Monetary-credit expansion alone seemed sufficient to cure unemployment in Treasury orthodoxy

Evidence

Hawtrey fundamentally thought that in moments of economic downturn the creation of bank credit alone would be suffi cient to increase employment, and that public works would be “unnecessary.” He put it strongly: “Th e public works are merely a piece of ritual, convenient to people who want to be able to say that they are doing something, but otherwise irrelevant. To stimulate an expansion of credit is usually only too easy. To resort for the purpose to the construction of expensive public works is to burn down the house for the sake of the roast pig” (Hawtrey 1925b, 44). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1695

Categorization

• CANDY: Hawtrey’s ‘burn down the house for the sake of the roast pig’ is a quotable, memorable line about stimulus spending.
• DEFINE: Illustrates the Treasury view’s priority of credit expansion over public works as the core causal mechanism.
• XREF: connects to: The British Treasury embraced countercyclical public works only under strict debt concerns — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 338; Monetarism blamed the Depression on Fed policy, not underconsumption — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 408; Postwar IMF Keynesianism concealed classical liberal assumptions derived from 1920s Treasury logic — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 443 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Interwar Treasury officials directly linked monetary austerity to unemployment #contradicts (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1670
• The Treasury and Bank of England used monetary austerity to block the miners’ movement #expands (0.80)
• Monetary austerity was designed to moralize and discipline economic behavior toward thrift #complicates (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 759
• Monetary sovereignty is a precondition for capital accumulation and full employment #contradicts (0.75)