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Interessanter Artikel

verfasst von ---- ELLI ----, 08.08.2002, 18:04

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http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1022
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Soma!
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Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

[Posted August 8, 2002]

[image] This
entire affair underscores the awful underlying reality of American political
and economic life: it always comes back to the state's ability to create money
and credit. All other powers of the government—regulatory, military, and
even fiscal—pale in comparison to this one power. Further, the chairman of
the Fed, though unelected and ultimately accountable to no one, is by far the
most powerful man in American politics.

Despite this reality, the Fed is the least controversial
institution in American political life. Apart from <st2:PersonName>
<st1:GivenName>
Ron</st1:GivenName>
<st1:Sn>
Paul</st1:Sn>
</st2:PersonName>
of <st2:State>
<st2:place>
Texas</st2:place>
</st2:State>
, no sitting politician understands how it works. When Greenspan comes before
Congress to testify, he is deferred to like no other human being. If he is
even treated with skepticism, it is only on grounds that he is not inflating
enough, that he is somehow being stingy and not spreading the wealth. There is
no influential constituency in politics pushing for tighter money, less credit,
sounder finance.

The Mises Institute is in the midst of its annual program
called the <st2:place>
<st2:PlaceName>
Mises</st2:PlaceName>
<st2:PlaceType>
University</st2:PlaceType>
</st2:place>
, where students from around the world come to a kind of economic theory that
you won't hear on the Nightly Business Report or on financial affairs programs
on the radio. The students are taught about such classic works as <st2:PersonName>
<st1:GivenName>
Ludwig</st1:GivenName>
<st1:Sn>
von Mises</st1:Sn>
</st2:PersonName>
's Theory of Money and
Credit (which is also
online), a treatise that explores the foundational
issues that no one seems to want to talk about today.

Among the questions that Mises addresses: What is money, and
where does it come from? Is it a product of the state, or the market? In what
sense is it a good like any other, and in what sense is it special? Must the
state be involved in its management, or can money and banking be managed by
private markets within the legal system required by free enterprise? Most
importantly for our purposes, Mises addresses the social, economic, and
political consequences of the centralization of credit and its management by
an institution like the Fed.

Mises distinguishes three varieties of inflationism, that is,
the demand that the state work with the banking industry to flood the economy
with credit. The first is naive inflationism that sees no real downside to
monetary expansion, the second is inflationism that intends to reward debtors
at the expense of creditors, and the third sees disadvantages to an
expansionary policy but believes that the advantages outweigh them. Obviously,
the US. is right now in the grip of the worst form: naive inflationism, which

<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">

"demands an increase in the quantity of money without
suspecting that this will diminish the purchasing power of the money. It
wants more money because in its eyes the mere abundance of money is wealth. Fiat money!
Let the state 'create' money, and make the poor rich, and free them from the
bonds of the capitalists! How foolish to forgo the opportunity of making
everybody rich, and consequently happy, that the state's right to create
money gives it! How wrong to forgo it simply because this would run counter
to the interests of the rich! How wicked of the economists to assert that it
is not within the power of the state to create wealth by means of the
printing press!—You statesmen want to build railways, and complain of
the low state of the exchequer? Well, then, do not beg loans from the
capitalists and anxiously calculate whether your railways will bring in
enough to enable you to pay interest and amortization on your debt. Create
money, and help yourselves."

[/i]

The students at the Mises
University are learning what is wrong with this
view--that it is contrary to long-term prosperity,that it generates more
business cycles, not fewer, that it can lead to a banking crisis, and, if
carried far enough, can destroy civilization itself. In times where the entire
world seems completely oblivious to the downside--where the demands for
monetary Soma are universal and unrelenting--it gives one hope to know that at
least one segment of the next generation of economists is being shown the
truth.

They and their future students will not join the crowds in <st1:Sn>
Huxley</st1:Sn>
's novel who, after a brief interval when the prospect of Soma deprivation
appeared, entered into mindless bliss when the state assured that the drug
would continue to flow:

<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">

"[T]he soma vapour had produced their effect. In
tears, the Deltas were kissing and hugging one another-half a dozen twins
at a time in a comprehensive embrace. Even <st1:Sn>
Helmholtz</st1:Sn>
and the Savage were almost crying. A fresh supply of pill-boxes was brought
in from the Bursary; a new distribution was hastily made and, to the sound
of the Voice's richly affectionate, baritone valedictions, the twins
dispersed, blubbering as though their hearts would break. 'Good-bye, my
dearest, dearest friends, Ford keep you! Good-bye, my dearest, dearest
friends, Ford keep you. Good-bye my dearest, dearest…'"

[/i]

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Llewellyn H., Jr., is president of the Mises Institute and
editor of LewRockwell.com. Send him MAIL.
He recommends Murray N. Rothbard's What
Has Government Done to Our Money and The
Case Against the Fed.



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Interessanter Artikel - ---- ELLI ----, 08.08.2002, 18:04