After World War I, the world economy experienced extremely unbalanced prosperity. The United States prospered with loans to Germany and domestic credit consumption, while France achieved economic growth with huge reparations and trade protection. Britain's economy has declined in international competition, and its economy has stagnated. Japan, which is fragile and uncompetitive, fluctuates in successive crises. On the contrary, although Germany had to pay huge war reparations abroad, lost Alsace and Lorraine, and its domestic society was in turmoil, it relied on huge foreign debts to update its industrial equipment and became the second industrial power in the world again. This extremely unbalanced prosperity finally ended in the Great Depression.

Technically speaking, the prosperity after World War I seems to have a very solid foundation. Automobile, chemistry and electricity are the leading forces of this round of technological revolution. The output of American cars has tripled from19150,000 in 2009, reaching the level of one car for every six people on average, accounting for 8% of the national output value. Power generation has more than doubled, various motors and electrical appliances have become increasingly popular, and refrigerators and washing machines have become daily necessities. The output value of household appliances increased from 192 1 USD to 4160,000 USD in 1929. The chemical industry has become very huge. The oil refining industry has developed rapidly, and the oil output has increased from 86 million barrels in 19 19 to 439 million barrels in 1929. The demand for automobile tires has promoted the development of rubber industry. Emerging industries such as rayon and fertilizer have also risen rapidly. However, the shipbuilding industry still lacks international competitiveness, and the shipbuilding market is mainly occupied by Britain and Germany. Labor-intensive industries such as shoemaking and textile began to lose their international competitive advantage, and their output stagnated or even decreased. Agriculture has also been depressed for a long time. On the one hand, European countries protect their own agriculture and establish protective tariffs. On the other hand, Argentina and Canada, which rely on cheap labor, put a lot of food into the international market, which makes the export of agricultural products in the United States decline and the prices of agricultural products continue to fall. 1929, the value of wheat exported by the United States was only1913 in 2009, and that of meat was only19 (1919). In 2009, the export value of wheat was $65,438 billion, and that of meat was $700 million. However, the agricultural depression has effectively promoted the modernization of American farms. A large number of small and medium-sized farms relying on manual labor were merged, the number of farmers decreased by 500 thousand, and the scale of farms expanded rapidly. 1930, 3 million small farms out of 6 million farms in China only produced 1 1% crops. In addition, the coal industry was replaced by the oil industry, and railway transportation was replaced by automobile transportation, all of which went downhill. The number of employees in the railway transportation industry decreased from 2 million in 1920 to 1700.

However, the prosperity of the United States is not only based on the vigorous development of emerging industries, but also on the sacrifice of competitors and credit growth. From 1924 to 1929, the installment sales increased from $2 billion to $3.5 billion. 1926, 70% of cars were sold on credit. More importantly, American industrial products are cheap and good, with strong international competitiveness, and industrial products are exported more and more. The annual import and export surplus ranges from $300 million to 10 billion, which has accumulated a strong capital surplus. Correspondingly, the stagnation of the British economy and the frequent economic crisis in Japan, as well as Germany's huge foreign debt. From 1924 to 1929, British industrial production only increased by 12%, which is far from the United States. Traditional industries such as coal, steel and textiles are in deep trouble. Although the automobile, electrical and chemical industries have also developed rapidly, they are still not as good as the United States. Britain's trade volume still ranks first in the world. During the period from 192 1 to 1929, the annual trade volume was more than 9 billion US dollars, but the proportion of Britain in international trade decreased from 19 13.9% in 2003 to 1929. The trade deficit is getting higher and higher, which also makes the domestic trade protectionism in Britain stronger and stronger. 19 15, Britain has imposed an ad valorem tax of 33.3% on imported cars, watches, musical instruments and movies on the grounds of raising war funds. This tariff was not terminated by the Labor government until 1924 (the seventh year after the war), but it was re-imposed by the Conservative government in 1925, and its scope was expanded. Another important reason for the lack of competitiveness of British industry is that the price of the pound was too high when the gold standard was restored. Nevertheless, due to the return of international investment profits, Britain's balance of payments is barely balanced.

The situation in France is particularly good. France got Germany 8 1. The war reparations of 565438+ 1 100 million gold marks recovered the coal-producing areas of Alsace and Lorraine, Saar 15, and German rule in Togo, Cameroon, Syria, Lebanon and other colonies. In addition, strict trade protection made French industry and agriculture develop rapidly in the 1920s. Compared with the United States and Britain, the progress of heavy industry in France is particularly remarkable. The output of pig iron increased from191330,000 tons in 2009 to 1929, and the output of steel increased from 19 1929 to 1929. Emerging industries such as automobiles, electric power and chemistry have developed rapidly, and the output of automobiles has increased from 40,000 vehicles in 1920 to 250,000 vehicles in 1929. More significantly, on the one hand, France protected the domestic market, on the other hand, it opened foreign markets with low-priced francs, and French exports soared, with 1923 exceeding imports by five times, and the total import and export volume increased from 27 billion francs in 19 1929 to 1089. With the huge trade surplus and the return of investment profits, gold flowed into France in large quantities. After 1928, France has gold second only to the United States. The proportion of France in world industrial production has increased from 5% in 1920 to 8% in 1930.

Italy is also good. The industrial output of 1925 is 157% of 1922. The cotton textile industry, iron and steel industry and automobile industry have all made rapid development. However, Italy's economic development level still lags far behind France, even behind Japan. 1929, the annual output of Italian cars only reached 54,000.

Germany is a completely different situation. Until 1924, due to huge compensation and the loss of a large number of industrial and transportation facilities, German prices were out of control and the financial economy was in chaos. 1924, for the purpose of maintaining the balance of power in the European continent, and also for the purpose of profiting from German industrial capacity, Britain and the United States did not want Germany to follow in the footsteps of the Russian revolution, so they issued the "Dawes Plan" and gave Germany a loan of 800 million goldmark. Encouraged by this plan, international capital keeps flowing into Germany. From 1924 to 1929, the total amount of foreign investment is as high as 32 billion gold marks, mainly American capital, followed by British capital. During this period, due to more capital and less compensation, German industrial equipment was generally updated, and the level of production technology jumped to the forefront of the world. Moreover, most of the foreign capital is a powerful German monopoly industrial group, which further enhances the monopoly degree of German industry. Thyssen, Krupp, Siemens, Mann, Neszmann, fleek and so on are all stronger than before. However, as a country, Germany is heavily in debt and has to pay a lot of compensation. Although industrial production capacity has been quickly restored, people's life is still very difficult. As long as Germany delays repaying debts and paying reparations in order to stabilize the political situation, or the profit from investment in Germany cannot be realized, the international economic cycle will be interrupted immediately.

The situation in Japan is very similar to that in Germany. Although Japan is a victorious country, its industrial capacity is very weak and it can't stand the blow of American and European industries. At the end of World War I, the economies of Britain, France and Germany had not recovered. Japan received a large number of orders from American industry, silk products and ships were exported to the United States in large quantities, and its economy was once prosperous. But then, goods from European and American countries flocked to Japan and Asian markets, and Japanese goods were losing ground, which led to an unprecedented serious economic crisis. From 1920 to 192 1, Japan's total industrial output decreased by 19.9%, including shipbuilding 88.2%, mining 55.9%, machine manufacturing 55.9% and pig iron 16.7%. The prices of major industrial products dropped by 55%-82%. Exports fell by 40.3%, the balance of payments deficit reached 350 million yen, and foreign exchange reserves decreased from 6,543,803 million yen to 600 million yen. In fact, due to Japan's lack of international competitiveness, Japan's trade deficit has reached 3.3 billion yen from 1920 to 1929. Agriculture has not been spared. 3,500 silk reeling factories were shut down, and 2 million silkworm farmers were in a desperate situation. At the same time, a large number of cheap international grain was imported into Japan, the domestic market was depressed, and food prices fell again and again. Since then, rice and wheat production has been stagnant for a long time. 1923, 1 In September, the Great Kanto Earthquake occurred in Japan, and most buildings in Tokyo and Yokohama were destroyed, resulting in huge property losses of/kloc-0.00 billion yen, which made the already depressed Japanese economy worse. After the earthquake, from 1923 to 1927, the Japanese government borrowed huge foreign debts from the United States and Britain, amounting to 9 1 billion dollars. Relying on borrowing and the reserves obtained in the war, the Japanese government issued relief loans as high as 654.38+0.3 billion yen to major domestic consortia, which gradually freed the Japanese economy from depression and entered a period of slow development. But 1927 a financial crisis broke out in Japan. Some banks have a lot of unsettled earthquake disaster bills, which leads to the trend of bank run. Economic crisis and depression followed. The government allocated a total of/kloc-0.2 billion yen to help big banks such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi. Before Japan could catch its breath, a bigger crisis broke out from the United States. This process has produced two far-reaching consequences. First, owing a huge amount of international debt has become an important link in the international debt chain that triggered the Great Depression. Secondly, a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises went bankrupt, and Japanese industry was highly monopolized. On the one hand, the Japanese economy controlled by monopoly consortia imposes technological upgrading, on the other hand, it implements trade protection. More importantly, it has contributed to the further growth of the political forces that write off debts and practise militarism. From this point of view, the Great Kanto Earthquake is as important to Japan as the defeat in World War I, and the huge debts of Germany and Japan are closely related to the prosperity of the United States.

Extremely unbalanced prosperity breeds a very unusual crisis. After just three years of investment boom, from 1927, the German industrial crisis has begun to take shape. Due to heavy debt and compensation payments, Germany's domestic market is small, and huge new production capacity must be realized in high-speed export growth. The United States, Britain, France and other countries not only demanded compensation from Germany, but also refused to import German industrial products, making Germany's huge investment profits impossible to realize. 1929 In March, the Englishman Sir Pei Xi issued a warning at the national trade conference, saying, "We are threatened by the worst financial crisis that the world has never seen before. We are facing this crisis because many governments in the world have adopted trade restrictions, which makes debtor countries unable to repay their debts. We can't stop the financial collapse now. The money of those lending countries cannot be recovered. "

The crisis really broke out. 1929101On October 24th, the new york stock market plunged. From that time to 1932, the share price of new york fell by more than one sixth, and the national securities depreciated by 84 billion US dollars. After the new york stock market crash, the American economy was in crisis. The United States withdrew a large amount of investment in Germany and the German economy collapsed. Britain has also invested heavily in Germany, the British stock market has plummeted and the British economy is in crisis. The French economy is relatively independent, but it can't get rid of its dependence on the international market. In addition, investment in the French economy itself has been overheated. By 1930, France was finally in crisis. In this way, a great depression that swept the world began.

The United States is the beneficiary of the debt boom and the biggest victim of the debt chain break. From 1929 to 1933, the gross national product of the United States dropped from $203.6 billion to141500 million (calculated at the price of 1958), with a drop of up to 30%. More than 86,500 industrial and commercial enterprises closed down, industrial production fell by 55.6%, import and export trade plummeted by 77.6%, and corporate profits fell from $654.38+0 billion to $654.38+0 billion. At the height of the crisis, major industrial enterprises in the United States basically stopped operating. The operating rate of automobile industry is only 5%, and that of steel industry is 15%. Agriculture also suffered a devastating blow, with food prices falling by two-thirds, and the total income of agricultural currency dropped from 65438+11300 million dollars in 0929 to 4.74 billion dollars. The banking system bears the brunt, with the number of failures as high as 10500, accounting for 49% of all banks. Gold flowed out and deposits were run. By March 1933, the whole banking system was paralyzed. The unemployment rate (excluding the underemployed) is as high as 25%. After 1933, the American economy entered a long period of so-called "special depression". Despite the "New Deal" and other measures to ease the crisis, the recovery of the American economy is still weak. It was not until the outbreak of World War II 194 1 year that the gross national product of the United States exceeded that before the crisis.

Germany is the main source and victim of this crisis. From 1929 to 1932, the utilization rate of industrial equipment in Germany decreased to 36%, the total industrial production decreased by 40%, the foreign trade volume decreased by 60%, and the price decreased by 30%. Among them, the output of major industries decreased even more, with iron output decreasing by 70% and shipbuilding output value decreasing by 80%. The industrial crisis in turn led to the financial crisis. In July, 193 1, Dart Bank in Daams closed down, which triggered a run. The national gold reserve was reduced from DM 2.39 billion to DM13.6 billion, and the nine largest banks in Berlin were reduced to four. The unemployment rate rose sharply, reaching 43.8% in 1932, and the semi-unemployed population reached 22.6%. Therefore, the total number of unemployed and semi-unemployed workers in Germany reached two-thirds of the total number of workers in 1932. The extremely high unemployment rate provided a good social soil for Hitler to come to power. It should be admitted that Hitler's regime cancelled debts abroad and militarized the national economy at home, which really made Germany's industrial resources fully utilized, the economy developed rapidly and the unemployment rate dropped rapidly. 1938 The unemployment rate is as low as 1.3%. From 1932 to 1938, the output of pig iron in Germany increased from 3.9 million tons to18.6 million tons, the output of steel increased from 5.6 million tons to 23.2 million tons, and the output of aluminum, magnesium and lathes was higher than that in the United States. From 1933 to 1939, Germany's heavy industry and arms industry increased by 2. 1 times, and the production of consumer goods also increased by 43%. Compared with Germany, Roosevelt's New Deal only temporarily eased the depression. It was not until 194 1 that the United States entered the war and the national economy of the United States turned into a wartime planned economy track, and the United States completely got rid of the Great Depression. Although there are great differences in political nature and ideology between Germany and the United States, there are inherent commonalities in getting rid of the depression caused by fierce market competition: stopping the economic war, uniformly allocating resources, and the income ratio of all social strata is relatively stable.

This crisis has also hit Japan hard. From 1929 to 193 1, Japanese exports decreased by 76.5%, while imports decreased by 7 1.7%. A large number of banks and industrial and commercial enterprises went bankrupt. The operating rate of major industries was only 50%, and the total industrial output value decreased by 32.9%, among which coal, pig iron, steel, shipbuilding and cotton textile decreased by 36.7%, 30.5%, 47.2%, 88.2% and 30.7% respectively. The total agricultural output value has also dropped by 40%, and the price of raw silk has plummeted, which has caused a fatal blow to sericulture farmers who account for 40% of the total number of farmers. Japan's countermeasure is to militarize the national economy from top to bottom. Since 193 1, the government has controlled various fields such as industry, agriculture, gold and trade through a series of economic control laws headed by the Law on the Control of Important Industries. Forcibly organize cartels and trusts in various departments and put small and medium-sized enterprises under the control of chaebol. Then a large number of military orders were issued to monopoly enterprises. From 193 1 to 1936, military orders totaled 5 billion yen. During this period, the government also invested more than 6,543.8 billion yuan to build, expand and reorganize state-owned military enterprises. The biggest beneficiaries of the militarization of the national economy are the old and new chaebols. By 1937, the capital of eight established chaebols (Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, An Tian, Okura, Asano Nagaakira, Kawasaki and Furukawa) and five new chaebols (Nissan, Nissan, Mori and Riken) reached 4 170 billion yen, accounting for 2.72 billion yen of the total capital of national companies. In 1 10 enterprises that accept military orders, almost all powerful factories belong to a few chaebol such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Okura and Jiuyuan. On the premise of economic monopoly, Japanese enterprises maintain monopoly high prices in the domestic market, while dumping at low prices abroad in order to obtain necessary foreign exchange and purchase strategic resources and industrial equipment. From 193 1 to 1934, Japanese exports increased from1/kloc-0.50 billion yen to 20/kloc-0.80 billion yen. Among them, the export of cotton textiles surpassed that of Britain, ranking first in the world with 1933, which shocked European and American countries.

The crisis in Britain is relatively mild. There are two reasons. First, the British economy has been in a state of stagnation or slow development for a long time, and the surplus capital is mainly invested abroad. Second, after the crisis, Britain strengthened trade protection and expanded the relative market share of British industry. From the highest point 1929 to the lowest point 1932, British industrial production only dropped by 32%, far below that of the United States. However, major industrial sectors have also been severely hit, with steel production falling by 46%, pig iron production by 53%, textile production by two thirds and coal production by one fifth. Before 1932, the British agriculture was seriously affected by the crisis. Foreign trade has also fallen sharply. In the third quarter, the export volume decreased by 30% from 1929 to 193 1, and the foreign trade deficit increased from 390 million pounds in 19365438 to 4/kloc-0 million pounds. At the same time, the crisis prompted Britain to finally abandon the free trade policy and establish the imperial tariff preference system, and also prompted Britain to abandon the gold standard, and the pound depreciated sharply. The former protects the British domestic market, while the latter enhances the competitiveness of British products in the international market. The combination of the two made Britain a relative beneficiary of the Great Depression.

The French economy is relatively independent. It has neither a large amount of creditor's rights to Germany nor the corresponding industrial equipment export. France's prosperity in the1920s mainly depended on German reparations to provide capital to expand production and low-priced francs to expand exports. So when the American economic crisis broke out, France was still at the peak of its prosperity. 1in the middle of 930, under the double impact of overheated domestic investment and shrinking foreign markets, France's "shell banks" went bankrupt and the economic crisis spread to France. Even so, the depth of the crisis in France is lower than that in the United States. Compared with the highest point before the crisis 1929 and the lowest point during the crisis 1932, industrial production decreased by 36.2%. Among them, the metallurgical industry decreased by 47.4%, the machinery manufacturing industry decreased by 42.6% and the construction industry decreased by 55.6%. The crisis of light industry seems to be more serious. The French light industry of 1932 is 64% lower than that of 1928. However, due to France's ineffective measures to deal with the crisis, the crisis in France lasted the longest. On the premise that the pound and the dollar have depreciated one after another, trade barriers have been erected, Japanese and German industries have been militarized and dumped abroad, France has continued to maintain the gold standard, French industries have continued to be relatively dispersed, and the competitiveness of French industrial exports has greatly declined. 1937, French exports decreased by almost three quarters compared with 1929. In the total world trade, the proportion of France dropped from 6.4% in 1929 to 5. 1% in 1937. At the same time, due to the bankruptcy of foreign debtors, France's foreign investment income decreased by more than 50%. Therefore, France's balance of payments deficit is expanding day by day, reaching 5 billion francs in 1932. Financially, France not only failed to adopt an expansion policy, but emphasized fiscal balance and persisted in deflation. It was not until September 29th, 1936, that France was forced to devalue the franc by 29%. From then to April 1937, French exports increased 12%, and industrial production increased 13%. However, this measure came too late. From 1937 to 1938, the United States fell into economic crisis again, which offset the devaluation of the franc to a certain extent.

Generally speaking, the crisis has further strengthened trade protection and adjusted the relative position of national economies. Britain, Germany, Japan and other countries took timely and correct measures to deal with the crisis, and their international market share increased; The response measures of the United States and France are slow and powerless, and the international market share has fallen sharply. The loss of the United States is particularly noteworthy. The proportion of the United States in the world's total industrial output dropped from 48.5% in 1929 to 32.2% in 1938, which was lower than 36% in 19 13. The huge war debt owned by the United States went up in smoke, and foreign investment was largely withdrawn. 1938, the stock of American foreign investment decreased to11500 million US dollars, a decrease of one third compared with 1929. The international trade status of the United States has also declined sharply. From 1929 to 1938, the import share of the United States dropped from 12.2% to 8. 1%, and the export from 15.6% to 13.4%. Relying on its huge colony, Britain regained the top position in the world trade volume. Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, etc. ) established the imperial preferential tariff system. Germany also imposed trade blockades in its ruling areas and colonies (continental Europe and parts of Latin America). In the Asian market, the growth rate of American trade lags far behind that of Japan and Germany. It was not until World War II that the United States regained its lost international market share and once again dominated the world.