David Abraham is Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Miami. He holds a B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. A historian and legal scholar, he has published extensively on the political economy of liberal democracy—its successes and failures—as well as on contemporary issues of immigration and social solidarity.

• Preface to the First Edition (1981)Preface to the Second EditionForeword to the Third EditionList of FiguresList of TablesAbbreviationsIntroduction to the First EditionIntroduction to the Second EditionIntroduction to the Third EditionBenjamin Carter Hett1 The State and Classes: Theory and the Weimar Case1 State and Economy in Weimar2 State and Society in Weimar3 Stability in Weimar: Bloc 3 and Labour’s Support4 Crisis and the End of Stability2 Conflicts within the Agricultural Sector1 The Modes of Agricultural Production2 Estate-Owner Domination and the Bases of Rural Unity to 19243 1925 to the Crisis: The Absence of Alternatives and Immanence of Conflict4 The Agricultural Crisis, Its Resolution and Contribution to the General Crisis3 Conflicts within the Industrial Sector1 From Prewar Conflict to Post-inflation Equilibrium2 Industrial Politics in the Period of Stability3 Industrial Production4 Interindustrial Conflicts and Mechanisms: AVI, Tariffs, and Reparations5 Political Responses to the Crisis: Bürgerblock, Brüningblock, and ‘National Opposition’6 A Note on Industry and ‘Work Creation’4 Conflicts between Agriculture and Industry1 Dominant and Dependent Sectors2 Strategies for Sectoral Interaction after 19253 The Economic Interaction of the Two Sectors4 Strategies 1 and 2: Exports versus Protection, 1925–19315 Strategy 3: Modernisation, Conciliation, and Reform6 After Exports and Reform: Toward a New National Sammlung Bloc7 1932: Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny8 Strategies 4 and 5: Cartelisation and Imperialism5 The Reemergence of the Labour/Capital Conflict1 Social Compromise: Its Results and Its Limits2 The Politics of Sozialpolitik3 Implementing Industry’s Program6 In Search of a Viable Bloc1 Organised Capitalism, Fragmented Bourgeois Politics, and Extrasystemic Solutions2 Collapse of the Grand Coalition: End without a Beginning3 The Failure of Brüning’s Crisis Strategy4 The Break between Representatives and Represented5 Toward the Extrasystemic Solution6 From New Base to New CoalitionBibliographyIndex