Lessons from Keynes

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Bibliographic details

• Authors: DOUGLAS IRWIN
• Published: June 3, 2024

Overview

• Book under review: Keynes’s The Economic Consequences of the Peace (published in 1919).
• Review author: DOUGLAS IRWIN; publication: F&D Magazine; date: June 2024.
• Reviewed volume: Keynes’s Economic Consequences of the Peace after 100 Years — Polemics and Policy, Edited by Patricia Clavin, Giancarlo Corsetti, Maurice Obstfeld, and Adam Tooze; Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK; 2024; 451 pp., $155.
• The reviewed volume grew out of a conference marking the 100th anniversary of Keynes’s 1919 tract (100th anniversary in 2019).

Key arguments and themes

• Keynes’s 1919 tract is remembered for:
  • A scathing indictment of the Paris Peace Conference and the reparations demanded of Germany.
  • Lamenting the bygone era of pre-1914 globalization.
  • Vivid sketches of principal protagonists, including Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson.
• Major enduring claims highlighted:
  • Keynes argued that demanding heavy reparations from Germany would make any kind of European recovery impossible.
  • Keynes’s analysis included the transfer problem and claims about Germany’s inability to pay.
• Historians’ and economists’ assessments:
  • Modern historians have been “generally quite critical of Keynes” and believe that he “just got a lot wrong.”
  • Historians view Versailles as a flawed or incomplete success rather than a total failure.
  • Harold James and Andrew Koger: “The Paris Peace Conference failed fundamentally in its objective of creating a durable and just world order.”
  • The review concludes: Keynes was probably wrong about Germany’s capacity to pay but right about the political consequences of attempting to extract large reparations.

Contents and contributions of the edited volume

• Structure and scope:
  • The volume contains 16 substantive chapters.
  • Contributors include historians, political scientists, economists, and economic historians.
  • The editors frame the book as “a concerted reflection on the terrible events and the underlying factors that a hundred years ago undermined decades of unprecedented economic globalization, destroyed empires, and redefined the balance of power among regions and countries.”
• Notable chapters and topics:
  • Michael Cox: sets out reasons Keynes wrote the book and its reception.
  • Peter Clarke: assesses views of Keynes’s critics on reparations.
  • Simon Hinrichsen: compiles data on past indemnities and reparations to contextualize the Germany/World War I case.
  • Other chapters address:
  • Responses to Keynes’s book in Sweden, France, and Türkiye.
  • Keynes as a foreign exchange trader.
  • Interwar international trade politics.
  • The gold standard and the tripartite monetary agreement of 1936.
  • The evolution of the international monetary system since 1919.
  • The evolution of Keynes’s thinking on the international economy from 1919 to Bretton Woods.

Historical trajectory and policy implications

• Historical consequences emphasized:
  • The 1920s and 1930s were “terrible decades” of economic and political turmoil, culminating in another world war in the early 1940s.
  • Only after World War II was Keynes’s vision of strong international economic institutions providing stability finally realized.
• Policy lessons drawn:
  • The international system reflects a mix of economics and geopolitics.
  • The political damage of attempting to extract large reparations from a defeated power can be long-lasting even if actual payments are limited.
  • With the rise of economic nationalism and concerns about international security today, the volume serves as a sobering reminder of the stakes involved.

Exact figures, dates, and counts in the source

• Original Keynes book publication year: 1919.
• 100th anniversary of The Economic Consequences: 2019.
• Edited volume publication year: 2024.
• Edited volume length and price: 451 pp., $155.
• Number of substantive chapters in the edited volume: 16.
• Year the reparations figure was set: 1921.
• Year of Germany’s hyperinflation leading to a revised reparations schedule: 1923.
• Tripartite monetary agreement year mentioned: 1936.
• Decades described as marked by turmoil: the 1920s and 1930s.
• Period of subsequent world war referenced: the early 1940s.

Source: F&D Magazine — Lessons from Keynes, DOUGLAS IRWIN, June 2024.

Content in this bundle

• Book Reviews: Lessons from Keynes
  • Book Reviews: Lessons from Keynes (Markdown version)
  • Book Reviews: Lessons from Keynes (PDF)