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> The fact that they changed the currency even made poor people who had savings in cash (awful idea!), poorer when they forgot to exchange it. Given the inflat

> The fact that they changed the currency even made poor people who had savings in cash (awful idea!), poorer when they forgot to exchange it. Given the inflation rate of almost 2000% in 1993 and 1994, if poor people had savings in cash they would very quickly have been worth nothing anyway. (I was a kid in Peru in the 80s-90s when they also had hyperinflation and 3 different currencies.) Reading your article, while I agree with you on the absurdity of Bitcoin... > that day when you wanted to eat lentils, you had to go through the trouble of exchanging potatoes for beans, then beans for rice, then rice for lentils. Potatoes came over from the New World and weren't commonly eaten in Europe until the late 1500s. Lentils are likely from Mesopotamia. Rice wasn't common in Europe until sometime after the 10th century. > Metals, even more so scarce ones, such as silver and gold, quickly emerge in your community as an answer to this demand. No they don't. Metals at first only were used for long-distance trading, ie luxury goods, and it's not until the rise of states that metal currency becomes a common thing (required for taxation and military), and it was devalued constantly at the whim of the rulers anyway. > the United States, the Gold Reserve Act forbid the Treasury and financial institutions from redeeming dollar bills for gold in 1934. It was the last remaining nation with a national currency to uphold the gold standard and one of the fundamental reasons, along with free trade, that made the nation prospered so much – not wars! Huh? You have this precisely backwards. The fundamental reason the US prospered so much was that it was continually expanding its borders much later than other countries (through war!), right up until the 1900s. (See also: every empire in history prospers while it's growing.) The US also had high tariffs for a long time, and it wasn't until the period of the late 1930s and early 1940s when they actually started signing free trade agreements. > The Keynesian party of state-issued inflationary currency might be over within the following decades. If I had to make a bet, I’d say stock from publically traded companies might be the base asset for the upcoming currencies. Publicly traded companies... in which country exactly? The USD has its power and stability because it has the US economy and military behind it. This is my fundamental disagreement with libertarianism: your statement "I want the free market to thrive and the state entirely out of everyone's lives" is a complete paradox. The "free market" is a creation wholly enforced through the power of the state (and ironically always requires a lot of regulation to stay that way). I will gladly change my mind if you can give me an example of where this is not true.

imtringued 5y ago
>This is my fundamental disagreement with libertarianism: your statement "I want the free market to thrive and the state entirely out of everyone's lives" is a complete paradox. The most extreme thought experiment of this is anarcho-capitalism. You quickly realize that without a security force it boils down to the law of the jungle. Someone else with a gun has better "security" than you and they can make you bend to their will. With a privatized security force you still run into the problem that paying them doesn't obligate them to protect you. Military coups are common in nation states, it can only get worse if the only reason someone protects you is money, because they can just take your money. Having soldiers believe in their nation and all it's people is much harder to break. Having no loyalty is a problem. What do you do if your enemy simply hires your security force? What if everything goes well but you simply run out of money? Similar events happened in the Roman empire from 235 to 284. Armies declared their own leader the emperor. Most of them only ruled for 2 years until they ran out of money or simply died in battle. A lot of the ruling emperors had to devalue their currency to pay for their military. There was even a case of someone outright buying the position of emperor in 193. [0] >Julianus ascended the throne after buying it from the Praetorian Guard, who had assassinated his predecessor Pertinax. A civil war ensued in which three rival generals laid claim to the imperial throne. Septimius Severus, commander of the legions in Pannonia and the nearest of the generals to Rome, marched on the capital, gathering support along the way and routing cohorts of the Praetorian Guard Julianus sent to meet him. Abandoned by the Senate and the Praetorian Guard, Julianus was killed by a soldier in the palace and succeeded by Severus. >When news of the public anger in Rome spread across the Empire, three influential generals, Pescennius Niger in Syria, Septimius Severus in Pannonia, and Clodius Albinus in Britain, each able to muster three legions, rebelled. They refused to accept Julianus' authority as emperor and instead declared themselves emperor. Ah, yes, the free market. What really happens is that a replacement government will always fill the gap and you only get to choose between a good or bad government, not between government and no government and the only thing that protects you from bad foreign governments is a good domestic government and the ability to kick out bad domestic leaders via democracy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didius_Julianus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didius_Julianus
- naveen99 5y ago

imtringued 5y ago

>This is my fundamental disagreement with libertarianism: your statement "I want the free market to thrive and the state entirely out of everyone's lives" is a complete paradox. The most extreme thought experiment of this is anarcho-capitalism. You quickly realize that without a security force it boils down to the law of the jungle. Someone else with a gun has better "security" than you and they can make you bend to their will. With a privatized security force you still run into the problem that paying them doesn't obligate them to protect you. Military coups are common in nation states, it can only get worse if the only reason someone protects you is money, because they can just take your money. Having soldiers believe in their nation and all it's people is much harder to break. Having no loyalty is a problem. What do you do if your enemy simply hires your security force? What if everything goes well but you simply run out of money? Similar events happened in the Roman empire from 235 to 284. Armies declared their own leader the emperor. Most of them only ruled for 2 years until they ran out of money or simply died in battle. A lot of the ruling emperors had to devalue their currency to pay for their military. There was even a case of someone outright buying the position of emperor in 193. [0] >Julianus ascended the throne after buying it from the Praetorian Guard, who had assassinated his predecessor Pertinax. A civil war ensued in which three rival generals laid claim to the imperial throne. Septimius Severus, commander of the legions in Pannonia and the nearest of the generals to Rome, marched on the capital, gathering support along the way and routing cohorts of the Praetorian Guard Julianus sent to meet him. Abandoned by the Senate and the Praetorian Guard, Julianus was killed by a soldier in the palace and succeeded by Severus. >When news of the public anger in Rome spread across the Empire, three influential generals, Pescennius Niger in Syria, Septimius Severus in Pannonia, and Clodius Albinus in Britain, each able to muster three legions, rebelled. They refused to accept Julianus' authority as emperor and instead declared themselves emperor. Ah, yes, the free market. What really happens is that a replacement government will always fill the gap and you only get to choose between a good or bad government, not between government and no government and the only thing that protects you from bad foreign governments is a good domestic government and the ability to kick out bad domestic leaders via democracy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didius_Julianus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didius_Julianus

naveen99 5y ago