SOCIALISM IN WORLD WAR II

Most, if not all, wingnuts think that government direction of the economy is inherently doomed to failure. Although I am not making an argument here for socialism, when the aims are limited, it can come in handy. America in WW II is a great example. FDR created the War Production Board in January 1942 and it:

The chairman (Donald M. Nelson, 1942–44; Julius A. Krug, 1944–45) was granted sweeping powers over the nation’s economic life.

...converted and expanded the peacetime economy to maximum war production; controls included assignment of priorities to deliveries of scarce materials and prohibition of nonessential industrial activities.

As a result of the WPB and it's successors, "the United States produced over 274,000 aircraft, almost 5,600 merchant ships, 90,000 combat vessels, and 100,000 tanks."¹

WW II also saw the creation of the Office of Price Administration, which kept inflation in check, and the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which helped create the proximity fuse and the atomic bomb.

¹ Americans at War. Ed. John Resch. Vol. 3: 1901-1945. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. pp 48-50. 4 vols.