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Here is a rather trivial question about the origins of a phrase. In a  
first-year lecture, I used 'guns' and 'butter' on the axes of a  
standard gains-from-trade diagram. One of my students mailed me  
afterwards, suggesting that this particular example was started by  
Hitler, who campaigned for rearmamament with the slogan "guns  
not butter". His mail is below.   
 
Assuming my student is right about Hitler, my question is: is that  
where the guns/butter example came from, or was it already in  
circulation? I have a vague memory that the guns/butter opposition  
may have been used in the run-up to the first world war, but it isn't  
a firm enough memory to rely on.   
 
The question, of course, is about the specific opposition: guns v.  
butter, not the general idea of alternatives or gains from trade (like  
Ricardo's wine/cloth).   
 
Fowarded (and shortened) message: 
To: Tony Brewer  
Hi. I'm a First Year Bristol Economics student, and revising through 
your lecture notes, noticed the references to trade in guns and butter, 
and remembered you saying in a lecture that you weren't sure why it is 
always guns and butter given as an example. I think it relates to 1930s  
Germany, when in a propaganda campaign Adolph Hitler urged Germany to  
produce "guns not butter" - i.e. that the country should be producing  
heavy industrial and military goods, not what was then a luxury food  
item.  
Cheers, Will Holman 
 
 
Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask]) 
 
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