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John Maynard Keynes's The Economic Consequences Of Peace

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In 1919 the Allied Victors in World War I met at the Paris Peace Conference to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. The peace terms were created in the hope to maintain world peace. John Maynard Keynes – an English economist - attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and wrote the book The Economic Consequences of Peace in which he stated his opinion about the Treaty of Versailles. In Thornstein Veblen’s review of the book he argues that Keynes withheld information about the Treaty. The Treaty, which was designed to maintain world peace wasn’t as successful as hoped; rather it was seen as wordy document that didn’t make sense. Therefore, the Treaty had no stability or binding force. In addition to create the Treaty, the League …show more content…

It didn’t take long until people realized how inefficient the Treaty, and the League of Nations were. Instead of bringing the world to peace, the Treaty, and the League of Nations were not effective because it was wordy and didn’t make any sense. According to Veblen, Keynes should’ve known about how ineffective the Treaty would be; yet Keynes didn’t mention it in his book. Keynes who was present at the Paris Peace Conference should’ve included the consequences that the Treaty caused rather than withhold the information because if the Allies would’ve known about the consequences the Treaty would cause they could’ve made the Treaty more effective to avoid the consequences. Although Keynes was an experienced man, in his analysis of the Treaty he failed to realize that the Bolshevism would come to an end. At the Paris Peace Conference there were many disagreements; however, the Great Powers agreed on one part, which was to eliminate the Bolshevism. The Great Powers knew that it would be difficult eliminate the Bolshevism in Soviet Russia; however, the Great Powers thought it was absolutely necessary to be able to maintain peace in the world. Keynes knew that the Great Powers would eliminate the Bolshevism, yet he decided not to include it in his analysis of the

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