[Zygote]

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It's a strawman. No Austrian says anything of the sort. Of course fiat money is real money. It's a general medium of exchange. You don't need a commodity to guage past prices, you only need the knowledge of yesterday's prices in terms of the fiat money.

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I wasn't criticizing Austrian theory, just some flawed supporters of hard money schools.

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This is like saying, if only government were filled with angels, we wouldn't have to worry about them counterfeiting money.

Protecting assets in the real world of real human beings requires resources. Wouldn't it be much cheaper if, rather than having to buy a heavy chain and padlock to lock up my bicycle, I could just write "LOCK" on a piece of paper and tape it around the front wheel? Think of all the resources we could save!

This would be true even in an anarcho-capitalist society. The temptation for the people who have the capacity to print money out of nothing, without the check of having to actually redeem it for a commodity that cannot be counterfeited out of thin air, would be insurmountable.


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I dont disagree with any of this. I think gold is a better form of money in practice but the off shoot of the monetarist ideas i laid out can lead to a stable money system, if only in theory.