Abstract
In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference created two organizations dedicated to the international economic and social co-ordination of the world’s political economy. The first was overt, the International Labour Organization (ILO); the second was an almost accidental outgrowth of the agency of the states and interest groups assembled in Paris. It emerged by a process of evolution and accretion as a result of the financial and economic crises which swept the world economy in the wake of war, although it, too, eventually took on the soubriquet of ‘organization’: the Economic and Financial Organization (EFO) of the League. The history of the League of Nations and the ILO was an entangled one, although the latter was not officially part of the League, and at the hour of their birth each was understood as a distinct organization with a discrete mission. This was made clear in their constitutions which were drafted independently by different commissions, which assigned the ILO and the League very separate functions in the architecture of international relations in 1919.
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Notes
As the historiography of the ILO is extensively covered elsewhere in the book, there is no need to rehearse it here. The EFO’s history is emergent with a number of doctoral studies and research projects nearing completion. Inter alia, see P. Clavin, Securing the World Economy: The Reinvention of the League of Nations, 1920–1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Among published work, see
L. Pauly, Who Elected the Bankers? Surveillance and Control in the World Economy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998);
N. de Marchi, ‘League of Nations Economists and the Ideal of Peaceful Change in the Decade of the ‘Thirties’, in C. D. Goodwin (ed.), Economics and National Security. A History of Their Interaction. Annual Supplement to Volume 23, History of Political Economy (London: Duke University Press, 1991), pp. 143–178; A. Menzies, ‘Technical Assistance and the League of Nations’, The League of Nations in Retrospect: Proceedings of the Symposium Organized by the United Nations Library and the Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva: United Nations Library, 1983), pp. 295–312; and
A. M. Endres and G. A. Fleming, International Organisations and the Analysis of Economic Policy, 1919–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (London: Macmillan and Co., 1919);
P. Clavin and J. W. Wessels, ‘Transnationalism and the League of Nations: Understanding the Work of its Economic and Financial Organisation’, Contemporary European History (vol. 14, no. 4, 2005), pp. 465–492.
Yann Decorzant, ‘Répondre à la demande sociale et à la demande du marché: les prémisses de la régulation économique dans les années vingt’, in A. Aglan, O. Feiertag and D. Kevonian (eds), Actes des ‘Journées d’étude des 19 et 20 janvier 2007 à l’Université Paris-I Panthé on-Sorbonne: Albert Thomas, société mondiale et internationalisme: réseaux et institutions internationales des années 1890 aux années 1930’, no. 2 (Paris, 2008), pp. 106–126; S. Kott, ‘Une “communauté épistémique” du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalisation des politiques sociales dans l’ entre-deux-guerres’, Genèses (June 2008), pp. 28–29.
M. D. Dubin, ‘Toward the Bruce Report: the Economic and Social Programs of the League of Nations in the Avenol Era’, in United Nations Library, Geneva (ed.), The League of Nations in Retrospect. Proceedings of the Symposium (Berlin and New York, 1983).
B. Ohlin, ‘The Study of the Course and Phases of the Present Depression’ (Geneva: League of Nations, 1931);
G. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression (Geneva: League of Nations, 1937);
J. Tinbergen, Statistical Testing of Business Cycle Theories (Geneva: League of Nations, 1938) and Business Cycles in the United States of America 1919–1932 (Geneva: League of Nations, 1939).
For a note on the high regard with which Staehle was held and his relationship to League statisticians, see Philippe Carre, ‘Brief Note on the Life and Work of H. Staehle’, Econometrica (vol. 29, no. 4, 1961), pp. 801–810.
See R. Skidelsky, Politicians and the Slump (London: Macmillan, 1967);
A. Tooze, The Wages of Destruction. The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (London and New York: Allen Lane, 2006).
League of Nations, Economic Stability in the Post-War World (Geneva: League of Nations, 1944), p. 291.
O. Steiger, ‘Bertil Ohlin and the Origins of the Keynesian Revolution’, History of Political Economy (vol. 8, no. 3, Autumn 1978), pp. 341–366.
For more on Philips and the Treasury, see Roger Middleton, Towards the Managed Economy: Keynes, the Treasury, and the Fiscal Policy Debate of the 1930s (London: Methuen, 1985). The League and ILO view on Rueff’s abrasive impact on the otherwise largely harmonious meetings was entirely shared. See Memo by Crocker, 14th Dec., ILO L 5/6/1; and LON, ‘Comments by Ohlin and Rueff, “Provisional Minutes, Fifth Meeting (Private)”, 1st July 1938, p. 1 and p. 18, LN 10A General, Box R4454, Econ Depr Cttee, 1937–38, File 10A/36595/32649 Econ Depr Cttee Jun 1938 Minutes.
For details of its history see, V. De Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through 20th Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2005), pp. 76–126; J. Coffin, ‘A “Standard of Living?” European Perspectives on Class and Consumption in the Early Twentieth Century’, International Labor and Working Class History (vol. 55, Spring 1999), special issue, Class and Consumption, ed. L. Cohen and V. de Grazia, pp. 6–26.
J. Hilton, ‘International Wage Comparisons’, The Economic Journal (vol. 43, no. 171, 1933), p. 480.
D. Maul, Menschenrechte, Entwicklung und Dekolonisation — Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation (IAO), 1940–1970 (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2007).
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Clavin, P. (2013). What’s in a Living Standard? Bringing Society and Economy Together in the ILO and the League of Nations Depression Delegation, 1938–1945. In: Kott, S., Droux, J. (eds) Globalizing Social Rights. International Labour Organization (ILO) Century Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291967_14
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