In 1923, the Nazi Party was but one of 42 racist and
ultranationalist fringe groups in Germany. Ten years later, it
garnered 37.3 percent of the popular vote in free German
elections, enough to gain the chancellorship for Adolf Hitler.
Over the years, social theorists have come up with a variety of
explanations, and Brustein thinks they're mostly wrong.
For example, one explanation is that sometimes masses of people
behave irrationally. Brustein points out that his analysis of the
data makes that argument difficult. For example, 40 percent of
the people who joined the party after 1925 had left it by 1933.
What happened? Did they suddenly all become rational? Another
example: Farmers who raised livestock were more likely to join
the party than farmers who raised grain. "It's hard to explain
why livestock farmers would be more irrational than
grain-growers," Brustein says. But it can be explained, he adds,
if you note that Weimar agricultural policies favored grain
producers over livestock farmers, and that the latter suffered
disproportionately when German farm prices collapsed in the late
1920s. The livestock farmers, Brustein argues, rationally voted
for their own economic well-being.
Another common belief has been that hate and anti-Semitism were
central to the Nazi Party's appeal. Brustein responds that the
Nazis did not emphasize their anti-Semitism during their rise in
the 1920s and '30s. "Anti-Semitism was there, but most parties
played the anti-Semitic card," he says. And how can anti-Semitism
explain the fact that single women were more likely to join than
married women? Would one want to argue that single women tend to
be more anti-Semitic? The data do not make sense in these
arguments."
For Brustein, the explanation most consistent with party
membership data is rational choice--millions of Germans preferred
the Nazi economic program, with its emphasis on protectionism,
economic self-sufficiency, tax relief, resettlement of landless
farms, and impartible inheritance. "People will vote for or join
the party that they believe will increase their wealth, power,
and prestige," he says.
Brustein sees a lesson in this analysis. German voters in the
1930s did not foresee the Holocaust or a disastrous world war.
They certainly didn't vote for that--they voted for prosperity
and economic security. "Evil as an outcome is not always
discernible," Brustein says. "One has to separate origins from
outcomes. People who are living in these moments when these
choices are being made don't have the luxury of reading back in
history. The danger is that oftentimes we act as individuals not
knowing the consequences, particularly the collective
consequences of our individual acts. I'm always concerned that
the successful demagogue is the one who's able to mask the hatred
while appealing to someone's bread-and-butter interests. Evil may
have ordinary and rational origins." --DK
Personalized guns for safety's
sake
Each year, 40,000 people die from gunshot injuries, many in
accidents involving handguns. But what if handguns were
personalized, or contained special technology that allowed only
authorized users to fire the weapons? A curious young child, say,
or a suicidal teenager could not pull the trigger on his parent's
gun. The 1-out-of-4 American households that have a handgun
would be safer.
Personalized handgun technology exists, and Hopkins safety
experts have written model legislation requiring that it be
incorporated in all handguns manufactured or sold in a
jurisdiction. State representative T.J. Rooney will introduce a
bill containing the legislation in Pennsylvania any day,
according to Susan DeFrancesco, coordinator of the Johns Hopkins
Center for Gun Policy and Research. New Jersey, New York, and
Maryland have requested copies of the model law.
Personalized handgun designs range from low-tech--such as a
built-in combination lock--to a high-tech prototype developed by
Colt's Manufacturing Company, Inc., that makes use of radiowave
frequencies. The user of this prototype wears a ring or lapel pin
that contains a tiny transponder that emits radiowaves at a
particular frequency. An antenna in the gun's grip recognizes
this radiowave code, and allows the gun to be fired.
Colt will market its new personalized handguns within the next
three years, starting with police officers, says DeFrancesco.
"Police are often killed by their own weapons," she notes, "by
criminals who disarm them."
A personalized handgun that uses magnetic encoding and is
manufactured by Fulton Arms is already on the market, says
DeFrancesco.
The model legislation, says DeFrancesco, "is certainly not a gun
ban. It's a change in design, as has been done with
child-resistant drug packaging and cigarette lighters and safety
features in automobiles." --MH
The currency doctor steps
in
In the late 1980s, the Argentine economy was a train wreck.
Annual inflation had climbed to near 3,000 percent, the gross
domestic product (GDP) was shrinking, and capital was leaving
town as fast as it could. When Carlos Menem won the presidency in
1989, economic reform was his principal task.
Menem and his minister of economy, Domingo Cavallo, consulted
with Hopkins professor of applied
economics, Steven H. Hanke on
how to gain control over the hyperinflation that was devastating
the economy. On April 1, 1991, Argentina followed Hanke's advice
and pegged the value of the peso to its reserves of U.S. dollars.
Less than six years later, Hanke reports, inflation has vanished.
