Cafe Hayek: Political scope?

MD: Anyone who has read Ludwig von Mises has found him to just largely be a double talker. He goes on and on and on bouncing off the walls, losing sight of his subject, and just rambling. And when he does assert something, it makes no sense at all. It’s like a fractel … or pealing an onion. You can keep dissecting it, but as you do you just keep seeing the same thing … and if your fortunate it ends like an onion pealing exercise … with nothing. If you’re not fortunate it goes on without end … and becomes the Mises Monks’ religion

This is particularly evident when his subject is (or is thought to be) money. He goes into all kinds of nonsense about prices and what motivates people to trade … and then to trade again (the margins). And none of it has anything to do with money … what it is … why it is … and how it is.

As I read this “comment of the day” I’m left with the same feeling … but this time the subject is politics … whatever that is. What do you think?

by Don Boudreaux on August 20, 2017

in Other People’s Money, Politics

… is from page 75 of my late Nobel laureate colleague James Buchanan’s 1986 paper “Notes on Politics as Process,” as this paper is reprinted in James M. Buchanan, Politics as Public Choice (2000), which is volume 13 of the Collected Works of James M. Buchanan:

Politics that is confined to a few and well-defined tasks cannot be seriously predatory.

The American founders seemed to recognize this simple truth. Modern political scholars do not.

MD: I read it over and over and over … and it says nothing … absolutely nothing! Maybe we need more context. In the case of Mises, we never do. More context never helps.

The “proper” MOE process

The “proper” Medium of Exchange (MOE) process, first and foremost “guarantees” perfect balance between supply and demand for money … i.e. zero inflation of the money itself. Since this is the nature of every trade, that is easy.

The process “certifies” (i.e. documents) new trading promises .. transparently for all to see … no anonymity. That creates the money, first as a ledger entry. Later it may be exchanged for cash or currency … and back.

This money then circulates anonymously in trade as the most common object in every simple barter exchange. It loses all identity with the trader creating it. All money in the process is the same, be it record, currency, or coin.

The process then monitors in-process trading promises for performance … transparently. On delivery, the money created is returned and destroyed. On default, that orphaned money is reclaimed immediately when detected through interest collection of like amount.

To do this fairly requires actuarial techniques. The process is very similar to the operation of a Mutual Insurance Fund … but no money is to be made on investment income. There are no reserves … so there is nothing to invest.

Regardless of the operation, the relation: INFLATION = DEFAULT – INTEREST = zero must be observed perpetually.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply