Helene Lieser · 1927
Helene Lieser’s 1927 review of Max E. Bodmer’s Die Nationalwirtschaft der Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika und ihre Beziehungen zu Europa welcomes a compact statistical survey as a basis for assessing America’s future financial role. Its central claim sets domestic development against international lending:
Amerika wird nicht dauernd der Bankier der Welt bleiben, weil es seine Nationalersparnisse zur Erschließung seiner eigenen Produktivkräfte, insbesondere des Bodens, benötigen wird.
English translation: America will not remain the world’s banker permanently, because it will need its national savings to develop its own productive resources, especially the land.
The review moves from this capital requirement to the tensions within a creditor economy maintaining immigration restrictions and protective tariffs. Strengthening agriculture would expand industry’s domestic market. Europe, correspondingly, cannot treat American credit as a permanent foundation:
In aller Zukunft kann Europa auch nicht von Amerika immer weiter borgen, sondern muß trachten, seine finanzielle Selbständigkeit wieder zu erlangen.
English translation: Nor can Europe continue borrowing ever more from America indefinitely; instead, it must strive to regain its financial independence.
Lieser thus foregrounds the connection between American productive development and European financial autonomy, endorsing Bodmer’s forward-looking account without extended criticism.
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