In the 1960s, French finance minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing lamented the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege”, longing for an international monetary system less reliant on the dollar and the shackles of US economic policy. In 2009, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan of the People’s Bank of China called for de-dollarisation and a multipolar regime with an internationalised renminbi. Emerging markets joined the chorus, criticising the spillovers from Fed monetary policy.
But the wistful yearnings from seemingly every quarter of the world for the emergence of a non-dollar alternative system miss the point. Instead of reimagining the international monetary system, the focus should be on strengthening the underlying drivers and dynamics of the global economy.
What can one conclude from the 60 years of critiques? Plus ?a change, plus c’est la même chose.