A very interesting address, which some of you may have already read, as it was made last year. Ferdinand Lips, addressing the Austrian congress, presented a speech entitled "Why Gold-Backed Currencies Help Prevent Wars." The entire thing is a bit long to be posted here, but is linked below.
The full adress is archived here:
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w42/msg00048.htm
A good article. However, I must disagree with one premise: "This fact (debt financing not backed by gold), in addition to the Versailles Treaty and unreasonable reparation payments, led to hyperinflation, destruction of the middle class and, finally, Hitler. It set the stage for World War II."
This does not explain why Italy (which was on the winning side in WW I) fell into Fascism in the mid-1920s, over a decade before Germany. An equally, or more plausible, reason has it as an inevitable climax of a centuries-long philosophic development, preaching three fundamental ideas: the worship of unreason, the demand for self-sacrifice and the elevation of society or the state above the individual. These three ideas spewed forth from some of the most respected philosophers of the late 19th Century (e.g., Kant). An excellent book "Ominous Parallels," by Leonard Peikoff builds the case that the rise of Nazism was facilitated by the philosophical content of mainstream German culture, and that the basic anti-individualist, anti-reason orientations of this culture are also apparent in modern American culture (hence the "Ominous Parallels").
steve
"There is no protection or safety in anticipatory servility."
Craig Spencer
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