A long-forgotten German economist argued that society and the economy would be better off if money was a perishable good. Was he an anarchist crank or the prophet of a better world?
I’m trying to understand how retirement and disability would work in such a monetary system. While the hoarding of wealth by the rich is a problem in the current system, it seems like devaluing all savings would make anyone who can’t work worthless.
Instead, an individual’s economic success would be tied directly to the quality of their work and the strength of their ideas. Gesell imagined this would create a Darwinian natural selection in the economy: “Free competition would favor the efficient and lead to their increased propagation.”
I’m trying to understand how retirement and disability would work in such a monetary system. While the hoarding of wealth by the rich is a problem in the current system, it seems like devaluing all savings would make anyone who can’t work worthless.
It can’t, which is why no country will use this system.
There are plenty of ways in which we can combat unnecessary accumulation of wealth (cough, tax, cough). A depreciating currency is not one of them.
Even communism might be easier to administer than this suggested monstrous system.
Yes this was pretty telling: