Political Economy and International Order in Interwar Europe

441 Pages·2020·4.341 MB·English

by  Alexandre M. Cunh, Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Political Economy and International
Order in Interwar Europe
Edited by
Alexandre M. Cunha
Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic
Thought
Series Editors
Avi J. Cohen
Department of Economics
York University & University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, Canada
G. C. Harcourt
School of Economics
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Peter Kriesler
School of Economics
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School of Oriental & African Studies
University of London
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·
Alexandre M. Cunha
Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak
Editors
Political Economy
and International
Order in Interwar
Europe
Editors
Alexandre M. Cunha Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak
Cedeplar Cedeplar
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
ISSN 2662-6578 ISSN 2662-6586 (electronic)
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought
ISBN 978-3-030-47101-9 ISBN 978-3-030-47102-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47102-6
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Preface
We all seem to have aged faster than usual in the past few weeks, if not
fortheworriesandanguishofamomentofprofounduncertainty,simply
because time appears to move quicker before our eyes. Streets, public
spaces, and tourist sites in the world’s major cities all suddenly empty
due to the collective effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic reflect the
seriousnessofthemomentwearelivingandthedeeptransformationsthat
are taking place, whose results are still difficult to foresee at present.
An intriguing and fascinating aspect of historical analyses is their
capacity to reveal that the time of history is not the same as the time of
physics.Historicaltimecansometimesmovemuchfasterthantheticking
of the clock or stretch itself to the point of appearing almost motionless.
Periods of substantive transformations tend to amplify this perception of
acceleration in historical time. While trying to interpret the meaning of
these transformations as they occur tends to be an innocuous effort, at
least from the historian’s point of view, history can help us gauge the
scope and depth of the rising challenges. The many apparent parallels
between our own time and the interwar period provided one of motiva-
tions for the present volume. At first, these similarities referred mostly to
theriseofpopulistnationalisticpoliticalregimesandtheeconomicideolo-
giesunderpinningthem,whichstrainedthefabricoftheestablishedinter-
nationalorder.Theoutbreakofaglobalpandemicin2020—whoseclosest
parallel is the 1918 influenza pandemic, the “Spanish Flu”—only further
v
vi PREFACE
convincedusthattheinterwarperiodcanbringnewlayersofmeaningto
the analysis of our current predicaments.
This book originated as part of a research project developed within
the scope of the Jean Monnet Chair “Economics, Political Economy
and the Building of the European Integration Project” (co-funded by
the Erasmus+ program of the European Union), based at the School of
Economics of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil.
When we wrote the application for this grant in late 2016, stressing
the importance of the interwar period for understanding the European
integration process, we did not anticipate the extent to which current
political and economic dilemmas would come to mirror the problems
that plagued the interwar period, especially the favorable ambiance to
the growth of political extremism and the coming to power of govern-
ments with a strong authoritarian bent in large and important democra-
cies around the world. In other words, flirting with fascism was not yet
on the horizon when the project was written. Nevertheless, this question
was very much present in February 2019, when we gathered at the Insti-
tute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, to present and discuss the
first drafts of the chapters contained in this book during the workshop
“Interwar Economics and the Intellectual Origins of European Integra-
tion”, jointly hosted by UFMG’s Jean Monnet Chair and the Research
GroupPower,SocietyandGlobalization oftheInstituteofSocialSciences.
Besides giving the contributors ample feedback on how to improve the
argumentsdevelopedintheirindividualchapters,theworkshopalsorein-
forced our sense of the overlapping themes and concerns that connected
our different research interests and perspectives.
As we now write this preface, in May 2020, the world has witnessed
with perplexity the unsettling effects of a pandemic on health systems,
economic activity, and social order more generally, and we still do not
know how much longer the crisis will persist. Most prognostics indicate
the world will face its worst economic recession since the Great Depres-
sion of the 1930s; coming to grips with the situation and planning for
the near future will be a daunting task. All of a sudden, we can see in a
differentlighttheattentiongiventothenotionofuncertaintybyinterwar
economists such as John Maynard Keynes and Frank Knight—just one
evident example of how ideas developed then can shed new light on the
challenges we face now.
The historian’s craft does not involve futurology. Nevertheless, given
this game of truncated reenactments of the past we sometimes seem to
PREFACE vii
be playing, one might do well to consider that we may be experiencing
a decisive shift in history. For this very reason, it seems instructive to
rememberthattheSpanishfluwasfollowedbytheRoaringTwenties,but
also by the 1930s depression and the dark events that led to the Second
World War. May we know how to avoid at least the tragedies that are in
our control.
We wish to express our gratitude to several institutions and individ-
uals who have contributed decisively to making this volume possible.
First of all, we thank the European Union’s Erasmus+ Program for
supporting the research that originated this volume, funded through a
Jean Monnet Chair grant (Project number 587558-EPP-1-2017-1-BR-
EPPJMO-CHAIR).
Other funding agencies have also contributed to support different
parts of this project. We thank the Brazilian National Research Council
(CNPq)andtheCoordinationfortheImprovementofHigherEducation
Personnel (CAPES) for their support to our individual research activities.
We also thank the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon
for the warm welcome and logistical support extended to the workshop
“Interwar Economics and the Intellectual Origins of European Integra-
tion.” We are especially grateful to Prof. José Luis Cardoso, who co-
organized the event with us, and to Maria Margarida Bernardo for her
assistance with many practical issues.
Our own university, UFMG, has been providing privileged conditions
for the development of research and teaching activities in the field of
European integration studies over the past few years, even in the face
of drastic reductions in resources for scientific research in Brazil. Special
thanksareduetotheCenterforEuropeanStudiesandtoUFMG’sInter-
national Office—notably to Prof. Fabio Alves, who served as Dean of
InternationalAffairswhenthisprojectbegan—aswellastotheEconomics
Department and the Center for Development and Regional Planning,
which provided an institutional base for the Jean Monnet Chair.
We wish to thank Palgrave Macmillan for their careful editorial work
andassistance,andespeciallyourcommissioningeditor,ElizabethGraber,
for her interest and confidence in this project since our first meeting in
Bogotáin2017,duringthe6thConferenceoftheLatinAmericanSociety
for the History of Economic Thought (ALAHPE).
The chapters contained in this book went through an extensive peer
review process that contributed much to improving the original drafts.
viii PREFACE
Wethanktheanonymousrefereeswhohelpedusfortheiravailabilityand
competence in carrying out this task.
Wealsowishtothankagroupofcolleagueswhocontributedtheircrit-
icism and comments at different stages of this project, namely Guilherme
Sampaio, Nicolas Brisset, Marcel Boumans, Quinn Slobodian, Mauro
Boianovsky, Susan Howson, Michael Ambrosi, Anthony Howe, Dieter
Plehwe, Scott Scheall, Joseph Love, Fabio Masini, Joseph Persky, Liane
Hewitt, and Luiz Felipe Bruzzi Curi.
Finally,ourspecialthanksgotoallthecolleagueswhocontributedthe
fruits of their research to this book, thus enriching our project with such
diverse and insightful perspectives on interwar history and its aftermath.
Alexandre M. Cunha, in a personal note, would also like to thank the
constantsupportandloveofhiswife,Tarsila.She,ouralmostthree-year-
old son Caio, and our soon-to-be daughter, always bring light to my
cloudy days and, simply, make me happy.
Belo Horizonte, Brazil Alexandre M. Cunha
May 2020 Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Alexandre M. Cunha and Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak
Part I Economics and Order
2 Eucken’s Competition with Keynes: Beyond
the Ordoliberal Allergy to the Keynesian Medicine 25
Raphaël Fèvre
3 Third-Way Perspectives on Order in Interwar France:
Personalism and the Political Economy of François
Perroux 59
Alexandre M. Cunha
4 Corporatism and Planning in Monnet’s Idea of Europe 93
Katia Caldari
5 The Construction of an International Order
in the Work of Jan Tinbergen 117
Erwin Dekker
ix