Between 1946 and 1952, Albert Hirschman worked as an economist in charge of the Western European desk of the research branch of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC. ...In this position he wrote extensively on patterns of European postwar reconstruction and the creation of a new world economic order. Given his deep knowledge and prewar experiences, Italy and France were his first areas of specialization, although Hirschman soon contributed to the analysis of the Marshall Plan, the shaping of the European Payments Union, and the problem of the dollar shortage. This article provides a comprehensive interpretation of this early stage of Hirschman's intellectual biography, including a discussion of an unpublished proposal for the creation of a new European Monetary Authority developed under the auspices of Paul Hoffman and the Economic Cooperation Administration. In addition to highlighting Hirschman's contributions to several technical aspects of European reconstruction and the restoration of multilateralism, the article shows that during the Fed years, he sharpened his ability to examine processes of policymaking in difficult times. In particular, he rejected prefabricated recipes, developing a sensitivity for inverted sequential processes, inducement mechanisms, and apparently paradoxical solutions in an uncertain environment. This sensitivity is at the basis of what has been described as a distinctively “Hirschmanesque” style of thought.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, millions of theatergoers, students, and industrial workers saw one or more animated short films, shot in Technicolor and running eight to nine minutes, that were ...designed to build public support for the principles and practices of free enterprise. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation quietly funded the production of this series of cartoons, titled Fun and Facts about American Business, through multiple grants to industrial animation house John Sutherland Productions via Harding College, an evangelical college in rural Arkansas that would become known nationally for its anti-communist and conservative political activism. This article examines the creation and distribution of the Fun and Facts films in the years 1946 through 1952 as a notable case of ephemeral film and as an example of the Cold War public relations movement known as “economic education.” Further, the article examines the consequences of economic education as a conceptual category on the production and distribution of Cold War industrial propaganda.
A paradoxical feature of China's land reform of 1946–1952 is that it was conducted far more radically in the north, where land tenure relations were far less unequal, than in the south where ...inequality of land tenure was distinctly more acute. That landlords could only be identified in south China was attributable to the sharply more active land rental market there, and the “single-cut” policy of defining the landlords narrowly as a rentier class. We attribute the predominance of an active land rental market in south China to three socioeconomic characteristics: 1) a sharply higher inequality in land distribution, 2) an organization of agriculture whose efficiency required the “unsupervised initiatives” of family labor, and 3) a distinctly higher proportion of “absentee landlords”. Our hypothesis of land rentals being the only variable distinguishing the landlords from the rich peasants and only in south China is strongly supported by empirical evidence.
El autor de esta antología se ha dedicado al estudio de la Revolución mexicana desde hace más de treinta años, su investigación principal es el ya clásico libro, The Mexican Revolution, que después ...fue publicado en español como La Revolución Mexicana. Sus ensayos se caracterizan por ser textos breves llenos de contenido. Los artículos compilados tratan de la formación del nuevo Estado, los esfuerzos y las resistencias para reformar la sociedad mexicana, así como las repercusiones de los conflictos consecuentes.
Memoria compuesta de estudios sobre la demografía, migración, estadística agrícola-ganadera-agropecuaria, sobre el carácter del comercio interior y exterior de la región, sobre la renta regional, ...sobre los proyectos de regadío, sobre la experiencia en sentido negativo y positivo en la realización del "Plan de Fomento y Urbanización de las Provincias de Chile" aplicado al Norte Chico y especialmente a la ciudad de la Serena, sobre la flora, etc., y, un estudio final en calidad de conclusiones./ The thesis contain studies on: demography, migration, local agriculture and livestock, local and international trade, irrigation projects, the local flora, analysis of the "Plan de Fomento y Urbanización de las Provincias de Chile" in the Norte Chico, and others; concluding with a final study with conclusions.
The article deals with the defining of Swedish neutrality in the initial years of the Cold War. The established truth that the Swedish interpretation of neutrality was adapted to US wishes is not ...challenged but the reasons for this development are discussed. The main reason for adaptation is identified as the Swedish government's ambitious economic policy which led to economic dependency upon the USA, acceptance of Marshall Aid and economic incorporation into the West. Sweden managed to show the US government that formal neutrality could be combined with practical measures that in fact meant adaptation to US wishes. The argument is also that the USA used economic pressure to achieve its purposes, as when Sweden submitted to US demands regarding strategic exports to Eastern Europe. Concern for the development of Swedish trade and economic growth was important when the Swedish government yielded to the US demands. By formulating the agreement with the USA as an expression of Sweden's autonomously decided policy, Sweden could still claim that formal neutrality had been maintained.
Latin American regimes have historically used international loans to finance imports, development projects, and government expenditures. Invariably, the gross misuse and conditions of public loan ...have aggravated external shocks and led to the transfer of capital from Latin America to Western Europe and the US. Moreover, creditor countries have invariably used foreign loans as a vehicle to facilitate foreign investment and enhance advantages in trade. Hence, the industrialized countries have played a role along with the indigenous elites in shaping the division of labor in the underdeveloped countries and have contributed to financial, commercial, and technological dependence. While Argentina and Brazil had accumulated surplus foreign exchange reserves, Chile's state-supported, capital-intensive development programs under import-substitution industrialization policies were carried out by heavy foreign borrowing.
Provider: - Institution: - Data provided by Europeana Collections- 2 pages- Comments on Editorial in American Medical Association Journal, 25th September, 1948. The Journal seeks to discredit ...proposals for a nation-wide sickness insurance plan in the United States by an attack on our National Health Service here in Great Britain. Before dealing with these charges, it should be made clear that our National Health Service, although part of the general social security plan, is not based on an insurance principle. National Health Insurance providing both cash benefits and a limited range of medical treatment was introduced into this country in 1912, when attacks similar to those now made by the A.M.A. Journal were made from various quarters, but despite the opposition of critics National Health Insurance developed into a system which conferred numerous benefits on the insured population. The new Health Service has abandoned the insurance principle and provides a full range of medical treatment for everybody without insurance conditions. Experience of the old scheme amply justified this development. We are told that "the greatest folly in the world is the manner in which Great Britain embarked in a nation-wide Health Service without hospitals, doctors, nurses, drugs or money." So far as hospitals are concerned, is the Editor of the Journal acquainted with the following facts incontestably established by numerous hospital surveys made before and during the war :- That hospital accommodation was gravely deficient in both quantity and quality? That the existing hospital services were completely unco-ordinated? That one-third of the beds in our so-called voluntary hospitals were in places with less than 100 beds which, with certain exceptions, were not in a position to give their patients the resources of modern medicine and surgery? Faced with this position, it was, according to the Journal, "the greatest folly in the world" to ensure, by the setting up of a National Health Service, that the great work of hospital development and construction which now has to be undertaken should proceed on a planned and co-ordinated basis. In fact, the existing system of hospital administration (or rather the patchwork of unco-ordinated systems) was quite incapable of doing the job. The stern test of war conditions had already shown that this was so. At that time, when large-scale air attacks demanded the highest efficiency and co-ordination of all available resources, the need for nation-wide hospital planning was universally recognised and embodied in the Emergency Hospital Service. As Lord Moran, a distinguished leader of British medical opinion, has recently written, "It was the war which, by rubbing the nation's nose in the facts, prepared it for reform and educated many in the medical profession to accept change." The Journal blandly assures its readers that "the unfortunate public have no means of knowing whether or not what they get is good medical service." Let us test this statement in relation to fracture treatment, a matter of first-class importance to the Trade Union Movement. In the years before the war, we were gravely concerned at the lack of uniformity in the treatment available. Scientific research gave startling support to our criticisms by establishing that only one per cent. of patients in a consecutive series treated at organised clinics remained permanently incapacitated, whereas thirty-seven per cent. of another series, including a proportion who had been treated at general hospitals without an organised clinic, remained permanently incapacitated. During and since the war there have been notable advances in this field, and we are convinced by past experience that it is only by the co-ordination of planning made possible by a National Service that these improvements can be maintained and developed. Men and women suffering the effects of permanent, preventable incapacity are not likely to share the Journal's view.- 292/847/5/102- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
Provider: - Institution: - Data provided by Europeana Collections- 2 pages- - 2 - The Journal goes on to paint a recklessly exaggerated picture of delays in obtaining treatment and doctors' ...difficulties in dealing with the volume of their patients. The population of England and Wales prior to the introduction of the Service was just over forty-two millions, and the number of available general practitioners was approximately twenty-thousand. As the introduction of the new Service has not altered these figures, if there has been an increase in the numbers being treated by doctors, the explanation must be that under the new Service adequate medical treatment has now for the first time become available to people who did not get it before. The facts are that prior to the new Service, over twenty million people were already entitled to general practitioner treatment as "insured persons" under the old National Health Insurance legislation. No similar provision was made for the families of insured persons. It was the avowed object of meeting this generally recognised difficulty that the new Service made general practitioner treatment available to everyone. We in this country are determined that so long as shortages prevail, whether of medical facilities, food or other essentials, available resources shall as far as possible be shared equally. We are convinced that the health of the community can best be assured not by the abandonment of this principle but by active measures to overcome existing shortages and by maximum efficiency in the use of what is available. The shortages of doctors, hospitals and nurses referred to by the Journal exist and will have to be made good. At the same time, we believe that the skill and efficiency of our doctors and other health workers are not below the standard of any other country. Indeed, we are justifiably proud of the advances of British medicine in many fields. The object of the National Health Service is to make that skill available on a wider basis to the whole community. In conclusion, so far from it being generally true that the doctors are "satisfied that they cannot work the Act", it has been placed on record on behalf of the great bulk of the profession that they are sincerely determined to play their part in building up a first-class service. As to the public, their support of the Scheme and their confidence in its success cannot be questioned. The latest figures show that no less than ninety-two per cent. of the population are now on doctors' lists; the total is increasing daily and there is every reason to believe that by the end of the year practically everyone will be participating in the Scheme.- 292/847/5/102- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
Provider: - Institution: - Data provided by Europeana Collections- 2 pages- Comments on Editorial in American Medical Association Journal, 25th September, 1948. The Journal seeks to discredit ...proposals for a nation-wide sickness insurance plan in the United States by an attack on our National Health Service here in Great Britain. Before dealing with these charges, it should be made clear that our National Health Service, although part of the general social security plan, is not based on an insurance principle. National Health Insurance providing both cash benefits and a limited range of medical treatment was introduced into this country in 1912, when attacks similar to those now made by the A.M.A. Journal were made from various quarters, but despite the opposition of critics National Health Insurance developed into a system which conferred numerous benefits on the insured population. The new Health Service has abandoned the insurance principle and provides a full range of medical treatment for everybody without insurance conditions. Experience of the old scheme amply justified this development. We are told that "the greatest folly in the world is the manner in which Great Britain embarked in a nation-wide Health Service without hospitals, doctors, nurses, drugs or money." So far as hospitals are concerned, is the Editor of the Journal acquainted with the following facts incontestably established by numerous hospital surveys made before and during the war :- That hospital accommodation was gravely deficient in both quantity and quality? That the existing hospital services were completely unco-ordinated? That one-third of the beds in our so-called voluntary hospitals were in places with less than 100 beds which, with certain exceptions, were not in a position to give their patients the resources of modern medicine and surgery? Faced with this position, it was, according to the Journal, "the greatest folly in the world" to ensure, by the setting up of a National Health Service, that the great work of hospital development and construction which now has to be undertaken should proceed on a planned and co-ordinated basis. In fact, the existing system of hospital administration (or rather the patchwork of unco-ordinated systems) was quite incapable of doing the job. The stern test of war conditions had already shown that this was so. At that time, when large-scale air attacks demanded the highest efficiency and co-ordination of all available resources, the need for nation-wide hospital planning was universally recognised and embodied in the Emergency Hospital Service. As Lord Moran, a distinguished leader of British medical opinion, has recently written, "It was the war which, by rubbing the nation's nose in the facts, prepared it for reform and educated many in the medical profession to accept change." The Journal blandly assures its readers that "the unfortunate public have no means of knowing whether or not what they get is good medical service." Let us test this statement in relation to fracture treatment, a matter of first-class importance to the Trade Union Movement. In the years before the war, we were gravely concerned at the lack of uniformity in the treatment available. Scientific research gave startling support to our criticisms by establishing that only one per cent. of patients in a consecutive series treated at organised clinics remained permanently incapacitated, whereas thirty-seven per cent. of another series, including a proportion who had been treated at general hospitals without an organised clinic, remained permanently incapacitated. During and since the war there have been notable advances in this field, and we are convinced by past experience that it is only by the co-ordination of planning made possible by a National Service that these improvements can be maintained and developed. Men and women suffering the effects of permanent, preventable incapacity are not likely to share the Journal's view.- 292/847/5/102- All metadata published by Europeana are available free of restriction under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. However, Europeana requests that you actively acknowledge and give attribution to all metadata sources including Europeana
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