Lastly, the free market cannot and will not ever deliver everything we want primarily because it is 100% based on a failing debt-based monetary unit. Under different money I might hold a different view (depending on which one was the dominant form) but for now I simply have no faith that a debt-based free market will deliver the right things for a sustainable future. The profit motive is good for some things, but not everything (charity is one example). For some things we have to make our decisions based on other considerations besides an ever-increasing flow of money units.
Chris, thank you so much for responding! I really do appreciate it.
I have watched the Crash Course. Several times. Many of us are drawn to the message for different reasons and different backgrounds. In fact, I was so impressed with CC, I became a paying member. I am involved with my Transistion Town movement up here in Canada as a result. I wholeheartedly agree with the message contained within CC, and I want to be a part of this as it occurs.
From your post above, I captioned a portion of it I would like to discuss a bit.
You’re conflating a free market with ascribing value to a debt-based fiat currency.
If I opened "The Remnant’s Money Store” and produced uniform pieces of paper with different inks/designs on them indicating denomination, how would I get the free market to accept them? How could I prevent a competitor from doing the same? Answer: I can’t. I’d be laughed at or ignored. People would rightly say, “You’d print up money and give it to yourself or your friends and use it to your benefit, while producing nothing of economic value! You’re a cheat!”.
Now, if I got a bunch of thugs to work for me with the biggest guns in town and threatened others to pay me tribute (via legal tender violence or taxation violence) in my form of money, what would happen? You’d cave in to me or I’ll make your life miserable or worse. If a competitor opened a store, I’d throw him in jail or kill him for “counterfeiting” or competing with my fiat franchise.
Money is merely a commodity like all other commodities, with the unique property valued in the market as being tradeable for all other commodities. Money has no intrinsic value but the value of it imputed by other market actors. I would never argue, “People should be forced to use [insert money form here] as money!”. What I argue is “People should be free to choose what they want to use as money!”. In practice, this would mean a return to commodity forms of money. Perhaps gold/silver/copper with the market determining exchange rates between them.
Interest rates on money would be freely set by the market, not manipulated by a monopoly on violence (the State) via a central bank nor its connected insiders (the banks). Central banks and free markets are opposite ideas.
If you are familar with Gresham’s Law (bad money drives out the good), then you must understand Gresham’s Law only works due to State violence.
To be continued…kids are home from skating.