The American economic and social system after the First World War, mass production and mass consumption system on the Taylorism and the Fordism, was called in Europe the "Americanism". It had an impact on the political and socio-economic life in Europe between the wars. This article will pay atention to the characteristic of the reaction to the "Americanism" in France, particularly social groups receptive of this system, motives, agreement and opposition among them and consequently will consider the structural characteristic of the French capitalism in this period. It will demonstrate the following points: The First World War interested the bureaucracy, business, syndicalist and engineer in the American system. This system was praised for the production method bringing a mass production by them who wanted the economic modernization to overcome the "relative backwardness" of France. But business opposed to the "dirigisme" of the administration, Ministry of Commerce and Industry in particular and to the program of social reform of the labour. It leads to the collapse of the consensus among them; Along the stabilization of the Poincare franc, after autumn 1926, the "Americanism" was again interested by those who preached the social and economic rationalization, business, syndicalist, engineer. But there was a opposition on a introduction of the "high wage" between business and labour. Therefore the interest of business gradually declined and they praised to support the value of the traditional socio-economic structure of France by restraining the rationalization; Some rationalizers, for example L. Loucheur and A. Thomas, proposed a unity of the European economy with the German-French axis to realize a "great market" for a mass production and to cope with the American competition.

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This paper was written for the 1993 annual conference of the Agrarian History Society held in Kyushu. It has an aim to analyze the structural change of the German capitalism in the reconstruction process after the World War I from the view point of "organization" of. capital and Labor, expansion of the capitalist market economy, and "transformation" (Umschichtung) of labor classes and industry. Behind this approach there is my following critical concern: This process of the structural change of the German capitalism could be interpreted at the same time as the changing process of the relationship between state, labor, and capital. In section II, two aspects of organization, i.e. organization of economy and society by state and self-organization by the organized interests, are discussed, and it is confirmed that the idea about the relationship between state and economy was not essentially changed until the great depression, and that till that time both labor and capital were "overorganized". In section III, the structural change of social classes is taken up and the remarkable increase of the number of white-collar workers is confirmed. Here especially the occupational differentiation of commercial white-collar workers after World War I is analyzed in comparison with that before 1914. In addtion, concerning the meaning of this transformation of employers and of the change of demand accompanied with that, the remarkable idea of Emil Lederer is introduced. In section IV, the transformation of the international trade and the sectorial change of capital formation are analyzed on the strength of the investigations at that time and "industrial groups in the process of structural growth" are found out. But these new industries could not sufficiently use their new equipments assets and so could not absord so many workers out of job.In section IV, and V, concerning the problem of the structural unemployment a very remarkable debate three years before the beginning of the great depression, "Cassel-Controverse" is taken up, and the interesting ideas of a group of Social Democrats about the causes of the structural unemployment and their proposals in order to overcome it are introdused. In addition, it is maintained that the social movement of the commercial white-collar workers during the great depression was in the same direction as that of the group of Social Democrats and blue-coHar workers.

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English corn producers in 1920's experienced the severe depression. Yet no political party was ready to propose the direct state aid to farmers. In the early 1930's expected role of agricultural policy changed drastically. The Wheat Act of 1932 revived the deficiency payment to the wheat producers, while Agricultural Marketing Act of 1931 and 1933 tried to uphold the prices through the organisation of the producers. The emergence of these new approaches toward agricultural policy was closely connected with the change in the trade policy. This article tries to make clear the strategies which caused the transformation in both agricultural policy and trade policy. The ideas which lead to the formation of the preferential tariffs in 1932 were not the simple theory of international division of labour in which industrial Britain exchanges the manufactured goods with the agricultural products of the Dominions. Negotiators at Ottawa had hidden motivations. Protectionists in the Conservative Party were unique in proposing an unorthodox economic thinking. They won popularity among the industrial organizations such as Federation of British Industries in the early 1930's. Their economics set the highest value on forming the self-sufficient national economy. Since Great Britain imported great amount of food, their main target was to support the rivival of rural Britain and promote the import of food from the Dominions until Britain could attain the self-sufficiency in staple agricultural products. Hence their programme of subsidizing British agriculture and promoting intra-Empire trade emerged. The cabinet, under the influence of Keynes, gave their support to the policies which would redress the adverse effect of inelasticity of wage movement. This economic thinking as well as the theory of national economy, was responsible for the formation of the agricultural and trade policies.

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