What’s really important is your character—that you think rationally and critically and that you follow the two great laws: Do all that you say you’re going to do, and don’t encroach upon other people or their property. I choose to associate with people based on those things, not accidents of birth.
International Man: It seems now more than ever that people have less and less in common with others who happen to carry the same government ID.
At the same time, like-minded people are finding each other from across the world.
What’s your take on this trend? What does it mean for the nation-state?
Doug Casey: Once upon a time, like-minded people came to America because of their desire for personal freedom and financial opportunity. That’s part of what made America what it is. Americans were the kind of people that were drawn to the ideals put forth by the country’s Founding Fathers.
But now America is drawing the wrong kind of people. They’re not people who necessarily want freedom. Some do, of course. But many are drawn to the massive welfare benefits, free medical care, and free schooling.
Past migrants may have been dirt poor and ignorant, but they had to make their own way. The State didn’t subsidize them; it gave them absolutely nothing. But that’s not the case today. The character of America has changed, and so have the kind of people who want to migrate here. They don’t want to accept American values. They want to maintain their Somali, Afghan, or Haitian values. Most won’t become Americans; they’ll become United Statesers. America, a republic sharing a common culture, is being washed away and replaced by the US, a multicultural domestic empire.
America used to be totally unique, but now the US is just another nation-state like all the others. Of course, change is a constant in all areas of life. But I’ll miss the America of the before times because it was a refuge for things like free thought, free speech, free markets, and entrepreneurialism. Oh well, nothing lasts forever, and America had a pretty good run.
With that said, the main danger to you is your own government, particularly the US government headquartered in Washington DC, and to a lesser degree, state and local governments. Like other United Statesers, you’re not personally endangered by Iranians, the Chinese, or Russians—they’re on the other side of the world. You are, however, directly threatened by the US government and by other US citizens. They widely, indeed overwhelmingly, now accept socialist and welfare-state principles. Your fellow United Statesers don’t mind turning you into a serf. You’re largely on your own when it comes to trouble.
So at this point, it’s incumbent upon those of us who believe in American principles to find their countrymen wherever they are—not just in this geographical area, not just within the bailiwick of the US government. It’s part of a global trend, actually. It’s happening all over the world in different ways.
Why is the Erie paper “your turn” section continually populated by crap like this written by people hundreds or thousands of mile away?
If you want to learn about other peoples, cultures and historical foreign texts, knowing the language is essential. Do have foreign friends, colleagues or just want to learn? Having to find a toilet in Paris by reading a phrase from a translate app to a foreign national impresses no one.
Americans EXPECT foreign travelers to know English. Language study may be mandatory, but not having it available is unacceptable.
Jenna A. Robinson Guest columnist University students of yesteryear read the classics. Aristotle, Euclid, Homer and Plato were part of the regular course of study. And students read these challenging texts in their original languages — Greek or Latin. The Latin they learned in order to read the classics had many second-order benefits. Half of our English vocabulary comes from Latin words and roots. Science, technology, medicine, theology, philosophy and law use Latin extensively.
To its detriment, the modern university has mostly abandoned this model. Only a few classic works are still required as part of the general education curriculum at most universities. And these days there are plenty of excellent English translations to choose from. Nobody bothers with Latin anymore, let alone Greek.
Instead, there is a generic foreign language requirement: a sad vestige of this old system. Students typically must take (or test out of) three semesters of any foreign language they choose. And no one cares whether it is wholly disconnected from the rest of the general education curriculum or a student’s chosen major. Why bother?
Conventional wisdom claims there are great benefits to learning a foreign language. It can help with memory as well as a student’s understanding of English grammar and vocabulary. It can enhance students’ ability to multitask. And it can improve student performance in other subjects.
But it isn’t clear whether these benefits are truly lasting. A recent meta-analysis of bilingual education, appearing in Psychological Bulletin, concluded that ‘available evidence does not provide systematic support for the widely held notion that bilingualism is associated with benefits in cognitive control functions in adults.’
But even if there are great benefits of bilingualism or from the lifetime study of Latin that was once common, they have little to do with current campus practice.
Today’s three-semester requirement is not a serious effort to encourage bilingualism. The first three courses in any foreign language are necessarily very elementary. In them, students will work on basic vocabulary, regular verbs and simple sentences. Almost everything will be in the present tense. And that’s only if students are studying a language that uses the Latin alphabet. Three semesters of Mandarin Chinese, or any other language with a foreign alphabet, is barely scratching the surface.
And in a world of Google Translate and Duolingo, the practical advantages of learning a little bit of conversational French or Spanish in college aren’t what they used to be.
Anyone who wants to learn basic travel expressions and phrases to help them navigate a continental vacation can easily do so in a few weeks on the internet.
Given this low return on foreign language courses, it makes more sense to devote the three semesters now taken up by foreign language to other subjects.
The list of candidates is long.
Many students enter college woefully ignorant. They have not read the Great Books. They don’t recognize or understand the American system of government. They are unfamiliar with the scientific method. They don’t have the habits of mind that engender lifelong learning. And employers report that recent college graduates are often deficient in oral and written communications skills — in English!
Any courses that contributed to a common, basic level of cultural literacy would be more valuable than third-semester German. And courses that add to job skills — such as statistics, logic or public speaking — would help students far more than most foreign languages.
The goal of general education requirements should be to create a broad foundation of knowledge and understanding that acquaints students with ‘the best that has been written and said’ and prepares them for further study. While desirable, the skills conferred in foreign language courses aren’t essential for understanding what makes us all human, for liberating the mind, or for making meaning of the world. Nor are they good preparation, in most cases, for students’ majors.
Universities must prioritize which courses students should take — and foreign language doesn’t make the cut.
Jenna A. Robinson is president of the right-leaning James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in Raleigh, N.C.
To get America back on the right track, what we need is a moral awakening, one that entails the operation of conscience. If that day were to come, there is no doubt that the American people would cast the CIA into the dustbin of history, where all evil agencies belong.
REMINDER: Tonight, 7 p.m. Eastern Time, via Zoom: Tufts University professor of law Michael Glennon‘s presentation as part of our ongoing conference series on restoring civil liberties in America. To receive a zoom link, register at our conference web page. Registration fee: FREE.
****
One of the worst consequences of converting the federal government to a national-security state has been the stultification or warping of the consciences of the American people. With unwavering allegiance to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, all too many Americans have sacrificed their sense of right and wrong at the altar of “national security,” the two-word term that has become the most important term in the political lexicon of the American people.
The best example of this phenomenon is the CIA’s power of assassination. Most Americans have come to passively accept this power, with nary a thought as to the victims against whom it is carried out and under what what circumstances it is carried out.
Consider recent revelations that the CIA was planning to assassinate Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, for disclosing dark-side secrets of the U.S. deep state to to the world.
That’s why U.S. officials have pursued him with a vengeance — not because he lied about the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s dark-side activities but rather because he disclosed the truth about them.
That’s why they were seeking to murder him — to silence him, to punish him, and to send a message to other potential disclosers of dark-side secrets of the national-security establishment.
But anyone with a conscience that is operating would easily see that assassinating Assange would be just plain murder. And at the risk of belaboring the obvious, the murder of an innocent person is just plain evil.
Yet, the reaction to all this from the mainstream press has been one great big collective yawn. No big deal. It’s just another state-sponsored assassination intended to protect “national security.” If U.S. national-security state officials have decided that Assange needs to be taken out, then that’s just the way it is. That’s why we have a CIA, after all. We have to defer to its judgment, even if it means sacrificing our consciences in the process. After all, that’s its job — to protect “national security.”
By the way, there is virtually no doubt that if they could get away with assassinating Edward Snowden for disclosing the truth about NSA dark-side activity, they would murder him too. The probable reason they haven’t assassinated Snowden is because they haven’t figured out a way to get the assassins out of Russia.
When the federal government was converted to a national-security state after World War II, the American people made an implicit bargain with the devil. The bargain empowered the national-security establishment to engage in dark-side activity, including assassination. But another part of the bargain was that officials would keep their dark-side activity secret from the American people so that people wouldn’t have to deal with their consciences over a governmental entity that was assassinating people.
Assange’s and Snowden’s great “crime” was in violating that pact. By bringing dark-side activity to the attention of the American people, they ran the risk that people’s consciences might start operating.
So far, there appears to be no risk of that happening. Consider, for example, the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani. That was just plain murder. Iran and the United States are not at war with each other. Sure, we are told that Iran is a “rival,” an “enemy,” an “opponent,” or an “adversary,” but does that morally entitle U.S. officials to murder Iranian officials? It does not, just as it doesn’t entitle Iranian officials to murder U.S. officials.
Again, however, the reaction among the mainstream press to the assassination of Suleimani was one great big collective yawn. Revealingly, there was also no moral outrage expressed among church ministers across America. If the Pentagon and the CIA deemed it necessary to assassinate Suleiman, that’s all we need to know.
To get America back on the right track, what we need is a moral awakening, one that entails the operation of conscience. If that day were to come, there is no doubt that the American people would cast the CIA into the dustbin of history, where all evil agencies belong.
Propaganda is the foundation of all our problems, and the us vs them dynamic is the foundation of propaganda. If humans can awaken in a visceral, experiential way to the reality that all is one we can inoculate ourselves against propaganda and begin moving toward health together.
“To protect Taiwan we must be prepared to go to war with China.”
~ Imperialists who just lost a war to the Taliban
❖
I’m genuinely disturbed at how many people would be willing to fight a world war over Taiwan’s governmental preferences. The power and effectiveness of the imperial propaganda machine never ceases to amaze me.
❖
The astonishing amount of pushback I’m getting for my very sane and normal “Let’s not fight World War Three over Taiwan” position makes it abundantly clear that many people don’t truly understand that starting a war means you have to actually send actual human beings to go fight that war.
The correct response to someone who supports going to war if China attacks Taiwan is “Are you enlisted?”
The correct response when they inevitably answer “no” is “Then shut the fuck up.”
❖
People who are fine with the idea of increasing aggressions between nuclear-armed nations simply haven’t thought hard enough about what nuclear war is and haven’t learned enough about the many different ways it could occur. It’s a comfort held in place by compartmentalization.
❖
The decision to go to war with China would be the single most important and consequential decision ever made in human history. You’d have to weigh it against millions to billions of deaths. Defending Taiwan’s preference of government clearly wouldn’t weigh enough to justify that cost.
The empire’s greatest weapon is not its military but its propaganda machine. There’s simply never been anything like the global narrative control provided by the western news media, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. The military fights wars, the propaganda machine wins them long before they start.
A lucid and well-informed examination of the world’s problems will keep bringing you back to this one fundamental issue: that Earth’s inhabitants are being psychologically manipulated at mass scale into organizing themselves in ways that serve the powerful instead of the people.
❖
Congratulations to those who were awarded the same highly esteemed Peace Prize as Barack Obama and Henry Kissinger.
It’s very cute how we all think that everyone else is gullible except for us. Even assuming that is true is already very gullible.
❖
Humans are not inherently fucked up, we’re just traumatized and manipulated by an abusive system into doing fucked up things. Very few of the ugly behaviors we see in people would exist if we had conscious and compassionate systems in place for organizing ourselves in this world.
Everyone gets that it’s wrong to blame an entire group on the misdeeds of a few of its members, but few people seem to apply that same logic to humanity as a whole. All our systems are dominated by the worst among us, simply because they’re sociopathic enough to climb to the top.
Really it just boils down to the fact that the majority don’t understand how sociopaths’ minds work or how to counter them, and that the trauma of preceding generations keeps giving rise to sociopaths. I think the initial trauma stretches back to our evolutionary ancestors who literally spent their lives running from giant monsters who were trying to eat them. Our nervous systems still operate that way today, even though those monsters are long gone.
If we could just catch a break for one or two generations to heal that trauma, I think we’d be fine. But we keep passing our trauma on to new generations because the worst among us keep thwarting everyone’s attempts to set up conscious systems.
❖
To compensate for the fact that it won’t ever give the left any economic concessions the empire has been loudly amplifying some concessions on racial and sexual justice, so now even though nothing really changed you still get rightists saying politics moved “too far to the left”. This gives the propagandists a couple of different tools: it keeps discourse tied up on issues that will never hurt the agendas of any plutocrat or warmonger, and feeds into the culture war dynamics which facilitate us-vs-them propaganda tactics.
Propaganda is the foundation of all our problems, and the us vs them dynamic is the foundation of propaganda. If humans can awaken in a visceral, experiential way to the reality that all is one we can inoculate ourselves against propaganda and begin moving toward health together.
__________________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Europe’s energy crisis and Russia’s readiness to alleviate vividly demonstrates a fundamental win-win partnership. That reality has become so obvious that objections to the relationship look increasingly irrational and ridiculous from their congenital Russophobia.
Russophobia and geopolitical cynicism know no bounds among certain Western politicians and media commentators. Thankfully, however, such a negative mindset is increasingly exposed for its ridiculous irrationality.
This week as Europe’s energy crisis broke new records in terms of soaring consumer prices, Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in with a promise to increase exports of natural gas. The news had an immediate calming effect on Europe’s energy markets which saw prices whipsawing to lower levels.
Rather than simply greeting the development as a positive move, there were predictably sinister comments from some quarters. Russia was accused in Western media of “holding Europe hostage” over the continent’s energy crisis and using its vast supply of natural gas as a “geopolitical weapon”.
Jake Sullivan, the United States national security advisor to President Biden, told the BBC that Moscow was “exploiting” Europe’s energy crunch.
This is an overwrought, convoluted way of interpreting what is normal economic interplay of supply and demand. But the irrationality betrays an obdurate mindset of Russophobia that is untenable. If politicians and experts are so possessed of such foolish bigotry then their assessments on the subject and much else besides are hopelessly unreliable.
Europe’s current energy crisis and market turmoil have nothing to do with Russia as a primary factor. The pent-up demand after a year of economic quiescence due to the coronavirus pandemic, the low storage of natural gas by European countries due to government policies, the switch to renewable energy sources not being able to meet demand, and the approach of winter – have all compounded the overall supply of gas. This has, in turn, caused benchmark prices for the fuel and other forms of energy to skyrocket. Gas prices are up more than five-fold. What has that got to do with Russia? Nothing, at least in causality.
Russia is historically Europe’s biggest supplier of natural gas. It accounts for about 40 percent of the continent’s consumption. As President Putin pointed out this week, Russia’s state-owned Gazprom has met all its contractual deliveries of natural gas to Europe.
The allegation from some quarters that Russia is withholding gas supplies to Europe in order to exert political pressure on Europe is a baseless lie that stems from anti-Russia prejudice and propaganda.
The fact is Europe is faced with an energy crisis – partly of its own making – and Russia is able to alleviate it by increasing its already substantial supply of natural gas. What is there to complicate about a straightforward economic relation?
This week saw a technical step being completed for the opening of the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany and the rest of Europe. The new pipeline will greatly expand the existing flow of Russia gas to the European Union. German regulatory authorities are reviewing the new supply route and it may take a few months for delivery to become operational. The ball is in the EU’s court. If Europe wants more Russian gas that is its prerogative. How is that supposed to be Russia holding someone hostage? The slander is not only insulting, it is moronic.
Russia has proven to be a reliable supplier of energy to the rest of Europe over several decades, including during the former Cold War period when Western ideologues demonised the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”. Russia presently is ready to meet increased demand with a new supply route under the Baltic Sea while also honouring existing contracts for overland transit. The notion that Ukraine will lose out on transit fees is groundless as Moscow has repeatedly stated it will honour existing contracts with Ukraine up to 2024. Russia is not obligated to keep paying transit fees indefinitely if logistically more efficient supply routes are innovated. That is a reasonable exercise of Russia’s or any nation’s sovereign right.
The main obstacle to improving efficiency in energy trade between Russia and Europe is the negative political attitude of certain European politicians and successive American governments. Washington and its European surrogates have been playing anachronistic Cold War politics with a matter of vital interest for the whole of Europe. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline should have been completed over a year ago but was not only because of U.S. sanctions and the negative attitude of eastern European states. The irony is that the detrimental impact of Europe’s energy crisis on households and industries is attributable to the irrational objection by Washington and certain anti-Russian European states towards Russia as a natural strategic partner with Europe. Yet these culprits persist in their perversely pejorative mindset towards Russia, accusing the latter of wielding energy trade like a geopolitical weapon.
It is the United States that is cynically using Europe’s energy market as a geopolitical weapon with a view to selling its own expensive and environmentally dirty liquified natural gas. There is also a bigger ideological aspect to all this skulduggery. If Russia and Europe were permitted to develop their naturally mutual partnership in energy trade the consequence would undermine the contrived propaganda construct of Russia as a “threat” to European security. That construct is vital to maintain for the purpose of promoting the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and lucrative American weapons sales to Europe. It is also vital for Washington’s hegemonic influence over European allies by polarising relations with Russia.
Europe’s energy crisis and Russia’s readiness to alleviate vividly demonstrates a fundamental win-win partnership. That reality has become so obvious that objections to the relationship look increasingly irrational and ridiculous from their congenital Russophobia.
Weather just affects Southwest Airlines – must be climate change, better talk to Greta.
US troops defending freedom
Southwest Airlines is facing hundreds more cancellations – the fourth straight day. Rumors suggest more carriers may follow Southwest pilots’ lead. Hundreds of thousands of US troops are defying Biden’s mandate. Biden’s poll numbers are historically low. Has the imperial presidency experienced imperial over-reach? Is the tide turning?
“A 2020 study by the National Academy of Sciences, also commissioned by the Trump administration, said directed microwave energy was most likely causing the health incidents, but more research was necessary for a conclusion.”
USA Today – Trying to make government double-talk seem like something, and failing, is not a good look. Governments have been microwaving each other for decades. Chances are our state department has their antennas pointed backwards. Is there anything John Bolton HASN’T blamed on Russia?
Michael Wilner McClatchy Washington Bureau TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON – National security officials at the White House were recently issued a warning: move away from the immediate area as soon as possible if you ever feel the acute onset of pressure, sound or heat in the head.
Policy staff at the Pentagon have been instructed to report any strange, sudden health symptoms without delay.
The U.S. government is sending a message to diplomats, national security staff and intelligence officers that ‘anomalous health incidents’ – also known as ‘Havana syndrome’ because it was first detected in Cuba – are serious, widespread and pose real danger to their health at home and abroad.
The new workplace guidance is part of a broader strategy by the Biden administration to act with greater speed, after finding that quicker action benefits the health of the victim and the investigation of the incident.
It is a shift in the U.S. response after years of skepticism in some corners of government about whether the strange health incidents are real and connected.
‘We need to believe our personnel who are coming forward,’ a senior administration official said. ‘People are facing real symptoms. We are very conscious that people are experiencing something very real, and it is having a real negative effect on their health. And we’re seeing better health outcomes the sooner we can respond to that.’
The official disputed that the syndrome may have been ‘mass hysteria,’ saying, ‘The physical effects we’ve seen in several cases are very, very real.’
The administration’s firm rejection that mass hysteria could explain the phenomenon comes as the theory has resurfaced in recent days, after a 2018 scientific report commissioned by the State Department was declassified and obtained by BuzzFeed.
And the new government guidance comes amid continued criticism from victims, lawmakers and diplomats that the State Department response, in particular, has been slow throughout the first nine months of the Biden administration.
In late September, a top State Department official overseeing its response to the phenomenon – who refused to rule out the possibility that mass hysteria was to blame in a conversation with victims – left her post amid internal disagreements with other Biden appointees, two officials told McClatchy.
While some cases after review do turn out to be unrelated to ‘Havana syndrome,’ there are enough convincing cases to establish a clear pattern, officials say.
Recent guidance to intelligence officers, military personnel and national security officials at the White House directs them to leave their immediate location with everyone around them as soon as they can if they feel symptoms.
U.S. officials have reported experiencing symptoms in Vietnam, Austria, Britain, Cuba and China, as well as the Washington area.
‘This administration believes that those affected by anomalous health incidents are to be believed, heard, and respected,’ a second senior administration official said. ‘We take each report we receive of an anomalous health incident extremely seriously, and we are bringing the U.S. government’s full resources to bear to determine the cause of these incidents and identify any foreign actor involved.’
Questions under Trump Top officials in the administration of former President Donald Trump were divided over whether the phenomenon was real.
The 2018 scientific report commissioned by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo found that a cluster of cases involving more than 20 personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba in 2016 was likely a ‘psychogenic’ incident – a psychological, rather than physical, phenomenon. A spokesperson for Pompeo did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. officials now say the scientists behind that study had limited access to victims and evidence, and that new information has emerged since then. A 2020 study by the National Academy of Sciences, also commissioned by the Trump administration, said directed microwave energy was most likely causing the health incidents, but more research was necessary for a conclusion.
Those in the Trump administration who believed the phenomenon was real suspected Russia was the culprit. But they were left with the impression that Trump did not want to hear about it.
‘He was aware of it, but because of the whole problem with Russian collusion, until we had something more definite or actionable, I and others thought it would be counterproductive to keep raising it with him,’ John Bolton, national security adviser under Trump from 2018 to 2019, said in an interview.
Victims previously complained they were receiving insufficient care or were not being taken seriously. The Biden administration’s response has been to standardize the reporting process and encourage self-reporting as early as possible.
The National Security Council established two panels of experts this spring to investigate the mechanism behind the events, and how to protect U.S. personnel going forward.
‘First and foremost, they want to be believed, and they want agencies that they work for to take care of them – make sure they get treated, make sure that they get the benefit of the best medical advice right away,’ House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told McClatchy.
Schiff co-authored the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks Act of 2021, or the HAVANA Act, which passed Congress last month and Biden plans to sign into law. It would subsidize care for victims and require the administration to report to Congress on the episodes.
Talk of consequences Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to Biden, and CIA Director Bill Burns have visited victims at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and have both lent urgency to the government review.
The issue was raised during Biden’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland in June.
Throughout the Trump administration and at the beginning of Biden’s term, officials suspected the health incidents could have been the byproduct of an intelligence collection operation – that a device meant to pick up data from an individual’s cellphone was inadvertently causing harm.
But government sources say the circumstances around recent cases suggest a greater strategic purpose.
‘Maybe there’s more evidence on it now,’ Bolton said. ‘It was more of a concern if they are targeting individuals directly, and they can do it at our embassies and consulates around the world. They can do it in peoples’ homes in Washington. They can do it a couple blocks from the White House.’
In 2016, the U.S. Embassy in Cuba was shut down amid a wave of mysterious medical symptoms.Emily Michot/Miami Herald/TNS
Andrew Wiggins of The Golden State Warriors was forced to make a decision that no one should ever be forced to make. He did not want the vaccine, but was cornered into taking. He’s understandably concerned about what the shot may do to his body in the future.
Contrary to the popular way of thinking, the value of a paper dollar originates in its link to gold—and not government decree or social convention. Following Ludwig von Mises’s regression theorem, money must have originated as a commodity. Furthermore, the fact that an entity has established a purchasing power with respect to various goods and services does not automatically qualify it as money, i.e., as the general medium of exchange. For the entity to become money, it must have wide acceptance.
Why does the dollar bill in our pockets have value? According to some commentators, money has value because the government in power says so. For other commentators the value of money is on account of social convention. What this implies is that money has value because it is accepted, and why is it accepted? … because it is accepted! Obviously, this is not a good explanation of why money has value.1
The difference between Money and Other Goods
Now, demand for a good arises from its perceived benefit. For instance, people demand food because of the nourishment it offers them once consumed. This is not so with respect to money. According to Murray N. Rothbard,
Money, per se, cannot be consumed and cannot be used directly as a producers’ good in the productive process. Money per se is therefore unproductive; it is dead stock and produces nothing.2
Why, then, is there demand for money? Why do individuals desire to have something which cannot be consumed and produces nothing? To provide an answer to this one must go back in time to establish how money emerged.
In trying to improve their lives and well-being, individuals discovered that by replacing direct exchange, where individuals exchange one good for another good, with indirect exchange they could enhance the marketability of their produce. The introduction of indirect exchange means that the produce of an individual is exchanged for some more marketable good and then this good is exchanged for the produce of another individual.
The key to a good’s emergence as a mediator of indirect exchange is that it must be widely accepted. On this, Ludwig von Mises observed that, over time,
there would be an inevitable tendency for the less marketable of the series of goods used as media of exchange to be one by one rejected until at last only a single commodity remained, which was universally employed as a medium of exchange; in a word, money.3
Frank Shostak‘s consulting firm, Applied Austrian School Economics, provides in-depth assessments of financial markets and global economies. Contact: email.
