What, then, were the concrete outputs, in terms of 'beans and bullets', of the two competing industrial bases? I have presented some statistics on this matter in the following tables. accounted for over 50% of total global GNP. As scary as it sounds, by the end of the war, the United States was really just beginning to get 'warmed up.' It is perhaps not surprising that in 1945, the U.S. By contrast, the United States suffered from none of these difficulties, and as a consequence its economy grew at an annual rate of 15% throughout the war years. This resulted from destruction of industrial bases and constriction of resource pools (in the case of Germany and Japan), or through sheer exhaustion of manpower (in the case of Great Britain and, to an extent, the USSR). production was stabilizing or plateauing). By 1944, most of the other powers in the war, though still producing furiously, were beginning to max out their economies (i.e. churned out seemingly endless quantities of equipment and provision which were then funnelled to not only our own forces, but to those of Great Britain and the USSR as well. force of arms was being dramatically felt globally, American factories were nevertheless beginning to make a material effect in the war's progress. And even though the majority of America's war-making potential was slated for use against Germany (which was by far the most dangerous of the Axis foes, again for reasons of economics), there was still plenty left over for use against Japan. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the sleeping giant was awakened and came looking for trouble. The net effect of all these factors meant that even in the depths of the Depression, American war-making potential was still around seven times larger than Japan's, and had the 'slack' been taken out in 1939, it was closer to nine or ten times as great! In fact, accroding to Kennedy, a breakdown of total global warmaking potential in 1937 looks something like this: Furthermore, the United States was more than willing to utilize American women in the war effort: a tremendous advantage for us, and a concept which the Axis Powers seem not to have grasped until very late in the conflict. Taken in combination, the per capita productivity of the American worker was the highest in the world. Additionally, American managerial practice at that time was the best in the world. factories were, on average, more modern and automated than those in Europe or in Japan. Seventeen time's Japan's national income.Įighty (80) times the automobile production.įurthermore, America had some hidden advantages that didn't show up directly in production figures. America, even in the midst of seemingly interminable economic doldrums, still had: However, a dispassionate observer would also note a few important facts. Further, Japan's successes in fighting far larger opponents (Russia in the early 1900's, and China in the 1930's) and the fact that Japan's own economy was practically 'superheating' (mostly as the result of unhealthy levels of military spending - 28% of national income in 1937) probably filled the Japanese with a misplaced sense of economic and military superiority over their large overseas foe. To an outside culture, particularly a militaristic one such as Japan's, America certainly might have appeared to be 'soft' and unprepared for a major war. In economic terms, our 'Capacity Utilization' (CapU), was pretty darn low. workers were either unemployed (10 million in 1939) or underemployed, and our industrial base as a whole had far more capacity than was needed at the time. The net effect of the Depression was to introduce a lot of 'slack' into the U.S. They say that economics is the 'Dismal Science' you're about to see why.īy the time World War II began to rear its ugly head (formally in 1939 in Poland, informally in China in 1937), America had been in the grips of the Great Depression for a decade, give or take. Most of them are taken from Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" (which, among other things, contains an excellent analysis of the economic forces at work in World War II, and is an all-around great book) and John Ellis' "World War II: A Statistical Survey." In this comparison I will focus primarily on the two chief antagonists in the Pacific War: Japan and the United States. So, just go give you an idea of the magnitude of the mismatch here, I decided to compile a few statistics. However, the sheer, stunning magnitude of this economic disparity has never ceased to amaze me. It's no secret that Japan was, shall we say, 'economically disadvantaged' in her ability to wage war against the Allies. Grim Economic Realities Why Japan Really Lost The War
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