Bretton Woods system Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Bretton Woods system - Essay Example It is undeniable that in the current debate on the international economic co-operation, we miss historical prospect completely. Or at least, we do not want to remember us the context in which was set up what we can call the great sedentary project of post-war period, not more of the role that one intended to make play at the time each great institution in their respective field. It is not a question to reconsider a period, already completed, but at least to remember, on a side, that the Agreements of Bretton Woods belong to a great project which, was not going from there to be carried out, at least until the failure of the Charter of Havana and the Cold war do not come to put at it a downtime. On the other side, which it is a question of setting up this great project, to make "the great decision" as could write it Shotwell in a book which completely reflects the spirit of its time, ''that if the crisis of the Thirties, with its batch of unemployment, dislocation of the world economy, commercial wars, etc, had sufficiently traumatized the spirits so that any idea of return to the past, with this economic order that had exerted oneself to restore in the inter-war period, is immediately evacuated. That is in question; is to set up a new order, an order which breaks with the past. And so that it was thus, it was not only necessary to rebuild the world economy on new bases, but also to rebuild the national economies on bases such renewed. At the time when is held the conference of Bretton Woods, in July 1944 let us recall it, the exit of the War is sealed since the unloading successful in Normandy. It is at the post-war period that is consequently a question of thinking, with the errors of the past which was a question of avoiding renewing, with the way in which one was going to rebuild the world economy. It is also the way in which one was going to institutionalize and widen this solidarity between the allied nations which, across the systemic differences, made so that it appeared possible to set up a new order. It is clear, when one looks at this period with a certain passing that the United States played a role determining in the installation of this new kind, but it agrees to bring many nuances with what could appear with the first access only the installation of a new hegemonic order, a kind of Pax Americana imposed. In this respect, it will be certainly interesting to return on the contents even of the American project, on the debates that one could raise at the time including in the American public opinion, as on the role played by these two large protagonists of Bretton Woods who were Keynes and White, to precisely see the project could be set up only insofar as this project rested on common principles, and that it answered common aspirations. It is under this angle that it is necessary, to approach the international order of post-war period and its prospects; while looking initially towards the United States, as it is them which mainly drew contours of this order, but also and in parallel, while looking towards the other countries, and in