ABSTRACT
Dissatisfaction with the present international monetary system is growing. During the past two years it has permitted five major currency crises, involving gold and most of the major trading currencies. Calls for reform are legion. Defenders of the present monetary system, while baffled by the financial crises that have developed, point out that the world economy has performed spectacularly well during the past two decades, probably better than during any corresponding period of history, and that while the crises were unsettling, they were largely superficial and were prevented from penetrating into domestic economies, as financial crises usually did in the past. A system that has done so well, they argue, should not be scrapped, but rather should be operated as it was intended to be when drawn up at Bretton Woods a quarter of a century ago.
