*** JOHN RYAN (Ed.): The Global Currencies Conundrum. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, Postfach 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen, Switzerland. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2014, 149 pp. ISBN 978-3-0343-1767-2.
Without the man in the street even being aware of it, a massive currency war is being waged at global level, as is revealed in this very instructive book in which three eminent scientists unveil the great manœuvres that are being carried out in order to give birth to - or prevent the birth of, in the case of some Anglo-Saxon circles… - a multipolar currency system on what's left of the dollar's hegemony. This currency war has been building up and under way for several years now, pitching China and the United States head-on, and this book's contributions stress the major role played in this battle by the euro which, over and above the procrastination of European political leaders, is the arbiter that could decide which way the beam falls.
In this currency war between China and the United States, 'has Europe enough monetary power to act as a broker?” This is the question that Miguel Otero-Iglesias provides answers to first in his consideration not only of the role of the euro as a reserve currency, but above all as an instrument that could undermine the dollar's hegemony. According to this researcher specialising in the European economy and emerging markets at the Royal Elcano Institute in Madrid, the single currency has everything it takes to carry this off. The eurozone is surely the living proof that close currency cooperation is possible at regional level, so why shouldn't it be possible at global level too? But are Europe's political leaders well-disposed to wanting to challenge the global currency system based on the flexible-Dollar Standard in favour of a more coordinated and managed exchange rate regime? It is far from certain that this would go down well in Berlin, “which has traditionally tried to avoid being too confrontational with the US,” not to mention the fact that Germany may not be so very unhappy with the current set-up because it is able to live well with its eurozone partners “with an overvalued euro.” Perhaps this is partly why the eurozone is still divided politically, which of course prevents it from putting pressure on US leaders for them to give up the “exorbitant privilege” that they enjoy due to the dollar's centrality. The eurozone's strengths and weaknesses are also key questions in the contribution in which Prof. Marie-José Rinaldi-Larribe severely criticises the major failings of eurozone governance that are “linked to the non-existence of a European government with the power to spend and to tax, which would be independent from national governments, which entails the absence of a minimal degree of budgetary integration and of political unification.” Lambasting the rejection of European bonds, the small size of the European budget and the current austerity drive that is not counterbalanced by serving growth, this economist who lectures in France says that the eurozone will only come through if it moves “towards more federalism, less intergovernmentalism more federalism, less intergovernmentalism.”
All this is clear to some, but not the select few who make, or at the present moment un-make, Europe. European leaders would do well to be inspired to dip into this book, however, in order to become aware that with their current behaviour, they may miss a unique opportunity to have an influence on the way the world is being shaped. The other three contributions give a clear picture of how the much the world is changing, the domain of currency being an implacable tell-tale sign of the shift. Prof. John Ryan points out that whilst it cannot be denied that the US dollar used to be the perfect incarnation of “a true global currency,” it enjoys a privileged position today that is no less than extortionate, given the action of the Federal Reserve which, under Greenspan and Bernanke, has pushed through an undesirable currency system that is of benefit solely to Wall Street. In another contribution, this lecturer at the Von Hügel Institute of St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge considers four possible scenarios for accompanying the unavoidable decline of the dollar as a reserve currency, in which he points out that preservation of the single currency is no longer solely of concern to the Europeans involved in it, but is also being exploited by Chinese leaders in order to internationalise the renminbi and to help ensure the emergence of a multipolar monetary order. The pertinence of this assertion is largely demonstrated by Prof. Otero-Iglesias, who shows how Beijing has acted to ensure the euro's credibility and its value on the markets, while Anglo-Saxon financial circles work to weaken it. The expert explains in a highly convincing manner why China is so assiduous in defending the cause of the single currency, along with China's great concern to thus acquire a major strategic partner in the reconfiguration of the international monetary system. Chinese investment in Europe against the backdrop of the sovereign debt crisis is another manifestation of this, because whatever it costs, China's leaders want to prevent the eurozone from exploding and disappearing.
Michel Theys
*** REMY HERRERA, WIM DIERCKXSENS, PAULO NAKATANI (Eds.): Beyond the Systemic Crisis and Capital-Led Chaos. Theoretical and Applied Studies. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - http://www.peterlang.com ). Business & Innovation series, No. 9. 2014, 260 pp . ISBN 978-2-87574-183-7.
This book's authors navigate in the same monetary waters as those of the book presented above. They discern the same dangerous swirls and currents and the same storm clouds, but the writers (economists, sociologists, a political scientist and a physician) expand the scope of the threat and, describing themselves as Marxist, they say it is “the Great Depression of the twenty-first century” that the Western world has now entered. They analyse the crisis of a capitalism that is the victim of extreme financialisation with the aid of tools, concepts, methods and theories of a Marxism that they feel is perfectly suited for discerning the possible “post-capitalist transitions.” The way they see it, the current crisis is due to the fact that the financial elite engaged in a “warlike strategy” one of whose aims is “to establish a global order under its hegemony through the creation of a global state without borders and citizens,” in order to get control over the “real wealth” that is still produced in the world. Are the extreme aspects without significance? No doubt at all. Nevertheless, a good number of points raised in these contributions stand out and deserve consideration, at least. This applies, for example, to the accusation at the start by Wim Dierckxsens when he argues that “the greatest fear of the Anglo-American financial capital is that the Eurozone will not only transform itself into Great Germany, but, worse, they will do so in alliance with China and Russia as part of the Euro-Asian Continental Bloc” - which resonates perfectly with one of the ideas developed by the non-Marxist authors of the previous book … The coordinator of the International Observatory of Crisis says that this threat cannot be borne by the “unilateral and imperialist conservative forces,”which are now prepared to do anything to destabilise the euro, but also the dollar, because this author argues that “global bankers want to take advantage of the panic to replace the dollar and the Federal Reserve Bank with a global monetary authority controlled by the global bankers themselves, free of any state control, even of the US government.” In another contribution he wrote together with Nicaraguan physician Antonio Jarquín, Wim Dierckxsens explains the special nature of a war economy in these times of Great Depression, demonstrating that US military spending is now out of control - which was also the case, he says, for the Soviet Union immediately before its collapse and disintegration - and China can now afford to enter an arms race. It is not such a great leap from there to imagining a war breaking out between the United States, China and, possibly, Russia… In the rest of the book, the authors consider the possibility of another New Deal (but this time it would be Western lifestyles that would be condemned), the Marxist notions of fictitious capital and fictitious profits, the class struggle and how it is reported to have developed over the period of neoliberalism and, finally, the way China could influence the course of events.
(MT)
*** GERVAIS WILLIAMS: The Future is small. Why AIM will be the world's best market beyond the credit boom. Harriman House (18 College Street, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU31 4AD, UK. Tel: (44-1730) 233870 - Email: contact@harriman-house.com - Internet: http://www.harriman-house.com ). 2014, 127 pp, £16.99. ISBN 978-0-85719-420-6.
A fund manager in the City of London since the mid-1980s, Gervais Williams cross-examines the race for ever greater profit that has been the rule in business and finance now for years. The way this practitioner sees it, “smallness” offers advantages that investors would be at fault to ignore in this period of crisis. He enthusiastically answers 'yes' to the question: Could it be that small firms are set to be the stock market outperformers of the future? Although his colleague Luke Johnson points out in the preface that this is not entirely risk-free when it comes to investing on the stock exchange, the author defends the Alternative Investment Market model with passion and skill, viz. the UK market for smaller growing companies. This turns indirectly into a tribute to managers-owners and developers keen on the capital of small businesses, a world apart from CEOs operating according to the rules of the world of career plans and stock options.
(PBo)
*** YANNIS PALAIOLOGOS: Le 13e exploit d'Hercule. Histoires de la grande crise. Editions Hestia (84 rue Evripidou, GR-10553 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3213907 - Fax: 3214610 - Email: info@hestia.gr - Internet: http://www.hestia.gr ). Histoire et Politique series. 2014, 306 pp, €15. ISBN 978-960-05-1618-0.
How come an apparently prosperous and developed society at the heart of Europe collapsed so rapidly? And why was such a long fight required before it could get back on its feet again? In a series of passionate accounts of episodes from before and during the Great Crisis, this book highlights the social, cultural and political currents that left Greece defenceless when the global economic tempest arrived at its shores. It also describes the pernicious interaction of recession, institutional decline and social dissolution from 2010 onwards. The author is the former director of the Free-Sunday newspaper, currently a columnist on the Kathimerini newspaper, who discusses with the protagonists of the attempted reform of the social security system and major shipbuilders how they view relations with the Greek State, Syrian refugees and Athenians who feel they are under siege in their city. With all these accounts (thirteen in total, whence the title of the book), Yannis Palaiologos provides an image of a country where confidence has broken down, both in terms of the State and also among citizens themselves. Which leads to his bitter comment that without a total rebuilding of the country, economic recovery will be have fragile foundations…
(AKa)
*** COSTAS KOLMER: Le problème des banques et le développement. Editions Livanis (98 Solonos, GR-10680 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3661200 - Fax: 3617791 - Email: webmaster@livanis.gr - Internet: http://www.livanis.gr ). 2014, 144 pp, €10. ISBN 978-960-14-2875-8.
Banks are supposed to circulate money much the way that the heart circulates the blood. But money is becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon in the hands of Greeks, to such an extent that Costas Kolmer, a highly reputed economist and columnist on Greek newspapers, says that unpaid bank loans amount to a whopping €77 billion. In addition, the money that the banks do have does not find its way back to the market: it is used to pay off the banks' debts to the European Central Bank and to increase their capital ahead of the next stress test that will even force some of them into being painfully wound up. Meanwhile, the political impasse persists and some are putting their hopes in the writing off of some of the country's debt. Costas Kolmer says that Greece is a 'failed State' that has long been a victim of political, rather than economic, problems. The country must not delay in speeding up justice, waging war on corruption and dealing resolutely with clandestine immigration, failing which it will remain a 'failing State' detested by its citizens because of its high 'special' taxes and bled dry by the flight of capital to beyond its borders. The economist argues that even if the country's debt were reduced to zero, without a sea-change in the mentality of the country's leaders, it is clear that no exit from the crisis will be on the cards.
(AKa)
*** CATALIN-SILVIU SARARU (Ed.): Studies of Business Law. Recent Developments and Perspectives. Peter Lang (see above). 2013, 316 pp, €61.95. ISBN 978-3-631-64128-6.
This book contains scientific contributions to a second international conference on Perspectives of Business Law in The Third Millennium that was held at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies a little over two years ago. Most of the participants were from central and Eastern Europe, and their contributions look at comparative law, European law and international business law and also particularities of the Romanian legal system when it comes to business. Aimed particularly at students, researchers and experts, the book is divided into three chapters, the first looking at recent developments and perspectives in the regulation of business law at European level, the second at the transposition of EU directives into national law, and the third at developments and prospects at international level.
(CDe)