Evils of the Present Monetary System

Evils of the Present Monetary System

From Private Enterprise Money by E.C. Riegel (pub. 1944)

The present money system has three basic evils:

a) It permits money to be issued privately, only by a limited number of persons and corporations who have bank credit, and makes such credit subject to fee. Thus it establishes credit as a privilege rather than a right, and makes it an object of profit rather than a utility to further the production and distribution of wealth. It denies to producers generally the right to issue money, thus making it impossible to expand buying power to potential producing power. This results in defeating the mass production system.

b) It permits the government to issue unbacked money. The only way the government could back its money issues would be to go into the production of goods and services; and this would compete with private business. Thus the problem offers the two horns of a dilemma, both of which lead to socialization. If it backs its money issues with goods and services (and there is no other way it can be backed), it executes a frontal attack on private enterprise. If it issues money without backing it (as it is doing), it executes a flank attack on private business through inflation – since to issue money without creating equivalent values is to inflate.

c) It permits ambitious or designing or fanatical men who are in control of government to light the fires of war, threatening the lives and fortunes of untold millions. This terrible power lies solely in the political money system since armaments spring from money and money springs from government fiat, whereas it should spring only from the fiat of the people who would thus hold the veto power.

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