So here is my speech from the Stoa today.
In 2010, we have a dollar that is being printed on massive Xerox machines in the Federal Reserve and hosed around the world in an effort to bolster liquidity and to re-capitalize banks that had Trillions of dollars evaporate into the aether from 2008 onwards. In 301, the Roman Emperor Diocletian passed an edict that fixed prices for goods and services around the Empire. What lead up to this? The Emperors before him had been gradually reducing the gold and silver content of their coins to make it cheaper on the Empire to mint coins, but it also had the effect of holding down the relative costs of goods and services. Any of this sound familiar to you yet? Have you seen a quarter minted after the mid-1960's? Any silver in those anymore? Do you know the relative value of a car or house in 1969 relative to the spot price of gold, with the value of a home relative to gold in 2010. Quite shocking how the value of a dollar has fallen.
Anyhow, by fiat, the Emperor declared (they can do that, you know) that the copper and bronze coins in circulation by that time, since gold and silver being too rare to actually make coins out of any longer, were suddenly twice as valuable as they were a week ago last Tuesday. Naturally, this lead to all out bouts of inflation Empire-wide. The Emperor even made speculation and profit taking capital offenses. Yes, really. Sounding familiar yet?
Merchants began to do a number of things to fight the power of the central government: they stopped producing those goods and services, they sold those goods to an underground economy that didn't pay taxes, or they bartered their goods and services. So, the wise Diocletian made most of those capital offenses as well. With so many merchants abandoning their trades, such as sword makers, armorers, horse breeders, tanners, blacksmiths and the like, the Empire found itself rather pressed for things like shoes for their soldiers. Not good. So, the great and powerful Diocletian made certain trades hereditary. Yes, that's right. Hereditary. If your father was a fisherman or a tanner, or even a cobbler, guess what...you were literally in the family business forever. Even your children, and their children.
What made me think of Futurama is that everyone over a certain age has to go through a 'Probulator' to determine a job that they are most suited for and for which society has a need. They are then implanted with a computer chip that must be scanned, if they are seeking employment to ensure that they only work in their selected occupation. Fry, fleeing 1999 because he was seen as a loser by women and worked as a delivery boy, wakes up in 2999, still seen as a loser by the first woman that sees him and is then told that the job he is most suited for is as a delivery person. To make a long story short, he finds a distant descendant of his brother still living in New New York and is willing to give him a job. He owns a delivery service, nice. To make things legal, he takes out the chips from his last flight crew (they were killed by space bees) and implants Fry with his chip. The writers either read their history or happened to hit on the premise by accident. Given the show's high geek following, I'll go with the former.
Back in the here and now, we have nations in South America that are constantly playing with the value of their money in an attempt to control that which is uncontrollable, the Free Market. We have a president who thinks he can, by fiat, strike down contracts with banks, creditors, investors, and seize control of Auto companies, Banks, Education loaning firms, Healthcare insurance companies, you name it. The dollar is growing weaker by the day by virtue of how much of it is being printed (yes, I know about deflationary cycles and inflationary cycles, but those are topics for another day) and is now a fiat currency backed by nothing more than words (at least since 1973).
Atlas Shrugged should be read by everyone because it can and may happen here. Diocletian tried to fix one mess by creating another, so he then tried to fix that mess by ensuring that things would still be produced that the Empire needed; by fixing your descendant to your job (hope you have a good job, there, you). In other words, he created an even bigger mess. In Atlas Shrugged, when the US government was into its death spasms, it too tried to fix people to jobs and industries. That all worked out about the same for them as it did for Diocletian.
The rough times are still ahead of us, everyone. The debt we are piling on must be paid for. Interest accumulates every moment on that debt and will consume a larger portion of the budget with each passing budget year (unless, of course, you simply don't pass a budget for that year *cough*, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid).
Americans must study history, not just our own (since the left has been so good at erasing or twisting things over the last 100 years). In so many ways the American arc is following the Roman historical arc. Barbarians were allowed to settle the frontiers because the Empire needed fresh manpower [Current Immigration issue], the different languages and cultures lead to Balkanization and a fracturing of the historical "Roman Culture". They lost their ties to the past an in so doing, doomed their future. They devalued their money until it was money in name only. Such as we have done to the dollar (and its coins) since the 1900's. The Empire was embroiled in war after war that drained its treasury (the Germans were trouble makers even back in the Roman days, but that is another blog article).
Learn your history people, for if we do not then we will be forever doomed to repeat it.
--Zavost
