Why the Cantillon Effect Creates Communism

If the cantillon effect exists then it would apply to all monopolies including geographic monopolies. Why do people then single out "money printing" which is a fully decentralised process done by commercial banks? If you can found a new bank you get to do your own "money printing".

If anything I would be more worried about the cantillon effect of income taxes because they are collected decentrally but spent centrally leading to geographic redistribution of funds. Geographic concentration of money in say NYC and SF also has its own cantillon effect.

Monopolies like Visa or MasterCard take a cut that is basically the same as a tax because it is so widespread and they spend it centrally which also has its own cantillon effect. You don't need "money printing" for a cantillon effect and since central banks don't "print money" they are completely irrelevant for the cantillon effect. This makes me think the whole thing is always argued in bad faith and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Edit: Today's mainstream economics is neoclassical economics since the 70s, exactly when wealth inequality started skyrocketing in his fancy charts. Keynesian economics hasn't been mainstream for decades. The article is in fact written in bad faith.

Fascinating (if biased) history on Keynesian economics for the layperson. Certainly _feels_ relevent to the post-COVID economy though I'm not too sure on the "bitcoin will fix everything" conclusion. Malthusianism and eugenics aren't a good look for Keynes especially in light of his affinity for wealth division and central planning.

So how does this lead to a classless society?

> Contrary to the popular platitudes that socialism and communism are about achieving equality for all, going so far to prescribe absurdities like “equality of outcome”. The reality, documented by the likes of Dr. Kristian Niemietz in his “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”, is that the only equality brought about by collectivism is where everybody beneath the thin scab of elites and their apparatchiks are equally mired in poverty and servitude.

That needs to be repeated.

People think that inequality is when someone can buy a 300 foot yacht, or a $100 million mansion. True and brutal inequality is when someone can kill you in daylight and walk away with it. In countries like the US or Weastern Europe you may get away with murder (like O.J. Simpson), but that's not guaranteed at all. In communist countries if you were very high in the political apparatus, then you could literally kill someone with witnesses, and walk free. Without a trial.

I suspect things like that happen in other countries too, where the rule of law is weak. For example in Mexico (where the cartels kill left and right, and people know who ordered what murders).

There some people are above the law. That's true inequality.

Ironically the article has the core problem of Marxism: a good, relevant analysis but the synthesis is lacking, to say the least.

> COVID stimulus showed how the lubricant for a globalized socialism was the monetary printing press.

Economic stimulus comes from taxes and bonds, not from printing money. This is a grave error that casts a pall over the entire article. I stopped reading.