 hour days for 5 days a week become typical; public education increases; public health and unemployment benefits and old age pensions develop.
  • Lack of capital for investment was crucial, and borrowing money from the US was shunned.
  • There is a loss of markets. The US and Japan capture overseas markets. Many do not revert back to European possession. In addition, outer zone domestic production increased to fill the market void. This is also true in advanced imperial regions like India.
• The Successor States
  • Background and Issues Within the States
    • The Successor are the n00bz from the treaties in Central E. Europe. They emerge east of the Rhine River.
    • Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, Baltics, and kind of Bulgaria and Rumania are the successor states.
    • Wilsonian Idealism imposes Democracy on these states. They all had written constitutions with expand/ed/ing suffrage. Almost all were UMS by 1918.
    • They elected their leaders except for 2 constitutional monarchy (Hungary's empty monarchy and Yugoslavia)
    • Their populations were mainly rural peasantry who were serfs until 1848-61, who were pitted against a landed aristocracy. The Peasants have little land and generally work as agricultural laborers.
    • Lacked industrial development and had been outer zone agricultural producers for a domestic zone.
    • They want land but the aristocracy controls the politics and land ownership. The nearby Soviet Union land redistribution polarizes the peasantry to the political left.
    • Agrarian Parties, who are left of center, develop in the noob countries.
    • These states are militaristic, nationalistic, and almost always have border disputes. Since they are controlled by the aristocracy they lean to right-wing militarism, tend to be capitalist.
    • Who will adjudicate these differences? Why the League of course!