What the Fiat – Part II

Currency Conspiracy

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Is it possible?

Is it really possible that a group of the most powerful British and American men conspired to circumvent the US constitution to allow them to use fiat money as a means of controlling the masses?

With both the UK and the US governments (or at least, those pulling the strings) able to print money detached from the real-World value being created, could they contrive mass distraction of the deemed proletariat.  Over generations?

Could we all be conned into lifetimes of myopically chasing paper remuneration that would consistently, predictably devalue so as to perpetually keep us focussed on the next pointless segment of the hamster wheel immediately under our nose?

By creating an environment where an individual’s contribution to society is judged by the nominal units of fiat currency they have accumulated, the vast majority of us are indoctrinated from a very young age with a belief that we need to accumulate money.  Fiat money.

Fiat money that the government can and does print at a whim.

And that, thanks to fractional reserve banking, financial institutions can magically multiply out of the ether.

Is it possible that these persons of unimaginable power understood that their optimal strategy for retaining and growing that power was to convince everyone that fiat money was the equivalent to wealth?  That, as a means of preventing the masses from thinking, challenging or genuinely competing, they could instead send them chasing after empty IOUs? Like a kind-natured mutt after a stick thrown for it.

Is it possible that this has shaped the whole structure of our economies and, therefore, society?

Cronies of Scale

Large corporations gain huge competitive advantage through economies of scale.  At least, what we are taught are economies of scale.  How much of that benefit is driven by being able to attain cheap sources of fiat capital and using bank credit to facilitate import/export supply chains?

By virtue of their size, assessing a large corporate’s creditworthiness is more profitable than that of a small of medium-sized enterprise.  The larger the corporate the more debt can be lent and the more interest income the bank can earn.  And the more fees it can achieve through trade finance. And the more likely it is that you can buy and sell the equity on an exchange.  The more likely your pension money will find its way into that corporate’s balance sheet.

Is it possible that under a hard money standard, we would see greater value in smaller, trusted, local firms?  That fiat-driven protectionism-by-scale would evaporate?  Would we be consuming local, seasonal produce?  Buying clothes to last decades rather than a season?  Would we be rooting out planned obsolescence in our cars, washing machines, toothbrushes, tech products, FMCGs?  Would we instead prioritise secondhand books, children’s clothes, toys?  Repair rather than replace?

In the absence of mega corporations distorting free market price-discovery, would the transparent value of a hard money standard allow us to better assess the quality of what we are buying.

And, given the known, time-agnostic opportunity cost of spending, would we really be buying plastic crap from China for a cheap five-minute Christmas thrill?

Con-sumerism

I think about this in the context of the whole debate on how we are degrading our environment (for another time), essentially through consumerism.

Would it not be in everyone’s interests to educate people on (or at least draw attention to) the ancient wisdom that guided the Greeks and Romans to understanding that much of our contentment is driven by our own minds. 

We can learn not to worry about that which is beyond our control.  To a large extent, we can decide to be happy. 

Depending on where one is situated on the hierarchy of needs, we can decide that it is better not to want something than to have it.

Would that not be a huge, low-cost step towards a more “even” and “sustainable” way of living?

But we are not taught this.  We are taught to rote learn forgettable side information in order to pass SATs, GSCEs, A-levels and NAPLAN tests in order to then be able to rote learn a university degree to qualify to work for a corporate, to earn fiat, to buy stuff for our children. 

To consume.

We are not taught to think.  In fact, we are actively kept too meaninglessly busy, too distracted to think.  And from a young age.

Where are the school classes on entrepreneurship? On the philosophy of contentment, without consumerism? On the joy of growing one’s own food, creating one’s own business, entertainment, of reading rather than tech.  Even woodwork seems to be a thing of the past.

Rather than standing on the shoulders of giants we are drilled into being one of many intellectual Lilliputians.

Many of the same powerful names that conceived of our current conveyor-belt schooling match those allegedly behind the fiat standard.

Imagine

Let’s imagine the alternative.

That we had never left the gold standard.  That every unit of value we created retained its value.  Across the generations.  That once a family had secured enough value to survive for the foreseeable future it could afford to take a value-generating risk.

That the measured value created by farmers, labourers, entrepreneurs, medical staff, etc was calibrated accurately against the value of pen-pushing middle management working from home.

That, as a result, we could mutually respect each other’s value creation as opposed to treating crony capitalists’ profit motive with justified moral suspicion.

That the value created was for the owner for them to decide on how it was spent.  Rather than by the inevitable, undefeatable effluxion of time. 

Con-collusion

A theory of conspiracy, yes.  But such is the history of humankind.  One of the craziest conspiracy theories has to be that people have stopped conspiring.  Especially, when it comes to questions of power.

Whatever the origin of our current fiat monetary system, it is close to having run its course.

What comes next may answer questions above. 

There is everything to play for:

·      a decentralised, open, transparent, hard currency that sets the foundation for a more egalitarian, value-driven society; OR

·      a centralised, programmable, digital ID that dictates behaviours deemed appropriate for you by…the powers that be?!

Maybe we should conspire to be free.