Postwar European Capitalism

The Second World War proved to be a watershed for businesses in all nations involved in the conflict, as states governed the commanding heights of every economy (or tried to). The three papers in this panel address the long term effects of such concentrated power on enterprises in France, Hungary, and Norway. In all three cases, private companies collaborated with the Reich and its supporters and were nationalized by successor regimes. The first paper will analyze Renault’s complex path into, through, and beyond state ownership and control; the second will explore Hungarian reformers’ attempt to restructure nationalized Stalin-era industrial and commercial firms so as to replace a command economy with a more flexible and market-responsive business system. The third discusses the ways in which the international aluminum industry’s wartime activity and U.S. postwar pressure conditioned the Norwegian government’s decision that it was no longer possible for its aluminum manufacture to continue under private ownership.