The Economic Consequences of the Peace

by John Maynard Keynes

Other authorsRobert Lekachman (Introduction)

Paperback, 1995

Status

Available

Call number

341

Publication

Penguin Classics (1995), Paperback, 336 pages

Description

The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) was written by John Maynard Keynes. Keynes attended the Versailles Conference as a delegate of the British Treasury and argued for a much more generous peace. It was a bestseller throughout the world and was critical in establishing a general opinion that the Versailles Treaty was a "Carthaginian peace". It helped to consolidate American public opinion against the treaty and involvement in the League of Nations. The perception by much of the British public that Germany had been treated unfairly in turn was a crucial factor in public support for appeasement. The success of the book established Keynes' reputation as a leading economist especially on the left. When Keynes was a key player in establishing the Bretton Woods system in 1944, he remembered the lessons from Versailles as well as the Great Depression. The Marshall Plan after Second World War is a similar system to that proposed by Keynes in The Economic Consequences of the Peace.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member jcbrunner

Keynes' The Economic Consequences of the Peace is a good companion piece to Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919. Keynes participated as an expert in the Paris peace treaty negotiations which were mainly one-sided negotiations among the Allies themselves (mainly the French and Italians vs. the

Anglo-Americans). The Germans, the Austrians and the Hungarians (the latter had to wait for the Treaty of Trianon in 1920) were only consulted post factum. Keynes holds Woodrow Wilson to be the main culprit, considering him to be too slow, ignorant and inflexible. One in a long line of US presidents not ready for the international parquet, whose failure, however, had the gravest of consequences. Similar to Bush's crazy adventure in Iraq, Wilson claimed the high ground of applying only moral and universal principles while counteracting and undermining these with naked power plays. Either an appeal to naked power or a pure application of principles would have worked. It was the mix that was toxic, applying principles only as long as it was convenient.

Keynes also shows that essential parts of the treaty were not grounded in fact. The restrictions and reparations placed on Germany were counterproductive and self-defeating. Depriving Germany of the necessary coal, ships and rolling stock of its railways crippled the economic recovery. The failure of the Allies (and especially the US) to net the internal war debt obligations meant that the weakest nations were plagued with high interest payments. Keynes also advocated for a sort of Marshall plan which surely would have helped Europe recover. Written in shocked frustration about a clearly unworkable treaty, this lean booklet is a fast and concise read that offers lessons what happens when burdens are placed upon third parties without those parties' involvement in the negotiations. Today's efforts to make the PIIGS pay for the bankers' mistakes run into the same calamities that Keynes foresaw in 1919.

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LibraryThing member smerus

A brilliant polemic - and quite often accurate inits prophecies.

LibraryThing member bobshackleton

Amazing book. It's like reading Kinsley in 2002, talking about what a disaster Iraq was going to be. Utterly prescient; utterly correct.

LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind

Needed to get more acquainted with Keynes, so I'm starting at the beginning.

This is one of those classics which have permeated modern thought so thoroughly that you feel as though you've read it already. The Treaty of Versailles was Bad. It focused too much on Reparations and Economic Sanctions and

the Guilt Clause. Germany had to pay for all of the costs of the rest of the central powers. The conditions imposed by the victors, this Carthaginian Peace, were incredibly dangerous. Keynes feared further mass starvation, which is one of the few things he got wrong here. Instead, there is the chaos of the Weimar years, hyperinflation, Hitler, and so on. You've likely heard this story already.

Keynes tells it clearly. If the rest of his stuff is this lucid, I'll be mighty impressed.

The last of the reparations, by the way, were only paid off two years ago (2010).

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