Pennings, A.J. (2026, Mar 28) USD Shortages and Global Solutions with Bancor/ICU and (SACT)AI. apennings.com https://apennings.com/global-e-commerce/usd-shortages-and-sactai-solutions-for-the-global-economy/

Introduction

What is the impact of USD shortages, and how can Bancor/ICU help alleviate world trade and finance problems due to the inability of the US and Eurodollar markets to provide sufficient liquidity?

The literature is remarkably consistent on one point. The global economy is structurally dependent on USD liquidity, but the system that supplies it (US deficits plus Eurodollar banking) is inherently unstable and insufficient. Dollar shortages are not rare anomalies; they are recurring features of the system, especially during stress.[1]

This post attempts to provide a research-grounded synthesis of (1) the impact of USD shortages and (2) how an alternative system using an SACT (Substitution – Abstraction – Symbolic Computing – Telecommunications Synchronization) spreadsheet logic with AI architecture could structurally solve those constraints. I am exploring John Maynard Keynes’ Bancor and International Clearing Union (ICU) proposal at Bretton Woods in 1944 to directly address this problem of USD shortages, which in all probability stems from the absence of a symmetric global liquidity-provision and coordinating mechanism.

What are USD Shortages?

A USD shortage is not a lack of physical dollars. It is a shortage of dollar-denominated balance sheet capacity in the global financial system. Global trade is primarily invoiced in USD, most debt is denominated in USD, and the most efficient collateral is USD Treasuries.

However, USD is created primarily through US fiscal spending, the US banking system, and Eurodollar offshore lending (and to some extent, Fed open market operations as bank reserves). When these channels tighten, the world runs short of usable dollars, and the currency’s price rises.

The Role of the Eurodollar System

The Eurodollar system historically solved this problem by allowing non-US banks to create USD liabilities. This expanded global dollar liquidity by loans created beyond US borders. But research shows even this system is fragile. It is reliant on wholesale funding markets,
vulnerable to liquidity shocks, and dependent on confidence and collateral flows. During crises, Eurodollar liquidity contracts sharply and the rush to USD safe haven intensifies the problem.[2]

The Eurodollar system is a $60–90 trillion shadow balance sheet. It is far larger than the US domestic system and held together by $15–20 trillion of continuously rolling dollar funding needs. The most important number is not notional size but how many dollars must be rolled over continuously. Approximately $15–$20 trillion (Howell considers this much higher). This is the true “heartbeat” of the Eurodollar system

This creates instability because this system relies on short-term funding, depends on confidence, and requires continuous refinancing. When stress hits, rollovers fail. Also dollar demand spikes and the system contracts rapidly.

Impact of USD Shortages on the World Economy

USD shortages force trade contractions, position deleveraging, and exchange rate instability. They require crisis-driven liquidity provisions from central banks and governments. When dollars are scarce, importers cannot access trade finance, letters of credit decline, and shipments are delayed or canceled. Even when the goods are available, trade stops due to settlement constraints.

Under these tensions, companies and banks sell assets to raise USD and often unwind positions for liquidity. After a historic rise in gold prices, the metal declined significantly following the US-Israel attack on the Iranian regime, as it was sold for much-needed USD. Banks reduce lending in the face of uncertainty, and the price of a “haircut” (cost to cover potential liquidity challenges) that accompanies collateral for Eurodollar lending increases. These challenges lead to “fire sales,” falling asset prices, and financial contagion.[3]

Another issue is exchange rate liquidity. Countries without sufficient access to USD experience currency depreciation, face rising import costs, and often encounter inflation shocks. These liquidity problems and their consequences are especially severe in emerging markets.

The result is an amplification of global inequality as dollar shortages are not evenly distributed. Access depends on geopolitical alignment, central bank swap lines, and financial system integration. The system becomes hierarchical rather than neutral.[4]

The only reliable solutions today to acute USD shortages are the Federal Reserve swap lines and IMF interventions. But these are discretionary, political, and reactive to the crises rather than proactive. Liquidity is provided only after instability emerges, not before.

The Structural Problem

The prevailing global currency system has a fundamental flaw. Global liquidity depends on a national/global currency (USD). It is not, as Treasury Secretary Connally announced to his G-10 counterparts after President Nixon severed it from gold, “The dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.” The USD is the world’s currency, and much of it is produced offshore.

This paradox creates a contradiction. The US must run deficits to supply dollars, but excessive spending erodes confidence. Military bases spread dollars but are unsettling in times of violence. Eurodollar markets extend liquidity but become unstable when political and economic problems undermine the validity of collateral.

This is the modern version of the Triffin dilemma. Robert Triffin pointed out in the 1960s that too many US dollars went into the world after World War II due to the Marshall Plan, increased trade spending, and payments to build and provision military bases. These dollars had a claim on the gold supply at Fort Knox at 35 dollars/oz. Led by France, countries began requesting gold for the dollars they held, forcing Nixon to “close the gold window” in 1971.[5]

How Bancor/ICU Solves This Problem

Keynes’ insight was simple but radical. He suggested separating global liquidity provision from any single nation and the Bancor as a neutral unit of account. Instead of requiring USD, trade would be settled in Bancor units, and countries hold accounts at the ICU.

But at the time, the technology for such a system was not available. The telegraph and radiotelephony were slow and unreliable. Punch card tabulators were unlikely to keep up with the processing demands of such a system. The USD-gold standard prevailed, creating the largest expansion of wealth creation in global history. But not without stress and eventual calls for “de-dollarization.”

However, a new system based on something like (SACT) AI could alleviate some of the tensions by aggregating and configuring wealth and providing the automation needed for global clearing and settlement. Clearing is the process of validating, reconciling, and transmitting payment details between banks to calculate obligations, occurring before money moves. Settlement is the final step, when funds are transferred to discharge the obligations and complete the transaction. Clearing verifies the “what,” and settlement transfers the “cash.” This could mean less dependence on US deficits and spending, and less need for Eurodollar lending.

The ICU with (SACT)AI would provide liquidity through overdraft facilities, balance clearing, and symmetric credit/debit accounting. Liquidity expands with trade itself. Would this mean no external funding constraint?

Keynes’ key ideas came about because he was quite aware of the problems faced by the British Empire and knew the pressures faced by
deficit and well as surplus countries. These were causing persistent imbalances and global demand shortages.[6] In the current system imbalances accumulate and crises force adjustment. With the ICU system imbalances are corrected continuously.

How (SACT)AI Makes Bancor Feasible Today

This is where the framework based on spreadsheet logic and powered by AI becomes powerful. Historically, Bancor failed because data transfer was slow, verification was weak, and coordination was manual. It was technologically primitive compared to today’s microprocessing and storage technologies. (SACT)AI removes these constraints.

– Substitution (Vision + Data) provides real-time measurement of trade flows and no reliance on delayed reporting.
– Abstraction transforms all data flows denominated into interoperable units (Bancor + currencies).
– Computing (AI) provides continuous imbalance detection, temporal modelling, and dynamic liquidity allocation.
– Telecom enables instant global synchronization of news and prices.

Solving USD Shortages in a Hybrid System

In reality, Bancor would likely coexist with USD, not replace it entirely in the new (SACT)AI architecture. Consider the following three-layer architecture that is the core of the entire framework. The key is to understand that each layer solves a different constraint in global finance. Currently, USD shortages happen because today these layers are collapsed into one. Today’s system tries to do three different jobs with one thing (the USD). It tries to store value (collateral), move money (settlement) and coordinate the system (global imbalances). That’s why it breaks into crises.

The hybrid system separates these functions into layers. The first is collateral. This is the balance sheet base of the system. US Treasuries and possibly other sovereign bonds later provide the foundation. Collateral answers one question, “What is trusted enough to back the system?” Treasuries dominate because they are liquid, deep, and widely accepted. Also, they are legally enforceable.

Why it matters for USD shortages? USD shortages are often collateral shortages in disguise. Banks can’t expand balance sheets without collateral. Repo markets seize when collateral is scarce. Eurodollar lending contracts when Treasury access tightens. So even in the new system, Treasuries remain the gravity center of global finance.

The second layer involves settlement. It provides the “plumbing” and facilitates how money actually moves through blockchains and networks. USD stablecoins (tokenized dollars backed by Treasuries), CBDCs (central bank digital currencies), and payment rails (SWIFT, blockchain, RTGS systems). It answers the question “How do transactions get completed?”

This layer handles trade payments, financial transfers, and collateral movements. Stablecoins matter here by tranforming settlement. It makes it faster (real-time), global (no banking hours), and programmable (conditional payments). But crucially, they are still claims on Treasuries and do not solve USD shortages. Even with stablecoins, USD backing is still needed and will depend on Treasury supply and rely on dollar funding markets. So stablecoins make the system faster, but not more elastic.

Layer 3 provides the coordination, the missing piece. This is the Bancor/ICU layer works with (SACT)AI that tallies the global ledger of trade balances, offers a credit/debit system between countries, and provides a mechanism for liquidity allocation.

This layer answers the question, “Who gets liquidity—and when?” It monitors trade imbalances, capital flows, and global demand. This layer is revolutionary because today there is no true global coordination layer. Adjustment currently happens via crises, exchange rates, and IMF interventions. SACT-AI with Keynes’ ICU changes that as deficits are allowed (with limits), surpluses are penalized (critical insight), and liquidity systematically allocated.

Putting the three layers together we see that in today’s system, USD does everything. It operates as collateral, settlement, and coordination. The result is the global stress from USD shortages, trade collapses, and crisis-driven fixes.

How does the ICU alleviate USD shortages? It reduces dependence on USD as trades can clear in Bancor. USD is needed only for final settlement or collateral. It provides elastic liquidity, meaning that ICU expands credit automatically with no reliance on US policy. It also prevents trade collapse as imports continue even during dollar stress as financing is routed through Bancor accounts.

Designed correctly, (SACT)AI works with the Bancor to recycle surpluses efficiently with surplus countries required to redeploy capital. This reduces global imbalances. The key difference is constraint vs. coordination. In the current system, a lack of available USD threatens trade volatility and produces crises. With Bancor/ICU system, rules (balances, limits) provide continuous coordination resulting in enhanced flows of capital, goods, and services.

The reliance on the USD alone tries to do three different jobs. It stores value (collateral), moves money (settlement), and coordinates the system (global imbalances). Consider another contigency, a hydrid system that separates these functions into layers.

Layer 1 still involves Treasuries as a store value that continues to anchor trust.

Layer 2 uses Stablecoins and CBDCs on blockchain networks to move money efficiently

Layer 3 Bancor/ICU with (SACT)AI decides how liquidity flows globally.

How does this address USD shortages? It starts with trade that needs financing. Consider the scenrio where Country A wants to import from Country B. Today it must obtain USD. If unavailable, trade stops. In the hybrid system, the transaction is recorded in Bancor (Layer 3) and ICU extends credit (temporary deficit). Trade continues without immediate USD. Settlement happens separately and stablecoins (Layer 2) handle payments where needed. But not all flows require USD simultaneously.

Collateral Anchors the System

Treasuries (Layer 1) back stablecoins and enhance financial system confidence. The old constraint was “Do you have dollars?” The new constraint is “Are you within system rules (ICU limits)?” In the current system, USD is the fuel and engine of the economy but also the traffic control, If the “fuel” runs out, everything stops.

In the new system, Treasuries are the fuel and stablecoins are the engine while Bancor/ICU becomes the traffic control system. If fuel is tight, traffic system reroutes flows and system keeps moving.

Why is this a powerful alternative? Because it separates liquidity creation (ICU) from liquidity backing (Treasuries). The deeper insight is that USD shortages happen because the world relies largely on a national balance sheet to fund a global system that runs into economic and political limitations. The hybrid model fixes this by making liquidity a global system function, not a US byproduct. Treasuries provide trust, stablecoins move money, but only Bancor/ICU decides how liquidity is distributed. This turns dollar scarcity from a hard constraint into a manageable coordination problem.

The three-layer architecture is the core of the entire framework. The key is to understand that each layer solves a different constraint in global finance. USD shortages happen because today these layers are collapsed into one. But it is only now, with the introduction of (SACT)AI that the technical means are available to accerlerate and distribute such a load in the service of world trade and equitable wealth.

Final Insight

Global USD system size is $60–$90 trillion. Structural shortage during stress ranges from $5 to $13 trillion. The current system can only supply a few trillion dollars in a crisis. In contrast, a Bancor/ICU system could dynamically generate liquidity comparable to or greater than that of the USD balance sheet, without relying on the USD balance sheet. Bancor ICU and (SACT)AI have a potential liquidity of $5–$15 trillion, but it is elastic.

USD shortages reveal something fundamental. The global economy is not constrained by resources, it is constrained by accounting and financial architecture. The Eurodollar system extended the USD architecture, but imperfectly. Bancor/ICU, especially with (SACT)AI, replaces it with a designed global clearing and settlement system in which liquidity follows economic activity, not the balance-sheet capacity of a dominant currency.

Notes

[1] See McGuire & von Peter, 2012; Goldberg et al., 2010; Murau et al., 2023.
[2] Coffey et al., 2009; Baba & Sakurai, 2012. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) estimates that non-US borrowers’ USD debt are in excess of $13–$15 trillion (loans + bonds) while the off-balance sheet USD obligations (FX swaps/forwards) near some $80 plus trillion notional with $15–$20 trillion effective funding need)
Borio et al., BIS 2022
[3] Goldberg et al., 2022
[4] Murau et al., 2023.
[5] My MA thesis was on how deregulation and technology facilitated the transition from the global USD linked to gold to the USD fiat currency.
[6] Eichengreen, 2019

Key References

Borio, C., McGuire, P., & Schrimpf, A. (2022). FX swaps and dollar funding: A global perspective. BIS Quarterly Review. https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt2212e.htm
Baba, N., & Sakurai, Y. (2011). When and how US dollar shortages evolved into the full crisis. Journal of Banking & Finance.
Coffey, N., Hrung, W., & Nguyen, H. (2009). The global financial crisis and offshore dollar markets. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1496407
Eichengreen, B. (2019). Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System.
Goldberg, L., Kennedy, C., & Miu, J. (2010). Central bank dollar swap lines and overseas dollar funding costs. NBER. https://www.nber.org/papers/w15763
Goldberg, L., & Ravazzolo, F. (2022). The Fed’s international dollar liquidity facilities. NBER. https://www.nber.org/papers/w29982
Goldberg, L., Kennedy, C., & Miu, J. (2010). Dollar swap lines. NBER. https://www.nber.org/papers/w15763
Howell, M. (2020). Capital Wars.
Keynes, J. M. (1943). Proposal for an International Clearing Union.
McGuire, P., & von Peter, G. (2012). The dollar shortage in global banking and the international policy response. International Finance. https://bis.org/publ/work291.pdf
Murau, S., Pape, F., & Pforr, T. (2023). International monetary hierarchy through emergency US-dollar liquidity. Competition & Change.
Pozsar, Z. (2014). Shadow Banking: The Money View. Treasury / FRBNY.
Notes

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Not to be considered financial advice.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy. From 2002-2012 he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

Category: artificial intelligence, blockchain, crisis communications, cryptocurrencies, data analytics and meaning, democratic political economies, digital coordination, digital geography, digital spreadsheets, enabling frameworks, enterprise systems, financial news, financial technology, geopolitical risk, global communications, global e-commerce, public administration, science and technology studies, smart new deal, spreadsheet logic, sustainable development, telecom policy and net neutrality, telegraphic political economy
Tags: (SACT)AI Solutions > Bancor > International Clearing Union (ICU) > John Maynard Keynes > SACT > SACT (Substitution - Abstraction - Symbolic Computing - Telecommunications Synchronization) > USD Shortages

An Inconvenient Document: The Atlantic Charter and the Origins of the UN

Posted on | March 20, 2026 | No Comments

Citation APA (7th Edition)

Pennings, A.J. (2026, Mar 20) An Inconvenient Document: The Atlantic Charter and the Origins of the UN. apennings.com https://apennings.com/democratic-political-economies/an-inconvenient-document-the-atlantic-charter/

Introduction

The Atlantic Charter of 1941 is one of the most paradoxical documents in modern history. Intended as a joint declaration of war aims between Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and Winston Churchill, it inadvertently became a “legal landmine” for the very empires that drafted it. It was inconvenient precisely because it promised a level of freedom that the colonial powers were unwilling to grant their own subjects.

Signed off the coast of Newfoundland in August of 1941, the Atlantic Charter was a precondition for the US entering the war. FDR did not want to send soldiers to fight to preserve the British Empire. Churchill, desperate at the time because of the intensity of Nazi Germany’s attacks, somewhat reluctantly agreed.

The Atlantic Charter was the foundational document of the United Nations (UN) when the “Declaration by the United Nations” was signed in 1942 by 26 nations.[1] who agreed to abide by the document in the formation of the United Nations. Its first meeting occurred in 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, when the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held from July 1–22, 1944, at the Mount Washington Hotel to plan the post-war economy.

The Colonial Embarrassment

The primary source of embarrassment from the Atlantic Charter was Clause Three, which stated that the signatories respected the “right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.” Churchill was forced to backtrack in the House of Commons, arguing that the Charter did not apply to the British Empire. He argued this strictly applied to European nations under Nazi occupation. However, the language was universal enough to gather the attention of countries around the world.

Leaders across the British Empire, from West Africa to Southeast Asia, immediately seized on these words. Churchill was forced to awkwardly clarify in the House of Commons that the Charter did not apply to the British “internal” imperial arrangements. This move severely damaged Britain’s moral standing. If the war was being fought for “self-determination,” how could Britain justify holding 400 million Indians against their will?

Gandhi and the Moral “Promissory Note”

While Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership of the Satyagraha movement is recognized as the engine of Indian independence, the Atlantic Charter provided the international legal framework to delegitimize British rule and hold Britain accountable. Gandhi and the Indian National Congress used the Charter as a rhetorical weapon. They argued that if Britain was fighting a war for “self-determination,” then its presence in India violated its own stated principles. The Charter made it impossible for Britain to portray itself as the “Liberator of Europe” while remaining the “Administrator of India.”

Gandhi and the Indian National Congress used the Charter as a Promissory Note. They argued that if Britain signed a document promising self-determination, then Britain was technically “in default” of its own international obligations. The Charter effectively stripped the British Empire of its moral “Uniformity.”

France and the Struggle for Indochina

France found the Atlantic Charter particularly inconvenient as it sought to reclaim its global prestige. Charles de Gaulle and the French provisional government viewed the liberation of Paris as a prerequisite for the re-occupation of Saigon and Algiers. The Free French Forces viewed the return of colonies in Indochina and North Africa as essential to France’s “greatness.”

This friction directly fueled the First Indochina War and the Algerian War of Independence. The Charter’s principles directly emboldened independence movements like the Viet Minh. France’s insistence on maintaining its colonial empire in the face of the Charter’s map of “self-determination” led to decades of bloody conflict in Vietnam and Algeria.

The Truman Doctrine’s Pivot to Containment

By the time Harry Truman replaced the deceased FDR, the Atlantic Charter was seen as too “idealistic” for the burgeoning Cold War. By 1947, the “inconvenient” idealism of the Atlantic Charter was largely superseded by the Truman Doctrine’s shift in priority. President Harry Truman shifted the focus from universal self-determination to the “containment” of Soviet influence. To prevent the spread of Communism, he effectively “suspended” the Atlantic Charter’s rules on self-determination when they became geopolitically inconvenient.

To maintain a strong anti-communist front in Europe, Truman often found it necessary to support colonial powers like France and the UK, even when their actions contradicted the spirit of 1941. The Truman Doctrine prioritized security and stability over the messy process of decolonization. Where the Charter focused on rights (a bottom-up protocol), the Truman Doctrine focused on security (a top-down military protocol).

From Inconvenience to the Foundation of the UN

Despite the discomfort it caused, the Atlantic Charter could not be erased. It became the “genetic code” for the modern international order. When 26 nations signed the Declaration by the United Nations in 1942, they officially subscribed to the principles of the Atlantic Charter. This document served as the direct precursor to the United Nations Charter (1945). By the time the UN was formed, the language of “sovereignty” and “rights” had been baked into the system.

The Atlantic Charter was inconvenient because it set a standard the Great Powers found difficult to meet, yet it also gave the colonized world the tools to dismantle the global empires. Here is the argument for why this document was a diplomatic landmine for the very people who signed it.

Paradoxically, even though the UK and France wanted to delete the “decolonization” lines, the Charter became the “source code” for the UN Charter. The colonized world used the Charter’s own logic to litigate their way out of empires within the halls of the UN.

The 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Resolution 1514) was the definitive “patch” that closed the loopholes the colonial powers had tried to maintain in the original Atlantic Charter. If the Atlantic Charter was an inconvenient promise, Resolution 1514 was the enforcement mechanism that made the continuation of empire a violation of international law.

The most significant loophole in the Atlantic Charter and the early years of the UN was the “civilizational” argument. Colonial powers often claimed that certain territories were not “ready” for self-government due to a lack of political or economic maturity. Paragraph 3 of the Declaration explicitly stated: “Inadequacy of political, economic, social, or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.” This removed the subjective “gatekeeper” role of the colonizer. It shifted independence from a reward for “good behavior” to an inherent right that could not be delayed.

Redefining Sovereignty

The Atlantic Charter spoke of “all peoples,” but the colonial powers argued that this referred only to nations that had been sovereign before the war (such as Poland or Czechoslovakia). The Declaration redefined sovereignty as belonging to the people of the territory, regardless of their pre-war status. It declared that the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation was a denial of fundamental human rights.

The update effectively “deputized” the UN to oversee the dismantling of empires. The “Trusteeship Council” and the “Special Committee on Decolonization” became the administrative tools to ensure these “inconvenient” promises were kept. By 1960, the geopolitical landscape had shifted so far that the colonial model was no longer viable under the UN’s new rules. Plus, maintaining security in colonies (like the British in Kenya or the French in Algeria) became a massive financial drain that post-war European budgets could no longer sustain.

The influx of newly independent nations into the UN (particularly 17 African nations in 1960 alone) created a voting bloc that made it diplomatically impossible for the UK or France to ignore decolonization without becoming international pariahs.

The Legacy of the Atlantic Charter

While the Atlantic Charter was written in a moment of wartime desperation, it set in motion a chain of logic that the drafters could not stop. By the time the 1960 Declaration was signed, the “inconvenient document” had successfully provided the legal and moral vocabulary for the birth of over 100 new nations.

Notes

[1] The Governments signatory hereto, Having subscribed to a common program of purposes and principles embodied in the Joint Declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland dated August 14, 1941, known as the Atlantic Charter. Being convinced that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world,

DECLARE:

(1) Each Government pledges itself to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact: and its adherents with which such government is at war.
(2) Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto and not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies.
The foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism.

Done at Washington, January First, 1942

[The signatories to the Declaration by United Nations are as listed above.]

The adherents to the Declaration by United Nations, together with the date of communication of adherence, are as follows:The 26 Original Signatories (January 1, 1942):
United States
United Kingdom
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
China
Australia
Belgium
Canada
Costa Rica
Cuba
Czechoslovakia
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
India
Luxembourg
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Norway
Panama
Poland
South Africa (Union of)
Yugoslavia

[2] Prompt: Make the Argument that the Atlantic Charter is an “inconvenient document.” The British and other colonial powers were embarassed by it. Truman came up with his own doctrine. Gandhi got credit for the ending British rule in India. France wanted to keep its colonies in Indochina and Africa. Despite being an inconvient document, it became the foundation for the UN when the Declaration of United Nations was signed in 1942.

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© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy. From 2002-2012 he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

Category: democratic political economies, enabling frameworks, geopolitical risk
Tags: 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples > Atlantic Charter > decolonialization > Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) > Satyagraha movement > UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Resolution 1514) > United Nations (UN) > United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference

Multipolar Money and the Rise of an AI-SACT Clearing Architecture

Posted on | March 11, 2026 | No Comments

Citation APA (7th Edition)

Pennings, A.J. (2026, Mar 12) Multipolar Money and the Rise of an AI-SACT Clearing Architecture. apennings.com https://apennings.com/financial-technology/multipolar-money-and-the-rise-of-an-ai-sact-clearing-architecture/

Introduction

Although the dollar still anchors the global financial system, the monetary landscape is becoming increasingly multipolar. The euro and the yen remain major reserve currencies, new digital payment networks such as BRICS Pay are emerging, and cryptocurrencies have introduced alternative digital monetary infrastructures. These developments are often described as challenges to dollar dominance. Yet they can also be interpreted as additional layers in an emerging global clearing architecture.

Viewed through the lens of John Maynard Keynes’ proposal at Bretton Woods for a bancor and International Clearing Union (ICU), these monetary systems may function not as rivals to a global currency but as components within a distributed clearing network. In such a system, national and regional currencies would continue to operate as transactional media, while a higher-level computational ledger (AI-SACT clearing system) records and balances the financial relationships between them.

The Euro and the Yen as Regional Reserve Layers

The euro and the yen already function as important reserve and funding currencies within the global financial system. The euro anchors much of European trade and financial integration, while the yen remains central to Asian capital markets and global carry trades where investors borrow from one country to invest in another.[1]

In a Bancor-style clearing architecture, these currencies would not disappear. Instead, they would operate as regional liquidity layers within the broader system. For example, European trade flows would continue to be denominated largely in euros and Asian financial markets might rely heavily on yen liquidity. Global commodities and financial assets might still be priced primarily in dollars.

The ICU-style spreadsheet ledger would not replace these currencies. Instead, it would record the net balances between them. In effect, the eurozone, Japan, and other monetary regions would appear as accounts within the global clearing ledger, much as Keynes originally proposed.

Cryptocurrencies as Experimental Monetary Infrastructure

Cryptocurrencies add another dimension to the emerging monetary landscape. Bitcoin, DOGE, Ethereum, and related systems introduced the idea of distributed digital ledgers capable of recording financial transactions without centralized intermediaries.[2]

Although cryptocurrencies were initially framed as alternatives to sovereign currencies, their deeper significance lies in demonstrating how global financial ledgers can operate as programmable infrastructures.

Blockchain networks perform several functions that are directly relevant to a modern clearing system. They record transactions in a shared ledger, synchronize financial information across networks, enable programmable financial contracts, and provide transparency into asset flows.

These capabilities align closely with the telecommunications synchronization and symbolic computing layers of the SACT framework. In other words, cryptocurrencies provide a technical proof-of-concept for global ledger coordination, even if they do not ultimately replace sovereign currencies.

BRICS Pay and the Geopolitics of Payment Networks

Another development reshaping global finance is the emergence of alternative payment infrastructures, such as China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and the BRICS Pay network (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). These systems are designed to reduce reliance on Western-controlled financial messaging systems such as SWIFT and to facilitate trade among emerging economies (Tooze, 2018).

BRICS Pay is particularly significant because it aims to create a multilateral settlement network linking several large economies. Rather than relying solely on the dollar, the system allows transactions to be cleared across multiple currencies. Currently, it is becoming popular among BRICS+ nations but is less popular in Western-aligned markets.

It acts as a “unifying layer” between systems like India’s UPI, Brazil’s Pix, and China’s UnionPay and uses national fiat currencies (Rubles, Rupees, Yuan). The units differ, but the system treats them under a uniform messaging protocol. It is stored in a digital wallet on a mobile device but relies on merchants’ support for QR codes.

From the perspective of the ICU concept, such networks represent regional clearing subsystems. They facilitate payments and settlements within specific economic blocs while remaining connected to the broader global financial architecture.

Toward an AI-SACT Global Ledger

When viewed together, these developments suggest a monetary system composed of multiple interacting layers:

National and regional currencies
(USD, EUR, JPY, CNY, etc.)

Digital settlement instruments
(Treasury-backed stablecoins, tokenized deposits)

Payment and messaging networks
(SWIFT, CIPS, BRICS Pay)

Distributed ledger infrastructures
(blockchains and digital clearing platforms)

Within the SACT framework, these components correspond to different levels of the computational architecture of modern finance.

– Substitution occurs when economic transactions are converted into digital financial entries.

– Abstraction results when diverse currencies and assets are represented through standardized accounting units.

– Symbolic computing uses financial algorithms and platforms to process these numerical representations.

– Telecom synchronization allows global networks to synchronize financial data across institutions and regions.

As these layers integrate, the global financial system begins to resemble a planetary clearing ledger, similar to Keynes’s bancor, but with the technological capabilities to finally implement it.

An AI-SACT clearing architecture would operate above this system, monitoring financial flows between currency zones, detecting imbalances, and coordinating settlement mechanisms. In such a structure, the Bancor concept would not necessarily appear as a circulating currency. Instead, it would function as a neutral accounting unit used by the global ledger to measure and balance international financial positions.

A Multipolar Clearing System

In this emerging architecture, the dollar may remain the primary collateral currency through US Treasury markets. The euro and yen would operate as regional liquidity anchors, and stablecoins and digital tokens facilitate global settlement. Cryptocurrency infrastructures have demonstrated programmable ledger capabilities that could be implemented.

BRICS Pay and other payment systems create alternative transaction networks.

Rather than fragmenting the global monetary system, these developments may collectively push it toward a computational clearing structure resembling Keynes’ ICU. The difference is that the system may not emerge through diplomatic negotiation. Instead, it may arise from the gradual integration of financial technologies, payment networks, and digital ledgers into the computational infrastructure of global capitalism.

In the end, the international monetary system may emerge into what Keynes could only imagine. Can AI make it a continuously updated global ledger that coordinates the financial balances of nations? A significant question is whether it will be implemented not through a treaty but through an emerging AI-SACT architecture within modern finance.

This next post, I frame Bancor/ICU as an operating-system layer of global finance, integrated within an AI-SACT framework. This fits after the above argument and strengthens the theoretical argument of the AI-SACT implementation as a successor for the global financial system.

Notes

[1] Yen carry trade allows financial traders to borrow money cheap from Japan and use it to make investments. McDowell, D. (2017). The US as “Sovereign International Last-Resort Lender.” New Political Economy.
[2] Narayanan, A., Bonneau, J., Felten, E., Miller, A., & Goldfeder, S. (2016). Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies. Princeton University Press.

Prompt: Now integrate the Euro, the yen, cryptocurrencies, and BRICS pay into the analysis of the AI-SACT implementing Keynes’ Bancor and ICU system.

References

Howell, M. (2020). Capital Wars: The Rise of Global Liquidity. Palgrave Macmillan.
Keynes, J. M. (1980). The International Clearing Union. In The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Vol. 25. Cambridge University Press.
McDowell, D. (2017). The US as “Sovereign International Last-Resort Lender.” New Political Economy.
Narayanan, A., Bonneau, J., Felten, E., Miller, A., & Goldfeder, S. (2016). Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies. Princeton University Press.
Pozsar, Z. (2014). Shadow Banking: The Money View. Office of Financial Research.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy. From 2002-2012 he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

Category: digital spreadsheets, financial news, financial technology, spreadsheet logic

Poovey, Giddens, and Goody on the Significance of Double-Entry Book-Keeping for the Modern Economy

Posted on | February 27, 2026 | No Comments

Citation APA (7th Edition)

Pennings, A.J. (2026, Feb 27) Poovey, Giddens, and Goody on the Significance of Double-Entry Book-Keeping for the Modern Economy. apennings.com https://apennings.com/meaningful_play/poovey-giddens-and-goody-on-the-signficance-of-double-entry-book-keeping-for-the-global-economy/

Introduction

This post reviews the importance of double-entry bookkeeping with the works of Mary Poovey, Anthony Giddens, and Jack Goody. While these theorists position double-entry bookkeeping as a transformative technique of modernity, central to the abstraction and extension of economic knowledge, their emphases diverge in ways that reveal the complex operations of the Substitution-Abstraction-Symbolic Computing-Telecom Synchronization (SACT) “Stack” of Global Spreadsheet Capitalism.[1]

Mary Poovey’s A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society provides a foundational genealogical critique of how “the modern fact,” understood as a seemingly neutral, objective, and non-interpretive unit of knowledge, emerged within economic and social sciences.[2] “Her book explores how the fact became the most favoured unit of knowledge in modern times, and how description (in the shape of “facts”) came to seem separable from theory in the precursors of economics and the social sciences.” [3]

In her analysis, double-entry bookkeeping (pioneered in its codified form by Luca Pacioli in 1494, though with roots earlier) serves as a pivotal epistemological and rhetorical innovation. Poovey traces how this system, by mandating that every transaction be recorded twice (as debit and credit), enforced a formal balance, an equilibrium, where debits equal credits. This balance was not merely a practical technique for merchants but a profound rhetorical device.

It presented numerical representations as transparent, self-verifying, and detached from subjective judgment or moral/theological framing. By substituting “plain-speaking numbers” for earlier Ciceronian rhetorical excess (Today’s PR and Advertising), double-entry bookkeeping helped instantiate the modern fact as something that appeared value-free and politically neutral, even as it concealed its own rhetorical construction and the interpretive acts embedded in categorization, valuation, and recording. The “balance” thus became an epistemological achievement. It construed a way to produce apparently objective knowledge about wealth that masked its origins in mercantile interests and power relations, paving the way for later developments in political economy and statistics.

In contrast, Anthony Giddens approaches double-entry bookkeeping within his broader theory of modernity and structuration, particularly through concepts of time-space distanciation (the “stretching” of social relations across time and space) and disembedding mechanisms from local environments/markets. Giddens views such bookkeeping as a crucial storage mechanism that enhances the capacity to bracket or separate time from space, enabling the precise coordination and extension of social systems.

In works like The Consequences of Modernity and A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Giddens emphasized how writing, codification, and record-keeping (including numerical systems) function as “storage containers” that allow the past to be preserved and made “presence-available” for future action — shifting from reliance on human memory or oral tradition to durable, reproducible media.

Double-entry bookkeeping exemplifies this by permitting the systematic tracking of inflows/outflows, credit extension, and capital accumulation over extended temporal horizons, which was essential for modern capitalism’s orientation toward calculated future risk and profit. This temporal dimension ties directly to Giddens’ notion of time-space power. Such mechanisms disembed economic relations from local, face-to-face contexts (system integration over social integration), facilitate surveillance and control across distanciated spans, and underpin the reflexivity of modernity by making accumulated knowledge continuously revisable and applicable at scale.

Goody and Writing

Giddens draws extensively on Jack Goody’s anthropological and historical investigations into the cognitive, social, and organizational consequences of literacy and writing. Lists, tables, and archival storage are central his theorizing the historical escalation of time-space power in social systems. In key works such as A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (especially Volume 1: Power, Property and the State, 1981) and The Consequences of Modernity (1990), Giddens incorporates Goody’s insights to explain how writing functions as a foundational “storage mechanism” that progressively decouples social relations from immediate co-presence. This trait enables the stretching of social systems across indefinite expanses of time and space. Time-space distanciation thereby amplifies allocative (resource management) and authoritative (people management), the main determinants of power.

Giddens builds on Goody’s core arguments from texts like The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society (1986) and his earlier collaborations (e.g., “The Consequences of Literacy,” 1963, with Ian Watt). Goody demonstrated that writing is not merely a neutral tool for recording speech but a transformative technology that externalizes memory from the human mind to durable, inspectable media (e.g., clay tablets, papyrus, codices, ledgers). It also facilitates decontextualized knowledge such as lists, inventories, genealogies, bureaucratic records, and tabular formats that detach information from the flux of oral performance, allowing cumulative comparison, revision, and standardization.

As Max Weber pointed out earlier, writing enables administrative centralization and surveillance as written records (combined with the file and the “bureau” for storage), support taxation, census-taking, and legal codification. Writing facilitates the dissemination of religious doctrine across dispersed territories, countering the “tyranny of distance” and fostering center-periphery hierarchies.

For Giddens, these Goody-derived insights directly underpin his understanding of the generation of power through time-space distanciation. In pre-modern societies with limited or no writing, social integration relies heavily on presence and face-to-face interaction in localized, high-context settings. This absence constrains the scale and durability of domination. This scene from the movie Black Robe (1991) suggests the power of writing and its time-space machinations by exploring the inter-civilizational differences between a literate and an oral society.

Goody specifically addressed double-entry bookkeeping in his writings, notably within his comparative historical work on Eurasian economic history and his critique of Eurocentrism. In The East in the West (1996), Goody examines various cultural and economic factors often used to differentiate East and West, including a chapter specifically on “double entry bookkeeping” (Chapter 2, sometimes listed within discussions of “ragioneria” or book-keeping and the economic miracle). Goody challenged the notion that double-entry bookkeeping was a unique, enabling invention of the modern European West. He argued that it was part of a broader set of, often forgotten, technical and commercial innovations that existed across Eurasia.[4]

As a proponent of the “literacy thesis,” Goody analyzed double-entry bookkeeping as a “technology of communication” or a, writing-based technique for enhancing rationality and managing commercial transactions. He used the evidence of non-Western, such as Chinese, accounting techniques to challenge the assertions of historians like Max Weber and Werner Sombart, who argued that Western capitalist rationality was solely founded on such methods.

Goody specifically addressed double-entry bookkeeping in his writings, notably within his comparative historical work on Eurasian economic history and his critique of Eurocentrism. In The East in the West (1996), Goody examines various cultural and economic factors often used to differentiate East and West, including a chapter specifically on “the keeping of books and the economic miracle.” Goody challenged the notion that double-entry bookkeeping was a unique, enabling invention of the modern European West. He argued that it was part of a broader set of often-forgotten technical and commercial innovations that existed across Eurasia.[4]

As a proponent of the “literacy thesis,” Goody analyzed double-entry bookkeeping as a “technology of communication” or a, writing-based technique for enhancing rationality and managing commercial transactions. He used the evidence of non-Western, such as Chinese, accounting techniques to challenge the assertions of historians like Max Weber and Werner Sombart, who argued that Western capitalist rationality was solely founded on such methods.

Contribution to SACT Analysis

Within the operations of the Substitution-Abstraction-Symbolic Computing-Telecom Synchronization (SACT) “Stack” of Global Spreadsheet Capitalism, Giddens’ Goody-informed framework reveals writing/lists as the originary layer of symbolic computing and storage abstraction central to the SACT analysis.

– Substitution is when the oral, context-bound memory is substituted by external, decontextualized written records.

– Abstraction allows lists/tables to transform disparate relations into inspectable, manipulable symbols, enabling calculative power over time (future projection via accounts) and space (coordination across absence).

– Symbolic Computing emerges from the proto-computational iterative manipulation of stored symbols (e.g., double-entry balancing, census aggregation). It prefigures algorithmic processing such as the Hollerith electromechanical punched-card tabulator.

– Telecom Synchronization is enabled because writing synchronizes absent actors (e.g., via correspondence, edicts), laying infrastructural groundwork for telex and telecom-enabled global real-time ledgers.

Giddens thus reframes Goody’s literacy consequences not as discrete cultural shifts but as cumulative escalations in time-space power from localized oral societies, to early state bureaucracies, to capitalist nation-states, and finally to high modernity’s radicalized distanciation. This progression sustains the SACT Stack’s capacity for abstract, synchronized domination, where “balance” across global spreadsheets inherits the epistemic power Goody identified in writing’s storage logic, and Giddens theorized as a key part of modernity’s core dynamic, time-space power.

Conclusion

While each of these theorists position double-entry bookkeeping as a transformative technique of modernity, central to the abstraction and extension of economic knowledge, their emphases diverge in revealing ways it emerged and operates within the SACT “Stack” of Global Spreadsheet Capitalism.

Poovey foregrounds the substitution and abstraction layers. She points to the rhetorical substitution of balanced numerical facts for interpretive or moral discourse, creating an epistemological illusion of neutrality that underpins the symbolic legitimacy of economic “facts” in later spreadsheet-like aggregations.

Giddens highlights the symbolic computing and telecom synchronization dimensions. Bookkeeping emerged as a proto-computational storage and synchronization tool that enables temporal abstraction (future-oriented calculation) and spatial stretching (distanciation), by synchronizing distant actors through reproducible symbolic records. This techno-epistemological practice became a precursor to the telecom-enabled, real-time global spreadsheets that now orchestrate capital flows.

Poovey’s account is more deconstructive, exposing how balance rhetorically depoliticizes economic knowledge (aligning with critical histories of facticity), whereas Giddens’ narrative is more reconstructive, treating bookkeeping as an enabling infrastructure for modernity’s dynamic time-space power without deeply interrogating its ideological masking function. Together, they illuminate how the SACT Stack’s foundational “balance” operates as both a rhetorical/epistemological achievement (Poovey) and a temporal-storage/power mechanism (Giddens), sustaining the apparent objectivity and global synchronization of spreadsheet capitalism’s endless ledgers.

Notes

[1] Poovey, M. (1998). A History of Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society. University of Chicago Press.Poovey, M. (1993) “Figures of Arithematic, Figures of Speech: The Discourse of Statistics in the 1830’s,” Critical Inquiry. Winter, Vol. 19, No. 2. Giddens, A. (1983) The Nation-State and Violence. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). Goody, J. (1986) The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society. Studies in Literacy, Family, Culture and the State. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
[2] Poovey is a literary critic and cultural historian, a professor of humanities at New York University, attached to the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge and the Department of English.
[3] Quote from Kevin McConway, The Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K. in his book review “Mary Poovey’s A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society.” DataCrítica: International Journal of Critical Statistics, Vol.1, No.1. See https://datacritica.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/book-review-mary-poovey_s-a-history-of-the-modern-fact-problems-of-knowledge-in-the-sciences-of-wealth-and-society.pdf
[3] Goody J. Rationality and ragioneria: the keeping of books and the economic miracle. In: The East in the West. Cambridge University Press; 1996:49-81. Also, “The Consequences of Literacy” published by Jack Goody and Ian Watt in the April 1963 issue of Comparative Studies in Society and History (pp. 304–345), argued that the shift from oral to written communication radically restructured human consciousness, cognition, and societal organization. It highlighted that writing, specifically alphabetic, enables “cold” analytical, and historical thought, differentiated it from the “homeostatic” present-oriented nature of oral traditions.
[4] Goody J. The East in the West. Cambridge University Press; 1996.

Prompt: Mary Poovey’s A History of Modern Fact offers one of the most penetrating accounts of how modern economic knowledge came to appear objective, factual, and politically neutral. Her analysis of double-entry bookkeeping is especially useful for understanding how the concept of “balance” in accounting and economics emerged and how it was originally a rhetorical and epistemological innovation. Compare her analysis with Anthony Giddens who saw double-entry book-keeping as a type of storage mechanism inferring the temporal aspect of his theory of time-space power.

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Not to be considered financial advice.

---

Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy. From 2002-2012 he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

Category: data analytics and meaning, meaning makers, meaningful play, media strategies, public administration, science and technology studies, technologies of meaning, visual literacy and rhetoric
Tags: A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society > Anthony Giddens > Double-entry bookkeeping > Jack Goody > Mary Poovey > time-space power > writing

Spreadsheets and the Modern Fact made Operational

Posted on | February 22, 2026 | No Comments

Citation APA (7th Edition)

Pennings, A.J. (2026, Feb 22) Spreadsheets and the Modern Fact made Operational. apennings.com https://apennings.com/technologies-of-meaning/spreadsheets-and-the-modern-fact-made-operational/

Introduction

Using Mary Poovey’s A History of Modern Fact and its description of the rhetoric of double-entry bookeeping, I review her work and apply it to spreadsheet logic and my SACT layers. SACT layers are Substitution – Abstraction – Symbolic Computing – Telecommunications Synchronization. This “stack” conceptualizes the primary aspects of spreadsheet capitalism and helps us understand its techno-epistemological impact in the world.

Mary Poovey’s work offers one of the most penetrating accounts of how modern economic knowledge came to appear objective, factual, and politically neutral. Her historical analysis of double-entry bookkeeping is especially useful for understanding spreadsheet capitalism and its SACT layers, because it shows that what we now treat as technical accounting practices were originally rhetorical and epistemological innovations developed over time. They were ways of fixing meaning and persuading readers that account numbers could speak truth independently of moral or political judgment and attest to the virtue of a new merchant class in Europe.

This is my second post on Poovey’s contribution. When applied to contemporary spreadsheets, Poovey’s work helps reveal that spreadsheet capitalism is not simply a more efficient continuation of accounting, but the culmination of a centuries-long effort to separate calculation from interpretation, and to naturalize that separation as “fact.”

Poovey’s Facts as a Rhetorical Achievement

Poovey’s central claim is that modern “facts” did not emerge spontaneously from empirical observation. They were produced through specific genres, practices, and techniques that taught readers how to trust certain kinds of statements and calculations while ignoring others. Double-entry bookkeeping, which spread through early modern commerce, played a crucial role in this transformation. It created records that appeared:

– Balanced rather than argumentative
– Mechanical rather than interpretive
– Objective rather than moral

By requiring every entry to have a corresponding counter-entry, bookkeeping generated an internal coherence that seemed to validate itself. The books appeared to “speak the truth” simply because they balanced, not because they represented reality exhaustively or fairly.
This was, for Poovey, a rhetorical triumph. The form of the ledger produced belief.

Double-Entry Bookkeeping as Early Substitution

Viewed through the SACT framework, double-entry bookkeeping was an early and powerful form of substitution. Goods, labor, debts, obligations, and relationships were substituted with numerical entries. Moral questions about fairness, exploitation, or risk were displaced by balances and totals. What mattered was not whether a transaction was less about whether it was just, but whether it was recorded correctly.

Poovey shows that this substitution allowed economic activity to circulate independently of ethical debate. The ledger became a space where social relations were translated into commensurable symbols, laying the groundwork for monetary abstraction. Spreadsheet capitalism inherits this logic but globalizes it.

Abstracting Narrative Accounts to Formal Balance

Poovey emphasizes that early bookkeeping manuals did not eliminate narrative entirely. They disciplined it. Narrative explanations were subordinated to tables, columns, and rules. And eventually even styles of penmanship.

This shift marked a decisive movement toward abstraction. Economic activity was no longer understood primarily through stories of trade or trust, but through formal relations between numbers. In spreadsheet capitalism, abstraction reaches its apex. Entire economies are reduced to cells, ratios, scenarios, and dashboards. Poovey’s insight is that this abstraction does not eliminate judgment; it repackages it. The spreadsheet appears neutral precisely because the interpretive work has already been encoded into its structure.

Abstraction leads to calculative capability. Political stability becomes a variable, climate risk becomes a stress test, and human behavior becomes a probability distribution.

Symbolic Computing: The Automation of Credibility

Double-entry bookkeeping required skilled human judgment to maintain consistency. Spreadsheets automate this requirement. Here, Poovey’s analysis becomes especially relevant. She showed that bookkeeping derived authority from its procedural regularity. Modern spreadsheets extend that authority by embedding procedures directly into formulas and functions.

Symbolic computing completes the rhetorical project Poovey describes. Spreadsheet calculations execute automatically. Errors are flagged algorithmically. Outputs appear authoritative because they are generated without visible intervention. In this environment, credibility no longer attaches to the accountant or the author, but to the system itself. The spreadsheet becomes a self-validating epistemic device.

Telecommunications Synchronization Ends Locally-Situated Accounting

Poovey’s historical actors kept books that were local, periodic, and retrospective. Spreadsheet capitalism eliminates those constraints. Telecommunications synchronization allows ledgers to update in real time across the globe. The “book” is no longer situated in a merchant’s office. It is distributed, continuous, and simultaneous.

This transforms the rhetoric of fact. Facts are no longer settled after the fact; they are produced continuously. Market prices, risk metrics, and balances appear as real-time truths that demand immediate response. What Poovey identified as a rhetorical achievement becomes infrastructural reality.

From Moral Economy to Spreadsheet Fact

Seen together, Poovey’s analysis helps clarify what spreadsheet capitalism achieves across the SACT layers. Substitution removes moral and social content by translating relationships into numbers. Abstraction organizes those numbers into formal systems that appear self-evident. Symbolic computing automates consistency, removing visible human judgment. Telecommunications synchronization enforces simultaneity, making facts feel universal and unavoidable.

The result is a global epistemology in which economic facts appear to exist independently of politics, even as they structure the possibilities of political economy.

Conclusion: Spreadsheets as the Final Form of the Modern Fact

Poovey does not argue that accounting is deceptive. She argues that its authority rests on conventions that are easily forgotten once they become routine. Spreadsheet capitalism represents the moment when those conventions harden into global infrastructure. What began as a persuasive technique becomes a planetary system of coordination. The spreadsheet does not merely record the world. It produces the conditions under which the world can be known and governed.[2]

In this sense, spreadsheets are the modern fact made operational. They inherit the rhetorical power of double-entry bookkeeping, extend it’s calculative capabilities through computation, and enforce it globally through synchronization. To understand spreadsheet capitalism, is not to reject numbers, but to remember that their authority was built over time, not given naturally.

Notes

[1] Poovey, M. (1998). A History of Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society. University of Chicago Press.
[2] Kevin McConway, The Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K. Mary Poovey’s A History of the Modern Fact:
Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society. DataCrítica: International Journal of Critical Statistics, Vol.1, No.1. See https://datacritica.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/book-review-mary-poovey_s-a-history-of-the-modern-fact-problems-of-knowledge-in-the-sciences-of-wealth-and-society.pdf

Prompt: Using Mary Poovey’s A History of Modern Fact and its description of the rhetoric of double-entry bookeeping, review her work and apply it to spreadsheet capitalism and its SACT layers.

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© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Not to be considered financial advice.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy. From 2002-2012 he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

Category: artificial intelligence, blockchain, data analytics and meaning, democratic political economies, technologies of meaning, visual literacy and rhetoric
Tags: double logic of remediation > Double-entry bookkeeping > Mary Poovey > SACT (Substitution - Abstraction - Symbolic Computing - Telecommunications Synchronization)

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