Often when we talk about inflation, what comes to mind is increased prices — but the consequences of politicizing money go far beyond what we see when making a purchase. Money is not simply a unit of account but is the lifeblood of the economy; manipulating it for political ends has ramifications that many will never understand — but are no less important.
After all, money is not simply a unit of account — it is the lifeblood of the economy, the government’s control over the production of money increases its control over the real resources in society. When inflation occurs, it does not happen evenly — like boats floating on rising water. There are winners and losers in an inflationary environment, and many of the criticisms about the consequences of “capitalism” can be traced back to the socialization of money.
As we’ve noted, the first winner of inflation is government — it increases the resources they can control, without having to increase taxes. This allows government to spend more than they otherwise would, which is why we’ve seen exponential increases in government projects, foreign wars, and welfare programs the more government has taken control over money.
The next winner is big banks, which central banks use to conduct money. In 2008, it was the Federal Reserve that purchased most of the bad debt from big banks — bailing them out for their bad decisions, at the expense of everyone else who holds dollars.
The winners don’t stop there, however. The closer an individual or business is to the creation of new money, the more they benefit. So, if Big Banks desire to focus their investment on a particular industry — like technology — Big Tech firms receiving state privilege as well. For example, major tech companies — like Uber, Spotify, and Snapchat — have never been profitable on the market. They continue to grow, however, because they have access to cheap debt — subsidizes by Federal Reserve policy.
When one sector benefits from politicized money, other industries may be hurt — and not simply because of inflation. For example, in the 2000s, Federal Reserve policy subsidized the housing bubble that created a financial crisis. With housing construction benefitting from monetary policy, it attracted workers away from industries that use similar workers like manufacturing. These secondary consequences are often ignored by pundits, but a good economist looks at both the “seen” and the “unseen.”
There are cultural consequences as well. When central banks push interest rates low, it changes the cost of money and encourages short-term spending while discouraging saving. In doing so, our central bank policy impacts society’s time preference, encouraging individuals to spend now at the expense of the future. Since 2008, with interest rates near zero, Americans have received very little interest if they saved money in a traditional bank account — but were rewarded by investing in the stock market. The result is more Americans owning risky financial assets rather than having a dependable return for savings.
This disconnect from financial markets and real production has created an economy grounded in what is called “financialization.” The result has been major gains in the financial services industry but declining purchasing power among American workers. While many Americans claim to be concerned about rising income inequality, few connect this issue to one of its major causes — giving government bureaucrats complete control over the money. No one has benefitted more since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971 than the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
In recent years, concerns about the abuses of the Federal Reserve — and other central banks — have sparked innovation in money, such as cryptocurrency. In our next video, we will look at what future private money may look like — and how governments may try to stop them.
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This series was inspired by Murray Rothbard’s classic introduction, What Has Government Done to Our Money?—available for free in PDF, ePub, HTML, and Audiobook at https://Mises.org/WHGD
To learn more about the operations of the Federal Reserve, check out Bob Murphy’s book, Understanding Money Mechanics, available for free in PDF, ePub, and HTML at https://Mises.org/BobMoney
For more animated content, check out Economics for Beginners at https://BeginEconomics.org.
