The Root of All Evil

Money is indispensable to civilization. Individuals or families living in isolation don’t need money; what would they buy? But put people together in cities, to enjoy the benefits of the division of labor, and they need some sort of common bartering agent. That is the role of money. Without it, civilization is impossible. When money is withdrawn from society slowly, and replaced with fiat, or imaginary money, society sickens. The process is gradual, like the heating of the water in the pot containing the frog, but sooner or later, the situation becomes unbearable. If there are no standards for money, other standards will fade away as well. Money circulates through the body politic; if it goes bad, that body deteriorates.

So look about once again. What you see is the collapse of a society built upon a bubble of deceit and dishonesty, a society which has been trying to borrow itself into prosperity. It’s happened before, many times. A fiat "money" eventually reaches its intrinsic value.

The culture of today is not at all the way I remember it when I was growing up in the so long ago fifties. To what do we attribute the change? Time marches on and events happen which change the course of civilization. Some events are beyond man's power to control - hurricanes, floods, tornadoes - but we quickly recover from those. Others - wars, assassinations, political upheavals - are man-made and are much more debilitating. The long, pernicious ascension of governmental intrusion into our daily lives has been the most devastating event of the last 100 years. It is continuing and expanding and only a few are calling for a cessation.