Comments by "Persona" (@ArawnOfAnnwn) on "Was the Marshall Plan a Huge Fraud?" video.

@tricksilver04 They kinda were, depending on how you look at it. Europe was stabilized to rebuild, but in exchange the US made it so they purchased from it and demanded they relinquish all the barriers that kept both their and their colonies markets in a loop. In one move America took over the world market, making itself both the principal financier and supplier to the whole world. Europe basically gave up any power it could salvage to America, which struck it rich the world over.
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The US insisted on all recipients to open up their colonial markets and relinquish their various debt control instruments that allowed them to hold said colony as a captive market, regardless of whether they were granted political independence or not (which didn't happen all at once cos of the Marshall Plan - decolonisation occurred over decades). The reason and result was so the US could displace their erstwhile colonial masters as the suppliers to these newly opened markets. It worked. At one point the US was responsible for nearly half the manufactured goods being sold around the world. The Marshall Plan made them rich.
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Note that Ford is an American company. The biggest beneficiary of the Marshall Plan, as is the case with a lot of other aid since then, turned out to be America itself. They kinda serve as an indirect American public to private financial transfer, which ofc eventually trickles back to the govt. via taxes. It's no accident that the US ended up dominant over both world finance and the primary supplier to the world economy for years afterwards. It wasn't cos of the damage to Europe, which was repaired fairly quickly, but cos Europe conceded on a lot of its semi-mercantilist policies which then allowed the US to take over not just their market but that of their old colonies as well. Later it also ended up establishing the dominance of the dollar in finance.
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@nesseihtgnay9419 That's what every hegemon says!
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