Ron Paul in 1983: There’s No Greater Power Than The Power Over Money

“There is no other power greater than the power over money, the power to create and contract the money supply, the power to control the purchasing power of your money.

Throughout history, this has proven to be the most sought after monopolistic power of man. It has become more sophisticated over the decades and over the centuries, more sophisticated now and more international in scope than ever before. So I see the issue of power and the control over month as being something that we cannot ignore, we must address.

I believe closely associated with this is the issue of morality as well. By what moral right we have to create purchasing power out of thin air? Whether it’s done by the creation of credit or Federal Reserve notes or whether it’s the creation of SDRs on an international scope. By what right do they do this?

Is it any more moral to dilute the value of your purchasing power, the money you hold in your wallet than it is for the farmer to dilute the milk supply with water? I would say there is an issue of morality here just as strong as the issue of power.

I happen to believe also because it’s a moral issue more than an economic issue, it is for this reason that the people have lost trust in their government, trust in the banks, trust in business, trust in themselves, and that we are nation of distrust.

It is for this reason I believe that until we restore trust in government, trust in the system, and trust in the money, there will be no resolution of this problem. It is the issue of trust in people and trust in money that must come before you can start talking about nickling and diming it, trying to get back to a balanced budget because that certainly hasn’t worked.

So, I think it’s important to address the issue of central planning, the issue of power, and third, I think that we must address in general terms the issue of the origin of money.

I know that’s been talked about, and we recognize those of us who believe in commodity money, clearly understand that money, paper money and credit creation, didn’t come out of the marketplace. That came out of the heads and the fantasies of the intellectuals and the government officials, of those who want paper to be money, but never out of the marketplace.

So I would say the paper standard is bucking history, and it’s bucking economic law and economic truth, and they only can do it with force and more power to make people accept it, because economically and historically, paper is not money! It can’t be money, it’s only money because we’re forced to use it, and because there’s a residual trust in the pieces of paper that we carried around, because at one time it did have real value.

You have to have something that people seek after and they hold as something important and something that they will hold as money. History shows that people have chosen gold first and propably silver second. I’d rather have cigarettes than pieces of paper.”

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