"Every system needs a stabilizer — one stabilizer," concluded the great MIT political economist Charles Kindleberger in his classic study of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The problem before World War II, he strongly argued, was that no powerful nation was willing to serve as the importer, the lender, and the defender of the weak in troubled times, until it was too late. The result, Kindleberger gravely noted, was depression, aggression, unemployment and ultimately war.
Many thoughtful observers worldwide are troubled by the Trump administration's conscious abdication of what were long regarded as key responsibilities of global leadership.