Fiat money may be the most destructive instrumentality on the planet. From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:
Money wasn’t always our enemy, of course; I’m old enough that I knew people who were alive before it was weaponized. But modern money – dollars, euros and so on – are so destructive that they’re threatening not just individuals, but Western civilization itself.
If that sounds a bit over the top, please read on. Before we’re done I think I’ll convince you otherwise.
I call fiat currency a weapon of mass destruction because it has caused far more widespread damage than chemical weapons ever have, and has assuredly destroyed more human potential than nuclear weapons. The nuke destroys horrifyingly but rarely; fiat money destroys minute by minute, day by day, over multiple decades and in shocking proportions.
How Money Destroys
How money destroys is not immediately obvious. We grow up learning to count it and spend it, then to make it, but few of us ever learn anything more about it, even in university-level programs.
Fundamentally, fiat currencies destroy because they hijack human will on a massive scale. Here’s how it happens:
- Money (currency) is one half of every commercial transaction, and those transactions involve nearly every aspect of every life in the Western world, from birth to death. That’s immense scope.
- Fiat currency is created at roughly zero cost, by governments and the friends of governments.
- Money is used to buy all the necessities of life. Thus it is deeply and inherently motivating, and to more or less every human on the planet.
- Because of the above, anyone creating new currency units can motivate millions of human beings: powerfully, on demand, and at almost no cost.
