“La Réserve fédérale, le régime monétaire international et la justice économique”

ABSTRACT

There are parallel debates going on right now in political philosophy and monetary economics concerning global economic justice. Both involve the same fundamental issue: whether the institutions and peoples of dominant country should be responsible for the consequences of their policies on periphery countries. In political philosophy the debate is between the “statists,” who see justice as a political standard, and the “cosmopolitans,” who argue that justice has universal applicability. The debate in monetary economics involves whether the monetary policies of the dominant central bank(s) should take more seriously the harmful consequences of their policies on periphery countries. The position of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the dominant central bank and the focus of criticism, is that harms caused are not their responsibility—basically the statist view. The developing countries argue that central banks should design their monetary policies to avoid harm they may be causing around the globe—basically the cosmopolitan view. I present the criticisms of U.S. monetary policy and the defenses of the Federal Reserve. I argue that the Federal Reserve has a special obligation as the dominant reserve currency bank to evaluate policy consequences by justice standards and a failure to do so, threatens its legitimacy.

KEYWORDS

ethics; global justice; monetary policy; Federal Reserve; Thomas Pogge; Thomas Nagel; Cosmopolitanism