Radhika Desai, Michael Hudson at the Valdai Club.
Understanding of the dollar’s world role is dominated by the ideas of ‘dollar hegemony’ and ‘US hegemony’. In this paper, based on our extensive past work, we reveal how these ideas are ideologies, not theories. In their place, we reveal an understanding one that is theoretically sound and accords with the historical record, a geopolitical economy of the international monetary system of modern capitalism. We begin with a theoretical outline of how money operates under capitalism. We then consider how capitalism needs world money and, at the same time, makes its stable functioning difficult. We then go on to trace the fundamental instability of the modern international monetary systems based on national currencies of dominant countries, from the gold standard to the current volatile and predatory dollar-centred system, and their close connection to short-term and speculative. https://michael-hudson.com/2021/07/moving-beyond-dollar-hegemony/
Serendipity.
A worthy companion piece to insert here.
Over at MFC we have rediscovered this:
Rouble Nationalization – the Way to Russia’s Freedom. — St. Petersburg: Piter, 2013.
http://resistir.info/livros/rouble_nationalization.pdf
Which those who have read previously agree provides an excellent explanation of the USD as a weapon, and why (and how) Russia needs to regain currency sovereignty.
Quote from the London Times 1865
“If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic – honest Constitutionally authorized debt-free money should become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without a debt to the International Bankers. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe!”
Michael Hudson,
I have nothing to add to “Beyond the Dollar”
Side note:
Your presentations/media interviews r extremely clear and insightful…you distill rather difficult topics in a way that is exciting (to me in the listening audience.)
Over the years -you have changed my understanding of how the world works by explaining the gears and hidden machinery at work.
I am indebted to you for taking me out of my a juvenile comprehension of finance, to a stage in my life where I can slowly put the pieces together.
The other two scholars who – for their critical thinking (and best viewing perch to see the world from) are Gerald Celente, and Jim Willie.
Thank you for making a difficult world-easy to understand.
“The process by which money is created is so simple, that the mind is repelled.
Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
Hmm …. Other than the five pages of the Preface credited to Alexander Losev, the Saker re-posted the same writing from July 7, 2021 (“Beyond the Dollar”).
But there is a misspelling in this article, “Our purpose in this article is to cut through this interpretation [sic]” that is not in the July 7, 2021 post.
So who corrected the typo before and why?
This paper deals with the macro-economics of the U.S. Dollar used predominately for international trade settlements and its global, political influence as the reserve currency, which is declining due to other nation’s desire to breakaway from U.S. financial domination.
But Messrs Hudson and Desai hardy mention the overarching impediment to fairness between international parties concerning currency valuations for trade settlements; that would be Wall Street greed.
The coven of hedge fund manipulators, investment bank gangsters, etc. as well as corporate-owned bureaucrats that run national governments and their cadre of politically bribed elected stooges will put up walls of resistance. The “syndicate” collectively will use whatever means necessary including threats of war to prevent the Dollar from losing its preeminent status as the planetary currency of the realm.
Wall Street is the great Satan and until stronger regulatory chains bring it under control, the “multilateral, multicurrency world” envisioned by the two authors will be significantly limited, in my opinion.
The conclusion drawn by Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai can be summarized in the following two paragraphs:
“The urge to escape from the predatory dollar creditocracy is strong, and the alternatives are today mostly China-centred. This is because, as in the period before 1914, the breakaway or challenge has to be led by countries whose financial systems are public utilities, focusing on financing production. Today, China’s financial system is the most powerful such system, and it has enough international currency reserves to withstand speculative attacks by raiders or hostile powers.
Only such an alternative is in a position to create credit that enables economies to grow, in contrast to being the means of impoverishing them through debts that neither finance production (out of which they can be repaid) nor can be repaid out of existing trade and investment trends without impoverishing the debtor.”
“The 2020 coronavirus crisis revealed the ineffectiveness of global
governance institutions, which failed to help states coordinate their efforts to combat
the spread of the virus, and which are very limited in terms of the choice of tools for lifting
the global economy out of recession.”
Faulty premise.
Most Countries were forced into austerity measures by the IMF. The first places to see mass cuts was, wait for it, Health Care, staff cuts, amalgamation and reduced services etc…now we have, not a virus health crisis world wide, but a lack of health care delivery services crisis. The inability to respond in a meaningful way is the major issue, not any virus. Overloaded Health Care Systems cut to the bare bones is the issue in most countries.
RE: Anonymous on July 11, 2021 · at 11:59 pm EST/EDT
“Faulty premise.”
Hence the effectiveness of global governance institutions, the rule of man cloaked by the rule of law, representation as being “democratic”, et al.