Working Paper
Rapidly evolving geopolitical and geoeconomic landscapes are creating a structural gap between diverging economic and financial systems. This gap creates the need for a widely trusted, neutral, and rules-based venue where participants from USD-centric and non-USD monetary systems can continue to interact, not only efficiently, but transparently, with legal certainty, and without the requirement of political alignment, monetary subordination, or exposure to extraterritorial legal and digital control.
By history, fate, and the path it took, one country can like no other country address this growing divide between monetary systems: Switzerland. The country could host a "radically neutral exchange" providing a market-infrastructure layer that would enable issuers and investors from both systems to interact in their respective currencies under one clear legal and regulatory regime. It would require Switzerland to pursue a strategy of « principled neutrality » which be a strategic break from the country's more traditional passive and reactive postures.
The proposed neutral exchange would provide continued economic exchange and mutual benefits associated with free trade, even in conditions of a disintegrating and fractioning geopolitical climate. It would move the financial and monetary world away from the current “exorbitant US privilege” to a more balanced and fairer “earned privilege” condition. By extending conditions of mutual dependency, it would foster peaceful co-existence and reduce the possibility of armed conflict.
Faculty
Emeritus Professor of Technology and Operations Management
