Capital controls freed the authorities from these unwanted consequences, but because controls are never watertight, and eventually became unenforceable, they were no answer to the weakened commitment in modern societies to pegged exchange rates. His is a political economy view, but I believe the argument also holds true on economic grounds. Other themes of the work are less compelling. Throughout, Eichengreen stresses the crucial role of international cooperation in preserving monetary regimes. Declaiming the benign consequences of international cooperation is sentimentality.
Nations have interests.
Eichengreen recognizes that at the domestic level, no policy consensus may exist. How much more so, it follows, will lack of consensus exist at the international level. A monetary regime that requires international cooperation for it to be viable will not survive. The design of a regime must ensure that economic relations among nations promote their self-interests. Expansionary monetary policy in his view would have raised doubts about the banks' commitment to the gold standard and provoked runs on their gold reserves by foreign holders of their currencies.