The Marshall Plan: Main Idea
The Marshall Plan: Main Idea
So: World War II. That was messed up, right?
Turns out that, in the battle against what everyone can pretty much agree was pure evil, everyone kind of wrecked Europe. And it's really difficult to put people back to work, post-war, when factories and railroads have been specifically bombed to oblivion. In fact, it's hard for people to do much of anything when their homes are piles of rubble.
Enter the Marshall Plan. Its mission, should it choose to accept it: pump money into Europe in order to rebuild the dang continent.
And this plan was pretty awesome for a few reasons.
First, it's the right thing to do: a bunch of people who had nothing to do with the rise of Nazism, etc., were lacking schools, homes, and jobs. Second, a booming economy in Europe helps pretty much everyone. And third (and maybe most importantly), we don't want World War III. What's that? Oh, right, when you have terrible economic conditions, you're practically begging for totalitarian rule, and that could mean another war.
Questions
- What were the responsibilities of the United States after World War II? Did the U.S. have an obligation to get Europe back on its feet? Why or why not?
- Was the fear of communism spreading or fascism reappearing a warranted one? Was the cost worth it? Did it work as intended?
- Why did Europe's economy recover? Was it an effect of the Marshall Plan, or was it just a natural rebounding after the end of the war? A combination of both?
- Was the Marshall Plan the wrong solution to safeguarding Europe from political extremism and helping it recover from the ravages of war? Was there another that would have worked better? Would it be primarily economic, military, or political?
Chew On This
The Marshall Plan was a bold solution that worked exactly as it was intended to. Without it, there would have been a large possibility of Europe falling to the communists.
The Marshall Plan was a grotesque overreach of power. The United States should have used that money to help the people in their own country first before looking outward.
Quotes
Quote #1
I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. (1.3)
If you ever needed an illustration that the concerns of yesterday are the concerns of today, there you go. Marshall is essentially saying that the noise of the press is making it difficult for a normal person to understand what's going on. Keep in mind: this was when the press was newspapers, radio, and magazines. That's it. He wasn't contending with the internet or twenty-four hour news networks, and he was already concerned with ambient noise drowning out the important stuff.
Quote #2
Under the arbitrary and destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise was geared into the German war machine. (2.5)
Oh, yeah. Those Nazis. The ones who ran Germany through the 30s and partway through the 40s. Here, he's pointing out the damage the Nazis did to the economy just by virtue of everything being geared to kill rather than produce something useful.
Quote #3
The farmer has always produced the foodstuffs to exchange with the city dweller for the other necessities of life. This division of labor is the basis of modern civilization. At the present time it is threatened with breakdown. (3.2-4)
Marshall spends this paragraph outlining what he regards as the principle threat of the postwar era. He says, correctly, that the very basic part of modern economics relies on the symbiosis of rural and urban people. Basically, farmers grow crops to sell to cities, cities sell machines and so on to farmers to help with that. With the economic uncertainty, more farmers aren't doing their side of things, which prevents money from circulating. Money that doesn't circulate doesn't help the economy.
Quote #4
The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. The manufacturer and the farmer throughout wide areas must be able and willing to exchange their products for currencies the continuing value of which is not open to question. (5.1)
In other words, the dollar. He's suggesting that the cycle he mentions in the previous quote can be broken with an infusion of cash. The important part is that this cash can't be tied to any European country. Why? Because any European currency is going to be hurting from the same depressed economy. You need American dollars, which are independent of Europe and trusted as valuable in the world.
Quote #5
It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet economically. (7.2)
All Marshall is saying here is that European countries that are going to be helped should be consulted about what kind of help they need. While this seems like it should be obvious, in practice it's not. So, it's nice that it's there.