During a massive global downturn many did austerity. Partly because not every country can just infinity take on more debt. You also have to understand that in that time, debt was used as a political weapon, France didn't want to take on debt, because its debt was used by the US against France diplomatically both in 1919 and 1923, France wanted to prevent that from happening again.
You could stay on the gold standard and do austerity or not. Or you could leave it and do austerity or not. All these four are options and different country picked differently for various reasons.
The US under Hoover and FDR first practiced limit stimulus under gold and then left, and continued stimulus even more so. Actually they always did both as tariffs can be seen as type of tax, but that's debatable. And FDR was of the 'throw spaghetti at the wall and hopefully something works' type.
Germany stayed and did austerity. They couldn't leave the gold standard as it would make it even hard to pay back debt. Adam Tooze pointed this out on his commentary on "Golden Fetters". If somebody would have lent them a lot more money if they had wanted to do a massive stimulus program is questionable, the terms would have been harsh. So its understandable they didn't want even more high interest debt.
Its also the case that those that left the gold standard instantly saw the situation get better and therefore saw less need for austerity. So that plays into it as well. The US had its fast historical growth in industrial out put ever the few month after it left gold (that then collapsed the NRA was adopted). So Britain who left gold early recovered better and didn't have to be as extreme.
That said, in the minds of many at the time the gold standard and prudent physical policy were linked. In Japan for example, balanced books and gold were seen 'womanly' a true warrior didn't give a shit, just go and steal that shit. So you tended to have liberal and centrist being pro austerity and pro gold standard. While right wingers hated gold standard (its internationalism) and wanted massive military spending. They didn't care about debt because they would simply take over and steal everything.
But this is just historical coincidence. Being pro fiscal spending and pro gold is a perfectly reasonable position that some at the time held. It just not how politics happened to break down in most of the world.
I actually am on the 4th side where I think (depending on country) leaving gold and doing some amount of austerity or at least re-appropriate spending and taxes is reasonable (remember raising taxes on the rich is austerity as well).
During a massive global downturn many did austerity. Partly because not every country can just infinity take on more debt. You also have to understand that in that time, debt was used as a political weapon, France didn't want to take on debt, because its debt was used by the US against France diplomatically both in 1919 and 1923, France wanted to prevent that from happening again.
You could stay on the gold standard and do austerity or not. Or you could leave it and do austerity or not. All these four are options and different country picked differently for various reasons.
The US under Hoover and FDR first practiced limit stimulus under gold and then left, and continued stimulus even more so. Actually they always did both as tariffs can be seen as type of tax, but that's debatable. And FDR was of the 'throw spaghetti at the wall and hopefully something works' type.
Germany stayed and did austerity. They couldn't leave the gold standard as it would make it even hard to pay back debt. Adam Tooze pointed this out on his commentary on "Golden Fetters". If somebody would have lent them a lot more money if they had wanted to do a massive stimulus program is questionable, the terms would have been harsh. So its understandable they didn't want even more high interest debt.
Its also the case that those that left the gold standard instantly saw the situation get better and therefore saw less need for austerity. So that plays into it as well. The US had its fast historical growth in industrial out put ever the few month after it left gold (that then collapsed the NRA was adopted). So Britain who left gold early recovered better and didn't have to be as extreme.
That said, in the minds of many at the time the gold standard and prudent physical policy were linked. In Japan for example, balanced books and gold were seen 'womanly' a true warrior didn't give a shit, just go and steal that shit. So you tended to have liberal and centrist being pro austerity and pro gold standard. While right wingers hated gold standard (its internationalism) and wanted massive military spending. They didn't care about debt because they would simply take over and steal everything.
But this is just historical coincidence. Being pro fiscal spending and pro gold is a perfectly reasonable position that some at the time held. It just not how politics happened to break down in most of the world.
I actually am on the 4th side where I think (depending on country) leaving gold and doing some amount of austerity or at least re-appropriate spending and taxes is reasonable (remember raising taxes on the rich is austerity as well).