Wealth & Money Quote by W. Averell Harriman

Harriman’s cool pragmatism is doing double duty here: it presents postwar restraint as both enlightened statesmanship and hard-nosed self-interest. The line sounds like a concession - “ready to accept certain restrictions” - but it’s really a power move. A superpower can afford to “accept” limits when it’s the architect of the system imposing them. The phrasing gently normalizes American dominance by framing it as rational management of scarcity, not imperial reach.

The “great dollar shortage” is the crucial historical tell. In the late 1940s, Europe needed dollars to buy goods; the United States had the industrial capacity and the currency. That imbalance threatened recovery and, by extension, political stability. Harriman, a key figure in the Marshall Plan era, recasts European reconstruction as a kind of macroeconomic flywheel: help Europe get rich enough to buy American products, and America’s own prosperity is secured. Aid becomes investment; generosity becomes a growth strategy.

The subtext is the early Cold War bargain: rebuild the West to prevent collapse, radicalization, and Soviet influence, while binding European economies into an American-led order. Harriman’s candor is striking because it refuses the sentimental script. He doesn’t sell altruism; he sells throughput. Prosperous allies aren’t just morally preferable, they’re customers and strategic buffers. It’s a reminder that the postwar “rules-based” architecture wasn’t built on idealism alone - it was built on the persuasive, self-serving logic that stability abroad could be monetized at home.