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World Money
Jean-Guy Loranger: The Myth of Demonetarization of Gold
Abstract: Not available
Karl Beitel: World Money, Public Deficits, and the Future of the Dollar
Abstract: This paper examines the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis and the issue of sovereign debt in the context of a longer-term, historical analysis of the current dollar-centered regime of global finance. I argue that the gold-based dollar standard of the Bretton Woods agreement was, from its inception, predicated on fictitious foundations. The 1970âs marked the signal crisis of this regime based upon a purely nominal, fait-based regime of international finance; neoliberalism is interpreted as an attempt to reconstitute the relationship between money and its substantive bias in abstract labor time.
I show how the dollar's role as international means of payment has allowed the US to act in apparent violation of the 'law of credit'; and that despite the ability to sustain, in an technical-economic sense, both higher deficits and persistent trade imbalances, the realities of inter-state jockeying for international power will initiate growing conflict over existing financial arrangements in the coming decades. The real issue at stake in the debate over deficits centers on the defense of class and imperial prerogatives. Crisis management will thus require balancing the need to allow de facto Central Bank monetization government deficits (albeit in a indirect fashion) without undermining private sector 'confidence' in the commitment of states to act as responsible custodians and guardians of the interests of financial owners.
David McNally: World Money and the Dollar after Gold
Abstract: This paper explores a series of interconnected problems related to the new form of (de-commodified) world money that has dominated the global economy since 1971. Clarifying Marx's theory of world money, the paper explores the contradictions inherent in a national fiat money serving as the international measure of value, and it investigates what role these played in the crisis of 2008-10. The paper concludes with some considerations on what the analysis implies for the durability of the dollar's status as international reserve currency.
Doug Henwood: Discussant
Jean-Guy Loranger: The Myth of Demonetarization of Gold
Abstract: Not available
Karl Beitel: World Money, Public Deficits, and the Future of the Dollar
Abstract: This paper examines the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis and the issue of sovereign debt in the context of a longer-term, historical analysis of the current dollar-centered regime of global finance. I argue that the gold-based dollar standard of the Bretton Woods agreement was, from its inception, predicated on fictitious foundations. The 1970âs marked the signal crisis of this regime based upon a purely nominal, fait-based regime of international finance; neoliberalism is interpreted as an attempt to reconstitute the relationship between money and its substantive bias in abstract labor time.
I show how the dollar's role as international means of payment has allowed the US to act in apparent violation of the 'law of credit'; and that despite the ability to sustain, in an technical-economic sense, both higher deficits and persistent trade imbalances, the realities of inter-state jockeying for international power will initiate growing conflict over existing financial arrangements in the coming decades. The real issue at stake in the debate over deficits centers on the defense of class and imperial prerogatives. Crisis management will thus require balancing the need to allow de facto Central Bank monetization government deficits (albeit in a indirect fashion) without undermining private sector 'confidence' in the commitment of states to act as responsible custodians and guardians of the interests of financial owners.
David McNally: World Money and the Dollar after Gold
Abstract: This paper explores a series of interconnected problems related to the new form of (de-commodified) world money that has dominated the global economy since 1971. Clarifying Marx's theory of world money, the paper explores the contradictions inherent in a national fiat money serving as the international measure of value, and it investigates what role these played in the crisis of 2008-10. The paper concludes with some considerations on what the analysis implies for the durability of the dollar's status as international reserve currency.
Doug Henwood: Discussant
Notes
Historical Materialism (HM) is one of the foremost journals of Marxian theory. Since 2006, North American conferences have been organized in New York City and Toronto (which will now alternate with bi-annual spring conferences). HMNY 2011 began with a reception on the evening of Friday, May 6th, and took place on May 7th and 8th at the New School for Social Research in downtown Manhattan.
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