He’s wrong
Dr. Benjamin J. Cohen 15, Louis G. Lancaster Professor of International Political Economy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Review “The System Worked: How the World Stopped Another Great Depression”, Perspectives on Politics, Volume 13, Issue 2, June 2015, pp. 586-587
The second question is handled similarly. Drezner acknowledges that the policies hastily enacted to combat the crisis were anything but optimal. By that measure, our governing institutions might be expected to deserve a failing grade. But that, he asserts, is an “absurd standard to apply. ... The question is not whether global governance has been flawless but whether it has been good enough” (p. 15). In effect, therefore, any minimal amount of achievement should be regarded a success. On this view, a grade of D is as good as an A. They all “work.”
In fact, a realistic grade would be closer to D than A. Yes, as Drezner demonstrates, powerful interests went to work to maintain the openness of the trading system. Yes, the United States turned out to have the power to exercise a degree of leadership. And yes, there was no serious challenge to prevailing neoliberal norms. But on balance, protectionist measures did proliferate, mainly in the form of “behind-the-border” nontariff barriers. Many governments, most notably the authorities in Berlin, stubbornly resisted American calls for greater stimulus. And some less market-friendly ideas did begin to gain legitimacy, such as a newfound respect for capital controls. If the system “worked,” it did so barely enough to pass. It seems almost unseemly to boast about what is at best a gentleman’s C.