Gregory's ServerThe world is headed for a multipolar economy that will no longer be dominated by the dollar. This doesn't mean that the dollar will be going away any time soon, but it does mean that dollar based economy will shrink and with it the power that US wields over the world.
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@simon_brooke I don't think that's going to happen. China is not positioned the same way US is, nor does it have 800 military bases around the globe to force its will on others. I think what we'll see is a multipolar world where there isn't a de facto reserve currency that allows one country to dominate others. @simon_brooke it's also worth looking at the Soviet Union as a counter example to the idea that a larger economy has to exploit smaller ones. USSR spent a lot of its resources helping developing countries like Cuba and Vietnam. Once USSR dissolved the conditions in these countries became worse. If USSR was extractive then the opposite would've been the case. |
@yogthos The dollar being the world's principal trading currency has effectively allowed the US to extract rent out of everyone who traded commodities round the world, because they had to hold dollars in order to do so.
Of course, that rent-seeking opportunity is not disappearing, it's just switching to China. Big economic powers will always systematically benefit from market economies at the expense of the poor.