In a new article at The Economic Collapse Blog the author suggests that instead of allowing banks to create money we instead should have national governments create money.
The advantage of this system, claims the author, is that the money created would not be based on debt and therefore would not have to be paid back. There is a large portion of the End the Fed movement that believes this is the solution to the massive debts incurred by governments, the U.S. in particular.
Of course banks and central banks such as the Fed should not be able to create money out of thin air through government privilege and fractional reserve banking. But is it really any better if governments create money out of thin air? Ethically speaking, it is counterfeiting either way.
And practically speaking, just how exactly would we get better results from having politicians counterfeit money rather than bankers? Are we really to expect politicians, who have absolutely no clue about how business, economics, and money work, to not counterfeit as much as they can and cause massive inflation? Why should we expect politicians to be any more honest or benevolent than bankers? Ultimately, fiat currency (money backed by nothing) is corrupting no matter who is creating it.
No, the real solution is to take money out of the hands of government completely and to not give banks the privilege of counterfeiting. The current banking system has institutionalized fraud and this should end. The Federal Reserve enjoys a government granted monopoly privilege to counterfeit money. The problem isn’t just that the Fed counterfeits money. The problem is that it should not be allowed by anyone, especially a gang of criminals calling themselves “the government.”
Money first originated from the marketplace as a commodity. There should be a free market for money just as everything else and the government should have nothing to do with it. We need sound money and we need to end the Federal Reserve System. Let the market choose the best form of money, which traditionally has been gold or silver.
The following video is a lecture by Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute about how money comes into existence and what makes for good money. And for an excellent explanation of money and banking, check out Murray Rothbard’s What Has Government Done to Our Money.
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