ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Popular Front experience in a comparative context. It draws on a larger project comparing the politics of economic policy choice in several countries over several time periods. The sharpest critics of the deflation policy pursued from 1932 through 1936 were labor and agriculture. The demand-stimulus policy option was newer and more controversial. The policy preferences and political behavior of German businesses suggest: the existence within industry as a whole of several "paths" to breaking with economic orthodoxy: the "progressive industrial," "regressive industrial," and "petty proprietor" paths. Some elements of the bourgeoisie had experience in alliances with leftist social elements for certain policy as well as political purposes-worker, peasant, and small business coalitions had come into being on earlier occasions. The Popular Front could draw on this earlier experience. The government was constrained in its choice of policy by the strikes.
