Keynes and White were designers of Bretton Woods but you’re exaggerating Keynes’ influence. White’s plan for BW won out over Keynes.
Keynes’ plan, which he had developed with EF Schumacher, included a global clearing union that would use its own in-house currency, the Bancor, for settling international accounts. This would have served as reserve currency rather than the US Dollar.
Keynes’ proposal wasn’t accepted and Bretton Woods used Harry Dexter White’s plan instead.
Using Keynes’ Bancor as reserve currency could have spared the USD the pressure it came under from the Triffin Dilemma.
Triffin forced a choice between maintaining a dollar-gold link with low/no inflation, or incurring recessions due to the lack of dollars available for domestic use.
Keynes plan might have prevented our abandonment of the gold link and the resulting inflation since 1971. But since it wasn’t tried we don’t know.
Here’s the link to a paper giving some background on the White vs Keynes debate:
Why White, Not Keynes? Inventing the Postwar International Monetary System
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2002/wp0252.pdf
Pelham, thanks for the summary and clarification.
So we went with the commie instead of the homosexual.