Upon the Verge of Global Devistation - Analyzing WWII in terms of WWI

Analyzing WWII in terms of WWI Excellent paper.

Toughius

World History

December 1, 1995

'Upon the Verge of Global Devastation'

Liberal democracy has dealt with the challenges of fascism and communism through its ability to adjust to the world's changing social and political climate, while the authoritarian systems of government in their various forms, tend to be tragically inflexible. This liberal adaptability has proved essential to best confronting economic crises. Yet, it seems almost ironic that the communist Soviet Union was as much (and arguably more) of an instrument in defeating fascism as were the liberal democracies of the world. Despite its apparent strength, the Soviet Union eventually gives in after an arduous cold war, forced to better devote itself to internal problems destroying the huge empire.

Between the two World Wars, the world experienced a severe depression as Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' stops regulating the market as well as it did before the WWI.

Mussolini (left) and Hitler sent their armies to N...

English: Map showing the maximum territorial exten...

RatushnayaLar

Many of the liberal nations are able to bring themselves out of dire economic instability through adopting the new economic principles of John Keynes who advocated government intervention rather than an apparently crippled invisible hand. He held that part of the solution during periods of high unemployment was for the government to increase the money supply, thus lowering interest rates and stimulating business investment. But Keynes also advocated an active government fiscal policy of deficit spending on public works and other projects and the maintenance during depressions of an unbalanced budget to increase the aggregate demand for goods and services. As governments began to experiment with a variety of implementations of Keynesian economics, economic stability begins to realize itself. Still, many nations are not able to fully recover from the worldwide depression until a Second World War has been fought; i.e., '[In the United States]...