when there were good institutions being suppressed
Arguably the institutions of Germany were not really that good. Hardly any experience with democracy and not too positive ones before (hyperinflation...). It was not really a falling back to something working situation. One could say that the everyday culture was functional, because it was broadly speaking hard-working and precise and organized, so it could be channeled into an economic wonder, it had the pedalling for that, but the steering had to be invented from the ground up i.e. the political institutions. Actually it surprising how a well done political system was drawn up what a short time.
Italy is an even more interesting experience because post-WW2 Italian politics has always been a mess, unstable governments collapsing in weeks and all that, and yet arguably it was a good period of their history, the whole Vespa-Lamborghini-Fiat-Lollobrigida movies-fashion industry era, it was arguably a productive era, not one of general lethargy. Italians thought politics sucks, shrugged, and went on making interesting things instead of sitting around waiting for someone to fix politics.
Again, it can be understood as falling back to non-political, everyday cultural institutions and norms, of course.
Arguably the institutions of Germany were not really that good.
Sorry I was unclear. I was characterizing the institutions of neighboring countries as being suppressed. I’m not sure how far you’d need to fall back to find something “working” in Germany (pre-Weimar, so pre-WWI, so … how far back do we want to go here?).
Arguably the institutions of Germany were not really that good. Hardly any experience with democracy and not too positive ones before (hyperinflation...). It was not really a falling back to something working situation. One could say that the everyday culture was functional, because it was broadly speaking hard-working and precise and organized, so it could be channeled into an economic wonder, it had the pedalling for that, but the steering had to be invented from the ground up i.e. the political institutions. Actually it surprising how a well done political system was drawn up what a short time.
Italy is an even more interesting experience because post-WW2 Italian politics has always been a mess, unstable governments collapsing in weeks and all that, and yet arguably it was a good period of their history, the whole Vespa-Lamborghini-Fiat-Lollobrigida movies-fashion industry era, it was arguably a productive era, not one of general lethargy. Italians thought politics sucks, shrugged, and went on making interesting things instead of sitting around waiting for someone to fix politics.
Again, it can be understood as falling back to non-political, everyday cultural institutions and norms, of course.
Sorry I was unclear. I was characterizing the institutions of neighboring countries as being suppressed. I’m not sure how far you’d need to fall back to find something “working” in Germany (pre-Weimar, so pre-WWI, so … how far back do we want to go here?).