Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I think it’s completely worthless.

For example, I value the Bill of Rights as an obstacle to violations of our natural rights. I also recognize that, as I said above, “governments will gradually undermine any procedural constraints on their power“. Even though the government violates the Bill of Rights constantly, wouldn’t you still recognize what’s left of it as a good thing?

Likewise, a gold standard as public policy is a doomed attempt to stave off the natural institutional drive in government for accrual of more power — the power to inflate the currency supply, in this case. A gold standard as public policy has some marginal value as a procedural hurdle that Leviathan government has to clear. It merely buys us time to arrive at a real solution.

That said, I put my own energy into advocating what I see as the real solution — seperation of state and banking at a bare minimum, and abolition of the state preferred.

It’s to late to turn back to the way things were, at least here in the US. Government has metastasized into empire — and empires always fall. If somehow the public policy fairy waved her magic wand and put the US back on a gold standard, would I complain? No. Is that going to happen? No.

Yes. I thouight I clarified that towards the end, after taking pains to show how I arrived at that conclusion.

But to argue for a return to gold while we still have such a system in place is a non-starter.

I wasn’t arguing for that, though. I would have, a few years ago, when I still believed political reformism was a worthwhile approach.

As for the argument that the gold standard keeps the government ‘honest’ despite itself, that’s like saying “if I tie my hand behind my back, then I can’t eat the cookies from the cookie jar”.

That point, however, does not buttress the status quo. It accepts the indictment of the status quo that goldbugs propose “gold as policy” as partial remediation for.

It’s entirely possible to make a valid diagnosis and then propose a flawed treatment. I’m accepting the goldbugs diagnosis (”inflation as theft”, although seldom stated that boldly) and offering what I believe to be a superior treatment.

Although I believe free currency markets are likely to mostly standardize on gold, that doesn’t mean I fetishize that particular commodity. I would have no moral objection to widespread use of McDonalds gift certificates or chits redeemable in bales of flax. [shrug]

I suppose your argument is that we should not have the state control of interest rates, the monetary policy, the fed, the state. But to argue for a return to gold while we still have such a system in place is a non-starter.

It’s like saying that the horse is the best animal to pull the buggy when we’re currently gadding about on an automobile. I mean, sorry for the value-laden example. What I mean is not so much that having fiat money is intrinsically superior to gold-tied money, just that a gold standard seems to me to be utterly incompatable with today’s financial system.

As for the argument that the gold standard keeps the government ‘honest’ despite itself, that’s like saying “if I tie my hand behind my back, then I can’t eat the cookies from the cookie jar”.