What is economical/monetary hegemony?

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What is economical/monetary hegemony?

In: Economics

Anonymous 0 Comments

When someones economic or monetary power and might is sufficiently.. influential (or bullyish) to dictate the general direction of things. I mean, individual states can make their own decisions, but generally if the Power wants things to be a certain way they can just encourage by giving preferential treatment or bully/threaten to take things away. During the mid-late 20th century this would have been the US, at least to the extent that they didn’t want to leave the door open for the soviets. If the US wanted you to do a certain thing economically they would either promise you favourable trade terms, lower import tariffs on your stuff… or threaten you with export restrictions, export fines/penalties or band trade with you entirely. Now, they didn’t care which you wound up doing because they were in the dominant position. If you chose to not play by their rules and eat the sanctions or trade restrictions the US wouldn’t be hardly affected – some other country would produce the things you produce and still play ball. Meanwhile you’d be really screwed.

Now, I think we all agree that China is the new hegemon in economic/monetary policy, and China has no qualms about throwing its weight around. China doesn’t like your stance on how Hong Kong is collapsing and you’ve been vocal about condemning the Uyghur genocide? Suddenly your business find it very hard to get manufacturing done in China or things become very expensive.

It would take a concerted effort by a LOT of the worlds economic powers to get China to play by the rules – individually, each country would be seriously screwed if China cut off all trade, only together would the rest of the world have any significant negotiating clout.