On Friday, October 10, 2003, at 02:07 PM, Danny Van den Berghe wrote:
Yeah, but isn't publicly calling someone a "thug" (or any other insulting
statement) already a case of initiation of force against a person, and hence
the person who utters these words has declared himself a "thug" by his own
definition?
(Dear Moderator: I promise to keep this on the subject of money.)
Danny:
No. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me. Force and verbiage are two different things.
At least he could have cared to mention where I advocated use of force against somebody or something...
Actually looking through your posts I see quite a bit of laissez-faire attitude. I think our communication difficulties arise from a fundamental disagreement on the nature of fiat systems. The advocates of fiat systems flatly deny that brute force is necessary to float those systems. For example, in a previous post you gave a chronology of how a fiat system evolves, starting with gold and notes for gold, but ultimately culminating with this:
And finally the curency was made independant from the gold backing.
What a sweet, passive, neutral way to portray an act of theft, fraud, and extortion. The currency "was made" independent from gold backing by a bunch of thugs telling the people to hand over their gold and gold notes and accept fiat paper in return upon pain of imprisonment and confiscation of property. Or at the very least, simply reneging on a solemn promise.
I highly suggest reading today's article titled "Monetary Policy and the Free Market."
http://mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1341
It almost seems like the author has been reading the e-gold list lately. Consider this excerpt:
"Since paper currencies are the dominant type of money in our age, there has been some speculation about the possibility of a free market in paper money or electronic money. Yet not only is there no historical evidence to support this possibility, but noncommodity monies have at all times and places been creatures of the state.
"In modern times, the state has introduced paper money by giving a privileged note-issuing bank (the national Central Bank) the permission to suspend the redemption of its notes. While the historical record does not prove that there could be no noncommodity money on the free market, Austrian economists have argued that money must be a commodity by its nature."
As the author says, there has indeed "been some speculation about the possibility of a free market in paper money or electronic money." Notably, right here on the e-gold list.
Note that in the second paragraph, the author states that the introduction of paper money always took the form of a privileged group gaining "permission to suspend the redemption of its notes." Or as Danny so blithely puts it: "And finally the currency was made independent of its gold backing."
So when Jim discusses a "vicious thug who insists on imposing paper money on these workers," he is referring to a paper money system that was originally imposed on the people by force and is now maintained by force. From what I can tell you would disapprove of that kind of force but you also deny that it exists in the first place. So as they say in "Cool Hand Luke": "What we've got here is failure to communicate."
At this point in history it's all a matter of degree. Many of us, including fiat advocates themselves, are evolving toward more trade in hard money and less in fiat tokens. This works to erode the utility of fiat tokens, though imperceptibly at first. But if the physics are just right, this effect could easily compound far beyond anybody's ability to predict at this point.
-- Patrick
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