The Geopolitics of the International Monetary and Financial System
Tacitus Lecture, Worshipful Company of World Traders, London
As Tacitus says in the Histories, peace depends on armies, but troops need paying, and that requires taxation. He might have added that taxation is umbilically tied to state money, and that if a sovereign’s money is used abroad as well as at home, their hard power is supplemented by symbolic power. This is highly germane to the geopolitics of today’s international monetary order, and I shall return to it in my conclusion.
