|
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $130 billion in current dollar value as of August 2015) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1947. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make Europe prosperous again, and prevent the spread of communism.〔Hogan (1987)〕 The Marshall Plan required a lessening of interstate barriers, a dropping of many petty regulations constraining business, and encouraged an increase in productivity, labour union membership, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.〔Anthony Carew, ''Labour under the Marshall Plan: the politics of productivity and the marketing of management science'' (Manchester University Press, 1987)〕 The Marshall Plan aid was divided amongst the participant states roughly on a per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed towards the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total), followed by France (18%) and West Germany (11%). Some 18 European countries received Plan benefits.〔''The Marshall Plan Fifty Years Later'' (Palgrave MacMillan, 2001) ISBN 9780333929834〕 Although offered participation, the Soviet Union refused Plan benefits, and also blocked benefits to Eastern Bloc countries, such as East Germany and Poland. The United States provided similar aid programs in Asia, but they were not called "Marshall Plan". The initiative is named after Secretary of State George Marshall. The plan had bipartisan support in Washington, where the Republicans controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the White House with Harry S. Truman as president. The Plan was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan, with help from Brookings Institution, as requested by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title =Brookings's Role in the Marshall Plan )〕 Marshall spoke of an urgent need to help the European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947.〔 The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after WWII as well as to antagonize the Soviet Union. By providing economic assistance to nations including the USSR, the United States was informing nations of the squalid and depraved conditions that they lived in. In order to combat the effects of the Marshall Plan, the USSR developed and forcefully imposed its own economic plan, known as the Molotov Plan〔http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/doc_marshall_plan_speech.html〕 The phrase "equivalent of the Marshall Plan" is often used to describe a proposed large-scale economic rescue program. ==Development and deployment== The reconstruction plan, developed at a meeting of the participating European states, was drafted on June 5, 1947. It offered the same aid to the Soviet Union and its allies, but they refused to accept it, as to do so would be to allow a degree of US control over the Communist economies.〔Volkogonov, Dmitri. ''Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy''. Forum, 1996, p.531.〕 In fact, the Soviet Union even prevented its satellite states (i.e. East Germany, Poland, etc.) from accepting. Secretary Marshall became convinced that Stalin had absolutely no interest in helping restore economic health in Western Europe.〔Kaplan, Jacob J. 1999. Interviewed by: W. Haven North. 22 March. Arlington, VA: Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Foreign Assistance Series, p. 4. http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Kaplan,%20Jacob.toc.pdf〕 President Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan on April 3, 1948, granting $5 billion in aid to 16 European nations. During the four years that the plan was operational, US donated $13 billion in economic and technical assistance to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. In 2013, the equivalent sum reflecting currency inflation since 1948 totalled roughly $148 billion.〔Inflation Calculator reflecting value of $13 billion in 2013-http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/〕 The $13 billion was in the context of a US GDP of $258 billion in 1948, and was on top of $13 billion in American aid to Europe between the end of the war and the start of the Plan that is counted separately from the Marshall Plan.〔Milward (1984) p. 46〕 The Marshall Plan was replaced by the Mutual Security Plan at the end of 1951; that new plan gave away about $7 billion annually until 1961 when it in turn was replaced by a new program. The ERP addressed each of the obstacles to postwar recovery. The plan looked to the future, and did not focus on the destruction caused by the war. Much more important were efforts to modernize European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models, reducing artificial trade barriers, and instilling a sense of hope and self-reliance.〔Hogan (1987) pp. 427–45; Barry Eichengreen, ''The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond'', (2008) pp. 64–73〕 By 1952, as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels; for all Marshall Plan recipients, output in 1951 was at least 35% higher than in 1938.〔Barry Eichengreen, ''The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond,'' (2008) p. 57; West Germany was 6% higher, the other countries 45% higher.〕 Over the next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented growth and prosperity, but economists are not sure what proportion was due directly to the ERP, what proportion indirectly, and how much would have happened without it. A common American interpretation of the program's role in European recovery is the one expressed by Paul Hoffman, head of the Economic Cooperation Administration, in 1949, when he told Congress that Marshall aid had provided the "critical margin" on which other investment needed for European recovery depended.〔Quoted in Hogan (1987) p. 189〕 The Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level—that is, it stimulated the total political reconstruction of western Europe.〔Milward (1984) p. 466〕 Belgian economic historian Herman Van der Wee concludes the Marshall Plan was a "great success": 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Marshall Plan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|