When it comes to the history of money, it seems the human race is doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Mike Maloney believes that “History repeats itself, but usually with a little twist.”
The story of our Goldsmith is a simplified form of what has really happened throughout history. Just like in our story, a country will start out with money, gold and silver, then through debasement will turn that money into currency. Thereby robbing the people of their wealth.
You left out the most important point of the scheme.
Usury.
Usury is only necessary in a financial economy. It’s perfectly possible to have a pastoral paradise with capitalism and no usury. Bread bakers, wheat farmers, iron workers, all selling in a free market with competition. Usury actually distorts capitalism and leads to rent seeking and predatory businesses.
Usury leads to slavery by debt, it’s also printing money on the promise that you’ll pay back more later, but there is no money to pay for it so you keep printing and the debt keeps on going.
And today usury is business as usual and the real religious principle about the sin of Usury, from Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islam, and Hebrew, prohibition of Usury, is pushed aside, in favor of a non-religious state and non-religious basis to business. People, so apparently love, to be controlled by anti-religious “humanists” and elite, they risk plunging the world into a Orwellian or Huxley like, nightmare.
Yet. how many do not buy and sell borrow and loan?
There is nothing inherently evil in “money”.
Nonetheless, the Babylonian debt-based, interest-bearing banking (usury) has enslaved humanity for thousands of years.
These banksters have ruled the world for so long, we take this evil for granted and live under this perfect slavery while thinking we are free.
Goethe said, the best slave is he who think he is free. And that’s us.