Anti-politics and liberty
Jörg Guido Hülsmann faintly echoes the agorist critique of political libertarians:
“The main weakness of this ["this" being Rothbard and Mises' monetary reform] scheme is that it implies that the reform process be directed by the very institutions and persons whom the reform is supposed to make more or less superfluous.”
Thus, the logic of revolution.
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Indeed. I’ve always questioned the wisdom of trying to get the government to act in a way that more or less mirrors a free market. Of course, I believe that a gold standard would likely emerge in a free market, but if anything what we should really be advocating is free banking.
I think that the Mises/Rothbard position of some government responsibility for the transition of money might be justified on a Carsonian “broken legs-cruthches” rubric. It is said that the way that we should be advocating “de-statizing” the world is by eliminating welfare from the top down and restrictions from the bottom up, and it is in this way a more just transition can be achieved. Rather than pressing the button that would immediately eliminate the government, this would at least have the advantage of providing a security to those most in need of security.
I suppose in some way this can be likened to the efforts that Mises/Rothbard put forward for the re-emergence of sound money. Of course the Agorist method of simply recreating a free society is likely to be the best way to go about doing this, I think that both tactics have their place.
Black Bloke,
I think Rothbard’s justification was always “So long as the government insists on controlling the money, they should at least do it right.” I’d agree with this, on principle, but Rothbard also always advocated “pushing the magic button.” He actually said he’d break his thumb pushing it, and I tend to agree with this too.
If fiat money exists only because the government says it must, then every day it exists it furthers the level of coercion. If there was a magic button to lift the fiat tomorrow, I would break my thumb pushing it.