What Is Money? — Outline
Thesis
“I cry out against it because its function in society is not understood, and very difficult to explain. I cry out against it, because it jumbles all ideas, causes the means to be taken for the end, the obstacle for the cause, the alpha for the omega; because its presence in the world, though in itself beneficial, has, nevertheless, introduced a fatal notion, a perversion of principles, a contradictory theory, which, in a multitude of forms, has impoverished mankind and deluged the earth with blood.”
Development
- 1.
Opening: the problem stated
What Is Money?“I cry out against money, just because everybody confounds it, as you did just now, with riches, and that this confusion is the cause of errors and calamities without number.”
- 2.
First consequence: the zero-sum axiom and universal war
What Is Money?“Either the axiom is true, and then the legislator ought to act as I have described, although universal war should be the consequence; or it is false; and in this case men, in destroying each other, only ruin themselves.”
- 3.
Rebuttal: exchange as mutual gain
What Is Money?“If Shem is located upon a plain which is fertile in corn, Japhet upon a slope adapted for growing the vine, Ham upon a rich pasturage,--the distinction of their occupations, far from hurting any of them, might cause all three to prosper more.”
- 4.
Analysis: the true function of money as a claim-token
What Is Money?“This crown testifies that you have performed a service for society, and, moreover, it shows the value of it. It bears witness, besides, that you have not yet obtained from society a real equivalent service, to which you have a right.”
- 5.
Fallacy exposed: multiplying counters does not multiply wealth
What Is Money?“In the social order, the useful things are what the workers place under the candlestick, and the crowns which circulate from hand to hand are the counters.”
- 6.
Extension: paper money as the same error compounded
What Is Money?“to force people to take in payment scraps of paper which have been officially baptized francs, or to force them to receive, as weighing five grains, a piece of silver which weighs only two and a half, but which has been officially named a franc, is the same thing, if not worse”
- 7.
Social harm: depreciation falls on the poor
What Is Money?“The rich man is not any the richer for it, but the poor man becomes poorer by it.”
- 8.
Further error: hatred of capital traced to the same confusion
What Is Money?“when the theorists of democracy have wished to justify it, to systematize it, to give it the appearance of a reasonable opinion, and to turn it against the very nature of capital, they have had recourse to that false political economy at whose root the same confusion is always to be found.”
- 9.
Root cause: State education perpetuates the confusion
What Is Money?“are not these custom-house officers, soldiers, and vessels, these oppressive taxes, this perpetual struggle towards an impossible result, this permanent state of open or secret war with the whole world, are they not the logical and inevitable consequence of the legislators having adopted an idea, which you admit is acted upon by no man who is his own master, that "wealth is cash; and to increase cash, is to increase wealth?”
Conclusion
“The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.”