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Corresponding Author:
Giovanni Battista Pittaluga, Department of Political Science, University of Genoa, Italy

War and Peace in Keynes' Thought

Volume 75 - Issue 4 - Papers in memoriam of Amedeo Amato, November 2022
(pp. 577-600)
JEL classification: B31; B41; F02
Keywords: John Maynard Keynes; International Relations; War; Peace

Abstract

Despite an extensive literature devoted to Keynes’s thought, there are still few analyzes of his thinking on international relations. Keynes traced the causes of wars above all to economic factors, first of all to the impoverishment of populations. A stable peace could only be established by removing the causes of this impoverishment. Hence his profound criticisms of the Treaty of Versailles, because it imposed unsustainable reparations on Germany; hence the main motivations of the Keynes Plan on the new international monetary order to be established after WWII which, while favoring the development of international trade, would have allowed individual countries to pursue economic policies aimed at maintaining full employment.


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Institute for International Economics
of the Genoa Chamber of Commerce


Istituto di Economia Internazionale
Camera di Commercio di Genova
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