Homogenize the World?

Poster of 1953 film “Welcome Mr. Marshall”

After World War II, how to go about the reconstructing Europe was obviously not an easy task. There was no guide as to how to rebuild entire countries’ infrastructure, economy, and in parts, society. When entire counties are nearly in ashes, they are left vulnerable and anxious for help. The Marshall Plan was, on the surface, an aid package from the US to help lift Eastern Europe from the ashes and to make sure the weak countries could rebuild. Victoria De Grazia, history professor at Columbia University and author of Irresistible Empire, wrote “The Marshall Plan was not at all conceived to create a consumers’ Europe” (346). But it is more nuanced than that. As previously discussed, does intent matter? Of course the United States not only saw this as an opportunity to help out where blatantly needed, but they also saw the opportunity of showing weak countries how capitalism could kickstart a broken down economy. De Grazia argues throughout her chapter, “The Consumer-Citizen,” that The United States not only helped out many counties but in the process, injected the consumerism of the United States, which shifted the culture of Europe, for better or for worse. Eastern Europe quickly bought into the consumer economy system, but it took Western Europe, all the while being influenced by the Soviet Union, to catch on to that consumerism.

Alexandre Kojeve was a Russian-born, French philosopher who wrote a theory to the French government, “Outline of a Doctrine Of French Policy,” presented the idea that large empires, not the city-state, were truly the major powers of the times. There was the “Anglo-Saxon” Empire which included the United States, and the “Slavo-Soviet” Empire, which included mainly the Soviet Union (arguably more of an Empire in the original sense, especially at the time). The United States was not telling governments at the time how to run their countries like the Soviet Union was, or if they were, they were doing it in a more nuanced, less obvious way. Kojeve argued that if France wanted to continue to be a global major player, they needed to stay afloat on their own, without influence from either empire– but he also realizes that this is not realistic, especially in the state that Europe was in. He argued that whichever Empire that Germany falls to will influence and heavily affect the rest of Europe, including France. Kojeve offers that the French should buy into the Anglo-Saxon Empire, which is exactly what happened. The ideas that De Grazia offer play into this. Europe, vulnerable and broken, needed help. “Contended for by left and right,” De Grazia writes, “they (European consumer-citizens) turned uneasily between state and market, and between the security promised by the European welfare state and the freedoms promised by American consumer culture” (343). So this puts Europe between a rock and a hard place. They were not going to get free money without some kind of influence, especially in those times. They thought they were well established and strong, but WWII tore them down. In the end, they got what they wanted with the Marshall Plan. Yes, there is no doubt that the United States influenced them and kick-started their economies with a heavy dose of consumerism, but in the end Europe ended up on its feet.