#50 1914-1945 The Unforeseen Consequences: The Loss of Global Financial Control

Private property for the first time became the dominant method to handle land and industry. Banking had grown in importance. The entire edifice was premised on a stable system of exchange; this was the pound sterling which acted as the world's currency. Gold had become the ultimate standard of value for all the major non colonised countries.

The British government at an early stage, in 1916, limited their adherence to the system and by 1931 removed the system altogether. The essence of the global capitalist system, that is the mechanism that held it all together, ceased to work.