πλήρης τίτλος:
Athanasios
Lykogiannis, Britain and the Greek economic crisis, 1944-1947: From
liberation to the Truman Doctrine, PhD
thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom 1999
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πηγή: LSE
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Abstract
In
1944, the government of newly liberated Greece faced a crisis of staggering
proportions, with a devastated economy and a currency undermined by rampant
hyperinflation. Anxious to preserve Greece as a friendly 'outpost in
South-Eastern Europe', the British provided advisors to help overcome the
crisis. Whatever the political motives of the British, their economic advice
was largely orthodox and sound, enshrining the only measures likely to provide
a long-term solution to the problem of inflation. Nevertheless, successive
governments in Athens managed to avoid acting on the advice in the hope that
massive amounts of Allied aid would eliminate the need for painful policies,
and preferring to adopt palliative measures which allowed wealthy Greeks to
protect their assets while the underlying problems remained unaddressed.
Exasperated by their lack of success, the British withdrew in early 1947, to be
replaced by the Americans. The mixed success of the American advisors over the
subsequent year merely confirmed the extensive problems which had earlier
thwarted the British efforts. The thesis demonstrates how the inertia of
successive Greek governments led to the prolongation of the economic crisis. It
also shows how the attitudes of the Greek political establishment during
1944-47 - with endless squabbling, an obsessive anti-Communism, a relentlessly
laissez faire approach to the economy, a cavalier lack of concern towards
chronic balance of payments and budget deficits, a reliance on foreign capital
coupled with a resentment of any conditions foreign aid might entail - were all
firmly established within Greek political culture prior to World War II.
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