Rethinking Money and Trade

Academic discussions of trade and development have often been tied to a set of orthodoxies around money and finance that, however plausible during earlier eras, are misleading today. The present discussion identifies some of those outmoded assumptions and outlines what might follow once we let go of them. This will suggest how the global economy might be oriented around the establishment, expanded use, and management of state powers of “monetary sovereignty.” It will also suggest why this is both feasible and morally necessary, in view of the state and state system's legitimacy.