Key to Prosperity

In 1950, a design competition was held for a new poster that would advertise the European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan as it would eventually be known. The purpose of this competition was to promote the idea of prosperity through unity in post-war Europe. Unlike some of the other entries, this poster emphasized that European recovery lay in the hands of the European countries themselves, and only by working together could they reach mutual prosperity. Posters like these promoted NATO’s, and especially the United States’ official position and reasoning for the Marshall Plan, to help rebuild European Economies as well as raise their standards of living. However some countries feared they were being swallowed by the American/British empires, while others felt that the Marshall Plan was implemented for the benefit of the United States in creating a market for US goods. In either case, by the 1960s the Marshall Plan had proved a success despite the fears of those who doubted the genuineness of its intention. The fear of the Marshall Plan being a reaching arm of American Imperialism was coupled with the fear of the growing power of the Soviet Union. For French philosopher Alexandre Kojeve, France would soon be surrounded on all fronts by economic giants, who wielded great military power in addition, as he states in Outline of a Doctrine Of French Policy “…into the European system will inevitably lead to France’s reduction on to the rank of a secondary power within continental Europe, unless it reacts in a manner as energetic as it is reasoned” (Kojeve, 3-4). Kojeve’s solution to this problem was the creation of a Latin Empire consisting of France, Italy, Spain, countries united not only by a common language ancestry, but also by sharing the faith of Catholicism. The fears of Kojeve were not unfounded, as author Victoria de Grazia points out in her book Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance Through Twentieth-century Europe “Though often regarded as the starting point for Western Europe’s post-war boom…Its first consideration was to address the dollar shortage that prevented European suppliers from purchasing U.S. goods and risked bringing recovery to a standstill” (De Grazia, 346). According to De Grazia, the Marshall Plan first and foremost funded the rebuilding of industry, infrastructure, ports and electrical grades, all to boost productivity. As a result there was no room to direct funds to households, pensions, or to raise wages. Suspicions about the Marshall Plan and its aims were felt throughout Europe, with skepticism being published from the outset of the plan’s implantation. While author De Grazia points out the clandestine primary motives of the Marshall Plan, author/philosopher Kojeve paints an eerie picture of France being smashed between the industrial giants of the Anglo-Saxons, and the revitalized Soviet Union; insisting on the need for the creation of a Latin Empire, stating both economic as well as military necessities. However, out of the cynical observations of both Kojeve and De Grazia, by the 1960s, a ‘New” Europe had arisen out of the ashes of the Second World War, in large part thanks to the Marshall Plan. Though the United States and the Marshall Plan may have partly shaped the economies of Europe for their own purpose, Europe came out stronger, with higher standards of living, as well as having one of the largest economies in the world.