August 15, 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the day President Richard Nixon “closed the gold window,” ending the postwar Bretton Woods international monetary system. It is an appropriate moment to reconsider the internal inconsistencies of the Bretton Woods system. As its contemporary critics understood, Bretton Woods was doomed to fail if it could not be fundamentally reformed. One of its chief contemporary critics was the French economist, Jacques Rueff. ..
