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Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism, The

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This book is a terrifying look inside a fascist economy, not run by the State, but preyed upon by the State. Always in the background is the spectre of arrest, punishment, and death at the hands of an uncompromising, unforgiving, remorseless, ever-growing State. Regulation, corruption, favoritism are the watchwords. And it all started with an elected government strongly supported and contributed to by big business. Could happen right here in this country. Sure could.

Gunter Reimann's book The Vampire Economy provides a look into how business/government relations were conducted under the new regime of fascism. Reimann describes how the state took control of the natural resources of the country and through establishing a massive bureaucracy the government would decide who to allocate the resources to by picking the winners/losers in economic affairs. The new resource allocation methods by the state took months for orders to be fulfilled, massive amounts of paperwork had to be filed which traveled through several government agencies just to determine whether you would be accepted or denied. The new system required business to hire contact men who had connections with various levels of government departments which meant that the more money you had the better chances you would have at hiring a good contact man you could get your needed resources approved by the state. Businesses were given quotas to fulfill and if you failed the party would force you to resign your position and a party leader would take over your business. Private property was allowed under the fascism government on the condition that you were serving the state and not your private self-interest, which was seen as greedy and punishable under the law. According to Reimann the government established massive bureaucracies, regulations, restrictive trade policies. You lived in an environment of fear not knowing who was loyal to the party one complaint against the new system could get you removed and jailed. The Nazi government engineered an interesting trade policy with many South American and poor European nations. First, the Germans practiced currency manipulations, producing a special currency (I forgot the name) and used those to purchase imports from South America. The "special currency" issued to South America was only redeemable in Marks which forced the South Americans to purchase German manufactured goods at higher prices. When the markets crashed many Americans focused on internal developments, and the South American countries needed an export market which they found with Germany who manipulated the South Americans in the trading practice. There is more in this book than what I discussed and its an interesting book on an intersting topic. Overall it's book dealing with the way business was conducted under fascism.