Do padrão-ouro à moeda de papel recordando Charles de Gaulle

Substituí há pouco na vitrina das leituras a referência ao livro da figura abaixo da autoria de Detlev Schlichter. Um livro exigente para com os seus leitores embora não exija nenhum conhecimento específico prévio das matérias monetárias. Na melhor tradição da Escola Austríaca e partindo de uma axiomática básica, desenvolve todo um raciocínio lógico-dedutivo que permite proporcionar uma compreensão das crises financeiras e económicas que nos assolam com uma frequência e gravidade crescentes. Por último, indica também o caminho a prosseguir para o regresso a um sistema monetário sólido. Deixo duas passagens que julgo bem caracterizadoras do tempo que atravessamos:

«The money of the free market has always been gold or silver. As we have seen , a complete paper money is never the outcome of the market but always the result of politics. A paper money system is a system of continuous market intervention, in which interest rates and credit availability are the result of administrative decisions, not of market forces, and in which the banks and large parts of the financial industry cannot be free entreprises but must end up under the tutelage of the state.

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The global financial crisis that commenced in 2007 offers a case in point. The crisis constitutes a thorough and illustrative indictment of the alliance of state and financial industry, of a system of expanding state paper money and government-supported fractional-reserve banking. Yet, the political class and the media managed to put the blame on capitalism and on greedy bankers. The result has been and will continue to be yet more money printing, more debt, more priviliged treatment of banks and more government intervention in the economy. Given the interests of the political establishment, the views of the mainstream media, the vested interests of the financial industry, and the statist zeitgeist, a timely return to hard money can almost be ruled out. Sadly, the monetary breakdown seems inevitable.»

Charles de Gaulle e a defesa do regresso ao padrão-ouro (1965):