Why does the state have a monopoly on money?
economicforces.xyz
economicforces.xyz
That said, states do not have a monopoly on money. Ever heard of Robux? Gift cards? Airline miles? Arcade tokens? Credit card reward points? There are a lot of other moneys in our society even if you ignore bullshit crypto coins.
Theoretically these other currencies are pegged to the dollar, but not really. Even gift cards, which have a value expressed in dollars, have a different value. Sometimes the value is increased because they are untrackable dollars that can be used for scams/crime. The value and desirability of goods and services offered by the company that issued the gift card also affect its value.
Would you trade a $1000 Apple gift card for a $1000 Applebee’s gift card? Would you buy a $1000 Apple gift card for $1000? Would you buy an Applebee’s gift card for $1000?
> As people like David Glasner have pointed out, the idea that the state monopoly on money is really about emergency financing for things like wars can also help us to understand why counterfeiting has historically been treated as treasonous.
Gave me a new perspective on money: as being a weapon of war. Of course it's not the only use of money but it does give food for thought.
I think professional economist don't have "likes" or "dislikes". Also this statement doesn't seem correct in another way. I think economists try to understand what setting yields the most wealth. If a monopoly yields more wealth than competition, then, economists will recommend a monopoly.
For example, the metric system is similar to a monopoly. It doesn't make sense to have multiple competing systems here.
Same with a currency as it's a unit of accounting. Having multiple currencies would have higher transaction costs because people would have to convert back and forth daily for comparison and making purchases.
There's also the perspective from MMT, where money is a license to pay your taxes. So having multiple ways of paying your taxes doesn't make sense in this view either.
The government can also do that and some countries currencies have collapsed but in general it is fairly solid! Inflation aside.
Putting control of currency in the hands of the Federal reserve vs some neutral store of value has been utterly disastrous for the country and everyone but the rich.
I understand not everyone is interested in the French Victorian era, but if you try to sell the gold standard (btw it ended in 33 and not 71, Bretton-Woods was a clever post ww2 bastardization of the original), you ought to know what came before, what came after, and why. I do not know about post-WW1 history (I read Paxton at most), but considering your interest, you can narrow your field of book to read by limiting it to trade and economics from 1820 to 1980.
The 30 year era of free banking was like the past 8 years in cryptomoney+nft world, a few legitimate ideas, a lot of scams, legit idea that ended up like scams, and almost any city worker had to participate. I only read incidentally about the US on that time period, so maybe my vision is skewed, but you have to read about it if you want to speak about it.
Why does the government have a monopoly on time?!
And if presented in a different light, it'd be surprising. But the more imporant question is why would you need to present anything based on that or another theory instead of validating it with data from those who actually make those rules and categorize it as treason?