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Non-State Actors and the International Institutional Order: Central Bank Capture and the Globalization of Monetary Amnesia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2017
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- Type
- Roundtable—A Multiplicity of Actors and Transnational Governance
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- Copyright © American Society of International Law 2007
References
1 Koh, Harold Hongju, The 1994 Roscoe Pound Lecture: Transnational Legal Process, 75 Neb. L. Rev. 181, 194 (1996)Google Scholar (claiming that international institutions and participation of non-state actors reflect “the rule of law, not power”). Others argue that international law scholars are simply ignoring the distributions of power embedded in our institutions. Kennedy, David, Boundaries in the Field of Human Rights: The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the Problem?, 15 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 99, 118-25 (2002)Google Scholar.
2 ASIL’s 100 Ways glosses over the role of private actors in the international financial system by praising the Bretton Woods system for stabilizing currency and inflation rates. American Society of International Law, International Law: 100 Ways it Shapes Our Lives 5, No. 17 (2006). José Alvarez, in his 50 Ways, provides a necessary corrective, pointing out the damage of Washington Consensus policies and the less-than-transparent decision-making processes of Bretton Woods institutions. Alvarez, José E., International Law: 50 Ways it Harms Our Lives, 25, No. 6 (2006)Google Scholar.
3 These limits on the capabilities of nation-states were made evident by the 1990s currency contagion and the continuing growth of hot money portfolio capital flows. Canova, Timothy A. Banking and Financial Reform at the Crossroads of the Neoliberal Contagion, 14 Am. U.Int’l L. Rev. 1571 (1999)Google Scholar.
4 For instance, the international financial regulatory system was unable to prevent or investigate the theft of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars from Iraq’s reconstruction to secret bank accounts in Arab and non-Arab countries. Fouad Ajami, Blind Liberation, New Republic, Apr. 23, 2007, at 48.
5 Stiglitz, Joseph, Globalization and its Discontents 53-54 (2002)Google Scholar.
6 Jagdish Bhagwati has referred to the “Wall Street-Treasury-IMF complex,” suggesting the capture of federal and multilateral agencies by private financial actors. Jagdish Bhagwati, in Defense of Globalization 205-06 (2004). The capture of Treasury by Wall Street interests has been personified by the revolving-door career of Robert Rubin. Robert Kuttner, Friendly Takeover, The American Prospect, April 2007, at 12.
7 Canova, Timothy A. Closing the Border and Opening the Door: Mobility, Adjustment, and the Sequencing of Reform, 5 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y, n. 275-300 (2007)Google Scholar.
8 Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers 220, 223 (1984), Tables B-l, B-2.
9 Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers 324 (2007), Table B-79.
10 Canova, Timothy A. American Wartime Values in Historical Perspective: Full-Employment Mobilization or Business as Usual, 13 Ilsa J. Int’l & Comp. L. 1, 5, n. 13 (2006)Google Scholar.
11 Annual Report, supra note 7.
12 John Blum Et Al., The National Experience: A History of the United States Since 1865, at 720 (1977).
13 It was not until the 1951 Treasury Accord that the Federal Reserve regained its independence from the Treasury and White House.
14 Chandler, Lester V., The Economics of Money and Banking 482-93 (5th ed. 1969)Google Scholar. See also Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, The Federal Reserve System, Purposes and Functions 105 (1947); Milton Friedman & Anna Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960, at 557-58 (1963); Paul A. Samuelson, Economics 351-55 (1948).
15 Frank, Robert H. & Bernanke, Ben S., Principles of Macroeconomics 280-86 (3d ed. 2007)Google Scholar (providing Federal Reserve and monetary history that includes pre- and post-pegged period, but nothing on the pegged period itself). Bernanke’s skewed history has not harmed his professional standing. to the contrary: he now serves as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. For other leading texts that omit this period of history, see Canova, supra note 7, at n. 274.
16 As Keynes also pointed out, “Even if you are right, you cannot convince him, if there is a defect in your own powers of persuasion and exposition.” Keynes, John Maynard, 12 The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes 470 (Moggridge, D. E. ed., 1978)Google Scholar.
17 Alas, another example of how our law schools today have become the “seminaries of yesterday’s orthodoxies.” Eldon J. Eisenach, The Lost Promise of Progressivism 6 (1994).
18 Canova, supra note 7, at n. 309-314, 326 (discussing John Hart Ely’s characterization of the Federal Reserve as “the poster child of an unconstitutional delegation”).
19 Reform of the Federal Reserve need not be radical or destabilizing. The late Henry B. Gonzalez, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, had proposed making the FOMC members subject to Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, a reform which could make the Fed more inclusive of the diversity of interests and opinions in our society, from organized labor to student debtors and industrial and manufacturing corporations, as opposed to firms involved solely in banking and finance capital. Galbraith, James K. The Federal Reserve: Give it Till Sunset, in Reclaiming Prosperity 197-209 (Schäfer, Todd & Faux, Jeff eds., 1996)Google Scholar.
20 This monetary amnesia is on display when a leading scholar takes a swipe at Andrew Jackson for “indulging in legally problematic uses of executive power to withdraw federal deposits” from the Second Bank, while making no mention of the constitutionally far more problematic use of legislative power to create a central bank controlled by private shareholders, i.e., an unconstitutional delegation of one of the most important legislative powers into private hands. Ackerman, Bruce, This Is Not a War, 113 Yale L. J. 1871, 1872, n. 3 (2004)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
21 Jane Jacobs warns how mass forgetfulness can present an insurmountable barrier to a culture’s development and survival. She notes the historical lessons taught by Jared Diamond of the mass forgetting that can lead to collapse of nations, civilizations, and ecosystems. Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead 3-14, 21-26 (2005).
22 And so it is with personal finances that there are times when individuals must borrow far more than 30%, or even 100% of their annual income, to invest in their educations, for example.
23 Perhaps control of U.S. interest rates is passing to Chinese President Hu Jintao. Paul Krugman, China Unpegs Itself, N.Y. Times, July 22, 2005, at A19. “Hu’s in charge here,” according to Robert J. Barbera, chief economist of ITG/Hoenig. Floyd Norris, Who ‘s in Charge of Determining U.S. Interest Rates? It May be Beijing, N.Y. Times, May 13, 2005, at Cl. It is sad enough to remind one of the old Abbott and Costello routine, “Who’s on first.” “Hu’s setting U.S. interest rates?” “Exactly!”
24 José Ortega Y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses 58-60 (1932).