By extension of the changing perspectives explored in Chapter 5, in Chapter 6 there follows an exploration of how far Keynes likewise yielded, in his economic thinking in the 1920s, to the realities of a new economic order, challenging his former attachment to the gold standard. The argument here is that the crucial attraction of the gold standard was its rule-bound rationale; yet Keynes, under the impact of events, became disillusioned with a set of rules that now seemed to him less benign in the post-war world. At one level, he criticised the newly powerful United States for failing to exercise its hegemonic influence in the benign manner he had once imputed to British hegemony. At another level, he became sceptical of rules that only debtor countries had to observe, with adverse deflationary effects worldwide.