Sorry for the frustration within this response. As an economist, this is has a lot of problems. - the main claim is that the growth rate post bretton woods is

Sorry for the frustration within this response. As an economist, this is has a lot of problems. - the main claim is that the growth rate post bretton woods is lower than during the bretton woods period. It fails to uphold the claim on two counts: 1. It does not provide evidence that the decline is statistically significant, instead it just shows a graph with overlaid lines. I double checked and the data is real, but it is missing the first years of data on world GDP under bretton woods. 2. It dismisses or ignores reasonable alternate explanations such as: - The 60s were the tail end of the recovery from WWII - Changes in technology - Changes in demand (both quantity and composition) - it raises a straw-man version of ricardian and when it tries to discredit it, it fails to discuss the main result from the ricardian model: gains from trade due to comparative advantage. The attempt to discredit it discusses trade deficits, but fails to account for financial markets in any meaningful way (for those who don't know, a trade deficit is offset by foreign investment) - It does not account for changes in purchasing power parity. - The alternative model it suggests is one where firms/countries (it never specifies) seek to export because the domestic market is weak, not because foreign demand is high, and decides to force lower wages across the board (including in foreign countries). My understanding of what the author is proposing is that it ignores supply and demand in an international context and the standard results of increasing wages in the producing and exporting country's export industry. - Some of the other claims appear to be mercantalist in nature, briefly arguing that the purpose of trade is not to get stuff, but money. Change "money" to gold or silver, and you'd have a pretty basic mercantalist claim. I would recommend that the author read a textbook on international trade and finance. Not only would this show them the basic level of rigour in describing their model they need at a to match, but would allow them to counter the standard theories of trade etc that are actually used. They would also be able to discuss the impact of trade on labor within different industries in a way that doesn't just handwave results they like.