Sam Gindin wrote: >The Euro may give Europe some degree of autonomy from the dollar but it is >not a challenge to the dominance of the dollar (and is integrated into the >dollar - eg European-US insitutional developments in private finance).
What seems to be weakening the dollar is that hedge funds are betting that the Chinese central bank plans to move toward a portfolio of 90% dollar-denominated assets and 10% euro-denominated assets. You may or may not want to call this a challenge to the dominance of the dollar. But please do tell when taking actions to secure some degree of autonomy becomes a challenge. > That dominance is not simply something 'financial' but reflects the > structural power of the American empire - something the European elite may >not like but has absolutely no intention of challenging (witness how they >became more flexible re Iraq as opposed to mounting and mobilizing any real >opposition). These types of distinctions between financial and real or structural power perplex me. What is more structural than the power of a monied aristocracy to demand a significant share of value added every year in the form of dividends and interest payments on fictitious capital? It certainly beats the structural power of the old feudal aristocracy that had to maintain possession of so much territory to get a comparable share of value added. >The ECB is holding tough in large part to enforce American style >restructuring within Europe (it may also require more of a consensus to act >on reversing the dollar's fall). I agree. But this does not exclude the possibility that the ECB also dreams of an international role for the euro. Central banks often try to strengthen capital as a whole as against labor and at the same time strengthen certain fractions of capital as against other fractions. Tom Dickens
