This project, focusing on the role of England, seeks to explain the attempts and failures of the international monetary system to restore order and coherence during the inter-war period, highlighting the role that individuals and their own biases and beliefs played in creating, or disrupting, the status quo. In my role as a Research Assistant, I focused most heavily on the writings of economist John Maynard Keynes, exploring the ways in which his vast and varied theories and speculations connected to and interacted with the prevailing beliefs of the day.
Methodology
As much of my research focused on Keynes’ role in the international financial system of the time, the majority of my time was spent engaging with his works and writings. This was conducted through reviews of Keynes’ published books, speeches, and letters. These documents, preserved and organized in collected volumes, are invaluable assets to fully understanding Keynes’ ideas and connections to the greater systematic picture. However, in their current state, they are often organized ideologically and thematically in digital picture formats, rather than chronologically and in a text-based format. In order to make these documents more usable in a systematic and research-oriented way, it was necessary to work through the various digital files, transforming them into text documents with relevant tags, identifications, datings, and footnote transcriptions so that they could be more effectively used to establish direct connections between the writings of Keynes and the real-world impacts of his studies.
In this process, I had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time reading and analyzing Keynes’ words, building a greater understanding of the depth and breadth of both his academic importance and his intellectual pursuits. A truly revolutionary thinker of the time, Keynes remained one of the staunchest critics of the return to the gold standard and, in the process, found one of the most prevalent models of monetary policy and fiscal spending still widely consulted today. However, beyond his prowess as an economic thinker, Keynes’ writings reveal his status as a true renaissance man. Across his expansive body of work, his musings go far beyond economics, finding root in the studies of history, politics, international relations, war and peace, and various social issues, to name a few. As a scholar and a political advocate of monetary reform, Keynes has had few equivalents across time. In my readings of his expansive thoughts and beliefs, it has become clearer why this is the case, as the sheer mass of Keynes’ ideas and subject matters is overwhelming by any measure.
Results and some Conclusions
Though the shape of our systems of monetary policy and financial governance may, at times, seem like givens, deeper evaluation of how these systems came to be in place reveal a much more complicated and fraught story, driven both by academic inclinations and personal beliefs and preferences. As was the case during the push back towards the gold standard during the inter-war period, monetary policy must constantly be examined, evaluated, and questioned by those who seek to understand it in rigorous and sound ways. Now, as much as was the case during the push towards England’s “cross of gold,” those with the ability to shape and control monetary policy have a great amount of power to steer economic outcomes on both domestic and international stages. Therefore, much like Keynes understood as an economist, historian, and political scientist, it is necessary to build greater understandings in the modern day of what mistakes came before us, and how these were precipitated, in order to avoid making them again ourselves.
One of the greatest lessons of the inter-war period’s failure to reestablish international monetary systems is the idea that, just because some have the power to make decisions, this does not guarantee their decisions will be based in study and the best academic reason, or that they will achieve the greatest outcome. Rather, those who are dedicated to the study and pursuit of advancement must always be willing to push back against the status quo and recognize the role that individuals can play in shaping policy for the better or, the worse.
Please note that this report gives the views and findings of the Undergraduate Research Assistant, and may not necessarily reflect those of their faculty supervisor, the US Centre or the London School of Economics.