This is going to sound like I’m being patronizing but I’m not. Just trying to be Socratic.
How did increasing the number of pieces of paper in circulation meaningfully add to the wealth of the citizenry?
Discussion
I just mean, the advancement of western civ in the last 100 years. the increase in wealth. If I had to pick a decade to be "poor" in, wouldn't it be this one? Am I being naive? Haven't we seen 100 years of more progress than ever? poor people today live like kings compared to those of the past. I don't ascribe this to fiat policy but the two nonetheless seem to coincide.
I guess the coinciding of the two apparent truths is what I'm pointing to. Does that make sense?
Can’t you say that about any period in time where technology was able to progress relatively uninterrupted?
Better technology will always result in creating more output with the same or less inputs. Not only do we get more output (wealth) but we get higher valued output, which is only made possible by the lengthening of the production process. We were able to increase wealth in the aggregate in spite of fiat theft in the last 100 years, but we would have been better off without the theft in the first. But even if that was not true, growth achieved through immoral means is still wrong.
The discussion should start and end by acknowledging that stealing is bad.
Correlation is not causation. I don't have data, but for sake of argument, you could say we experienced all the growth and progress despite fiat money. Imagine how much more advanced western civilization could be if we maintained a hard money standard for the last 100 years. If we hadn't experienced a century of capital misallocation incentiveised by fiat currency, what would global society look like today?
I might be wrong, but it bears considering.
keynsians can point to it and say... "yea but look around" I want to have an answer to that.
I "know" its BS. I'm just not sure why.
It doesn't, but it's easy to push this agenda by non-market actors while correlating human progress with the increasing number of pieces of paper. The story is much older though, they are just using different means, words, crumbs to give breathing room to Leviathan. Human progress is only dependent on liberty. The best of us gave us a framework to fight back, among many others ==> Descartes ~ 390 y ago, to start I can begin by saying the number 4 is real, Smith ~250 y ago, ok and we are the ones doing this, Say ~200 y ago, yes it's obvious we are all producers creating markets otherwise number 4 is not real, Bastiat ~150 y ago, please remember we have natural rights, Schumpeter ~100 y ago and vision, Nakamoto ~15 y ago, & a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.