David Wolman: A universal currency could end the financial crisis

  • 11 Jan 2012


Despite all the evidence that it could never work (we're looking at you, euro zone), the idea of a universal currency just won't die. Thanks to the debt crisis, some Greek officials are contemplating dumping the common currency for the drachma.

Meanwhile, Italy and Spain teeter. A decade after the shared currency was heralded as a 21st-century tool for peace and prosperity, it turns out that currency unions aren't such a hot idea.

Not so fast, though. This is undeniably a period of epic turmoil, and many economists will tell you that sovereign states need sovereign currencies -- full stop. But this notion ignores a fundamental truth: countries with their own currency may have monetary independence, but in reality -- as gun battles in Libya, collateralised debt obligations in the US, and tsunamis in Japan have taught us -- we are only becoming more economically intertwined, regardless of what our coins look like.

Step back from the current crisis to consider the long view, and currency unions -- or even a single global currency -- have a fair share of appeal. A universal medium of exchange could eliminate currency risk and jack up trade. It would mean speculators couldn't short an individual country's currency. Exporters wouldn't have to fret over the gap between a price on a contract and the value of the payment. A single currency could halt spastic swings in prices and end conversion fees, leaving more of the pie for little stuff such as R&D and employee health insurance. Oh -- and it could put an end to international disputes over currency manipulation.

Hello? China?


But does this mean we'll never see a global currency? A recent

Pew Research poll reveals that 41 per cent of Americans expect it by 2050. Maybe the idea has been planted in our heads by leftist utopians and science fiction authors: "credits" are used in everything from Star Wars to Star Trek. Yet economics titans such as John Maynard Keynes have also touted the idea.

The fact is, the modern economy and monetary system are too precarious for us not to examine every possible way to protect against future shocks. It's a bit like geoengineering: radical and outrageous at first blush but, given humanity's current predicament, not as outrageous as dismissing it.

Some pundits insist that gold could do the trick or that we could achieve many of the benefits of a global currency by tying the value of national ones to a set amount of the shiny stuff. But most economists view a return to gold as anachronistic, absurd and even hazardous. Maybe, but it's possible they're saying so because reviving the gold standard is so incongruous with the present and not necessarily because it would result in a system inferior to today's.

Of course, the universal currency could be the US dollar, and in some ways that's already the case. The greenback is what central banks hold the most of on reserve, and it's the currency used for the vast majority of international transactions. But the dollar's special status seems less stable than ever -- and will worsen if Washington can't deal with the debt. Perhaps the seed for that universal currency has already been planted. The International Monetary Fund uses something called Special Drawing Rights, a crossbreed of four of the world's key currencies, to make certain kinds of settlements between IMF members. Could SDR someday morph into the One Coin to Rule Them All?

A global currency may indeed prove to be a vision best left in the realm of fantasy. But it would behoove us to seriously analyse the pros and cons before ditching the idea in favour of today's smorgasbord of euros, pesos, yuan and Malawi kwacha.

David Wolman is the author of The End of Money (Da Capo Press), out in March.