Dylan Grice on money, trust and social cohesion

At its most fundamental level, economic activity is no more than an exchange between strangers.  It depends, therefore, on a degree of trust between strangers.  Since money is the agent of exchange, it is the agent of trust.  Debasing money therefore debases trust.  History is replete with Great Disorders in which social cohesion has been undermined by currency debasements.  The multi-decade credit inflation can now be seen to have had similarly corrosive effects.  Yet central banks continue down the same route.  The writing is on the wall.  Further debasement of money will cause further debasement of society.  I fear a Great Disorder. 

I am more worried than I have ever been about the clouds gathering today.  I hope they pass without breaking, but I fear the defining feature of coming decades will be a Great Disorder of the sort which has defined past epochs and scarred whole generations. 

"Next to language, money is the most important medium through which modern societies communicate,” writes Bernd Widdig in his masterful analysis of Germany’s inflation crisis, Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany (2001).  His may be an abstract observation, but it has the commendable merit of being true.. all economic activity requires the cooperation of strangers and therefore, a degree of trust between cooperating strangers.  Since money is the agent of such mutual trust, debasing money implies debasing the trust upon which social cohesion rests. 

So I keep wondering to myself, do our money-printing central banks and their cheerleaders understand the full consequences of the monetary debasement they continue to engineer?  Inflation of the CPI might be a consequence both seen and meas-urable.  A broad inflation of asset prices might be a consequence seen, though not measurable.  But what about the consequences that are unseen but unmeasurable—and are all the more destructive for it?  I feel queasy about the enthusiasm with which our wise economists play games with something about which we have such a poor understanding.

~ Dylan Grice

(As quoted by Tim Price in "Flying Blind," December 4, 2023.)