Lessons from the Weimar Republic

As the U.S. presidential election draws closer, hosts Cameron Abadi and Adam Tooze look at how the current climate of elevated inflation and economic discontent translates into political instability. They focus their attention by comparing these times to Weimar Germany, an era that lasted between World War I and the rise of the Nazi dictatorship. That brief democratic period also famously had high inflation and eventually collapsed into outright dictatorship. In this episode, the two dig into the economics of Weimar Germany and consider where exactly the analogy with the United States lines up and where it doesn’t.

Special thanks to listener Nick Page for the idea for this episode.

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