The Dollar Fortress: How Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and the 1951 Accord Forged the First Dollar Liquidity Regime (1947–1953)

After World War II, the Bretton Woods system, the Marshall Plan, and the 1951 Treasury–Fed Accord fused into a single architecture: the dollar anchored to gold, capital controls, and state-directed credit. Between 1947 and 1953, this “Dollar Fortress” quietly set the rules of global liquidity that still shape markets today.