How much would Germany be beating the UK on wealth and happiness spreads in a no world wars timeline?

[raharris1973]

West Germany, and since the 90s, united Germany, has consistently had higher GDP per capita than the UK since at least 1960. (it did not in 1950, Germany was still behind France, and I do not have figures for 1955).

German executive leadership made a lot of, hmm, bad decisions in the first half of the 20th century. It lost significant shares of some youth cohorts, and on net, lost 'living space'. But 15 years after the war (1960), western Germany was economically more prosperous per person than its three major European opponents in the two world wars. What's a country got to do to get itself ruined?

Taking a recent year snapshot, 2021 - Germany was #17 in PPP adjusted GDP per capita. Britain was #29 in PPP adjusted GDP per capita, down by a dozen places.

In the 2023 world happiness report, Germany is ahead at #16 to the UK's #19, but much more narrowly than in the GDP metric. https://www.nj.com/news/2023/03/wor...e-happiest-countries-in-the-world-ranked.html

If early 20th century German leaders were, in contrast to OTL, such masterful diplomats and decisionmakers (and lucky ones) that Germany never got into any wars (at least not any losing, destructive ones significantly affecting the home front), by how much more would Germany be outranking the UK in the per capita GDP measures from 1960 through the present, and in happiness rankings? Would it have overtaken the UK on per capita GDP rankings several years or decades earlier than OTL?

I imagine in the absence of European-centered world wars like our own, Germany, like other European colonizing states, may have had protracted and expensive colonial wars, but probably, more or less in proportion to the size of their colonial domains. And Germany's was quite a bit smaller and less populous than Britain's or France's.

 

[David Flin]

On the flip side, no WW2 means no Marshall plan, no massive investment in the brownfield sites thoughtfully cleared by the RAF and USAAF, increased requirement to spend higher proportion of GDP on military...

 

[Beata Beatrix]

Well what do you imagine this Germany looking like? Is it still a Kaiserreich? A republic? Even a socialist state? The German crown was headed for an immense crisis vis a vis the SPD and the Reichstag – like the one of 1918! – and I'm not convinced they were going to prevail. If they don't, you may well have some sort of republic or leftist state – and if they do prevail, it's probably Primo de Rivera in Berlin, because it is really, really hard to see a constitutional Kaiserreich in my opinion.

To answer the question you've posed, I think you need to answer these questions, too!

 

[Japhy]

Yes as Beatrix notes the question is one of government. The nature of the regimes in Berlin and London both matter here. The large part of why Wilhelm wanted a war was to use it as a crudgel by which to break the Democratic institutions because even as hollowed out farces he viewed them as a threat, not exactly the basis of a stable regime that would last until his death.

And of course the UK is not guaranteed a stable era of peace and prosperity without WWI either considering the urge to keep the boot on the throats of a quarter of the world's population and the cusp of civil war that existed in 1914 at home.

As always with these sorts of open ended questions the real answer is that's up to you. Its not impossible to have peace lead to some sort of utopia, it's also possible to have Germany and Britain wipe each other out with a nuclear war in 1960 and this becomes a question of who gets more international humanitarian aid.

 

[raharris1973]

it's also possible to have Germany and Britain wipe each other out with a nuclear war in 1960

That, or something like it, and worse, involving America and the rest of the world, is pretty much the end result of the 'worst-case' scenario in Richard Ned Lebow's 'Archduke Franz-Ferdinand Lives' book where he examines counterfactuals from a political science perspective. He focused mainly on a 'best case' and 'worst case' scenario from WWI.

Lots of good stuff in the book, although from some of his vignettes and references, I think he labored under the delusion that immigration from Europe to the USA, or at least immigration of anybody very scientifically or artistically interesting, was driven *only* by the world wars. For average joe and Jane European immigrant, I would actually say the world wars were more of a brake on trans-Atlantic immigration than an accelerant. The migration was doing just fine and dandy in 60+ years before WWI.

 

[Charles EP M.]

As David says, West Germany benefitted from a mass of cash from abroad, foreign support, and a chance to build new stuff, plus the European Community that existed solely because of WW2. (Does not having to spend anything on Eastern Germany help with that?) Britain OTOH had less options to rebuild and a lot of debt, the cost of preserving Empire (and then trying to get out of it) and desire to 'keep up with the Joneses' in superpower politics, not able to get into the EEC for a long while, no land it can ignore etc.

If none of the world wars happen, all of that's out and both countries will be going down different paths. Germany outstripping Britain would have to be done when both nations are colonial empires though one is far bigger & IIRC Germany's colonies weren't much value to the metropol, one has a more reactionary and authoritarian government, Britain has the growing crisis of Irish home rule, both countries have socialist movements on the up, and Britain still has a strangehold on a lot of naval trade and global finance. Meanwhile, both countries are still in a world of big nations uneasily watching each other and waiting for war.

So you need Germany to improve and Britain to decline, but under the POD you also need this to happen without a major war that hits Germany (and that seems difficult if it involves Europe, especially once air power exists)

 

[Japhy]

That, or something like it, and worse, involving America and the rest of the world, is pretty much the end result of the 'worst-case' scenario in Richard Ned Lebow's 'Archduke Franz-Ferdinand Lives' book where he examines counterfactuals from a political science perspective. He focused mainly on a 'best case' and 'worst case' scenario from WWI.

Lots of good stuff in the book, although from some of his vignettes and references, I think he labored under the delusion that immigration from Europe to the USA, or at least immigration of anybody very scientifically or artistically interesting, was driven *only* by the world wars. For average joe and Jane European immigrant, I would actually say the world wars were more of a brake on trans-Atlantic immigration than an accelerant. The migration was doing just fine and dandy in 60+ years before WWI.

That's interesting but yeah, The point still stands. Your initial question is too open to answer. The history that fills in the rest matters.