Krugman: The Right's problem with fiat money is that it does work.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/gop-intellectual-decline-monetary-edition/
I think Yglesias has this right:
Commodity-backed money is basically a solution to a non-problem. Or at least it’s not a problem you have if you don’t accept a Randian deeply moralized view of market outcomes. The existince of fiat money is embarassing to that kind of ideology, so it inspires quests for alternatives to modern central banking even when the alternatives don’t make sense.
In this sense fiat money is like, oh, Social Security. The problem it creates for conservatives is not that it doesn’t work, but that it does - which is a challenge to their philosophy. And so it must die.
I wonder if this is fair to say. It does seem to fit with the Religious Right's fear of science. I see a fear of science and hatred of logical results, and a preference for economic fantasies. I suspect it traces in part to the concerns about human overpopulation and unsustainable consumption in the 1970's. If your instincts don't like science, don't like the truth, just turn against those things. Oppose sex ed, oppose contraception, oppose climate science, blah blah blah.
From choosing creationism over evolution, and ignoring environmental problems, it's a short step to endorsing Austrian economics, and ignoring the failures of the free market.
But I don't want to get too bogged down in a tangent about evolution and global warming.
I don't know. Is this really the what's happening? Why is "free-market economics," with all its fallacies and failures, still believed? Is it a religion? An attractive preconception? Why hold onto it?
I think it's not just because people don't know any better, but that they've gotten used to both ignoring reality themselves, and ignoring the scientific conclusions of those who study reality in depth and reveal to us what is not obvious.
I think Yglesias has this right:
Commodity-backed money is basically a solution to a non-problem. Or at least it’s not a problem you have if you don’t accept a Randian deeply moralized view of market outcomes. The existince of fiat money is embarassing to that kind of ideology, so it inspires quests for alternatives to modern central banking even when the alternatives don’t make sense.
In this sense fiat money is like, oh, Social Security. The problem it creates for conservatives is not that it doesn’t work, but that it does - which is a challenge to their philosophy. And so it must die.
I wonder if this is fair to say. It does seem to fit with the Religious Right's fear of science. I see a fear of science and hatred of logical results, and a preference for economic fantasies. I suspect it traces in part to the concerns about human overpopulation and unsustainable consumption in the 1970's. If your instincts don't like science, don't like the truth, just turn against those things. Oppose sex ed, oppose contraception, oppose climate science, blah blah blah.
From choosing creationism over evolution, and ignoring environmental problems, it's a short step to endorsing Austrian economics, and ignoring the failures of the free market.
But I don't want to get too bogged down in a tangent about evolution and global warming.
I don't know. Is this really the what's happening? Why is "free-market economics," with all its fallacies and failures, still believed? Is it a religion? An attractive preconception? Why hold onto it?
I think it's not just because people don't know any better, but that they've gotten used to both ignoring reality themselves, and ignoring the scientific conclusions of those who study reality in depth and reveal to us what is not obvious.