아 정말 좌절이 됩니다. 좌파여권의 유력한 대권주자란 분의 경제인식이 이 정도였단 말입니까? 이건 뭐, 문재인 대통령은 경제를 잘 몰라서 그런다 치고 이분은 마치 자신이 굉장한 경제전문가인 양 하시더니 어이가 없네요. 얼마 전 청년들의 분노를 산 발언도 그랬지만…경제에 대한 시각도 참 시대의 변화를 읽지 못하는 '노회한 꼰대'이자 '한물간 사회주의자'로 보입니다. 도대체 요즘 기득권 세력이 누구라고 생각합니까? 가장 큰 기득권세력은 권력과 결탁해 국민혈세 낭비하거나 담합이익 추구하는 비대한 공공부문, 민노총 같은 집단 아닙니까? 오히려 '문재인의 소득주도성장론, 좌파기득권 이념동맹의 나라경제 망치기'라고 인식하는 게 맞습니다.
우선 말입니다. 이분 도대체 경제현장에 가보기나 하고 이런 발언 하시는 겁니까? 자영업자나 중소기업 전부 문닫는다 아우성이고 지방 산단들 공장가동률 60-70프로 겨우 되는 수준에 요즘에는 대기업마저 조선, 자동차, 철강 등 주력산업이 중국 등의 추격과 산업전환의 실패 등 역대 최고의 위기를 맞고 있습니다. 길거리 식당 술집 등 나가보란 말입니다. 갈수록 손님 없어 휑한 식당을 지키고 있는 사장님…종업원 없이 혼자서 혹은 가족끼리 빠듯하게 일하는 가게들 보면서도 과연 그런 말이 나옵니까? 게다가 객관적 지표로 보더라도 일자리는 외환위기 이후 최악, 반도체 착시효과를 제하면 수출지표도 좋지 않고, 건설투자, 설비투자 감소, 해외 자본이전 등 매우 안좋습니다. 경제는 현실입니다. 제아무리 뭐라 하더라도 실물경제 상황과 객관적 지표 자체가 나쁜데도 경제위기론이 과장되었다고 말합니까? 경제는 좋은 의도보다 좋은 결과가 중요합니다.
더구나 저소득층의 삶을 개선시키려는 시도가 좌절되어선 안된다는데요, 현재 문재인 정부의 소득주도 성장론 같은 경제정책이 저소득층의 삶을 개선시키는 게 아니라 되려 더 어렵게 만든다는 걸 정말 모르고 있습니까?
또한, “(보수언론 등은) 시장소득의 불균형을 바로잡아 국민 경제의 건강성을 회복하려는 정책을 좌파 정책으로 몰고 있다"는데 시장소득이야말로 시장의 자원배분 결과인데 어떻게 정부가 바로잡을 수 있다고 생각합니까? 이거야말로 사회주의 통제경제이고 좌파정책이 맞잖아요? 정부가 시장에 직접 개입해서 시장소득을 바로잡자는 게 좌파정책이 아니면 우파정책이란 말입니까?
이렇게 유시민은 실제로는 사회주의 좌파정책을 옹호하면서 그게 좌파가 아니라고 강변하는 걸 보면 문재인 대통령보다 더 중증인 듯 보입니다. (발췌)
---->유시민 “만성적인 불황의 주요 원인 중 하나는 내수 부진이고, 중산층이 빈약하기 때문"
이미 오래 전부터 케인즈를 비롯한 엉터리 경제학자들이 내세운 불황의 이유, 불황의 진짜 이유는 수요가 부진해서가 아니라, 생산을 하는 공장이 좌파 정책 때문에 모두 외국으로 도망가고, 창의적인 기업가들이 규제로 인해 활동을 제한 받기 때문이다.
따라서 경제를 활성화 시키려면 돈을 풀어 내수를 끌어올릴 생각을 하지 말고, 자유주의 정책으로 해외로 나간 기업들이 다시 돌아오고, 기업가들이 활약하게 해야 한다.
또 정부가 세금으로 민간의 자본을 빼앗아가지 않으면, 그것이 기업가들에 의해 투자가 되어 고용을 증가시킨다. 따라서 감세가 필요하다.
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이젠 자유우파도 혁명가가 돼야 한다.
신재민아, 그 주변의 신재민 선후배야, 고려대 출신들아. 우리 이제는 분명하게 인식하고 선언하자. 지금 정권을 잡고서 사법부를 먹고 언론계를 먹고 국가 공권력을 도구화하고 검찰을 부리고 경찰을 써먹는 자칭 ’진보‘ 세력은 근대문명 속의 민주적 진보가 아니라 적나라한 반(反) 근대적 극좌 전체주의-권위주의(left authoritarianism) 독재세력이라는 사실을.
자 그래서 이제 더 이상 두고 볼 수가 되었다. 이제는 내전(內戰)임을 선포하자. 아니 저들이 이미 포고한 내전이다. 그렇다 지금은 내전이다. 저들은 법을 장악했다. 합법적 절차를 가장한 혁명이 진행되고 있다,
자유민주 진영도 아제는 혁명을 합법화해야 한다. 저들이 촛불혁명을 합법화했음으로 우리도 얼마든지 혁명을 합법화할 권리가 있다. 그렇다, 우리의 액션은 이제는 혁명이다. 그리고 이것은 합법적이다, 촛불혁명이 합법적이었는데 어떻게 자유민주주의 회복 혁명운동이 합법이지 아닐 수 있겠는가
그렇다 이제는 혁명이다. 자유민주 대한민국, 법치주의 대한민국, 한-미 동맹 대한민국, 개인의 존엄 대한민국, 인권개화 대한민국, 시장경제-세계개방 대한민국을, 주사파 전체주의 폭력혁명에서 구출하는 위대한 자유혁명의 결전장으로 다 같이 나아가자. 광화문을 점령하고 서을 광장을 점령하자!! 죽으려 하는 자는 살 것이요, 살려고 하는 자는 죽을 것이다.
Viva Revolution ! 혁명 만세!
Patrio o Muerte ? 조국이냐 죽음이냐 !
이젠 자유우파도 혁명가가 돼야 한다. 그러지 않고선 살 길이 없다. (발췌)
류근일 2019/15
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뉴스해설] 초등학생이 부르는 애국가 이게 민심 아닌가요? 우종창
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조던 피터슨이 뽑은 최악의 문장 중의 하나.
좌파라는 사람들 중에는 저렇게 자기도 모르는 문장을 쓰고 이해한다고 믿는 인간들이 꽤 많다. 그들은 자기가 정확히 무엇을 말하는지 모르면서 지껄이는데, 아마도 진실을 회피하기 위한 하나의 방법이 아닌가 생각된다.
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소머스도 주디스 버틀러가 쓴 위의 문장을 최악의 문장으로 추천했다.
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멍청한 사람들의 트위터 접근을 차단한 효과
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심리학자들이 발견한 것 중에, 옳으면서도 동시에 고대인이나 중고차 딜러, 마술사, 사기꾼들이 알지 못했던 사실들이 있었나?
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Somewhere My Love - Andy Williams
민주적 합의가 실패할 때는 어떻게 할 것인가?
우리는 민주제에 의해 모든 문제를 해결할 수 있다고 배웠지만, 현실에서는 항상 그렇지 않다. 코셔 고기와 할례, 낙태와 무슬림의 머리쓰개 등은 합법이거나 불법이다.
이 두 가지 입장 사이에는 평화적 토론으로 갈등을 해결할 수 없다.
미제스는 위와 같은 문제에 대해 분리secession와 분권화decentralization를 대안으로 제시한다.
한 국가 안의 도시와 마을 등이 분권화를 통해 스스로의 자치 정부를 세우고, 호의적인 기타 자치정부와 연합하는 것이다.
예를 들면, 미국은 로우 대 웨이드 판결이 있기 전에, 낙태법을 지역 수준에서 결정하도록 하고, 연방정부의 손이 닿지 않도록 했다.
When Democratic Compromise Fails: Kosher Slaughter Outlawed in Belgium
Ryan McMaken
On January 1 this year, a new law in the Flemish region of Belgium went into effect, effectively banning kosher slaughter of animals "after regional parliaments introduced prohibitions for animals that have not been pre-stunned."1
According to The Jewish Chronicle:
Shechita is banned in Flanders as of January 1, while similar restrictions will be in place in the French-speaking Walloon region from September 2019.
Local rabbis said it was in direct contradiction to Jewish law, which requires that an animal be uninjured and in optimal health before slaughter.
One added that the Belgian measures were putting Jewish lives “at risk.”
The motivation behind the new laws comes in part from concerns over animal welfare. Thus, Belgian lawmakers had to choose between religious freedom for Jews and animal welfare. They chose the animals.
Clearly, there is a fundamental conflict of values here between those motivated by animal welfare, and those motivated by religious freedom.
We see similar conflicts between advocates for religious freedom and those who oppose male circumcision, and between the two sides in the abortion debate. We see it in debates over bans on Muslim head coverings. In democratic political systems — including those with strong constitutional protections for minorities — the majority opinion eventually wins out. Constitutions can be changed, and what the majority considers to be "right" will eventually become the position of all institutions.
Moreover, in cases like kosher slaughter, the activities being targeted are no mere preferences. They touch on fundamental values, and they present a clear conflict with other value systems. In cases such as these, where there is no apparent room for compromise. And if there is no "middle ground," whose values ought to prevail?
Democracy Doesn't Always Work
Throughout most of the West, of course, we're all taught from an early age that "democracy" will allow everything to work itself out. The parties in conflict will enter into "dialogue," will arrive at a "compromise" and then everyone will be happy and at peace in the end.
But, that's not how it works in real life. While there are some areas for compromise that can be found around the edges of issues such as moral values and ethnic identity, the fact is that in the end, kosher meats are either legal or they're not. Circumcision is either legal or it's not. Abortion is either legal or it's not. Muslim head coverings are either legal or they're not.
After all, if one group of people believes that a 3-month-old fetus is a parasite that has trespassed against the mother, those people are going to find little room for compromise with a group of people who think the same fetus is a person deserving legal protection.
Indeed, we see the shortcomings of democracy at work every time this latter issue comes up. One side calls the other killers who are complicit in the killing of babies. The other side calls their opponents rubes and barbarians, probably motivated by little more than crazed misogyny. Similar dynamics, of course, are present in cases involving animal rights, circumcision, and headscarves. One side thinks that their side is the only acceptable option for virtuous people. "Virtue," of course, can be defined any number of ways. Some are so blinded by their cultural biases, in fact, that they even conclude that no "civilized" person could possibly believe that, say, circumcision is anything other than a barbaric practice. Those who continue to believe in such things must therefore be forced "into the 21st century" by the coercive power of the state. Their religious beliefs, as Hillary Clinton demanded in 2015, "have to be changed."
These problems also exist under authoritarian, non-democratic regimes. But anti-democrats usually admit that the state is using force to support one side over the other. Democrats, on the other hand, often prefer to indulge in comforting fictions. What many supporters of democracy refuse to admit is that there is no peaceful debate that will solve this conflict. The conflict is philosophical and moral in nature. And, so long as both sides are forced to live under a single legal system, any "compromise" will take the shape of one side imposing its position on the other by force. In the end, the losing side will be taxed to support the regime that disregards its views and forces compliance with laws made by the winning side.
Those on the winning side, of course, don't see any problem here. What the minority thinks of as "oppression" is really — according to the winners — just "modernization," "progress," "decency," "common sense," or simply "the will of the majority." The fact that the enforcement of that will of the majority is founded on state violence is of little concern.
The Solution: Secession and Decentralization
Ludwig von Mises, who was himself a democrat, offered a solution to the problem of democratic majorities: self-determination through secession and decentralization.
For Mises, populations must not be forced perpetually into states where they will never be able to exercise self-determination due to the presence of a more powerful majority. On a practical level then, populations in regions, cities, and villages within existing states must be free to form their own states, join other states with friendlier majorities, or at least exercise greater self-government via decentralization.
Moreover, in order to accommodate the realities of constantly-changing populations, demographics, and cultures, borders and boundaries must change over time in order to minimize the number of people as members of minority populations with little to no say in national governments controlled by hostile majorities.
In Mises's vision, there is no perfect solution. There will always be some minority groups that are at odds with the ruling majority. But, by making states smaller, more numerous, and more diverse, communities and individuals stand a better chance of finding a state in which their values match up with the majority. Large unitary states, however, offer exactly the opposite: less choice, less diversity, and fewer changes to exercise self-determination.
The Option of Decentralized Confederations
Nor do all political jurisdictions need to be totally independent states. Mises himself advocated for the use of confederation as a solution to problems of cultural and linguistic minorities. Confederations might be formed for purposes of national defense and diplomacy, Mises noted. But in any country with a diverse population, in order to maintain internal peace, self-government of domestic affairs must be kept localized and so as to minimize the ability of a majority group to dominate a minority group.
Mises didn't invent this idea, of course. This sort of confederation was justified on similar grounds by the founders of the Swiss Confederation and the United States. Moreover, while not planned out ahead of time, the government of Austria-Hungary was by necessity decentralized to minimize internal conflict. In cases such as these, matters of language, religion, education, and even economic policy must be handled by the local majority, independent of any nationwide majorities. Or else democracy becomes little more than a tool for the winning coalition to bludgeon the losing coalition.
For decades, this worked at various times in the United States. On the matter of abortion, for instance, Americans agreed prior to Roe v Wade to allow abortion laws to be determined at a local level and be kept out of the hands of the national government. Public schools — and what was taught in them — were governed almost exclusively by local school boards and state governments. Even immigration policies and linguistic issues were decided by local majorities, and not by national ones. So long as these matters remained local matters they were irrelevant to national politics. Under these conditions, a victory for one party or another at the national level has little impact on the daily practice of one's religion, moral values, or schooling.
As localized democracy turns into mass democracy, however, majorities exercise increasing power over minority groups. Each election becomes a nationwide referendum on how the majority shall use its power to crush those who pose a threat to the prevailing value system. Even worse, when there is one nationwide "law of the land" there is no escape from its effects, save to relocate hundreds of miles away to a foreign land where the emigrant must learn a new language and a new way of life far from friends and family.
Needless to say, as this sort of democratic centralization increases, the stakes become higher and higher. The potential for violence becomes greater, and the disenfranchisement of minority groups becomes ever more palpable.
Mises understood well what the end game to this process is. It's political and social unrest — followed by political repression to "restore" order. War may even follow. For Mises, the need to guarantee localized self-determination was no mere intellectual exercise for political scientists. It was a matter essential to the preservation of peace and freedom. We would do well to take the matter as seriously as he did.
1. The law also bans "halal" slaughter, which is basically the Muslim version of kosher slaughter, and is extremely similar. Not surprisingly, the law's passage was motivated in part by anti-Muslim sentiment in Belgium, although antimale welfare was the most-often used justification for the legislation.
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법정 화폐의 도덕
법정 화폐의 인플레Fiat inflation는 항상 돈의 구매력을 감소시킨다. 그럼으로써 사람들을 절망에 빠뜨리고, 사회적 도덕적 기준을 와해하고 만다.
또 젊은이들은 미래보다는 현재에 살고, 낡은 도덕과 절제를 가르치려는 사람들을 비웃는다.
인플레는 현재의 즉각적인 만족을 조장함으로써 미래 세대의 혜택을 위한 장기적 투자를 가르친 성서적 원칙과 배치된다.
과거 시민들은 현금을 쌓아두는 방식으로 저축했지만, 인플레 시대에는 그렇게 되면 인플레로 인해 돈의 가치가 감소되므로, 그보다는 채권과 증권에 투자를 하게 되고 거기에 많은 시간을 낭비하게 된다. 또 사람들은 임금을 많이 주는 직업을 선택하게 된다.
돈과 금융 문제가 삶에서 두드러진 위치를 차지하고, 사회는 물질주의적으로 변한다. 또 상품의 질은 계속 떨어진다.
복지국가는 막대한 정부 부채에 의해 조달되었는데, 이는 법정 화폐 없이는 상상도 할 수 없는 일이었다. 복지 국가와 정부 부채는 한편으로 가족의 해체에도 일조했다.
가족은 특정한 도덕의 가장 중요한 생산자들이고, 권위의 합법성, 근친상간의 금지 등과 같은 규범 위에 성립된다.
하지만 오늘날 복지국가는 과거에 가족이 제공하던 갖가지 서비스를 제공하면서 가족을 대체하고 있다. 하지만 복지국가는 비효율적이고, 형편없는 서비스를 고가에 제공하고 있다.
법정 화폐는 각종 서비스에 대한 민주적 통제를 파괴해서, 복지국가를 과도하게 확장시킨다. 그리고 그로 인해 주민들의 도덕적, 정신적 성격에 변화를 가져온다. 다시 말해 법정 화폐의 인플레는 사회, 경제, 문화, 정신적 파괴의 주범이다.
The Morality of Fiat Money
Jörg Guido Hülsmann
[Excerpted from chapter 13 of Guido Hülsmann's The Ethics of Money Production (2008).]
8. Some Spiritual Casualties of Fiat Inflation
Fiat inflation constantly reduces the purchasing power of money. To some extent, it is possible for people to protect their savings against this trend, but this requires thorough financial knowledge, the time to constantly supervise one’s investments, and a good dose of luck. People who lack one of these ingredients are likely to lose a substantial part of their assets. The savings of a lifetime often vanish into thin air during the last few years spent in retirement. The consequence is despair and the eradication of moral and social standards. But it would be wrong to infer that inflation produces this effect mainly among the elderly. As one writer observed:
These effects are “especially strong among the youth. They learn to live in the present and scorn those who try to teach them 'old-fashioned' morality and thrift” [emphasis added]. Inflation thereby encourages a mentality of immediate gratification that is plainly at variance with the discipline and eternal perspective required to exercise principles of biblical stewardship — such as long-term investment for the benefit of future generations.8
Even those citizens who are blessed with the knowledge, time, and luck to protect the substance of their savings cannot evade inflation’s harmful impact, because they have to adopt habits that are at odds with moral and spiritual health. Inflation forces them to spend much more time thinking about their money than they otherwise would. We have noticed already that the old way for ordinary citizens to make savings was the accumulation of cash. Under fiat inflation this strategy is suicidal. They must invest in assets the value of which grows during the inflation; the most practical way to do this is to buy stocks and bonds. But this entails many hours spent on comparing and selecting appropriate issues. And it compels them to be ever watchful and concerned about their money for the rest of their lives. They need to follow the financial news and monitor the price quotations on the financial markets.
Similarly, people will tend to prolong the phase of their life in which they strive to earn money. And they will place relatively greater emphasis on monetary returns than on any other criterion for choosing their profession. For example, some of those who would rather be inclined to gardening will nevertheless seek an industrial employment if the latter offers greater long-run monetary returns. And more people will accept employment far from home, if it allows them to earn a little additional money, than under a natural monetary system.
The spiritual dimension of these inflation-induced habits seems obvious. Money and financial questions come to play an exaggerated role in the life of man. Inflation makes society materialistic. More and more people strive for money income at the expense of other things important for personal happiness. Inflation-induced geographical mobility artificially weakens family bonds and patriotic loyalty. Many of those who tend to be greedy, envious, and niggardly anyway fall prey to sin. Even those who are not so inclined by their natures will be exposed to temptations they would not otherwise have felt. And because the vagaries of the financial markets also provide a ready excuse for an excessively parsimonious use of one’s money, donations for charitable institutions decline.
Then there is the fact that perennial inflation tends to deteriorate product quality. Every seller knows that it is difficult to sell the same physical product at higher prices than in previous years. But increasing money prices are unavoidable when the money supply is subject to relentless growth. So what do sellers do? In many cases the rescue comes through technological innovation, which allows a cheaper production of the product, thus neutralizing or even overcompensating the countervailing influence of inflation. This is for example the case with personal computers and other products made with large inputs of information technology. But in other industries, technological progress plays a much smaller role. Here the sellers confront the above-mentioned problem. They then fabricate an inferior product and sell it under the same name, along with the euphemisms that have become customary in commercial marketing. For example, they might offer their customers “light” coffee and “non-spicy” vegetables — which translates into thin coffee and vegetables that have lost any trace of flavor. Similar product deterioration can be observed in the construction business. Countries plagued by perennial inflation seem to have a greater share of houses and streets that are in constant need of repair than other countries.
In such an environment, people develop a more than sloppy attitude toward their language. If everything is whatever it is called, then it is difficult to explain the difference between truth and lie. Inflation tempts people to lie about their products, and perennial inflation encourages the habit of routine lying. We have already pointed out that routine lying plays a great role in fractional-reserve banking, the basic institution of the fiat money system. Fiat inflation seems to spread this habit like a cancer over the rest of the economy.9
9. Suffocating the Flame
In most countries, the growth of the welfare state has been financed through the accumulation of public debt on a scale that would have been unthinkable without fiat inflation. A cursory glance at the historical record shows that the exponential growth of the welfare state, which in Europe started in the early 1970s, went hand in hand with the explosion of public debt. It is widely known that this development has been a major factor in the decline of the family. But it is commonly overlooked that the ultimate cause of this decline is fiat inflation. Perennial inflation slowly but assuredly destroys the family, thus suffocating the earthly flame of morals. Indeed, the family is the most important “producer” of a certain type of morals.
Family life is possible only if all members endorse norms such as the legitimacy of authority, and the prohibition of incest. And Christian families are based on additional precepts such as the heterosexual union between man and woman, love of the spouses for one another and for their offspring, the respect of children for their parents, as well as belief in the reality of the Triune God and of the truth of the Christian faith, etc. Parents constantly repeat, emphasize, and live these norms and precepts. Thus all family members come to accept them as the normal state of affairs. In the wider social sphere, then, these persons act as advocates of the same norms in business associations, clubs, and politics.
Friends and foes of the traditional family agree on these facts. It is among other things because they recognize the family’s effectiveness in establishing social norms that Christians seek to protect it. And it is precisely for the same reason that advocates of moral license seek to undermine it. The welfare state has been their preferred tool in the past thirty years. Today, the welfare state provides a great number of services that in former times have been provided by families (and which would, we may assume, still be provided to a large extent by families if the welfare state ceased to exist). Education of the young, care for the elderly and the sick, assistance in times of emergencies — all of these services are today effectively “outsourced” to the state. The families have been degraded into small production units that share utility bills, cars, refrigerators, and of course the tax bill. The tax-financed welfare state then provides them with education and care.10
From an economic point of view, this arrangement is a pure waste of money. The fact is that the welfare state is inefficient; it provides comparatively lousy services at comparatively high costs. We need not dwell on the inability of government welfare agencies to provide the emotional and spiritual assistance that only springs from charity. Compassion cannot be bought. But the welfare state is also inefficient in purely economic terms. It operates through large bureaucracies and is therefore liable to lack incentives and economic criteria that would prevent wasting money. In the words of Pope John Paul II:
By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need.11
Everyone knows this from first-hand experience, and a great number of scientific studies drive home the same point. It is precisely because the welfare state is an inefficient economic arrangement that it must rely on taxes. If it had to compete with families on equal terms, it could not stay in business for any length of time. It has driven the family and private charities out of the “welfare market” because people are forced to pay for it anyway. They are forced to pay taxes, and they cannot prevent the government from floating ever-new loans, which absorb the capital that otherwise would be used for the production of different goods and services.
The excessive welfare state of our day is an all-out direct attack on the producers of morals. But it weakens these morals also in indirect ways, most notably by subsidizing bad moral examples. The fact is that libertine “lifestyles” carry great economic risks. The welfare state socializes the costs of morally reckless behavior and therefore gives it far greater prominence than it would have in a free society. Rather than carrying an economic penalty, licentiousness might then actually go hand in hand with economic advantages, because it frees the protagonists from the costs of family life (for example, the costs associated with raising children). With the backing of the welfare state, these protagonists may mock conservative morals as some sort of superstition that has no real-life impact. The welfare state systematically exposes people to the temptation of believing that there are no time-tested moral precepts at all.
Let us emphasize that the point of the preceding observations was not to attack welfare services, which are in fact an essential component of society. Neither is it here our intention to attack the notion that welfare services should be provided through government. The point is, rather, that fiat inflation destroys the democratic control over the provision of these services; that this invariably leads to excessive growth of the aggregate welfare system and to excessive forms of welfare; and that this in turn is not without consequences for the moral and spiritual character of the population.
The considerations presented in this chapter are by no means an exhaustive account of the cultural and spiritual legacy of fiat inflation. But they should suffice to substantiate the main point: that fiat inflation is a juggernaut of social, economic, cultural, and spiritual destruction.12 Let us now turn to complement our analysis with a look at the historical evolution of monetary systems.
8. Thomas Woods, “Money and Morality: The Christian Moral Tradition and the Best Monetary Regime,” Religion & Liberty 13, no. 5 (September/October 2003). The author quotes Ludwig von Mises. See also William Gouge, A Short History of Paper Money and Banking in the United States, to which is prefixed an Inquiry into the Principles of the System (Reprint, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, [1833] 1968), pp. 94–101.
9. The relationship between fiat inflation on the one hand, and misperceptions and misrepresentations of reality on the other hand has been brilliantly discussed in Paul Cantor's case study on “Hyperinflation and Hyperreality: Thomas Mann in Light of Austrian Economics,” Review of Austrian Economics 7, no. 1 (1994).
10. In many countries it is today possible for families to deduct expenses for private care and private education from the annual tax bill. But iron-ically (or maybe not quite so ironically) this trend has reinforced the ero-sion of the family. For example, recent provisions of the U.S. tax code allow family budgets to increase through such deductions — but only if the deductible services are not provided by family members, but bought from other people.
11. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, §48.
12. Our study seems to suggest that there is definitely something diabol-ical in fiat inflation. But we feel incompetent to deal with this question and leave its analysis for another time, or for other scholars. It is cer-tainly significant that a great poet such as Goethe would portray paper money as a creation of the devil. See Faust, part II, Lustgartenszene.
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