In December 1945 the new Labour government accepted an American loan on terms which one cabinet minister, Emanuel Shinwell, declared would make socialist planning in Britain impossible, a view some historians have endorsed. According to this theory, Labour's manifest failure to construct a planned economy after the war was a consequence of accepting the commitments to international economic liberalisation which the Americans demanded as the conditions of the much-needed loan. By this argument, making these commitments (which included membership of the newly formed International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, early sterling convertibility and participation in an international system of multilateral freer trade) out of short-term expediency, Labour scuppered its own domestic economic aspirations almost before it had a chance to enact them. Proponents of this logic argue that the construction of a socialist economy in Britain was dependent on the ability to plan foreign trade via bilateral deals and rigorous exchange control, a privilege which was now foregone. However, the claim that in 1945 the lamb of planning was, at the behest of the Americans, sacrificed on the altar of international economic liberalisation, is seriously flawed; and it can be refuted by putting the acceptance of the loan conditions within the context of Labour's broader aspirations towards ‘international planning’. In 1945, Labour was caught between its desire to make world planning a reality, and the consequences of the compromises such planning turned out to involve.