English: Stefan Molyneux speaking at Drexel University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Stefan Molyneux, philosopher and host of Free Domain Radio, was interviewed by Jan Irvin, host of Gnostic Media, and the interview was posted on March 31, 2012.
Starting at 57 minutes in, they get into what becomes a heated discussion on gold as currency.
Molyneux states at the top that his definition of fiat currency is “a monopoly currency backed by nothing.”
Molyneux’s body language changes dramatically as the discussion progresses, and that was as interesting to me as any words that were said, as Irvin passionately interrupted him many times.
Molyneux was focused on gold only being an issue when there is a government monopoly over it, while Irvin was concerned with the historical manipulation of gold by banksters, and how they can subvert free choice in the marketplace, specifically using gold.
Irvin mentions the late David Astle’s book, The Babylonian Woe, and recounts information that I had heard from George Whitehurst-Berry earlier this year, which is how the Spartans specifically used non-commodity money, and were prosperous until their money was subverted, specifically with gold.
I plan to say more about this revealing interview later, but for now, check it out for yourself.
For more on Stefan Molyneux, see my articles:
Stefan Molyneux does hate the state, and Walter Block of the Mises Institute, doesn’t.
The most free societies sow the seeds of their own destruction?
[...] 1) A heated discussion between Stefan Molyneux and Jan Irvin on gold [...]
“any outside group with any specific rare resource can require any other group to pay the type of currency it wants”
That’s true. If I fold up a piece of paper in a rather unique way, I can most certainly demand you pay me 5 ounces of gold for the artefact. So what? I clearly have a monopoly over my production of this artefact.
If I do that consistently, I effectively restrict my rare resource from entering the market place. It will never gain sufficient utility to ever be considered ‘essential.’
The only ways my resource would ever achieve the level of ‘essential,’ is if
1) it was already bountiful. In this case it is not rare or I do not have exclusive or even semi-exclusive access to successfully restrict others from acquiring it.
2) I traded it freely and reasonably, and profited as a result. Other individuals, attempting to also profit will seek to imitate or provide alternatives.
A problem occurs only after my resource has become essential, and then competition is somehow… prohibited.
That’s the nature of the state.
Kyle, you’re confusing art and things you make with natural resources… comments like yours make me want to beat my head against the wall. What if someone has all of the water on their property? Is that going to limit that resource from entering the marketplace? Use your brain.
Thanks for the kind language. Telling someone to ‘use your brain,’ isn’t exactly conducive to a productive and meaningful debate.
If you really thought I wasn’t using my brain, then it would not be rational to respond in any logical fashion. Given that you did respond, this suggests that you actually believe I am using my brain, just that the argument I have put forward is incorrect in some manner. Could you stick to corrections and hold off on the aggressive, non-productive language?
You mentioned “specific rare resource.” Does my artefact not fit this description?
Water is a great example of a natural, life-essential resource. It falls into category #1 in my first comment.
It’s not possible for an individual (or group) to possess all of the water on their property.
If we assume that it was possible, then human life would never have been able to develop. The individuals or groups that claimed to exercise exclusive control over the global water supply would also not exist.
Ignoring that scenario for a moment, how are these individuals going to prevent clouds from forming and their precious water being deposited freely to others?
Given that all life on the planet requires water, such a scenario would result in a planet where 99% of the surface was a barren desert. Human life, if it did develop, would cease to exist, because everything else would die.
When I say use your brain, you’ve got to consider that there’s a Kantian epidemic afloat.
The problem with this theory, Cody, is that any outside group with any specific rare resource can require any other group to pay the type of currency it wants. Molyneux couldn’t understand how this could be done. He doesn’t understand that commodity money is always corrupted in this way. I provided 2 publications with nearly 2 dozen historical case studies and in every case the result was the same. This is how it’s always been done in the past, regardless of a free market of currencies. Molyneux based part of his argument from creating a hypothetical world, not the real one we live in. We don’t live in that world. We’re in reality.
In this specific regard, the problem is not and has never been the state (i’m not saying the state isn’t a problem, it’s the fallacy of ad vericundiam). It’s commodity money and rare resources that’s the bigger threat, and if you create a money system that serves the people, IE no interest, then these problems with money AND state obsolve – interestingly.
And whomever is incontrol of that rare resource can dictate what ever money he wants to exchange in Molyneux’s free currency world. And of course the others would be forced to start collecting X money to pay for X recource if they want it. And if it’s a rare resource that’s essential to living, you can’t always just go to another supplier as he suggests. So you use force to get it, against natural law, or you suffer and possibly die, or you bend to the will of the other party – ALWAYS.
If someone has the land that this resource is on, and they want to only accept X money for it, then they have a monopoly and they’ll bend everyone else to their will.
It’s plain as day.
As Molyneux says:
“until we look at the root cause of coersion…we’ll simply remain completely and totally unable to solve them”.
I couldn’t agree more.
Stefan Molyneux doesn’t promote gold as a solution but rather a voluntary market of competing currencies. The issue is the State coercion/force, not what commodity a group of individuals voluntarily decide to hold of value.
Thanks for posting my interview with Molyneux. I also mentioned Stephen Zarlenga’s book The Lost Science of Money, which provides 22 or so case studies. http://www.monetary.org. I was also just provided this citation tonight that I’m told also covers this same issue:
Money and Empire: the international gold standard, 1890-1914 by Marcello De Cecco
BTW, I went through and counted my passionate interruptions, and Molyneux’s were about the same in number.