The Legacy of Nazism

A CZECHOSLOVAK economist now resident in this country pieces together a picture of the Nazi-dominated economy of Europe and tries to discern the shape of things to come after the war. He believes that Europe faces a “new construction" rather than reconstruction — that the old free competitive economy perished during the First World War. He objects strenuously to proposals that would lead to a swallowing up of the small states, and he tries, not always altogether convincingly, to prove that the multiplicity of frontiershad little to do with Europe’s economic difficulties. His picture of the consequences of fixed prices and artificially fixed currencies is so grim that one is almost tempted to look on free trade and freedom of currency transfer as foundation stones of civilization and human happiness.