Capital controls were assumed necessary for democratic domestic policy

Evidence

Rejecting both the discipline of the gold standard and the instability of floating exchange rates, the international gathering of policy-makers at Bretton Woods established a monetary system that combined two policy goals: on the one hand, enabling sovereign, autonomous, and democratic economic policies aimed at full employment; and on the other hand, fixed but adjustable exchange rates that were pegged to the US dollar, which in turn had a gold parity (gold exchange standard coupled with IMF assistance). The dominant opinion at Bretton Woods was that strict capital controls were needed to make democratic domestic fiscal and monetary policies compatible with fixed exchange rates, and “almost every analyst” regarded “control of capital movements for unlimited time” as a precondition for the restoration of stable international trade. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 419

Categorization

• XREF: The assumption that capital mobility and democratic sovereignty are incompatible echoes the trilemma that Dani Rodrik and others formalized later — a useful bridge to modern debates. — connects to: Capital controls were embedded in the Bretton Woods IMF framework — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 448; Central bank independence was formalized to exempt economic policy from democratic control — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 71; Bureaucratic rule requires immunity from democratic control — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 552 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Central bank independence was formalized to exempt economic policy from democratic control #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 71
• Central bank technocracy was framed as superior to democratic control precisely in democratic ages #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1013
• Bureaucratic rule requires immunity from democratic control #expands (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 552
• Expertise-based bureaucracies enable capitalist control over democratic regimes #corroborates (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 331
• Expert bureaucracy came to control democratic regimes and parliaments #corroborates (0.78)
• Fordism required active nation-state economic management. #contradicts (0.75) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 813
• Wartime state control proved economies are politically moldable #qualifies (0.72) — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 29