ARTICLE
Devaluation
SEPTEMBER 01, 1981
If one looks at devaluation not with the eyes of an apologist of government and union policies, but with the eyes of an economist, one must stress the point that all its alleged blessings are temporary only. Moreover, they depend on the condition that only one country devalues while the other countries abstain from de-valuing their own currencies. If the other countries devalue in the same proportion, no changes in foreign trade appear. If they devalue to a greater extent, all these transitory blessings, whatever they may be, favor them exclusively. A general acceptance of the principles of the flexible standard [floating exchange rates] must therefore result in a race between the nations to outbid one another [i.e., competitive devaluation]. At the end of this competition is the complete destruction of all na tions’ monetary systems.
The much talked about advantages which devaluation secures in foreign trade and tourism are entirely due to the fact that the adjustment of domestic prices and wage rates to the state of affairs created by devaluation requires some time. As long as this adjustment process is not yet completed, exporting is encouraged and importing is discouraged. However, this merely means that in this interval the citizens of the devaluating country are getting less for what they are selling abroad and paying more for what they are buying abroad; concomitantly they must restrict their consumption.
Devaluation, say its champions, reduces the burden of debts. This is certainly true. The actual effect is that the indebted owners of real estate and farm land and the shareholders of indebted corporations reap gains at the expense of the majority of people whose savings are invested in bonds, debentures, savings-bank deposits and insurance policies.
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