The Right to Money (1877)

[Severian]

Perhaps we may conclude that the right to live, and to provide ourselves with food, clothing, shelter, and all the other necessa­ries and comforts of life, necessarily includes the right to provide ourselves with money; inasmuch as, in civilized life, money is the immediate and indispensable instrumentality for procuring all these things. Hence we may perhaps conclude that a people who surrender their natural right to provide themselves with money, practically surrender their right to provide for their own subsistence; and that a government that demands such a surrender, or attempts to take from them that right, and give it as a monopoly to a few, is as necessarily and as plainly the mere instrument of that few, as it would be if it were to require the people to surrender their right to follow their occupations as farmers, mechanics, and merchants, and give all these occupa­tions as monopolies into the hands of the same few to whom it now gives the monopoly of money.

OUR FINANCIERS: THEIR IGNORANCE, USURPATIONS, AND FRAUDS
by Lysander Spooner
1877

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1714024078

[myrkul]

Perhaps we may conclude that the right to live, and to provide ourselves with food, clothing, shelter, and all the other necessa­ries and comforts of life, necessarily includes the right to provide ourselves with money; inasmuch as, in civilized life, money is the immediate and indispensable instrumentality for procuring all these things. Hence we may perhaps conclude that a people who surrender their natural right to provide themselves with money, practically surrender their right to provide for their own subsistence; and that a government that demands such a surrender, or attempts to take from them that right, and give it as a monopoly to a few, is as necessarily and as plainly the mere instrument of that few, as it would be if it were to require the people to surrender their right to follow their occupations as farmers, mechanics, and merchants, and give all these occupa­tions as monopolies into the hands of the same few to whom it now gives the monopoly of money.

OUR FINANCIERS: THEIR IGNORANCE, USURPATIONS, AND FRAUDS
by Lysander Spooner
1877

Nice. To that I can add:

“It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments. Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions and bills of rights. The demand for constitutional guarantees and for bills of rights was a reaction against arbitrary rule and the nonobservance of old customs by kings. The postulate of sound money was first brought up as a response to the princely practice of debasing the coinage.”

–Ludwig von Mises. The Theory of Money and Credit

[conspirosphere.tk]

Here is my quote of the day:

"The phrase “we are all Keynesians now” has taken on a new meaning, It means that we, collectively are all screwed! NOTHING that was “conventional” (though flawed) has worked. Nothing “conventional” has worked no matter how extreme, forceful or large the effort. Keynesianism has now, at our expense, been proven not to work and is the flawed crock of crap that the Austrians have said it was for the last 40 years (actually 100+)." - Bill Holter

http://blog.milesfranklin.com/?p=4317

[Severian]

Thanks for adding your .02btc, all. I'm glad to see us able to finally apply what we've all been learning about currency and money. I like to think Spooner would be down with bitcoin but am always hesitant to ascribe my ideals to those of dead people.

[knight22]

For those who wants to learn more about the monetary system, I strongly suggest the Modern Money Mechanics from the Federal reserve bank of chicago:

http://www.rayservers.com/images/ModernMoneyMechanics.pdf

and also these videos:

http://vimeo.com/2244372
http://vimeo.com/6822294

When you understand what are the fundamental problems of this system,  you can also understand why some of the biggest economical theories doesn't work (or cannot work in this system should I say) and fundamentally why bitcoin is so great!