Let's Take Our Money Back!
Murray Rothbard wrote an excellent introductory populist article trying to persuade people to see the virtues of rolling back government control over the monetary and banking system.
"Taking Money Back" by Murray Rothbard
Originally published in The Freeman, Sept & Oct 1995.
I see a little Lysander Spooner here (it sounds like him):
By diluting the value of each ounce or dollar of genuine money, the counterfeiter's theft is more sinister and more truly subversive than that of the highwayman; for he robs everyone in society, and the robbery is stealthy and hidden, so that the cause-and-effect relation is camouflaged.
Just as Rothbard wrote in his short What Has Government Done to Our Money?, people are generally resistant to taxation. However, money itself gives governments a unique indirect route to tax the public behind their backs.
This is done through controlling the monetary system. Once it gets it under its control, it can then literally take steps to counterfeit money at the expense of the public. Since it is such a hidden and indirect form of taxation governments love it.
It is as if someone were to counterfeit money in his basement. He "creates" $1,000 using his printer and then spends it at the stores. He benefits, but those that receive the counterfeit money lose. Even if no one ever notices, society at large will lose, because the artificial increase in the money supply will devalue money.
Governments that create "new" "money" does result in seemingly new money for these governments to use. But it is always at the expense of us. Banks also benefit during this process. Because why shouldn't they, the banking market that is, help the government in this grand counterfeiting process? They benefit too. But this is at the expense of the public at large due to the resulting devaluation of money caused by the preceding inflation.
We little people get this new money last. We are the ones that see our living standards go down. It is a scheme to redistribute wealth.
Artificially tampering with the monetary system in this way also creates other problems besides just some indirect form of taxation. It distorts business calculation. It sets into motion boom-and-busts. It makes us debtors and not savers. And so forth.
In the article I linked, Murray Rothbard provides the basics. He then goes on to tell us how we can move from where we are today to a sound money system.
I must confess that this topic can get confusing for me sometimes in trying to figure out the twists, tangles, and knots in the banking system----not only of the nation scene but the international scene. I suppose---no, I know---governments and the banking elites in on the deal like it this way. But my reading of Rothbard is slowly clarifying things----or at least giving me a basic conceptual understanding.
See Also: The Paleo Blog’s “Privatize Money”
