Essay 79: Past and Present Thinking

History is “forever new” and we keep asking “what’s new?” but the past is “forever suggestive” and so we inquire here as to whether the past gives us interesting echoes of the more recent.

Specifically, we juxtapose the “closing of the gold window” in August 1971 (Nixon) and the British gold standard gyrations between 1925 and 1931, when England left gold (i.e., September 1931).

At the time, under Nixon, the U.S. also had an unemployment rate of 6.1% (August 1971) and an inflation rate of 5.84% (1971).

To combat these problems, President Nixon consulted Federal Reserve chairman Arthur Burns, incoming Treasury Secretary John Connally, and then Undersecretary for International Monetary Affairs and future Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.

On the afternoon of Friday, August 13, 1971, these officials along with twelve other high-ranking White House and Treasury advisors met secretly with Nixon at Camp David. There was great debate about what Nixon should do, but ultimately Nixon, relying heavily on the advice of the self-confident Connally, decided to break up Bretton Woods by announcing the following actions on August 15:

Speaking on television on Sunday, August 15, when American financial markets were closed, Nixon said the following:

“The third indispensable element in building the new prosperity is closely related to creating new jobs and halting inflation. We must protect the position of the American dollar as a pillar of monetary stability around the world.

“In the past 7 years, there has been an average of one international monetary crisis every year …

“I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interests of the United States.

“Now, what is this action—which is very technical—what does it mean for you?

“Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation.

“If you want to buy a foreign car or take a trip abroad, market conditions may cause your dollar to buy slightly less. But if you are among the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American-made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today.

“The effect of this action, in other words, will be to stabilize the dollar.”

Britain’s own experience in the twenties is explained like this:

“In 1925, Britain had returned to the gold standard.

(editor: This Churchill decision was deeply critiqued by Keynes.)

“When Labour came to power in May 1929 this was in good time for Black Friday on Wall Street in the following October.

“After the Austrian and German crashes in May and July 1931, Britain’s financial position became critical, and on 21st September she abandoned the gold standard.

London was still the world’s financial capital in 1931, and the British abandonment of the gold standard set off a chain of reactions throughout the world.

“Strangely enough Germany and Austria maintained the gold standard…”

(Europe of the Dictators, Elizabeth Wiskemann, Fontana/Collins, 1977, page 92-93)

Nixon’s policies gave us the demise of Bretton Woods, while the economic gyrations of 1925-1931 were part of the lead-up to World War II.

The setting is both “infinitely different” across the decades but the feeling of “flying blind” applies to both cases: U.S.A. “closing the gold window,” August 1971 and Britain’s overturning Churchill’s 1925 return to the gold standard, by 1931. One gets the sense of “concealed turmoil” and a lot of “winging it” in both cases. Policy-makers disagreed and they all saw the world of their moments “through a glass, darkly.”