One of the under discussed problems that helped lead to the Rise of Nazism was the take over of much of the property of Germany by foreigners, especially after the inflation. This helped build the feeling of disenfranchisement and a sense of Germany being a colony of foreign powers. Most hated of course of the people to benefit from the mass transfer of wealth brought along by the inflation were the Jews, who were most recognizable as an other living in Germany, and who's exploitation was easier to see than the native German wealthy. On the gaining of the Inflation:
Unfinished Victory, Arthur Bryant, 1940.
Such was often a concern, and one we may see again with the way China buys up property as of now, often on very favorable terms though deals with governments to exploit that government's peoples and steal their birthrights. Or our own situation where many feared/felt that the 2008 crisis resulted in the mass transfer of wealth from the common people to the financial and governmental elite who caused the crisis in the first place, or as we are starting to see now, the impoverishment of the common people with this lockdown.
In these situations, I think it can generally be seen that an injustice has occurred. However, as one may tell by the somewhat mushy title, its an injustice that's difficult to properly describe, and is not really nameable as an injustice at all within standard liberal/capitalistic terms. As said above, a Jew using his access to foreign currency to purchase property off a German is hardly an immoral act. Likewise if a developer purchased a small business property in 2020, that is not an immoral act. Both are normal, regular activities. The injustice of the act comes from the actions of a third party, the government in both cases, the German one for bringing about hyperinflation, or in the 2020 case the US enforcing a lockdown artificially killing off the business and forcing the sale of the property for a song.
Its less problematic if the cause and beneficiary are actually one in the same, rather than one killer and one vulture to feast of a corpse. When the developer and the government for example collude together to drive small businesses out of the way, or someone like China manipulates its currency to be able to buy a great mass of capital at artificially cheap rates, trading fraudulently valued money for real property. But even in these situations, its hard to tell where the line of doing wrong is, or what a just way to redress the injustice actually is.
In Germany, the chosen method to solve an unjust distribution of property rights (if that is what the problem is? So tricky to nail down) was to end property rights, with a majority voting for this solution, and of the anti property right left or right, the right won in Germany and the chosen solution was to kill of the people seen as having unjust ownership of German Property. In many post colonial governments, recognizing the problem of continued foreign ownership of much of the assets of their nations, the solution was communist seizing of the means of production instead, bringing all the property into "the peoples" ownership.
In summary, there is a problem of "unjust" ownership which can cause a great multitude of real problems which I believe history shows needs to be addressed. However, in the liberal framework, its extremely difficult to even really describe what the problem actually is, and it really doesn't seem to have tools within itself to solve it, thus such problems often ending in the ending of liberalism.
Thus, I believe there would be a benefit to being able to address such problems within a liberal framework, both describing the problem and fixing it, or at least, a method that doesn't require going as far out of it as Fascism or Communism to resolve.
There were a few, of course, who profited by this
gigantic transfer of property. The larger landowners,
who had not been forced by hunger to sell
during the crash, and the great industrialists and
astuter financial manipulators found themselves
richer than they had been before. The mortgages and
prior charges on their equities had been artificially
eliminated. But the chief gainers were those who
had been able to command foreign currency or credit
during the inflationary period. Theirs had been the
opportunity of buying up the assets of a nation at
“ knock-out ” prices. While others were selling,
frantically and at almost any sacrifice to save themselves
from starvation, they had been purchasers.
Anyone who had a relation or friend abroad capable
of advancing the smallest amount of foreign currency
could enjoy for the easy reaping a golden
harvest he had never sown.
It was the Jews with their international affilia-
tions and their hereditary flair for finance who were
best able to seize such opportunities. Jakob, the
small shopkeeper whose father had emigrated from
eastern Europe a generation before, had only to apply
to cousin Mordecai in Poland or Czechoslovakia to
receive the needful for effecting the transaction of a
lifetime. By purchasing the movable assets of his
neighbours for a song during the universal want of
Inflation and re-selling abroad for foreign currency,
he was able, before the debacle ended, to buy up
enough real property in Germany to make him a rich
man. It was perfectly natural — and from his point
of view perfectly just — that he should do so.
England’s necessity, it used to be said, was Ireland’s
opportunity. Germany’s was that of the Jews.
Many who had hitherto enjoyed so much less than their
fair share of the good things of life found themselves
by legal process of exchange the residuary legatees
of a broken kingdom. They merely did what others
in their place would have done. And since the sun
does not shine often on their race, they made hay as
fast as they could. They did so with such effect that,
even in November 1938, after five years of anti-
Semitic legislation and persecution, they still owned,
according to The Times Correspondent in Berlin,
something like a third of the real property in the
Reich. Most of it came into their hands during the
Inflation.
But to those who had lost their all this bewildering
transfer seemed a monstrous injustice. After prolonged
sufferings they had now been deprived of their
last possessions. They saw them pass into the hands
of strangers, many of whom had not shared their
sacrifices and who cared little or nothing for their
national standards and traditions.
There were not lacking angry and passionate
spokesmen to voice the smarting and unreasoning
feelings of the dispossessed. “ Thousands of old age
pensioners, middle-class people, scientists, war
widows ”, shouted the rising Munich orator, Adolf
Hitler, during that August of galloping Inflation,
“ are selling their last gold values for scraps of paper.
The last national property of the whole people is thus
passing lightly into the hands of the Jews who are
drawing all things to themselves. Millions of existences
which were supported on the thrift of a generation
are being tricked of everything by this swindle.”
gigantic transfer of property. The larger landowners,
who had not been forced by hunger to sell
during the crash, and the great industrialists and
astuter financial manipulators found themselves
richer than they had been before. The mortgages and
prior charges on their equities had been artificially
eliminated. But the chief gainers were those who
had been able to command foreign currency or credit
during the inflationary period. Theirs had been the
opportunity of buying up the assets of a nation at
“ knock-out ” prices. While others were selling,
frantically and at almost any sacrifice to save themselves
from starvation, they had been purchasers.
Anyone who had a relation or friend abroad capable
of advancing the smallest amount of foreign currency
could enjoy for the easy reaping a golden
harvest he had never sown.
It was the Jews with their international affilia-
tions and their hereditary flair for finance who were
best able to seize such opportunities. Jakob, the
small shopkeeper whose father had emigrated from
eastern Europe a generation before, had only to apply
to cousin Mordecai in Poland or Czechoslovakia to
receive the needful for effecting the transaction of a
lifetime. By purchasing the movable assets of his
neighbours for a song during the universal want of
Inflation and re-selling abroad for foreign currency,
he was able, before the debacle ended, to buy up
enough real property in Germany to make him a rich
man. It was perfectly natural — and from his point
of view perfectly just — that he should do so.
England’s necessity, it used to be said, was Ireland’s
opportunity. Germany’s was that of the Jews.
Many who had hitherto enjoyed so much less than their
fair share of the good things of life found themselves
by legal process of exchange the residuary legatees
of a broken kingdom. They merely did what others
in their place would have done. And since the sun
does not shine often on their race, they made hay as
fast as they could. They did so with such effect that,
even in November 1938, after five years of anti-
Semitic legislation and persecution, they still owned,
according to The Times Correspondent in Berlin,
something like a third of the real property in the
Reich. Most of it came into their hands during the
Inflation.
But to those who had lost their all this bewildering
transfer seemed a monstrous injustice. After prolonged
sufferings they had now been deprived of their
last possessions. They saw them pass into the hands
of strangers, many of whom had not shared their
sacrifices and who cared little or nothing for their
national standards and traditions.
There were not lacking angry and passionate
spokesmen to voice the smarting and unreasoning
feelings of the dispossessed. “ Thousands of old age
pensioners, middle-class people, scientists, war
widows ”, shouted the rising Munich orator, Adolf
Hitler, during that August of galloping Inflation,
“ are selling their last gold values for scraps of paper.
The last national property of the whole people is thus
passing lightly into the hands of the Jews who are
drawing all things to themselves. Millions of existences
which were supported on the thrift of a generation
are being tricked of everything by this swindle.”
Unfinished Victory, Arthur Bryant, 1940.
Such was often a concern, and one we may see again with the way China buys up property as of now, often on very favorable terms though deals with governments to exploit that government's peoples and steal their birthrights. Or our own situation where many feared/felt that the 2008 crisis resulted in the mass transfer of wealth from the common people to the financial and governmental elite who caused the crisis in the first place, or as we are starting to see now, the impoverishment of the common people with this lockdown.
In these situations, I think it can generally be seen that an injustice has occurred. However, as one may tell by the somewhat mushy title, its an injustice that's difficult to properly describe, and is not really nameable as an injustice at all within standard liberal/capitalistic terms. As said above, a Jew using his access to foreign currency to purchase property off a German is hardly an immoral act. Likewise if a developer purchased a small business property in 2020, that is not an immoral act. Both are normal, regular activities. The injustice of the act comes from the actions of a third party, the government in both cases, the German one for bringing about hyperinflation, or in the 2020 case the US enforcing a lockdown artificially killing off the business and forcing the sale of the property for a song.
Its less problematic if the cause and beneficiary are actually one in the same, rather than one killer and one vulture to feast of a corpse. When the developer and the government for example collude together to drive small businesses out of the way, or someone like China manipulates its currency to be able to buy a great mass of capital at artificially cheap rates, trading fraudulently valued money for real property. But even in these situations, its hard to tell where the line of doing wrong is, or what a just way to redress the injustice actually is.
In Germany, the chosen method to solve an unjust distribution of property rights (if that is what the problem is? So tricky to nail down) was to end property rights, with a majority voting for this solution, and of the anti property right left or right, the right won in Germany and the chosen solution was to kill of the people seen as having unjust ownership of German Property. In many post colonial governments, recognizing the problem of continued foreign ownership of much of the assets of their nations, the solution was communist seizing of the means of production instead, bringing all the property into "the peoples" ownership.
In summary, there is a problem of "unjust" ownership which can cause a great multitude of real problems which I believe history shows needs to be addressed. However, in the liberal framework, its extremely difficult to even really describe what the problem actually is, and it really doesn't seem to have tools within itself to solve it, thus such problems often ending in the ending of liberalism.
Thus, I believe there would be a benefit to being able to address such problems within a liberal framework, both describing the problem and fixing it, or at least, a method that doesn't require going as far out of it as Fascism or Communism to resolve.
