ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a more critical view of American hegemony. It focuses on the economic order that the Bretton Woods institutions have overseen. The chapter traces the development of this unsatisfactory economic system. It argues that the consolidation of the transatlantic security community was assisted by a system that was responsive to the socioeconomic and cultural difference of post-war Europe and Japan. The chapter also argues that the contemporary neoliberal approach of American foreign policy cannot, but further argues that a more responsive approach is immanent in a particular reading of America's own socioeconomic development. In 1971 President Nixon abandoned the system of fixed exchange rates that had underpinned the Bretton Woods regime. Nixon effectively devalued the dollar in what was a response to the massive deficits accrued during a decade of war in Vietnam and social reform at home.
