Gospodarski in družbeni nazori v slovenskem naprednem taboru, 1930–35: I. del – velika gospodarska kriza

Abstract

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL VIEWS IN THE SLOVENE PROGRESSIVE CAMP, 1930–35. Part I. – The Great Depression

The following article focuses on the economic and social orientations, ideas and concrete policies that were present, being developed and implemented within the Slovene progressive camp during the first half of the 1930s. Primarily it focuses on the time after 1931, when the progressives as part of the Yugoslav National Party steered the Yugoslav politics and represented the political authority in Slovenia. This article – the first part of the study – provides a detailed analysis of the global economic crisis as the factor that had the most profound impact on the period under consideration and which all the political actors had to face, respond to, and address by employing the major part of their efforts. The Slovene progressives understood the Great Depression as a serious blow to the global economy, while at the same time they also saw this crisis as a harbinger of the potential radical political changes. In this regard they argued for a more conservative approach to the fiscal policy as well as defended the principles of free trade, for they viewed the economic protectionism as one of the major causes of the deepening crisis. At the same time the gradual change in the political-economic paradigm, calling for a more prominent role of the state in the economy and reflected through the changed rhetoric and discourse of the Slovene progressives , was already becoming more apparent in the years between 1933 and 1935.