“We do need peace, prosperity and protection of the planet. This cannot be achieved without some degree of cooperation”
“We do need peace, prosperity, and protection of the planet. These cannot be achieved without some degree of cooperation. The Bretton Woods institutions are themselves a monument to the attempt to achieve this. Twenty-five years ago, many hoped we were on the road toward what humanity needed. Now alas, we are again on a downhill path to a world of division, disruption, and danger”, — writes Martin Wolf, associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.
The Bretton Woods institutions are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They were set up at a meeting of 43 countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the USA in July 1944. They aimed to help rebuild the shattered postwar economy and to promote international economic cooperation.
“If no further shocks arrive, the present disruptions should be overcome. But we have been reminded that huge shocks are possible and are also almost always negative. Russia must be resisted. But if we cannot sustain minimal levels of cooperation, the world we will end up sharing is unlikely to be a world we want to live in,” — Wolf stresses.
