25 Years After the Collapse of the Bretton Woods System: Still not Having Found What We Were Looking for

Klaus Hüfner was finishing his Ph.D. when the International Labor Organization launched the World Employment Program as a major initiative for the second United Nations World Development Decade. The 1970s were a decade in which the reduction of worldwide poverty and the establishment of social justice were goals that at last seemed within reach. The increasing demand for a New Economic World Order in the General Assembly and the forum of developing countries, UNCTAD, together with the emergence of the OPEC cartel seemed to mark the beginning of a radical change in international economic relations between North and South. Change was indeed reached, though not in the expected way, nor with the intended results. With the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system the international monetary order switched from fixed to flexible exchange rates. Now as exchange rates are a reflection of both the quality of the domestic currency and the ability to sell domestic goods on world markets, they are crucial in determining to what extent a country may participate in the world economy and how big its share of world income might be.