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There were times when average Marys and Joes never had to worry about preserving their wealth. Money was commodity-based, generating a roaring economy; the value consistently increased, and prices always fell. So, even at a fixed income, you were fine in the long run. Although, this was not always the case. Since immemorial, governments have been trying to fund warfare and welfare by debasing money. That inevitably caused money devaluation, inflation, instability, uncertainty, and anxiety, ultimately destroying the economy. This has been the story of humanity throughout history worldwide. Humans create a thriving economy with hard work, creativity, innovation, inventions, entrepreneurship, and cooperative organization, which the government’s inflationary monetary policies destroy.
Every empire in human history fell due to warfare and welfare: Sumeria, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The list is long and unending. Prosperity and wealth always brought overconfidence, self-deception, fantasies, illusions, miscalculations, and carelessness. People at the helm of the affairs thought that it would last forever. Nothing can ever bring a fall to them. A false sense of moral superiority, of being the chosen ones, gradually seeps in; people start feeling entitled to rule the world and have the obligation and duty to teach everyone the superior virtues and dominating system, culture, and way of living. Subjugating the world and herding to their way starts looking completely justified.
All the resistance to this imperial agenda gets deemed as stupid and ignorant. Prosperity and wealth also bring in laziness, which increases the need for welfare. Warfare, welfare, an increasingly lavish lifestyle, and ever-growing waste and corruption quickly deplete wealth. Ultimately, expenses surpass the government revenue. Desperation hits the power brokers. The first instinct usually is to increase taxes. But this option has its limitations. In the middle of decreasing productivity and falling incomes, tax increases would quickly lead to unrest, protest, and even mutiny—subsequent options borrowing and debt. Keeping the economy’s strength and tax revenues in view, this option seems highly promising and works for a while.
However, with continuous and increasing borrowing, debt keeps rising. This decline in productivity and revenues results in a hike in interest rates. Rising interest rates and growing debt make it harder and harder to serve the debt. What can be done now? A business or a household would now cut expenses and/or increase income. But, the government does not work that way. The ability to steal more and more from hard-working people knows no bounds or limits. So, the solution turns out to be debasing money. In modern times, this is replaced by debt financing or money printing, i.e., creating money and increasing the money supply out of thin air without increasing productivity and wealth backing it up. In most cases, productivity starts declining at this point.
This debasing of money, or debt financing, inevitably leads to inflation. Inflation provides another deep blow to the economy. It increases uncertainty and decreases the incentive to save, which means less capital accumulation and, hence, a shortage of investments. So, economic growth decelerates even more and becomes increasingly insufficient to support full employment and growing revenue requirements. As more resources are now dumped to sustain the burden of government, the economy suffers even more. At this point, the fall becomes imminent. People with wisdom and foresight ramp up the alarms they have been sounding for a while. Those cries often fall on deaf ears and are completely ignored.
Unfortunately, the government has not learned anything from history and is unwilling to do so in the future. They can and do always buy so-called experts who would tell people loud and clear that this time it is different. We have now acquired the capability to bend, ignore, or even entirely bypass natural laws. Those are and will not be applicable in our case. We are too bright and entitled to face the same consequences as in the past. So, relax and enjoy the ride. Fortunately or unfortunately, nature is brutal, and natural laws are immutable. You can jump off the sixth floor but must bear the consequences. Contrary to what we are told, the limited freedom that we have does not provide us the license to kill.
We can only go so far, and what goes around comes around. The consequences of actions and behaviors become apparent, and bankruptcy becomes a massive realization. Although the fall of the empire and, hence, the government is a good thing, the gurus, nowadays media gurus, tell people that the sky is falling. So, instead of celebrating this good fortune, most people start panicking. Opportunists also come out and start taking advantage of it. The enforcement structure starts falling apart mainly due to a lack of money to pay wages and benefits. Most people begin stealing, looting, cheating, fraud, deceit, and hoarding. Insecurity increases, and law and order becomes a joke.
This also becomes a good opportunity for other nations hurt in the past by this falling imperial power. In addition to all that is happening in the country, foreign attacks and terrorism just make it far worse. In desperation, the government calls on so-called friends and allies, only to discover that the situation is so grave that even willing friends cannot help. The end game is usually a bloody revolution or takeover by a foreign government. In any case, the cost is very high. People lose freedom, lives, family, wealth, property and lifestyle. Most have to restart from scratch. Meanwhile, the whole fabric of society is destroyed. The economy, infrastructure, means of production, supply chains, production facilities, and workers are all in bad shape.
This disastrous cycle keeps repeating itself because we hold on to the insanity of doing the same and expecting different results. The oligarchy, few bossing around everyone else, destroys the economies, cultures, civilizations, societies, morals, and ethics and is always brought back after every epic failure with new names, terminologies, packaging, wrappings, looks, and brand names by the people who end up at the top every time regardless of the political system in place. The only system that has ever been able to break down the control of masters, gods, and their descendants over societies has been Capitalism.
