[WalterBright]

The US initially ruled Japan's economy via leftist academics. The economy remained flat, until the leftists were removed and the free market was allowed to revive.

Yes, the US administered Japan for a while, and along with the USSR, GB and F administered Germany. I don't know at what point they turned it over to the Germans, but Germany's government was a free market one until 1970, when they took a sharp left turn.

The more recent attempts by the US to administer Iraq and Afghanistan were total failures. It would be interesting to see why those failed and the Japanese/German occupations were successful.

(Of course I know that the USSR didn't turn over the Soviet sector until 1989.)

[morsch]

Laos is smaller in area and still had more ordnance dropped on it than Germany. And Germany was a highly developed country before the war, despite heavy bombing, there was a lot of infrastructure remaining.

Germany in the fifties and sixties was governed by Germany's center right party, CDU. But the CDU of the fifties was in many ways more "leftist" (a word best dropped from polite conversation) than today's center left SPD. Their 1947 policy conference was headlined as "overcoming capitalism and marxism"[1] and was quite left wing. It was pared down a few years later, but it's had a lasting impact.

The seventies brought political changes, but it doesn't seem accurate to describe them as a sharp left turn in terms of economics. It remained a free market social democracy, there was no discontinuity there. Foreign policy changes, and a sort of grudging reflection of the cultural changes of the sixties were much more important, or at least are more well remembered.

[1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahlener_Programm

[WalterBright]

> there was a lot of infrastructure remaining

Are you sure about that? Everything was destroyed, because the RAF and the USAAF bombed everything day and night for years. They quite literally tried to bomb Germany and Japan back into the stone age. About every city in Japan was firebombed to ashes.

And the German men were killed. Millions died of starvation after the war ended.

What was different with Germany (and Japan) was - free markets. You can see this starkly in the different fortunes of East and West Germany. The first was under communism, the second under free markets.

Free markets pretty much don't exist in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Laos. Adding money to unfree markets just disappears.

History shows us in country after country after country, free markets leads to prosperity, leftism leads to poverty.

[morsch]

Yes, I'm sure about that. Let's take a famous example, Dresden[1]: after the bombings, most industry was still standing (though not operating), 50+% of living quarters were left, 70% of retail was still operating; rudimentary civilian rail operations were resumed after two weeks, military rail operation resumed within days.

And while some areas were partially destroyed, once you move into the suburbs not to mention the rural areas, everything was left standing. And even where there was rubble, under the rubble were roads and within the rubble were bricks.

They may have tried to bomb Germany back to the stone age, but they couldn't; from what was recently posted here, they probably realized this, but they did try to bomb the population into submission[2], which also didn't work, it's just a war crime.

Millions of Germans did not die of starvation after the war, though hundreds of thousands died of starvation and exposure in 1946/47, which was the harshest winter of the 20th century. I'm not sure how that jives with your whole free market thing; but like I said, Germany in the fifties wasn't the libertarian utopia you make it out to be, so that's probably why people died.

Edit: Let me hasten to add that I don't want to minimize the impact bombing campaigns have on cities and countries. Tens of thousands of people died in Dresden. We still dig out unexploded ordnance where I live, 80 years after the fact. I'm just saying that a lot of infrastructure remained. Germany after the war probably had more infrastructure left standing than Laos did before the war.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftangriffe_auf_Dresden

[2] https://acoup.blog/2022/10/21/collections-strategic-airpower...

[WalterBright]

> though hundreds of thousands died of starvation and exposure in 1946/47

"More than nine million Germans died as a result of Allied starvation and expulsion policies in the first five years after the Second World War-a total far in excess of the figures actually reported."

   -- "Crimes & Mercies" by James Bacque

The book is controversial, but you should be aware of it.

> I'm not sure how that jives with your whole free market thing

The free market thing started around 1950.

> Germany in the fifties wasn't the libertarian utopia you make it out to be, so that's probably why people died

The deaths were before 1950. As for libertarian utopia, I never said that. I said it was the free market that enabled Germany to rise from utter devastation to be the dominant economic power in Europe in just 20 years.

As for Dresden, it was a civilian target, not an industrial one. The US usually targeted industry. It also did not participate in the German Miracle, because it was in the Soviet sector.

Lastly, the German bombing of England was concentrated on London civilian targets, not industrial targets, and it didn't impact infrastructure and industry much. The Luftwaffe also could only reach a small fraction of England, most of the industry was safely out of range. The British went hungry during the war, but they didn't starve.

For reference, the series of Impact books gives a good overview of the effect of the bombing campaigns on Germany and Japan.

https://www.amazon.com/Impact-Forces-Confidential-Picture-Hi...

More:

"Bomber Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive" by Charles Messenger

"Gruesome Harvest" by Ralph Franklin Keeling

"Maximum Effort the B-29s against Japan" by Kevin Herbert

"Target Germany" US Army Air Force

A bit of caution: these are not nice books.

[wolverine876]

You keep saying it, but no evidence.

[wolverine876]

> The US initially ruled Japan's economy via leftist academics. The economy remained flat, until the leftists were removed and the free market was allowed to revive.

Do you have any evidence of this stuff? Maybe it was flat because they were bombed to hell, untold number of dead (especially productive age males), etc etc. Who could possibly expect lots of economic activity in Japan immediately after the war?

[imtringued]

>I don't know at what point they turned it over to the Germans, but Germany's government was a free market one until 1970, when they took a sharp left turn.

You are getting your history exactly backwards. Post war Germany was ordoliberal aka "sharp left" until the 70s and neoliberal aka "sharp right" after that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordoliberalism