Liberal Forum

FOS » 09 Jan 2023, 10:22 pm » wrote: ↑

09 Jan 2023, 10:22 pm

fundamentally, all currency is actually based on power.

if you are the world hegemon, like the USA has been, you can print whatever fiat currency you want and become the worlds reserve currency because your power ensures stability. 

people care about what their currency can buy. and if that is ONLY gold, then currency is not worth much.

instead, if you choose to base your currency on some tangible resource (such as gold or petrol)...what really happens is you inflate artificially the demand for that product. Thus william jennings brian, for example, ran on a platform to make US currency backed by silver...because that would be good for the agrarian people in the north and south US, who had plenty of silver but very little gold...as opposed to the east and west who had a lot of gold. 

people who complain about currency stuff rarely seem to actually understand many of the finer points of it. I certainly am not an expert myself...but i do feel like i just happen to know more than the average 'goldbug'...

but yeah...ignoring WHO is in control of the financial system is stupid...and attempting to eliminate financial heirarchy is just as much a silly pipedream as trying to eliminate political hierarchy. 

libertarians tend to be people who are silly enough to think that anarchy can possibly be a viable and stable system...rather than just a transition between two different elites.