The Marshall act

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  • #17588

    Can antone recommend any resources on the Marshal act? I was told only this morning about how the Marshall act “saved Europe” and I instantly smelled a broken window. Books, videos or audio would be great. What might you recommend me?

    #17589
    jmherbener
    Participant

    Here are a few pieces to get you started. An article by Jeff Tucker:

    https://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=120

    Henry Hazlitt wrote on the Marshall Plan:

    http://mises.org/daily/5922/Will-Foreign-Loans-Make-Us-Rich

    Tom Woods wrote on the Marshall Plan in his Politically Incorrect Guide to American History:

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods35.html

    #17590
    woods
    Participant

    I’m not a fan of Tyler Cowen, but his piece on the Marshall Plan is excellent. I drew on it for my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

    http://www.gmu.edu/centers/publicchoice/faculty%20pages/Tyler/Marshall_Plan.pdf

    #17591

    ThaNk you for the replies. I shall study and come back if I have any doubts. I actually have the audio book of the politically incorrect guide to American History so will relisten as well as read up. The guy who told me that “the marshall act saved europe” said so in a matter of fact way like it was common knowlege and utterly obvious. A bright guy he is too. This will be interesting.

    #17592

    My understanding is the MA was an intervention where no intervention was needed. Furthermore it seems that the intervention could even have slowed the revovery of Europe rather than saving it. The supporters of Kensian economics cite the MA as an example of their great theory in its full blossoming glory and yet the fact that the recuperation was already well underway without that intervention makes me wonder why the decision was taken. I understand that, human nature has us all wanting to be right. If a theory becomes popular, we all find ourselves rooting for it. The MA seems to be more than ontellectuals rooting for their school of thought however.

    Would I be paranoid in imagining that it was all a well thought out plan rather than just faulty thinking on behalf of those who implemented the act? The MA was surely intervention, debt and inflation all rolled in to one big government expanding package. I wonder ir there is any documented evidence of vested interest. I can argue until Im blue in the mouth with the fans of the Marshall act but wont sway them with logic (in my experience) but a nice quote from one of their own proponents is great for frying their circuits. This I have been able to do in the past by quoting Hoover on his intervention before the new deL and Lincoln on his attitudes to blacks and the slave issue in general when government lovers tell me that the North were the good guys fighting for freedom of blacks and the south were clu clux clanners fighting to keep slaves.

    #17593
    jmherbener
    Participant

    Two sources you might consult are Gabriel Kolko’s book, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy 1945-54 and Michael Cox’s article, “The Tragedy of American Diplomacy? Rethinking the Marshall Plan,” Journal of Cold War Studies 1 (2005), pp. 97-134.

    Here are two pieces that cite Cox and Kolko:

    http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/trachtenberg/cv/jcws%28marshall%20plan%29.pdf

    http://nevinpower.weebly.com/uploads/6/0/5/3/6053998/the_marshall_plan_-_the_extension_of_empire.pdf

    #17594

    Ah great

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