Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is people have kept on looking for some "replacement" for the dollar. First the Euro, then the Yen, sometimes some gold-backed (or oil backed?) middle eastern currency. Sometimes Bancor/SDRs, nowadays the Yuan (a decade ago BRICs).
https://twitter.com/NathanTankus/status/1313675609479016450
but replacing the dollar doesn't make sense without the political shift to a new hegemon and for all the talk (both real and imagined) of the U.S.'s relative decline there's just nothing like it. Moreover, we DON'T WANT a New Hegemon. That would suck.
Equalizing the world will mean actually moving to a world without a hegemon. But it won't look "multipolar" in the sense of the early 21st century of multiple "major currencies". It will be a world of more distributed power- a world of swap lines as alliance politics.
In a world where the international currency hierarchy flattens, we're just going to do a lot more politics and swap lines are the ultimate form of diplomatic, soft power politics. They're hard in the form of a dollar swap line world but softening the hierarchy will soften it.
A world dominated by swap line politics also opens the way for decentering the nation state because municipal and regional political entities, even local non-governmental ones, can engage in swap line politics and can do it "internationally". Complimentary currencies get big.
Swap lines may seem like technocratic high politics now but it's very possible that in a few decades polities swapping their respective "currencies" will feel second nature. It's hard for me to imagine any other way to a better world, but make no mistake- it will be very messy
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