Adam Tooze argues that Germany *could* have made the Treaty payments, but that their unpopularity resulted in efforts to dodge them by means of expedients such as inflation.
I don't know whether Keynes or Tooze is right on this particular point (I suspect Tooze is), but I am sure Keynes is otherwise right in his economic prescriptions.
"Our attitude… must be determined by our whole moral and emotional reaction to the future of international relations and the Peace of the World. [Right now] we take the view that for at least a generation to come Germany cannot be trusted with even a modicum of prosperity… must be kept impoverished and her children starved and crippled… must be ringed round by enemies… [must not be] assist[ed] to regain a part of her former material prosperity and find a means of livelihood for the industrial population of her towns….
If this view of nations and of their relation to one another is adopted by the democracies of Western Europe, and is financed by the United States, heaven help us all.
If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp.
Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war [WWI] will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation…"
Keynes was quite prescient about this, as Germany almost collapsed, veered into fascism, and sterted WWII. It was a lesson learned after WWII with teh US taking a strong lead to prevent it reoccurring. The establishment of the EEC kept the peacce in Europe. It was so advantageous that Britain begged to be allowed to join, which was only possible once Charles de Gaulle was dead. 50 years later, an incompetent government and a stupidly ignorant Britain fooled by demagogues resulted in exiting the now political EU despite special advantages like a separate currency. The consequences of the Brexiteers fantasies have arrived with a vengeance.
Thanks for coming back to Keynes. I was alive during his lifetime.
I wonder what Keynes, and our host, would think of the US Census predictions of population for various levels of immigration? Filling the moat and drawing up the drawbridge on Fortress America would have some interesting economic consequences.
Adam Tooze argues that Germany *could* have made the Treaty payments, but that their unpopularity resulted in efforts to dodge them by means of expedients such as inflation.
I don't know whether Keynes or Tooze is right on this particular point (I suspect Tooze is), but I am sure Keynes is otherwise right in his economic prescriptions.
"Our attitude… must be determined by our whole moral and emotional reaction to the future of international relations and the Peace of the World. [Right now] we take the view that for at least a generation to come Germany cannot be trusted with even a modicum of prosperity… must be kept impoverished and her children starved and crippled… must be ringed round by enemies… [must not be] assist[ed] to regain a part of her former material prosperity and find a means of livelihood for the industrial population of her towns….
If this view of nations and of their relation to one another is adopted by the democracies of Western Europe, and is financed by the United States, heaven help us all.
If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp.
Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war [WWI] will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation…"
Keynes was quite prescient about this, as Germany almost collapsed, veered into fascism, and sterted WWII. It was a lesson learned after WWII with teh US taking a strong lead to prevent it reoccurring. The establishment of the EEC kept the peacce in Europe. It was so advantageous that Britain begged to be allowed to join, which was only possible once Charles de Gaulle was dead. 50 years later, an incompetent government and a stupidly ignorant Britain fooled by demagogues resulted in exiting the now political EU despite special advantages like a separate currency. The consequences of the Brexiteers fantasies have arrived with a vengeance.
Keynes sound here as if he is presenting the antithesis to an argument rather than trying to achieve a proper neoliberal :) synthesis.
Thanks for coming back to Keynes. I was alive during his lifetime.
I wonder what Keynes, and our host, would think of the US Census predictions of population for various levels of immigration? Filling the moat and drawing up the drawbridge on Fortress America would have some interesting economic consequences.