| This dissertation investigates economic reconversion from the Second World War. Reconversion was a commonly used term during the mid-1940s, but Americans meant different things when they used the term. The historical importance is that reconversion meant not only a deliverance from the economy of the Second World War but from the Great Depression which preceded it. There was a great deal of uncertainty among Americans about what reconversion and the postwar future held. This dissertation focuses upon what economic elites thought or believed to be likely as seen through available and reputable popular economic literature.; Americans in the most general sense meant a stable peace and prosperous economy when they discussed the goals of postwar economic reconversion. The achievement of these goals was dependent upon elements of a productive economy, that is, the industrial, financial, and public sectors of the economy which produced goods and services and were capable of generating employment; and also upon the international environment in which the American economy operated. This concept founds the body of this study.; In conclusion, there was a great deal of conflict in each sector of the reconversion economy. The imprecision of the term reconversion was reflected in the contradictory or chaotic aspects of the process. However, there was an existing order to the reconversion period, namely the restoration of a healthy market capitalism to the postwar economy. The clashing of individuals, companies, and governments, all pursuing their own economic interests, reflected the reality of the market in the postwar world. This was in spite of a strong challenge to capitalism at the time in both an intellectual and geopolitical context. Reconversion of the American productive economy in the years 1943--1947 was more than simply the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy. It was an escape from the economic history of 1929--1945, during which time the United States not only made over its own economy but led the world into a new epoch of economic history. |
