> From what I understand, the gold standard felt apart in WW1.
Formal gold standards were only introduced in the 1870s. No matter where exactly you put the end date, it only existed for a shockingly short time frame, and has very little relation to whatever you want to call "traditional" monetary systems.
> Some also indicate WW1 being the first worldwide conflict because the war machine was no longer restricted by what's in the government's coffers, so you can go all in and basically have future generations pay for it (by massive inflation if you lose, but if you win you have the spoils to repay the cost of the war, and then some)
I can see why this line of thinking appeals to some people with rather creative interpretations of fiscal policy… but no, this is how wars have always been financed in heavily monetized societies. You always had the option of re-minting your 100% silver coins (or gold coins, for that matter, but gold rarely ever had the special status "gold standard extremists" ascribe to it) into 99% silver coins… or 90%.
Or 25%.
Or even less than 10%.
You bet that future generations were regularly crippled by this kind of ridiculously massive inflationary shocks. The Ottoman and Western Roman empires never recovered from debasing their currencies so hard.
And while the British and French Empire also didn't survive their takes on currency debasement for long (Germany didn't have much wealth left to turn into war spoils, and the other central powers didn't even exist anymore – they had abolished the gold standards before Britain/France, from what I can tell, by a month or two), the US did fabulously well after both WW1 and WW2, and that's without trying to plunder anyone.
Formal gold standards were only introduced in the 1870s. No matter where exactly you put the end date, it only existed for a shockingly short time frame, and has very little relation to whatever you want to call "traditional" monetary systems.
> Some also indicate WW1 being the first worldwide conflict because the war machine was no longer restricted by what's in the government's coffers, so you can go all in and basically have future generations pay for it (by massive inflation if you lose, but if you win you have the spoils to repay the cost of the war, and then some)
I can see why this line of thinking appeals to some people with rather creative interpretations of fiscal policy… but no, this is how wars have always been financed in heavily monetized societies. You always had the option of re-minting your 100% silver coins (or gold coins, for that matter, but gold rarely ever had the special status "gold standard extremists" ascribe to it) into 99% silver coins… or 90%.
Or 25%.
Or even less than 10%.
You bet that future generations were regularly crippled by this kind of ridiculously massive inflationary shocks. The Ottoman and Western Roman empires never recovered from debasing their currencies so hard.
And while the British and French Empire also didn't survive their takes on currency debasement for long (Germany didn't have much wealth left to turn into war spoils, and the other central powers didn't even exist anymore – they had abolished the gold standards before Britain/France, from what I can tell, by a month or two), the US did fabulously well after both WW1 and WW2, and that's without trying to plunder anyone.