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.

What had changed by the end of the 1914-18 war? The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires had disappeared. The Chinese Empire remained in place, just about. The Russian Empire had erupted into a socialist revolution. This revolution would focus the minds of the European and American ruling classes for the next 70 years, the new socialist leaders would nationalise the companies privately owned by wealthy Europeans. They tampered with private ownership; previously, private property had been untouchable.