Money, world market and monetary dependency
What the West African Franc-CFA-Zone tells us about capitalist money
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32387/prokla.v49i194.1541Keywords:
monetary dependents, dependency theorie, International Political Economie, Currency hierarchyAbstract
The Franc CFA is largely unknown in the Anglophone world. Co-managed by France and strictly pegged to the Euro, it has existed since 1945 and is used to this day in most former French colonies. This article analyses the Franc CFA as a particularly restrictive currency arrangement that allows us to see more clearly the general functioning of capitalist money and the structure of monetary dependency it builds on and perpetuates. All countries today have to deal with the restrictions capitalist money as credit-debt and commodity places on them through the world market. Countries in the Global South suffer severely from reduced policy space thanks to US Dollar and Euro dependency. The highly restrictive operating principles of the Franc CFA radicalize this monetary dependency. The article theorizes these to contribute to a genuinely global political economy of money.
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