There is an idea floating around that trade imbalances create global inequality (Trade Wars are Class Wars by Klein & Pettis) and the original sin was adopting the dollar as the reserve currency instead of something like Bancor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor)

Interesting, thanks for the pointer! Though, since we're dealing in hypotheticals already: wouldn't the expectation be that whoever gained the upper hand on the world stage would've aimed for de-facto control over whichever currency system was in place anyways?