The Great Depression was finally brought to an end when governments needed to spend huge amounts of money to pay for the war effort. But if countries were able to stimulate demand to pay for war, why could they not do it in times of peace? ‘Hitherto war has been the only object of governmental loan-expenditure on a large scale which governments have considered respectable,’ Keynes said. ‘In all the issues of peace they are timid, over-cautious, half-hearted, without perseverance or determination.’
