Chapter 12 Keynes as a planner and negotiator by Toshiaki Hirai (Sophia University, Tokyo)

Chapter 12 

Keynes as a planner and negotiator by Toshiaki Hirai (Sophia University, Tokyo)


Money, Finance and Crises in Economic History, 

ed. by A. Rosselli, N. Naldi and E. Sanfilippo, Routledge, 2019

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cbrP_rcV_pk_jRmaqjs8kT2nmb-iaTaZ/view?usp=sharing

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 In July 1940, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Consultative Council was set up to help and advise the Chancellor on special problems arising from war conditions. Keynes accepted Council membership and was soon to find himself engaged in a range of important assignments. 

   I have already dealt elsewhere (see, for example, Hirai, 2011, 2013) with Keynes’s activities in the 1940s, as a planner and negotiator in the international spheres in relation to the Relief and Reconstruction problem and the Commodity problem. The present chapter focuses only on the role of Keynes as planner and negotiator of a new international monetary system.

   As a result of my previous work, (for further information, see “Addenda” below), I have come to the following conclusion: initially Keynes designed and put forward plans permeated with the spirit of internationalism. As the political and economic situations changed, however, he came to show a more pragmatic approach, giving priority to protecting the interests of the British Empire. In both cases, his original plans were foiled at an early stage. 

  The aforementioned features are clearly recognisable, as I will show in the present 

contribution, which, although intended exclusively to examine the international monetary system, also includes a sort of summary of my comprehensive studies on Keynes’s activities in the 1940s, which might open a new perspective.