Currency Competition And The Monopolies That Take It Away

Monopolies contribute to many problems — the record of evidence illustrates the potential inefficiency, waste and price fixing.

Yet the greatest trouble with monopolies is what they take away — competition. Competition is a beautiful mechanism; in exercising their purchasing power and demand preferences, individuals run the economy — it is their spending that allocates labour, capital, resources and brainpower. It’s their spending that transmits the information that determines what gets made, what doesn’t, which businesses succeed and which don’t.

Individuals exercise a far greater political and economic power in a free economy when they spend, and when they work than when they vote. So without competition, the power of choice suffers, and businesses, markets and societies can become economically stagnant and rampantly corrupt; look at North Korea and the myriad other examples of once-prosperous societies impoverished by a lack of economic competition.

In a free market, monopolies are less problematic because lacking competition a monopolist can become complacent and inefficient, allowing competitors a foothold to grab market share; consider the near-monopoly of Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer in the 1990s, which began to melt away via the rise of Apple, Google, Firefox and the poorly-received Windows Vista in the 2000s.

Monopolies can be much more problematic when a monopoly develops and the holders of that monopoly conscript the power of the state to protect their dominance. Whether their business is food, or clothes, or computers, or money, a state-protected monopoly limits competition and so distorts the allocation of resources, capital and labour.

If we are for competition in goods and services, why should we disclude competition in the money industry? Would competition in the money industry not benefit the consumer in the manner that competition in other industries does? Why should the form and nature of the medium of exchange be monopolised? Shouldn’t the people — as individuals — be able to make up their own mind about the kind of money that they want to use to engage in transactions?

Earlier, this year Ben Bernake and Ron Paul had an exchange on this subject:

Bernanke contends that it is possible to transact in a competing currency like Yen, or pesos or bitcoin. But, as Ron Paul points out, there are still a number of laws which are still preventing a level playing field:

The first step [to real currency competition] consists of eliminating legal tender laws. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution forbids the States from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts. States are not required to enact legal tender laws, but should they choose to, the only acceptable legal tender is gold and silver, the two precious metals that individuals throughout history and across cultures have used as currency.

There is nothing in the Constitution that grants Congress the power to enact legal tender laws. Congress has the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, but not to declare a legal tender. Yet, there is a section of US Code, 31 USC 5103, that purports to establish US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender.

The second step to legalizing currency competition is to eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints. One private enterprise which attempted to popularize the use of precious metal coins was Liberty Services, the creators of the Liberty Dollar. The government felt threatened by the Liberty Dollar, as Liberty Services had all their precious metal coins seized by the FBI and Secret Service in November of 2007.

The final step to reestablishing competition in currency is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Coins held for less than one year are taxed at the short-term capital gains rate, which is the normal income tax rate, while coins held for more than a year are taxed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent.

This is not a radical change. In this age of cashless payment people can simply load their alternative currency onto a debit card and spend it — similar to the gold-denominated debit card currently available to non-Americans from Peter Schiff’s EuroPacific Bank. In this age of Google and ubiquitous computing, exchange rates can be calculated instantaneously.

If people and businesses choose to stick to government-backed fiat money and refuse other currencies, that is their prerogative as individuals. It is possible that other media of exchange would not become popular; but at least there would be a more level playing field. Under the status quo, there is no level playing field.

It is often said in Keynesian circles that Bernanke is too tame a money printer, and that the people need a greater money supply. Well, set the wider society free to determine their own money supply based on the demand for money; let the people decide.

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