Perm solves – monetary sovereignty is compatible with cosmopolitan ends

National exercise of monetary sovereignty is thus not necessarily incompatible with Held's economic cosmopolitanism. If certain requirements are fulfilled, the state may be even the most appropriate body to exercise control in macroeconomic issues. In Held’s (Citation2010, 167) vision, cosmopolitan social democratic policies should be pursued “while ensuring, on the one hand, that different countries have the freedom they need to experiment with their own investment strategies and resources and, on the other, that domestic policy choices uphold basic universal standards” (my emphasis).

Held thus seems to embrace the autonomy of states in macroeconomic policy with some crucial caveats – he insists on a sort of (what I call) cosmopolitan condition on legitimate national exercise of economic policy. In order to meet this condition specifically with respect to the rights and capacities associated with monetary sovereignty, the national issuance of currency and the related conduct of monetary and fiscal policy would have to be at least compatible with the policy goals and strategies of other states as well as with certain universal standards.

A cosmopolitan condition on legitimate national exercise of monetary sovereignty can be developed further by viewing it as an instance of a global harm principle (see Linklater Citation2006, Citation2011). In a weak form, this condition would require each state to exercise its monetary sovereignty in a fashion that is (merely) compatible with basic cosmopolitan values and does not harm (interfere with) the ability of other states to conduct their own preferred versions of (similarly cosmopolitan) economic policies. Formulated more strongly, this condition would call for the national exercise of monetary sovereignty to positively promote cosmopolitan social democracy both at home and abroad.