he Fordist way of life and regime of accumulation. In effect, the Keynesian/Fordist dynamic centered the regulation of economic activity within the territorial boundaries of the Westphalian nation state, led of course by the United States, which was institutionalized as the worlds global financial hegemon by the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. However, the evolution of international financial institutions, such as Bretton Woods, served to undermine the efficacy of the Keynesian welfare state and its mode of social regulation. What some have termed the "globalization of finance," or the creation of a liberal financial order, opened state policies and macroeconomic planning mechanisms to destabilizing speculative attacks, complicating the predictable system of exchange rates and trade, as well as undermining state interest rate sovereignty. The globalization of finance was an "unplanned child" of the Bretton Woods order that, ironically, sought to expand international trade but prevent the formation of a liberal financial order. As the US began to realize the potential national gains from an open international trading order private market actors would prefer to hold dollars over other currencies support for cooperative initiatives to regulate the international financial environment dwindled. This turnaround in US policy was aided by a momentous shift in US policy away from Keynesianism towards Neoliberalism, advocated by prominent economists of the time (such as Milton Friedman) and put into action by the Reagan and Thatcher governments. Moreover, the increasing internationalization of credit further eroded the power of the welfare state to successfully regulate economic activity. The primary Fordist mechanism for promoting trade, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), encouraged the growth of transnational corporations (TNCs) which sought credit in the expanding, unregulated "Eurodollar" market. The growth of ...
