In a video call with Paul Cockshott ~a year ago he mentioned that Otto Neurath talks about the Austro-Hungarian planned war economy, but provides no details. Paul is interested in details around this, how they actually did this. This would give us an early example to compare to early Gosplan. I tried looking for this information but my German is too rusty to read academic texts on the subject. Plus the information is probably hidden in physical archives somewhere in Austria.
Here's what I was able to find in "The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918" which is available on libgen.
I have been reading about how the US planned the economy in WW1, there's a great section on it in "Constructing Economic Science" also on libgen, and how it also related to the creation of economics as an academic discipline and role in creating public policy.
@casperadmin Interesting. As an electronics guy this part in particular stood out:
Iron replaced copper in electrical wires.
I know that in France lead water pipes were dug up and smelted for the war effort. But there are no technical details in the screenshots you've provided nor in any of the literature I've found so far. Maybe the US book you mention has the goods, will have to check it out.
@thardin This chapter on the early history of the NBER also has some great insight into the world war 1 planning.
Political Arithmetic: Simon Kuznets and the Empirical Tradition in Economics (nber.org)
@thardin This chapter on the early history of the NBER also has some great insight into the world war 1 planning.
Political Arithmetic: Simon Kuznets and the Empirical Tradition in Economics (nber.org)
actually now that I think about, I think this is where I read most of the stuff on the topic.
I know that there actually were two high commands in Austria-Hungary, one Austrian (which also included Slovenia, Croatia, Bohemia and Galicia) and one Hungarian, which also included Transylvania, Slovakia and Vovjodina.
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/organization_of_war_economies_austria-hungary/2016-02-19#:~:text=At%20the%20end%20of%20the,Crow n's%20loss%20of%20purchasing%20power.
@enrique_lescure Yes, I've seen that website. Unfortunately it does not have the information I seek
I think it is very difficult to access those data, given that these are not one but two states which happened to be in a personal union and also happened to both cease to exist due to revolution in 1918-1919.
Apparently, the AHDM had three armies. One common imperial army, one Austrian army and one Hungarian army, each with its own "government". The war ministries of the Austrian and Hungarian armies were operating independently from the common army and from one another.
In short, the question is who was responsible for the war economy and if there even was some common ministry for all of that. I suspect not, given the strange structure of the Habsburg military in 1867-1918.