Editor's note: This article was originally published on January 25, 2017.
This is the fourth article in a six-part series featuring the views of Walter Block. The first, second, and third pieces are available on-line.
Story by Joseph Ford Cotto
This is the fourth article in a six-part series featuring the views of Walter Block. The first, second, and third pieces are available on-line.
Story by Joseph Ford Cotto
Does time really
change people?
Folks older and,
presumably, wiser than myself have claimed as much. This idea sure sounds nice;
like the sort of thing one might expect to find on a greeting card from
disowned family, the type of sermon which can be anticipated from the pastor
who wants to please his flock (donations do not pay themselves, you know), or
the kind of shtick a forsaken housewife believes when her unfaithful husband
claims that – this time – he really has turned a new leaf.
Color me
unconvinced.
I believe that
people have a certain personality type, determined mainly by genetic factors,
and this is set in stone at a young age. My perspective is not based on
sentiment, but the cold, hard facts of cognitive science.
Unlike personality,
situations may change rapidly. As the tide turns, different sides of the same
individual are unveiled. This creates the illusion that someone really has
altered his or her life in a meaningful way. When the foam and fuzz of
sentimentality are wiped away, however, it is nothing more than situational
adaptation.
The valuation of
any currency is relative to the actions of individuals. When the fiat system
used to determine the worth of American money enters the picture, human
behavior becomes far more important. Without an anchor such as gold or
platinum, and only a promise that our currency is valued at a certain level,
things are – shall we say – always on pins and needles.
If people do not
change with time, then what happens when more folks with certain personality
types have children? Seeing as nature produces things in abundance, and the
more intelligent and/or highly educated are less likely than others to
reproduce, America could very well have a fiscal landslide – let alone cliff –
on its horizon.
As if this
nightmare scenario was not, well, nightmarish enough, foreign agents have made
it their mission to attack America’s monetary stability without even leaving
their own home base.
China is notorious
for its currency manipulation schemes. Beyond this, however, it not only owns a
tremendous amount of our national debt, but accounts for much of our trade
deficit as well. How might America level the playing field in the near future?
“I don’t see any need
to level any playing fields,” Dr. Walter Block tells me. He is the Harold E.
Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics – how is that for an
accomplished title? – at Loyola University New Orleans’s J.A. Butt School of
Business.
Block is also the
author of Defending the Undefendable, a bestseller from 1976 which
conservative journo Marcus Epstein said portrays “pimps, drug dealers,
blackmailers, corrupt policemen, and loan sharks as 'economic heroes'.” In more
flattering terms, John Stossel claimed it introduced him “to the beauties of
libertarianism. It explains that so much of what is assumed to be evil – is
not.”
As Block is an
Austrian School economist with solid anarcho-capitalist cred, not to mention a
senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and an uncompromising
individualist, it is unlikely that he cares about what the peanut gallery has
to say concerning his philosophy.
“If we are worried
about monetary matters, as we well should be, I think the remedy is in terms of
not monitoring the Fed, but getting rid of it, and embracing the gold standard
once again,” Block continues. “Then, all such problems will disappear.”
Getting back to more
strictly domestic matters, some claim that the surest way for America to enjoy
monetary stability is a return to the gold standard. Given current
socioeconomic affairs, this is a viable option?
“Yes, yes, yes,”
Block declares. “Well, to be technical, libertarians do not favor the gold
standard, per se. Rather, we support free enterprise money. That is, the
commodity, whatever it is, that the market participants choose as a trade
intermediary. When we were free to choose, a century or more ago, we chose gold
(and sometimes silver). This time, who knows? Maybe it will be platinum, or
silver or copper, or even bitcoin. I use ‘gold’ as a sort of shorthand for free
enterprise money, whatever it is.”
It would strain
credulity to claim that a return to the gold standard is an easy undertaking.
Nevertheless, if concerned citizens want the value of their money to remain
stable – protected from risks both abroad and at home – they should remember
that the gold standard did not become known as the gold standard for nothing.
This is to skirt
the question of which tax is a fair one or the ever-rancorous debate over
whether Donald Trump’s economic proposals will bring higher wages to average
Americans. These timely topics are saved for tomorrow.
