Being able to impose its own currency as the instrument of international exchange implies a great advantage for a country or for an imperialist block in respect to competitors. In fact, competitor countries, to show up in international markets, first of all have to acquire a certain quantity of the reference currency. After the denunciation of the Bretton Woods deals, in 1971 (a moment which we, for convenience, indicate as the starting point of the current phase of crisis) the value of currencies - of the dollar in particular - is no more bound to the availability of goods of corresponding value. Thus, simplifying, we can say that a county which dominates international markets - not lastly, it’s evident, with military strength - is in the condition, obviously only till a certain point, to give paper without value in change of real goods.

One of the main international markets is that of mineral and energy resources, oil and gas in primis. The control of energy flows allows not only to keep in hands one of the main factors of production (oil, other than an energy source, is at the basis of all the chemical industry, plastic, many textile products etc.) but also to decide in which currency the mineral products will be contracted and which economy will enjoy the advantages of this “seignorage”.

• leftcom.org Le radici della guerra contro l’Iraq e quelle future