The Bretton Woods International Monetary System

Abstract

In approaching our subject, we must first discuss the capitalist international monetary system itself in the context and through the mechanism of which the extremely rapid growth in the volume of international money flow has occurred. The international monetary system, which was finally wrecked on August 15,1971, after I a long-lasting latent crisis which was the direct consequence of international money flows, was founded in Bretton Woods in the United States at a conference in July 1944, at the end of World War II. Both at the conference and in the subsequent agreements, i.e., those establishing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), it was predominantly the influence of the United States that prevailed. The economic and political power of the United States was decisive because, in contrast to that of the other countries taking part in the agreements, it had increased as a consequence of World War II.