As World War II raged, tremendous thought was given to how the eventual victors would recreate order from chaos. Knowing full well the contributions of the Great Depression in causing the conflict, perhaps more attention was given to financial and economic matters than is commonly understood today. Paramount among most planners' wishes was to craft a system, an international system, which would never end up in World War III.
An early proposal called for free trade, but mixed with capital controls and fixed exchange rates. And it would all be backed by gold, though not strictly in the manner in which the classical gold standard had once operated. Freed from it by World War I, there was very little appetite in political circles for going backward.
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