Instability of the Pre-War Economic Order

Keynes highlights the fragile and temporary nature of the pre-war economic boom, which was based on unsustainable population growth, inequality, and dependence on foreign food supplies, making it vulnerable to collapse.

Keynes emphasizes the 'intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature' of the economic organization Western Europe relied on for the last half century.

Highlights three factors of instability: excessive population dependent on a fragile organization, psychological instability of classes, and precarious food supplies from the New World.

The German machine is compared to a top that must spin ever faster to maintain equilibrium, highlighting the fragility of the pre-war economic order.

The description of the delicate organization and reliance on internal and external factors hints at the fragility of the pre-war system, which was disrupted by the war.