The fiat currency was a system that central planners couldn't have imagined.
This opinion editorial is by Andrew Axelrod. Andrew Axelrod is a Bitcoin educator, writer and blogger whose LinkedIn posts have been orange pilled thousands.
"The best trick of the devil is to convince you that he doesn't exist." — Charles Baudelaire
"The second most important trick was convincing the whole world that he is good." — Ken Ammi
People have been blinded by their time and cathedrals throughout history. The ideas of chivalry and caste systems, as well as royal bloodlines, were all powerful constructs that soared over any scrutiny.
It is the same today.
As fish can't perceive the water in which they swim, so it is difficult for people to see the cathedrals as they really are. Invisible chains are made of grandiose stories, fantasies, and seductive lies.
These are Plato's Cave's walls. They are the Matrix's scrolling green code.
Prisoners cannot be freed from the chains that are kept hidden.
These illusions are broken by bitcoin, like waves breaking against solid rocks. Bitcoin reveals the three most powerful illusions of our times — the competent central plan, the common good and fiat money.
Now let's look through the looking glass to dissect each of these magic tricks, beginning with the competence and experience of central planners.
Oh yes, central planners. They seek to be charismatic figuresheads, intellectuals, spiritually enlightened, or impressive polymaths. Their vast knowledge spans all areas of economics, finance and engineering, as well as energy policy and many other.
They are also packaged and sold as compassionate leaders who strive for a better future, acting only from altruism or for the common good. Their names are truth and justice.
Intellect, wisdom , and hearts full of gold? Sign me up
This illusion is the easiest to dispel of the three.
Politics can be described as jumping in front a moving parade and claiming credit. At its worst, central planners become drunk with the myth of their own competence and turn the parade into a chain gang shuffle.
Because central planning must rely on coercion, Voluntary actions are organic, bottom-up, and at the individual level. They do not have to be coordinated centrally, by definition.
Next, aside from the absurd notion that a single mortal could master so many complex domains, and disregarding the fact that these people are flesh-and-blood humans naturally inclined to self-interest and subject all the usual dark appetites it is equally insane that an abstraction such a "common good", could ever be reached.
This is not the end of the story.
The common good is in everyone's eye. It can be tailored to fit the needs of the central planner.
The central planners are then granted the power to decide on conflicts of nations, conscription in war and the allocation of rations. They also have the ability to determine who is first at the money printer's table.
This is how Bitcoin turns it all on its head. We'll get to that in a moment.
How can such a ridiculous belief in central planning continue to exist? The deranged idea of a small group of people or even one individual deciding the economic and social fate of millions is a common misconception.
All of it comes down to the illusion of the common good.
This belief in the common good at its extreme, a belief that there is paradise on Earth, is what justifies the most outrageous abuses.
This is the destructive narrative central planners use to justify their control lust. Central planners have the ability to use these ideas to their maximum advantage because they believe that eutopia justifies any means of reaching their ends. They not only make dubious claims about a utopia, but insist on knowing the right path to it.
It is not worth the effort to build such a cathedral.
Contrary to common belief, most people want to be seen as doing good and not prone to extremism. This is a benefit of normal distributions.
Evil must therefore cover itself with virtue, or else it will be rejected.
The road to perdition is often paved with good intentions.
What could be more noble than the pursuit of heaven here on earth?
This is what brought the Communists to power, the most outspoken central planners among them. This is what gives the jihadis credibility among the faithful, and what fuels the rise to Nazi Germany.
The common good is the ideal narrative for central planners and gives them the strength to carry out even the most horrific of actions.
Who would dare to speak against them? Who could be so cruel as not to acknowledge paradise?
When it comes to bringing heaven to earth, there is no price too high, no sacrifice too great or body too small.
If paradise is just around the corner, what do another million of these dead matter? The bloodlust can't be quenched, it is not enough.
Nameless mass graves of 80,000,000 people killed by Mao, 40 million under Stalin, 20 million under Hitler and 3 million under Pol pot – they all attest that this was done in the name of the most evil of fantasies.
It is a sad irony that, although paradise may be an illusion, hell is very real.
You need only look at North Korea to see people executed for making unauthorised phone calls.
Actually, dystopia and eutopia are not opposites. They're actually synonyms.
The best way to reach this horrible destination is to concentrate all power in the hands a few and in the hands central planners.
These narratives combine the carrot of eutopia with the stick of emergency. It could be a classless, wealthy society that is being threatened by the greedy and opportunistic bourgeoisie or the promise to establish a glorious caliphate to protect the infidels.
How does coercion actually work on a large scale? And how can the average person be ensnared beyond simply turning a blindeye?
What is the best way to make the story become a reality?
Fiat money.
Henry Kissinger said it best: "Who controls the money controls the world."
This trick is the most amazing ever.
Fiat money, if the central planner is competent and the common good are illusions, makes them look like parlor tricks.
Most civilized societies agree that central planning the economy is bad. A central planning committee that sets the prices for commodities, goods, and services and overrules the free market has always led to extreme misery and starvation.
However, when it comes money, the rules suddenly seem to change.
A central bank is at the heart of modern economies. Its mandate is to manage the money supply through its balance sheet, and fix its price through interest rate fixing.
What can be done to explain this contradiction?
Jordan Peterson famously stated that only half of the lessons from World War II were learned.
He meant that we had to deal with the snakepit national socialism, but not with the communist den vipers — tragic consequences of the Allies' quick alignment with Soviets against Third Reich.
This had one key result: central planners were permitted to nest in the corridors and allowed to desecrate once-honored institutions.
It is acceptable now for academics to identify as Marxists. This is what nearly 20% of social science professors do.
Nevertheless, even though half of the lesson has been learned, it is still a hopelessly optimistic notion.
The lessons learned from the past are now being used as a chase to find the modern-day equivalent of a German man with leather boots and a mustache. This is a distracting distraction from the real culprit, fiat money, which allowed these madmen to reign in the first instance. While society is distracted by a frenetic scavenger hunt to find goose-stepping fascists and chasing them, literal central banks are in control of the money. This is a clear pattern, as we'll see.
The money printer allows central planners the ability to override market decisions.
There is no better instrument for controlling people.
With a push of a button endless wars can be funded. Destructive policies can be pursued regardless of the cost. When challenged, central planners can use bribery to get their opponents to agree with promises of a universal minimum income, "free" education, health care, and subsidized housing for those in need.
They can do all this if they have the printing power.
Fiat money allows central planners to hide the true costs of their destructive decisions, by covering them up with paper money. When society collides with reality, central planners have the perfect emergency situation to centralize more.
People in greatest need will seek help from arsonists when they are most vulnerable.
People will blame "late stage capitalism" because the black hole of money printing destabilizes price signals, misallocates resources, and debases society’s savings.
People will not recognize the harmful effects of fiat currency and centralized power. Instead, they will cry for more of the same poison. The solution was more centralization. This was after decades of loose monetary policy, insatiable money printing and a Great Depression.
The Executive Order 6102 was passed to ban gold, which was the last defense against fiat. It also led to unprecedented nationalizations of private industries that fed the war machine.
FDR actually was able to consolidate so much power that he became the de facto president for life. He died while serving his fourth term — the only president ever to do this. A 22nd amendment to the constitution was added in haste after FDR's death. This set a limit of two terms for the presidency.
This was the time when the massive military industrial complex was built. It has grown to enormous proportions, printing money, and is still a problem for Americans, who are unable or unwilling to resolve their multiplicating conflicts.
The centralization was the solution when Weimar Germany fell under the hyperinflationary fires caused by the papiermark. The Fuhrer used fiat again to transform Germany into a huge weapons manufacturer and to burn Europe to the ground.
After Lenin's Soviet Union was devastated by three hyperinflations caused by Communist profligacy, Stalin took the mantle and then brutally murdered the Russian people. Soviet Russia actually went through seven different fiat rubles and had to endure seven painful resets.
Soviet workers used to joke about the fiat trick of the central planner. They would say, "We pretend we work, and they pretend that they pay." However, fiat money must reach a point where it runs out of ink. This is why the seemingly opposing Eastern communist and Western capitalist systems are at least somewhat similar.
Both believed in top-down control via fiat money.
Only the communists were fueled by more radical fanaticism and made the fatal error of centralizing their entire economy. They involved the government in all aspects of the production process, from harvesting crops to shoe manufacturing and car production. It led to incomprehensible human suffering.
The West's central planners were more patient and allowed their economies to self-organize and grow before monetizing them with central money.
Fiat is the greatest trick ever performed. It's also the greatest heist. Central planners can siphon off a whole population's productivity and exhaust every resource by counterfeiting money. Fiat money is watermelon socialistism, capitalist green outside and communist red inside.
Central planners are required to make impressive mental pretzels in order to deceive the truth. These brazen lies are well-known:
- The constant manipulation of money can be productive and necessary.
- Every economics major should be familiarized with Keynesianism.
- The printing of money does not cause inflation in price.
- Inflating GDP is a result of price inflation. This twisted logic claims that lower prices for goods and services are a positive.
- The financialization of economies, as well as the deindustrialization of their real assets, are indicators of prosperity.
- Receipts are no more common and employment is plentiful because these terms can easily be re-defined in Orwellian fashion to fit your needs.
- The fiat-driven credit booms and bust cycles that lead to great depressions, war and other problems are natural and healthy.
- Central banks are a staple of a free-market economy.
- The denigration of bitcoin as a toy for criminals or plaything by fringe anarchists is another example.
That's right.
War is not peace. Freedom is not possible through slavery. Ignorance is strength.
What if money couldn't be printed at will? If money had an actual cost, central planners' malfeasance would be almost immediately and laughably obvious. Inflation would not allow the people to pick their pockets and central planner incompetence would have an immediate and tangible impact on their pocketbooks. Do you want to wage wars These will cost money. You don't want to finance wasteful government programs. These programs will need to be justified. Do you want to bankrupt your citizens, leaving them homeless? They will need to be confronted.
The world's central planners would have to stop using credit cards to destroy it. Unproductive and wrongheaded actions would be immediately borne by society, allowing it to correct its course. Bitcoin does this by seperating money from state. It snaps the favorite tool of coercion by the central planner and makes it brittle like a twig. Moral posturing and illusions about grandeur are no good once money is out of print.
Bitcoin exposes the lies of the common good and the hollow shell it is, and any unearned competence that the central planners may have left.
They have finally figured out their trick and central planners will be required to bow. But they shouldn't expect any applause.
Andrew Axelrod contributed this guest post. These opinions are not necessarily those of BTC Inc.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
By: Andrew Axelrod
Title: The Greatest Trick Ever Played, And How Bitcoin Shatters The Illusion
Sourced From: bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-greatest-trick-that-bitcoin-shatters
Published Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2022 23:00:00 GMT
Did you miss our previous article…
https://altcoinirareview.com/in-2-months-the-top-smart-contract-tokens-gained-44-against-the-greenback-ahead-of-ethereums-merge/
