Protecting capital from itself: U.S. attempts to regulate the Eurocurrency system

James P. Hawley

International Organization, 1984, vol. 38, issue 1, 131-165

Abstract: In 1979 and 1980 the U.S. government attempted to regulate the Eurocurrency system in order to stabilize the international monetary and financial systems, and for U.S. domestic monetary purposes. The conflict between the U.S. government (especially the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board) and U.S.-based transnational banks (TNBs) illustrates TNBs' contradictory interests, which are neither self-evident nor easily discernible, even to TNBs themselves. The state comes to play a mediating role vis-a-vis TNBs in an only partially successful attempt to transform contradictory interests into coherent policy, resulting in conflict between the state and TNBs. The origins of U.S. regulatory initiatives are rooted in multilateral attempts to supervise banks between 1974 and 1978, and the failure of such coordination during the 1978 dollar crisis. From the conflict between U.S. officials and U.S. TNBs emerge varying concepts of TNBs' interests. After examining the reasons for the failure of the U.S. proposals, I conclude by suggesting some implications of TNBs' contradictory interests for statist and social conflict theories of the advanced capitalist state. Few theories of the state have adequately taken into account the complexity and contradictory interests of transnational capital.

Date: 1984
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