The British Treasury embraced countercyclical public works only under strict debt concerns
Evidence
By 1935, although the Treasury was still arguing that although “public works as a remedy for unemployment were quite futile,” government nonetheless still had a role to play in maintaining “the impetus of recovery” in specific areas of the country via spending. Indeed by 1937, the Treasury was willing to propose that a reserve fund of necessary public works be deliberately left not completed so that when a downturn worsened they could be released as a countercyclical measure. But even here, concerns with inflation arising from debt-financed expenditure and the need to pay back the accumulated debt limited the appeal of such logics, even in the midst of a deep depression. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 338
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Mattei’s argument that the Treasury view persisted despite contradictory economic evidence, and to the broader austerity literature on state/anti-state tension within economic liberalism. — connects to: The antiwaste campaign against public spending anchored austerity at the British Treasury — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 327; Monetary-credit expansion alone seemed sufficient to cure unemployment in Treasury orthodoxy — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1695; Crowding-out reasoning was already a British Treasury tool by 1920 — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 787
- ADDENDUM: Relevant to ‘On Sacrifice’ themes only loosely; more directly supports the austerity-vs-economic-facts pattern in Mattei.
Broader Connections
- Crowding-out reasoning was already a British Treasury tool by 1920
#corroborates(0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 787 - Monetary-credit expansion alone seemed sufficient to cure unemployment in Treasury orthodoxy
#complicates(0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1695 - The antiwaste campaign against public spending anchored austerity at the British Treasury
#qualifies(0.72) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 327