Another Use for Money

Money is generally thought of, if at all, in practical terms: how to get it, what to do with it. Monetary Realists believe that the most important thing to know about money, however, is its nature, because from this nature all else flows. Money is the life blood of the body politic, and when it is tainted, the organism suffers. The nature of what passes among us for money has not only economic, or practical significance, but political as well. It makes the modern State--including modern warfare--possible.

Most of us succeed at our jobs by pleasing the public. We cannot hope to market our goods or services if the people to whom we offer them do not find them attractive or beneficial. This is not true of those employed by the State, financed by modern money. They succeed at their jobs by making the public please them. The term "public servant," by which they designate themselves, means that the public is their servant, and that is the way they believe it should be. They offer services which few, if any, desire; and succeed, by the use of force or the threat of it, in compelling their victims to utilize those services, and obey their directives. Their natural and obvious inclination is to bring ever more people under their control, and to issue ever more guidelines and regulations. Indeed, the very word "govern" means "to limit, regulate, or control."

If necessary, they will find problems where none exist, and then offer solutions to these problems which have, thanks to their acceptance by a supine people, the force of law. For example, it has been decreed that toilets should utilize no more than 1.6 gallons per flush, even though this is frequently inadequate. The stated purpose of this 1.6 gallon toilet is to save water, although nobody seems to ask "Save it for what?" Would you believe that larger toilets, from Canada, are being smuggled into the U.S.?

Battery powered toy vehicles for toddlers have been found to overheat, causing some minor injuries. How often? Approximately three cases reported per million toys. Hardly a serious problem, but good enough to involve some officious bureaucrat who inflates his ego and enhances his own importance by issuing demands for a "recall."

A very few infants have drowned in five gallon buckets. This stimulated a 100 page report by concerned State workers, whose recommendations included putting holes in the buckets (and using a liner when the bucket was actually to be used!) or fitting the bucket with an infant-proof lid.

If property is destroyed in your neighborhood by a tornado or flood, the President may declare it a disaster area, and funnel financial aid to the victims. He is particularly apt to do this when the congressperson for your area is of his party, and facing a difficult re-election campaign. The voters will get the message. It has been estimated that almost half the citizens of this country are either working for government, or reaping benefits from it. The nature of our modern money makes all this possible.

It is easy to see why no politician, or banker, is enthusiastic about a return to a tangible medium of exchange. Politicians cannot spend gold or silver they do not have, and to tax the citizens enough to provide the largesse the politicians favor would be impossible. Fiat money, on the other hand, is created with the stroke of a pen. Of course, it is not the State's pen, but the banker's, but he could only indulge in this check kiting, or counterfeiting, with government sanction. In return for the favor, he will lend liberally to the State, with no expectation of repayment. Indeed, repayment would be disappointing, since it would mean an end to interest payments. If you could lend your brother a million dollars simply by writing that number on a piece of paper, wouldn't you do so, if it meant that every month thereafter you would get a check from him that would enable you to buy goods in the marketplace, including the goods which he himself produced? This lending ploy would, in effect, make your brother your slave, producing for your benefit, to "repay" you for no thing. And, if he were unable to repay the principal, it would go on forever!

Extend this lending practice to foreign governments, and you have enslaved a significant portion of the world's people. Convince the nations of the world to utilize a single currency, and with your magic pen you can enslave millions of people in different countries simultaneously, if you are the issuer of that currency, and they can be persuaded to use it.

The alliance between banker and State is an unholy one. Both profit from the arrangement: the bureaucrat by being able to fund his programs and indulge his ideology and feelings of self-importance, and the banker by being able to reap interest payments forever. Once started, the programs of the State never end. Think of the fate of politicians foolish enough to argue that Medicare is an abomination that should be abolished, or that Social Security is an obscenity that should be phased out. Unthinkable! No, the problems resulting from these programs can be solved only by more programs, more spending, more regulations, more bureaucrats. The victims are taught to look upon themselves as beneficiaries. They delight in "free" medical care, or those lovely checks from Social Security, never seeing the connection between those benefits and the rising price, or falling quality (or both) of automobiles, for instance, or refrigerators. To the extent that they may question the rising cost of living, they are fobbed off with an explanation that "inflation" is a problem too profound for them to understand, or that greedy manufacturers and unions are responsible for the ever-increasing cost of maintaining the status quo. Maybe Saddam Hussein is behind it, or Milosevic! Not to worry: the State will have a solution--unfortunately, very expensive!

These "solutions," of course, effect our lives. I recall reading that Philip of Spain, in a war with France, came within a whisker of occupying Paris, which might well have altered the course of human history. He withdrew short of that victory, however. Why? Because he feared he might not have enough money--gold, in those days--to pay his troops. Poor Philip! He didn't have Visa, or Mastercard. His troops expected to receive some thing for their services, not a chit entitling them to the production of their neighbor, who would accept it because he in turn could use it to prey upon his equally gullible neighbor.

The modern state, which usually practices some form of fascism, is made possible by modern money. They are made for, and deserve, one another. Both are distinguished by corruption and dishonesty. Neither is what it seems, or claims, to be.

The nature of money, therefore, is of far more than mere economic significance. It involves not simply finance, but freedom. Fiat, as opposed to wealth-money, is the agent of poverty and slavery, although its victims might deny their ill-fortune, pointing to the very large numbers upon their pay checks, their wives' paychecks, and their kids' pay checks, (although even with everyone working for such large numbers, they can't make ends meet). Well, the State will take care of that, too! One of the things which fiat can finance is a press--other than the printing press--which never turns its editorial thoughts to the true nature of the money, and an education system where the truth is taught very selectively.

Political reform? Why, when everything the State desires can be obtained for the asking; and when it comes time to repay, it asks for the means of repayment and gets it? And why should the lender object, when the interest on the national debt amounts to nearly a billion per working day? If any want sound government, let them begin with sound money. And how popular an idea is that?