Source: Print
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Monetary Conference held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The conference, which led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Development and Reconstruction (World Bank), has passed over into popular history and mythology as a founding moment of the “Liberal International Order”. This order, in turn, is widely held to be in crisis, owing to the rise of authoritarian populism that disavows the older ideals of a liberal world economy and global cooperation.