I see that the US’s GDP (a good proxy, I think, for industrial production, was 800 at the start of the war, while total Axis GDP was 685. The rest of the Allies represented 829. So by itself, the US was 17% more than the entire Axis alliance, and just under half of the Allies (ie. the rest of the world). Pretty impressive.
The last column has the USA at 1474, or >3x total Axis output (466), and is at 64% of Allies. Incidentally, this means at the end of the war, the US was >2x what the Axis were at the beginning of the war. So the US did not have twice what the rest of the world had; but it did have twice the Axis by the end, and presumably this was foreseeable. So we can change Smith’s point from being that the USA could industrially epic pwn the Axis, to merely pwn them.
Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II
I see that the US’s GDP (a good proxy, I think, for industrial production, was 800 at the start of the war, while total Axis GDP was 685. The rest of the Allies represented 829. So by itself, the US was 17% more than the entire Axis alliance, and just under half of the Allies (ie. the rest of the world). Pretty impressive.
The last column has the USA at 1474, or >3x total Axis output (466), and is at 64% of Allies. Incidentally, this means at the end of the war, the US was >2x what the Axis were at the beginning of the war. So the US did not have twice what the rest of the world had; but it did have twice the Axis by the end, and presumably this was foreseeable. So we can change Smith’s point from being that the USA could industrially epic pwn the Axis, to merely pwn them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II
(fixed link)
Thanks; edited.
Thank you for providing Data.