You could call that GeoEconomics at it’s best 😀
Instead of killing people – you create jobs – that keep poor people from revolting against rich people.
The Marshall Plan was originally scheduled to end in 1953. Any effort to extend it was halted by the growing cost of the Korean War and rearmament. American Republicans hostile to the plan had also gained seats in the 1950 Congressional elections, and conservative opposition to the plan was revived. Thus the plan ended in 1951, though various other forms of American aid to Europe continued afterwards.
The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels. The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically. There is some debate among historians over how much this should be credited to the Marshall Plan. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe, as evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. Most believe that the Marshall Plan sped this recovery, but did not initiate it. Many argue that the structural adjustments that it forced were of great importance.
Economic historians J. Bradford DeLong and Barry Eichengreen call it “history’s most successful structural adjustment program.” One effect of the plan was that it subtly “Americanized” countries, especially Austria, who embraced United States’ assistance, through popular culture, such as Hollywood movies and rock n’ roll.
The Marshall Plan also played an important role in European integration. Both the Americans and many of the European leaders felt that European integration was necessary to secure the peace and prosperity of Europe, and thus used Marshall Plan guidelines to foster integration. In some ways this effort failed, as the OEEC never grew to be more than an agent of economic cooperation. Rather it was the separate European Coal and Steel Community, which notably excluded Britain, that would eventually grow into the European Union. However, the OEEC served as both a testing and training ground for the structures that would later be used by the European Economic Community. The Marshall Plan, linked into the Bretton Woods system, also mandated free trade throughout the region.
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Loans and grants
The Marshall Plan, just as GARIOA (Government Aid and Relief in Occupied Areas), consisted of aid both in the form of grants and in the form of loans. Out of the total, 1.2 billion USD were loan-aid.
Ireland which received 146.2 million USD through the Marshall Plan, received 128.2 million USD as loans, and the remaining 18 million USD as grants. By 1969 the Irish Marshall Plan debt, which was still being repaid, amounted to 31 million pounds, out of a total Irish foreign debt of 50 million pounds.
The UK received 385 million USD of its Marshall Plan aid in the form of loans. Unconnected to the Marshall Plan the UK also received direct loans from the US amounting to 4.6 billion USD. The proportion of Marshall Plan loans versus Marshall Plan grants was roughly 15% to 85% for both the UK and France.
Germany, which up until the 1953 Debt agreement had to work on the assumption that all the Marshall Plan aid was to be repaid, spent its funds very carefully. Payment for Marshall Plan goods, “counterpart funds”, were administered by the Reconstruction Credit Institute, which used the funds for loans inside Germany. In the 1953 Debt agreement the amount of Marshall plan aid that Germany was to repay was reduced to less than 1 billion USD. This made the proportion of loans versus grants to Germany similar to that of France and the UK. The final German loan repayment was made in 1971. Since Germany chose to repay the aid debt out of the German Federal budget, leaving the German ERP fund intact, the fund was able to continue its reconstruction work. By 1996 it had accumulated a value of 23 billion Deutsche Mark.