America is now engaged in a transition that has never before been attempted. It has hollowed out its manufacturing sector (more than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since Bush took office) looted its treasury, and plunged the country into irreversible debt. Its major corporations and banks have disconnected from the mainland and operate as sovereign islands protected by the US military and international trade law. They have no allegiance to America and are unaccountable to anyone except their own shareholders.
Dollar-hegemony is critical to their ongoing success as it keeps the basic unit of exchange; paper money, in the control of fellow-elites at Federal Reserve. Absent that power, American plutocrats would be unable to perpetuate the system of trading debt (US dollars) for resources and manufactured goods. If Bush succeeds in his global resource war, then countries will be forced to use the dollar regardless of how much debt it has accumulated.
The most effective strategy for bringing the dollar into balance with the other currencies is to “democratize” the system and allow the free exchange of goods and resources in one’s own currency. This would eliminate the dependence on a reserve currency and make the United States accountable for its own prodigious debt. This, in turn, would force American leaders to revitalize the manufacturing sector as a way of restoring economic solvency.
The dependence on a “reserve currency” inevitably creates winners and losers. It is an invitation to massive account imbalances as well as corruption and exploitation. Greater parity among the currencies should be encouraged as a way of strengthening democracies and invigorating markets. It promises to breathe new life into international trade by allowing other political models to flourish without fear of being subsumed into the capitalist prototype.
The dominance of the greenback has created a global empire which is controlled by a small group of corporatists and autocrats who depend on bullying and brute force to maintain their supremacy. The only way to restore the republic is to topple the empire, dislodge the dollar from its lofty perch, and even the playing field with the other currencies.
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