The Ukraine war raises issues of the legitimacy and usefulness of the “rules-based” international order (RBO) that supposedly governs international relations.

It is as if the average human assumes that a coercive governance must be established or assigned despite the fact that such a government is often not very efficient or even involved in the outcomes we ultimately want, peace and prosperity.

—Walter Block and Stefan Sløk-Madsen, “Who Should Own the North Pole?“

The US dollar has been the world reserve currency since 1944. At the Bretton Woods Conference, the dollar was pegged to gold and every other currency was pegged to the dollar. The fixed exchange rate system that emerged provided a stable environment for international trade and investment, as all countries had a currency value that was, directly or indirectly, tied to a fixed gold price.

Keynesian economists believe that recessions occur because of a weakening in aggregate demand, so boosting demand will end the downturn. Whenever an economy shows signs of weakness, most experts believe that increasing aggregate demand will prevent the economy from sliding into a recession. Since private spending is declining, Keynesians say the government should counterbalance this decline by increasing government spending on goods and services.