The Economic Consequences of Peace [Paperback]

John Maynard Keynes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2005

"The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind. Very few of us realise with conviction the intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature of the economic organisation by which Western Europe has lived for the last half century." - CHAPTER I-INTRODUCTORY As the most important figures in the history of economics, the work of John Maynard Keynes is nearly without precedent in the history of economics. THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF PEACE, first published in 1919, achieved great notoriety due of its contemptuous critique of the French premier as well as President Woodrow Wilson. Keynes criticized the Allied victors for signing the Treaty of Versailles in 1920, which would have ruinous consequences for Europe. At the time, few world and economic leaders appreciated his criticisms as Keynes saw his worst fears realized in the rise of Adolf Hitler and the resulting devastation of World War II. JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, 1883-1946, was born into an academic family. His father, John Nevile Keynes, was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge where he taught logic and political economy while his son was educated at Eton and Cambridge. Most importantly, Keynes revolutionized economics with his classic book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). This work is generally regarded as perhaps the most influential social science treatise of the 20th Century, as it quickly and permanently changed the scope of economic thought. Interestingly, Keynes was a central member of the Bloomsbury Group, a collection of upper-class Edwardian aesthetes that served as his life outside of economics, which included Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, and Lytton Strachey.

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JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, 1883-1946, was born into an academic family. His father, John Nevile Keynes, was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge where he taught logic and political economy while his son was educated at Eton and Cambridge. Most importantly, Keynes revolutionized economics with his classic book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).

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Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Cosimo Classics (August 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596052228
• ISBN-13: 978-1596052222
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,400,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #37 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Economic History
  • #39 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > History > Military > World War I

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Consequences of injustice, May 23, 2001

By 

jon (Brighton uk) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Economic Consequences of Peace (Hardcover)

Keynes took the opportunity proffered to him in 1919 to voice the fears of many of his fellow countrymen that the treaty recently signed at Versailles stripping Germany of it's colonies, a substantial portion of it's population, all it's overseas concessions, its air force, any place at the League of Nations and an enormous amount in reparations payments to be made over the coming years, was an act of consummate folly that would only lead to future war. He took great pains to point out the folly of the French position at the conference, namely to be as extreme as possible, cognisant of the fact that their claims would be moderated and noted that in several cases where the British and US delegations had no specific interest, provisions were passed 'on the nod' which even the French would not have subscribed to. Keynes was damning about both Clemenceau and Wilson and pointed out that almost everything had been done which 'might impoverish Germany now or obstruct her development in future' and that to demand such colossal reparations without any real notion of whether Germany had the means to pay was foolhardy in the extreme.

Keynes book provided a fulcrum for British doubt about the treaty and an avenue for British sympathy with the fledgling German Republic. Keynes made treaty revision a thing of morality and enlightened self interest to avoid 'sowing the decay of the whole of civilised life of Europe'.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peace which sowed the seeds of its own destruction, December 15, 2002

By 

Boris Aleksandrovsky (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Economic Consequences of Peace (Hardcover)

Great British economist John Maynard Keynes second book recounts his assessment of the economic consequences of the Treaty of Versailles, where he was a member of British delegation as an economic expert.
Keynes starts with providing a dazzling psychological analysis on how the treaty came to be.
"When President Wilson left Washinghton he enjoyed a prestige and a moral influence throughout the world unequalled in history ... Never had a philosopher help such weapons wherewith to bind the princes of this world. How the crowds of the European capitals presses about the carriage of the President! With what curiosity, anxiety, and hope we sought a glimpse of the features and bearing of the man of destiny who, coming from the West, was to bring healing to the wounds of the ancient parent of this civilization and lay for us the foundations and the future"
Alas, this was not to be. American idealism, French quest for security and British distaste for alliances and hypocrisy created an unworkable solution. Soul of the treaty was sacrificed to placate domestic political process, and as the result put Germany in the position of defiance and economic insolvency; the position which at the bottom drew sympathy from the former Allies and as the result contributed to brutality of the second conflict.
Keynes draws a picture of pan-European economy which was destroyed by the treaty and rightfully predicted that not only Germany will not be able to pay, but will be obligated to pursue the expansionist policy at the expense of her weak Eastern neighbors. Treaty did not contain any positive economic programme for rehabilitation of the economic life of Central powers and Russia. One just could not disrupt the economic position of the greatest European land power, at the same time strengthening it geo-politically and suffer no horrible retribution. ""The Peace Treaty of Versailles: This is not Peace. It is an Armistice
for twenty years." - said Foch about such a agreement.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Perceptive Assessment and Prognosis of the Versailles "Peace" Conference, March 5, 2006

By 

James E. Egolf "James E. Egolf, MA" (Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Economic Consequences of Peace (Paperback)

The late James J. Martin remarked that those who did not think that The Versailles Peace Conference did not have anything to do with World War II should read Keynes to correct this false notion. John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)was one of the early "revisionists" who clearly saw how destructive the Versailles Treat was. He also had insight into the political leaders who forced this Carthaginian peace on the Germans.

Keynes was a representative of the British delegation to Versailles in 1919 and soon resigned in protest. He diagnosed the defects of Pres. Woodrow Wilson who was supposedly the most influential man at Versailles. Keynes accurately described Pres. Wilson as a naive Don Quixoti who had no knowledge of European History or basic diplomacy. Wilson was under the illusion that his status would be enough to impose his Fourteen Points and League of Nations on Eureopan leaders who were hard hearted and did not care for such naive idealism. Pres. Wilson was in a den of thieves and was not aware of it. Wilson could not evaluate the situation and was too self righteous to negotiate intelligently. Pres. Wilson thought he would impose the Versailles in the Americans, get the Americans to join the League of Nations, and end sin throughout the world. He obviously failed miserable as events proved. Members of the United States even refused to ratify the Versailles Treaty, and the Americans never did join the League of Nation.

Keynes goes into precise detail to explain what the World War I and the Versailles Treaty was doing and would do to those in German and in Central and Eastern Europe. Keynes gave pricise details of malnutrition, lack of medical care, etc. and also gave a precise account of the health effects that deprivation caused these people.

Keynes is just as precise in explaining the effects of looting the Germans with a huge reparation bill of $50 billion. If one can account for the increase of inflation between 1919 and now (2006), the bill may be fifty to a hundred times higher. This imposition was placed on Germans who lost their merchant marine fleet, colonies, and territroy. Added to that was the privations of World War I and the cruel blockade of the Germans by the British after hostilities ended.

However, Keynes was perceptive enough to know that if the German economy collapsed, eventually the European economies would also collapse. The Germans were advanced in steel production, chemical industries, etc. Prior to World War I, the Euroepans, friends and foes, relied more on German economic production and trade than they willing to admit. In other words, if the German economy collapsed, it was only a matter of time that much of Europe would follow.

Keynes wrote this book in 1919, and events in Europe took place as Keynes suggested they would. Those who argue that the "allies" should have intervened in German earlier that 1939 should realize that the time for interventions was in 1919 when a sensible peace treaty based on negotiations would have muted any German resentment. The laissez-faire and free market lads have blamed Keynes for all the woes in the West since World War I. The fact is Keynes did not create the modern state and the problems that have occured. All he did was view a bad situation and made a reasoned response to it.