Regardless of the era, most people did not do justice to the ideas and art of the time. Respect for great authors and artists has always been confined to a small number of people.
Ludwig von Mises.
Imperial inflation: The "legacy" of the First Emperor
Qin Shi Huang is a famous tyrant in history, and the accusations against him by historians include: sparing no effort to build large-scale projects, heavy forced labor, and destruction of production; Severe punishment and strict law, at least exile and disability, and at worst beheading; the implementation of the Zhulian, allowing the people to spy on each other and inform, corrupting social morality; The burning of books and the pit of Confucianism, the substitution of officials for teachers, and the substitution of laws and regulations for cultural education have led to the destruction of culture and the ignorance of the people......
However, Qin Shi Huang's move to "unify the currency" has always been greatly appreciated. Even many of today's "experts and scholars.""It is also believed that the Qin Dynasty abolished the old currency of the six countries and unified the minting of currency, which made transactions more convenient and promoted economic prosperity.
But in fact,The Qin Dynasty's monopoly on the right to mint coins brought no less evil consequences to the economy and later generations than the burning of books and the harsh punishment of Confucianism.
First of all, although the Six Kingdoms were destroyed, the old coins held by the people were still legitimate private property. However, with an order from the imperial court, all the old coins were invalidated in an instant, and the Qin Dynasty had the final say on whether the property in the hands of the people was worth or not, and how much it was worth - this was a naked robbery.
Second, the monopoly of coinage did not bring economic prosperity, on the contrary, it made the exploitation of the Qin Dynasty more convenient and made the people more miserable.
Before the Qin Dynasty monopolized money, the various old coins circulating in the market seemed to be chaotic, but in fact there was free competition and survival of the fittest: if a certain currency had a decrease in purchasing power due to insufficient weight and fineness, and it was not forced by the imperial court, people would not hesitate to abandon it. However, when only "Qin and a half taels" circulated in the market, the coercive power of the state stifled the free competition of currency.
Due to the elimination of currency competition, the Qin Dynasty did not need to impose taxes at all, and only needed to issue bad currency indiscriminately, which could greatly dilute the wealth in the hands of the people and "rob invisibly". With the construction of large-scale projects such as the Lishan Tomb, the Qin Dynasty's finances became increasingly tight, but the imperial court was still extremely poor and luxurious, and the plundering of the people continued unabated.
In the last years of the Qin Dynasty, the first hyperinflation in Chinese history finally broke out。The economy is depressed, the people are struggling to make a living, and the people can't bear it. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang raised their arms and shouted, "The world has suffered Qin for a long time", and the whole country rose up, "Killing the tyrannical Qin", and the Ying family died and the country was destroyed - Qin Shi Huang confiscated all the weapons of the country, but still failed to save his country and descendants.
The tyrannical Qin Dynasty fell, but the scourge of the collapse of the country - the institutional arrangement of the imperial court monopoly coinage was not broken, and it was reversed in various dynasties of China and even the whole world in later generations.
"China's Wealth of Nations":The intellectual wealth ruined by the imperial system
In the early days of the Western Han Dynasty, the emperor pursued Lao Tzu's economic idea of "resting with the people and lightly paying for the poor". In order to give the people the greatest economic freedom, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty even let go of private coinage. After free competition in money, bad money was eliminated and inflation quickly disappeared. The economy slowly recovered, and China's economy reached unprecedented prosperity, which is known as the "rule of Wenjing" in history.
Ma Qian of the Taishi Company described the wealth of the Wenjing and Jing dynasties in the "Historical Records: The Biography of the Goods and Colonies": the grain in the official warehouse was so much that it deteriorated and overflowed, and the copper coins in the treasury were so much that the rope that strung the money was rotten; Private businessmen, relying solely on small skills such as knife sharpening and veterinarians, have accumulated into a wealthy family. Sima Qian also analyzed in detail the reasons for economic prosperity and the strength of the state: acknowledging people's selfishness and desires and allowing private individuals to get rich; Individuals in the market trade freely, reducing the ...... state intervention
The Legend of the Colonies: A liberal thought comparable to The Wealth of Nations.
However, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Liu Che, like Qin Shi Huang, was so rejoicing in his achievements and reckless in his military force that he quickly lost the family wealth accumulated by the Wenjing and Jing dynasties. In order to support the long-term conquest, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty competed with the people everywhere for profit: the implementation of the national monopoly of salt and iron, the unified purchase and sale of grain, led to the near collapse of the private economy, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty forced to buy and sell, and made a windfall, but the people did not have enough food and clothing.
In order to maximize the accumulation of wealth, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty also regained the "wisdom" of the tyrannical Qin: monopolizing the right to mint coins. He carried out six currency reforms, and finally completely abolished private coinage, and forcibly monopolized the money market with five baht coins. Soon, bad money revived, prices skyrocketed, and the people complained bitterly. Of course, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's reactivation of this evil law is very high-sounding - "private money harms the people".
Since then, the currency, as the "last gate of the free market", has been firmly held in the hands of the ** empire and has never been released. "Leviathan must have a monopoly on coinage" is regarded as a "self-evident axiom" and has been poisoned for thousands of years.
The longest-circulating currency in Chinese history: the five-baht coin.
Under the spell of monopolizing the right to mint coinage, the nightmare of inflation has always been ghosted, and the lessons of blood and tears abound in ancient and modern times.
In the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, Tokhoff wantonly printed money, and prices skyrocketed tenfold, triggering a peasant uprising; In the last years, the indiscriminate issuance of paper money led to the collapse of the economy; The rise in the price of food during the reign of Louis XVI led to the French Revolution, which led to a century of civil strife (see The New Cambridge Modern History of the World); After the outbreak of hyperinflation in Latin American and Venezuelan countries, people rummaged through garbage heaps for food ......
Historically, in order to defend the sanctity of private property, both scholars and the public have been very sensitive to theft, abduction, and unfair taxation. However, paradoxically, even though it has been 800 years since mankind entered modern civilization, very few people have noticed itMonopolizing the right to mint money and dilute national wealth with inflation is the Leviathan's most powerful means of plunder, and it is also the biggest stone to widen the gap between the rich and the poor and crush the national economy.
Paths to Liberty and Prosperity: From Smith to Hayek
How to stop hyperinflation and protect personal property security? How can we ensure that the prosperity and dignity of human beings are not extinguished? Fallacy can be disguised as common sense, but humanity's pursuit of happiness and truth has never stopped. Until the true wise man will set his sights on this "forbidden area" in the future.
In 1776, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was published. Since then, market order and free competition have become the pillar concepts that shape modern society - free competition expands to the first level, and freedom and prosperity are obtained. For more than 200 years, the book has greatly promoted the development of human civilization and is regarded as a "priceless treasure" by developed countries. Scientists believe that "even in another 500 years, humanity will still live in the market order that Smith discovered."
Pioneer of Modern Economics: Adam Smith.
In The Wealth of Nations, Smith unceremoniously stated: "I believe that the monarchs of the world are greedy and unjust." They deceived their subjects into reducing the true weight of the metal that the currency contained in the first place. ”
When people lose the freedom to choose money, they have to accept the implicit exploitation that has been imposed, but there is no escape. Sweat in exchange for salary, and salary is shrinking, ** and a sense of security at all?
In the 20th century, the Austrian economist Hayek, the Nobel laureate, asked rhetorically: If goods, services, and even systems and ideas should be free to compete and survive the fittest, why can't money? Hayek thus proposed the idea of "free competition of money":
The real exploitation never comes from capital, but from the Leviathan, inflation, recessionand the "desperate gap between rich and poor", all rooted in the Leviathan's monopoly on coinage; Money is man's greatest invention, and it is the only thing that is open to the poor, however, only in stockOnly in the fully competitive market order can ordinary people be exempted from the exploitation of Leviathan.
Hayek's profound revelation of the nature of coinage may seem shocking to many. But in fact, this was not Hayek's most shocking discovery.
In the 1940s, when the Nazis and sue utopias were at their most popular, Hayek predicted the end of the two countries with "The Road to Serfdom": utopianism ignores human nature, tramples on private property, and lacks the best signals, which will only bring want, chaos, moral decay, and ultimately self-destruction. The book is today hailed as "the greatest work of the 20th century", but Hayek has been questioned and attacked for half a century. During the reign of terror in Eastern Europe, possession of the book was even punishable by heavy prison sentences.
In 1974, the King of Sweden paid tribute: Mr. Hayek, since Adam. Privately, he is the most respected moral philosopher and political economist in the field of economics. The utopian Murdal who received the award on the same stage questioned Hayek's eligibility. In 1994, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Road to Serfdom, the editor-in-chief commented: "The world was wrong, however, and Hayek was right. ”
Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, 1974.
Hayek witnessed the collapse of utopia, but remained pessimistic about the prospects for human freedom. He believes that human beings naturally have the urge to advocate utopia, so human society can never get rid of the curse of big **. In his later years, he continued to think about the ways to achieve freedom, and from this he wrote his last economic monograph, "The Denationalization of Money".
In this book, Hayek eloquently demonstrated that the monopoly created by coercive power, however whitewashed or quibbled, magnifies human greed and proliferates the proliferation of inferior and inferior things, including the issuance of money. Once monopolized by coercive force, money ceases to be a medium of exchange for the people, but is reduced to a tool for the plundering of wealth.
A currency that is not open, but manipulated to meet the needs of a certain group of people, is bound to be the worst kind of money.Why read Hayek? The closest Chinese economist to the Nobel Prize" Yang Xiaokai once said before his death
I am a person with a unique set of economic ideas, and I have never admired all the Nobel laureates in economics, and I still think that they are difficult to deserve this honor. And I'm a person with a penchant for the scientific method, and I never pay attention to non-mathematical ideas. Hayek was an economist who never used mathematical models, but when I read his work, I had a strong sense of admiration for each other.
Yang Xiaokai believes that Hayek's influence on humanity will be "as profound as Confucius's influence on the Chinese." In particular, Hayek's insistence on free competition was thoroughIf there is no free competition in the commodity market, enterprises with high quality and low price will occupy the magpie's nest; Without free competition in the market of ideas, erroneous ideas will poison the world.
Today, why read Hayek and his The Denationalization of Money?
This classic is a milestone in the history of human thought, but for various reasons, Chinese readers still know very little about Hayek's other ideas. However,If China wants to lead the world (which is one of Yang Xiaokai's greatest aspirations during his lifetime), it must continue to be the whole person with the essence of Chinese traditionWhat are the hidden connections between the great tradition of freedom and prosperity, from Sima Qian's The Biography of the Colonies, to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, to Hayek's The Denationalization of Money?
Jeffrey Wood, a professor of economics in the United States, said: "This book wants to turn the 'political impossible' into a possibility that we can grasp. ”
Professor Mao Shoulong's reason is more straightforward: "Money, in the hands of the people, is money; In the hands of entrepreneurs, it is capital; In the market where money is traded, it is an asset. But in the hands of those who monopolize the coinage, it is money, more or less, but a convenient general equivalent or bookkeeping instrument, and sometimes a taxing instrument. In order to make money money, capital, and assets, denationalization is the fundamental direction from the perspective of order. "The Denationalization of Money" is a classic work on the theory of monetary marketization, and it is impossible not to read it. ”
At the end of 2018, we were fortunate to work with Hainan Publishing House to republish Hayek's book The Denationalization of Money. In this reprint, the editorial team knows that it has a great responsibility, and has made great efforts on the basis of the original first edition:
The additions made by Hayek in the original book are marked with asterisks, and the key points of logical argumentation are also marked in bold, so that this classic work of the Austrian School is logical and enjoyable to read. In addition, experts and scholars who study Hayek and digital currency in China are also invited to read the book.
NearOver the years, this book has also become a popular book in the blockchain field, and at its peak, second-hand books** were as high as 1,000 yuan. At present, our exclusive collector's edition is priced at 69 yuan, click on the commodity card below, and you can collect it with one click.