Date of Defense

4-1965

Department

Political Science

Abstract

In the beginning of 1962, France launched its Fourth Plan to cover the period 1962-1965, and entered its sixteenth year of economic planning, Parodoxically, France which has so frequently seemed determined to demonstrate to the world an absolute incapacity for self-government has at the same time carried out a complicated experiment in economic planning, the results of which have frequently been brilliant; this is not to suggest that through planning the French have found answers to all of the many difficulties which still face them. It was immediately after World War II that France embarked upon their experiment in planning. The task ahead was considerable, and circumstances convinced the Provisional Government that long-term planning was necessary. The bitter experience of stagnation in the thirties, which had found the economy falling farther and farther behind those of other industrialized nations, and the crushing defeat of the war persuaded them that their economy was hopelessly anarchistic and ill-adapted to the challenge of providing its people with a modern standard of living. Postwar economic survival and progress depended upon a systematic overhaul of the economic structure, a task hardly possible without some form of planning.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

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