----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 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]) ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]