How the US helped Hitler and the Nazis
John Kenneth Galbraith:
"In the spring of 1941 I was put in charge of organizing price control. There had been a huge increase in prices - a doubling - that left us in fear of inflation...In the war years, consumption of consumer goods double. Never in the history of human conflict has there been so much talk of sacrifice and so little sacrifice...there were troublesome moments in the case of meat...We greatly feared we'd hold the prices and see a decline in quality. It didn't materialize...We had a problem with women's hosiery...We attempted to set standards....That produced a storm. The wholesale dry goods institute had powerful spokesmen on the hill. They were always looking for us. The canners set up a major row when we tired to couple price control with the grading of canned goods. That produced a political storm too. We feared it would reduce the number of peas in a can. It didn't happen...Price control was in effect until 1946 [ie, during the post-war boom]...Leon Henderson was one of the unsung heros of WW2. He had been the administrator of prices and civilian supply...[he] organized the United States far more effectively than Germany had ever been...Day after day, he came back wearily from meetings, having fought the battle for some necessary action against recalcitrant trade association, business executive types." American capitalists were more of a threat to American production than the Nazis were. "The businessmen who came to Washington were generally industrial bureaucrats, public relations types, who could best be spared at home. There were many times when we nearly forgot there was a war going on. Our conflict with them was not ideological. It was over the fact that they never wanted to move. We have a public picture of the businessman as a dynamic figure, always ready for action. His wartime image was somebody who could never bring himself to action as the situation required. He would come to the conference and say "let us wait awhile. I think this is something we can accomplish on a voluntary basis [recognize the libertarian rhetoric?] I'm sure business will see its responsibilies. This is not a time for radical action [while nazi subs are sinking every boat off the east coast]" We really had to fight them all the way."
Joe Marcus:
"most of my time was spent fighting with representatives of industry. Did we have the capacity to make enough steel [etc.]...Our reports showed we didn't. The top industrial boys resisted this very strongly..." The capitalists were anti-growth! "We got into the war and everything was a huge mess...Suddenly you've got to produce an enormous number of planes, tanks, built an eleven-million-man army, supply the British and, soon afterwards, the Russians. And the free french. We needed an enormous jump in production [as long as there's a single child in poverty on this planet, we will always need an enormous jump in production. Or some sharing.] There was a bottleneck: machine tools. Nelsen got on the radio and said the machine-tool producers were not doing their job. They were not working around the clock, not working three shifts...the trade association says to nelson, we can't run these three shifts...Now my studies were based on statistics...I had visited factories across the street from each other, one working three shifts, one working one shift...Many [capitalists] worried about how their regular costumer would react. If I said, send this abrasive to such and such a firm which was not their standard customer and wouldn't be after the war, don't send it to one which had been their customer, they were bothered-and how! Many fights took place.
In the early days, some of those industrialists wouldn't sign major military contracts until they had the right kind. The right kind? When the war ends, who's stuck with the supplies? What payment do we get when you terminate? Who's gonna pay when we move it out? They wanted to make sure of every cent of profit...The government gives in. The military, of course, is much more sympathetic to business. They feel more comfortable with the. They're the same kind of boys totalitarian dictators]
The railroad industry [who were created by big government] didn't like what I was doing. They brought in their own people with Dun & Bradstreet reports. Everything, they said, was fine...One of my early reports showed that there won't be enough railroad cars to move the wheat, the iron ore, the coal because an awful lot of cars where in disuse, needed repairs. We must build more cars...Well, do you know that my report, and internal report, was used by the association of American railroads in full-page ads in the Washington Post, all over? Scare headlines: Socialism proposed by the government...guys from the association of American railroads come to see me. They want to wine and dine me..." They use every weapon at their disposal to keep down production and growth while the freedom of the world is at stake. "Part of the Lend-Lease was supposed to go to the Russians [Who did more than three-quarters of the fighting] This was one of the major areas of - I won't call it sabotage - of things going wrong...Machines would get broken. Orders would get lost. Allocations weren't made properly...Five percent of machine tools were to go to the Russians under Lend-Lease. This was violated again and again...Eisenhower warned us about...the military-industrial complex. In the past, there were business representatives in Washington, but now they ARE Washington"
Thomas G. Corcoran "Tommy the cork" Special adviser to FDR, later a corporation lawyer:
"Bayer [German corporation] controlled the whole chemical business of Latin America. Roosevelt knew that the funds which supported German propaganda in Latin America were all derived from their monopoly of the pharmaceutical business.
...I fished my brother out, who'd been in Asia as the representative of American Automobile interests in Japan...We pushed Bayer out and started the penetration of the American pharmaceutical industry around the world.
...Bayer had been a high-priced outfit, but didn't know anything about radio advertising. So we introduced it into Latin America. We gave a little nightclub performer, Evita, her first radio contract...We'd take a sound truck with a radio program and we'd run it all over the backcountry..."
James Rowe:
"[capitalists] were pretty incompetent before Roosevelt came in. When I was in Justice, we were always on their tails, prosecuting them. I used to see quite a few of them. Now I work for them...Over the year's I've changed. We get a little more conservative as we get older...By the time you get to my stage, you're against the government - as are a great number of lawyers here, all of whom came from the government.
You get very fond of the people who pay you.
...There came this great burst after the war, a very prosperous time. The working man got his own house...and became middle class. These damn republicans win elections these days because the new deal [and government war spending] picked up the working man and gave him a chance. He's now conservative."
Joseph L. Rauh, Jr.:
"The big boys came down for the purpose of protecting their companies. We were trying to get less cars and more tanks. We had automobile bastards come down and fight that. There were some vicious bastards...Among the saddest things in my life are how few New Dealers remained New Dealers...One of my great heros was Tommy Corcoran. He's represented every stinking interest against public interest in this country."
George C. Page, who got rich in WW2 because of big government tax and spend:
"I've thrown the lion's share of my estate into a foundation. The tax gobblers can't touch it" (He doesn't mention that the "tax gobblers" we trying to save the world from Nazism) He also purchased cheap land on the pacific when people sold them cheap, fearing a Japanese invasion. Later he sold them at a tenfold profit. For taking advantage of people's fears and doing all of the hard work of signing a paper.
Studs Terkel: "As a radio disk jockey in 1944-45, I was encouraged by my sponsor, a mob-controlled beer company, to buy as many recordings as I wanted, no matter how expensive, and never mind the cost. I spent $500 one memorable afternoon at my favorite music store. I reported to my sponsor...He laughed "You're cheap kid. You only set us back seventy-five clams. The uncle [government] takes care of the rest".
Lee Oremont:
"[during the war] the immediate concern was how to avoid taxes. All of a sudden, there was an excess-profits tax. It was avoided by increasing officer's salaries, inflative expense accounts, and handing out large bonuses [because of this sort of loopholing, the government had to make more and more red tape to prevent it] I remember salesmen coming in to sell you gadgets or systems. Their first selling point was: "it doesn't mater. Uncle Sam pays most of it anyway" You could spend money very freely. It was the governments money. [It came from the very taxes they were cheating on!]
During our first year, we made $100,000 out of a net worth of $65,000...We once managed to get 500 cases of Ancient Age pints, as a favor [bribe] from the distillers...We bought 500 cases of canned pears from some outfit in philly...They were terrible. The labels all but warned they were unfit for human consumption...We cleaned out of these awful pears in one day. The stuff just jumped off the shelves. We had a buyer who had meat connections. He had made arrangements with some independent packer to get several [train] carloads...It sold out in two days...
It didn't take a genius to make money during the war. I know a number of people who still think it was their brilliance that made them so successful. They get pontifical and tell you how efficient they were, how hard-working and smart. Bullshit. They happened to be at the right place at the right time...We were offered a chance to invest in a housing development...We put in $15,000. In six months, we got double. We were just small investors, The builders were getting financed by the government...They started selling out the houses for $4,000. By the time they were ready, they were getting $6,000. That extra money was just clear profit.
I'm really pissed off by people who have such horror of price controls. Price controls really saved us from a devastating inflation. I don't think they went up more than 5%. In spite of being violated in a chickenshit way by black marketeers. Overall, prices didn't go up. Interest rates were down.
They had a drive to buy war bonds. We bought a $100,000 bond. The bank of America lent us 95,000 at 2%. The bond payed 2.5%. We made a one-half percent for underwriting the government. And we got our pictures in the papers for doing a great patriotic service.
The regulation that is today called oppressive turned out to be beneficial for the very ones rapping it. If you complied. I remember a supermarket convention. Everybody was tossing darts [not literally!] at the government man about all the red tape. He came back: "We'd have no trouble making a simple one-paragraph regulation if you fellows only tried to live by it. But the minute we made a regulation, you guys hire a lawyer or an accountant to try to figure out how to get around it. So we have to think about defeating your machinations, and a simple regulation becomes a three-page document."
Nothing new
In 1915 Coleman Dupont (gunpowder manufacturer) wrote that if an embargo to Europe was threatened, he might consider building a powder plant in Canada, though which they could ship powder to Europe - though American neutrality came to an end, and this issue was dropped. After the treaty of Versailles cut military trade to a minimum, Dupont made Cartel agreements with the British Nobel firm, which was connected to its "enemy" in Germany. In 1926-27 Dupont exchanged confidential information on the manufacture of powder - no estimate is possible of how many people in ww2 two died because of this unsigned "gentleman's agreement".
Another 12 illegal (and immoral!) acts where reported - though no official decisions were made against them by the government. "Regarding the attempt of Mr. Hoover and his "cooky pushers" in the state department to effect embargos on MUNITIONS sent out of this country, I do not believe there is the least occasion for alarm at present".
My emphasis - here they have admitted to dealing with munitions, though Dupont representatives had claimed that military powder could not be distinguished from nonmilitary powder - thus making it acceptable to give information on it to the Germans! They would not able to claim the same thing with regard to chemical weapons: "If I were in possession of complete technical details, which would enable us to construct and operate the proposed chemical warfare plant" wrote a Dupont executive "we would undertake the project regardless of the attitude taken by the state department" [ie, the government] Later, when the imperial Japanese invaded Manchuria, Dupont had to stop doing business with a Mitsui, a Japanese corporation, and "Dupont felt some embarrassment in refusing to deal with Mitsui" - in short, they felt more embarrassed to stop doing business with an obvious threat than in committing what could be regarded as treason.
"RCA was instrumental in revealing to the enemies of the united states the secret of radar" (page 189) After the war (after the damage had been done!) The Department of Justice made an inquiry about prosecution, ( which was being pushed by the chief of the signal corps) which suddenly stopped - when the chief of the signal Corps was given an important position in the corporation! (Talk about working your way to the top!)
What do "tough on crime" gung-ho conservatives have to say about this? Nothing.
[White collar crime Edwin h. Sutherland]
Capitalism hijacks airliners
Market pressures making things safe? Let's look at the dangerous (and popular) DC-10 for an example.
"Serious observers ask if the DC-10 was designed too hastily, a necessity in the race to capture a share of the market for wide-body jets. While no manufacturer would build an unsafe aircraft intentionally, competitive pressures can affect judgments" - Fredrick C Thayer
According to conservatives, the marketplace will clean up the carnage: after a DC-10 crash killed 272 people, National Airlines painted over the "DC-10" on the side of their planes. Just imagine taking away laws for nutrition and ingredients labeling on food...