Les conséquences économiques de la paix de Keynes (1919). Faut-il désacraliser l’idole ?

Antoine Parent and Gilles Vergnon

Revue de l'OFCE, 2021, vol. N° 171, issue 1, 109-132

Abstract: Is Keynes the champion of peace so unanimously praised for the clarity of his vision, the accuracy of his analysis, the impartiality of his judgment? Was Keynes right before everyone else in making the Treaty of Versailles the breeding ground for Nazism? In the first part of the article, we look at Keynes?s text from a double critical perspective: a contemporary perspective, in order to revisit the ?judgment of history? and to discuss Keynes?s clear-sightedness; and a perspective informed by the reactions of the time, in the second part of the article, where we analyze the reception of Keynes?s work when it was published in France. This second part can be understood as a form of ?robustness check?, in the context of the time, of the criticisms addressed at Keynes?s work in the light of today?s perspective. Indeed, we revisit the canonical and angelic reading of the work and confront it, in particular, with a reading that has fallen into oblivion, that of Etienne Mantoux, who in 1946 underlined the aporias and dangers of Keynes?s text (1919). In ECP (1919), did Keynes make a premonitory reading of Nazism, or did the work serve as a pretext for Germany not to pay reparations? Was Keynes (1919) the champion of pacifism or the inspirer of the appeasement and defeatism that facilitated the rearmament of Nazi Germany between the two wars? What makes the posterity of a work? These are the questions raised by our article when reading ECP (1919). Making use of a text and the issue of denial remain two major challenges that researchers still confront today when working on the legacy of history. JEL codes: B10; H56; N43; N44.

Keywords: Keynes; history of economic thought; war; peace; reparations; economic history; cliometrics and economics of war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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