Scene 5: Financial institutions and economic systems are human inventions. They change over time, depending on prevailing ideologies and elites. At the end of the Second World War, the economist Keynes at the Bretton Woods (USA) conference influenced world leaders to reign in financial institutions to stop the speculation that leads to economic instability, increasing inequality and eventually wars. Despite its flaws, this regulated global monetary system supported stability and ushered in the ‘golden age of capitalism’, until it was dismantled by ‘free market’ governments from the ‘70s onwards.
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From Wikipedia: “The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II.
The conference was held from July 1 to 22, 1944. Agreements were signed that, after legislative ratification by member governments, established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, later part of the World Bank group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This led to what was called the Bretton Woods system for international commercial and financial relations.”
