By Ryan McMaken
The ordinary people of Europe, so devastated by the shells of the First World War, would again be victimized by the new inflationary national currencies that would destroy savings and investment across the European middle class.
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Mises got it backwards as usual.
War can't destroy what already failed, it's pre-existing failure is what allows a war to come into being.
Gold's inadequacy as money, its physical properties, force an industrialized economy into custody and notes. Gold is why banks exist in the first place.
Once claims circulate, gold’s same physical clumsiness prevents continuous, low-cost redemption discipline that is necessary to keep such a standard... the standard.
Gold's own requirements produce the banking "layer" that makes a war of such scale possible in the first place.
Not correct
Seems like a proximate vs ultimate distinction, but I agree that your framing is the more valuable way to look at it.
I think this is a problem with the "digital gold" narrative in Bitcoin generally, and when responding to gold bugs waxing nostalgic about a gold standard. Failing to demonstrate why the gold standard failed and why Bitcoin solves for its poor monetary properties.
Lots of Bitcoiners in the comments ofc, but the poll results should be reversed.
There is effectively no difference between the fiat standard and the gold standard, we're already on a gold standard... it's late stage. Gold is just the mother asshole from which fiat springs.