Crime Against Humanity: Forms of Seigniorage, 4

The case study par excellence of international seigniorage is the United States from the world wars on. Both wars and their entailed destruction took place elsewhere, with a relative minor direct involvement of the United States, and with a bit of suppressive cynicism some noticed that “war is good for the economy”… small detail: on the proviso that, and as long as, it’s in someone else’s house, not in one’s own. Now, where the bombs fall means of production get destroyed and weaponry is needed, hence from there a tide of want for almost anything pours abroad, while at the same time the credit rating worsens and worsens under those bombs… You discover who your friends are in times of need, isn’t it? Then what has the bombed country got that other countries shall accept in exchange for all those much needed foodstuff, consumer goods, various supplies and weaponry? Indeed war is a leverage to persuade the country being bombed to resort to the selling off of family jewels, and indeed its family jewels have rather intrinsic value. Hence world wars produced a flow of gold from Europe to the United States as payment for the various flows of vital supplies in the opposite direction. And by the end of World War II the United States had two thirds of the world’s gold in their reserves.

Just as the rule of law is often mere brute force or deceit that become law, in the same way the brute force or deceit to seize an oligo−monopoly on monetary sovereignty are the obvious requisite to start many crimes against humanity such as international seigniorage and the ambiguous money cycle discussed ahead. And by the end of World War II the United States had a strong position: they were among the winners, they didn’t have war at home, their production and economy had grown while those of Europe had suffered, and their gold reserves had swelled while other’s had shrunk. That strong position was formalised in the “Bretton Woods system”; the winners of World War II gathered at Bretton Woods and agreed to establish the United States Dollar as global reserve currency: other goverments committed to anchor their national currencies to the United States Dollar and to regulate their international payments in it, on the assumption that the United States Dollar were fully backed by, and fully convertible in gold.