recently the american right has embraced the gold standard and figures on the right have begun arguing that the u.s. should go back to it. which is a little bizarre if you think about it. under the gold standard, the government guarantees that each dollar is worth a certain amount of gold. so the dollar is "backed by gold" in the sense that everyone who holds a dollar bill has the right to demand the government present a certain amount of gold. the gold standard act of 1900 set the value of the dollar at 1.5046 grams of gold. but isn't that also a form of price control? legislating that $1 equaling 1.5046 grams of gold is another way of fixing the price of gold at $20.67 per ounce, rather than letting the market decide. it's odd that certain rightwingers, of all people, would be in favor of what is effectively the imposition of government price controls.
but it gets even more strange: the current gold standard fetish, i think, is driven by the ascendancy of the libertarian faction in the GOP. libertarians have long clamored for a return to the gold standard. but libertarians really don't like price controls.
gold standard proponents tend not to see it in terms of the government fixing the price for gold. they view it more about backing the u.s. dollar with something of "real value" rather than just the imagined value of the greenback. but that doesn't make much sense either. it's true that the dollar is only valuable because of the mass delusion that it is valuable. but that's equally true about gold. there's nothing intrinsically valuable about either. gold has a longer history of being viewed as valuable, but otherwise i don't see much of a difference. the value of gold is as real and unreal as the value of a dollar. a gold standard doesn't back the dollar with anything more real than what it already has.
but it gets even more strange: the current gold standard fetish, i think, is driven by the ascendancy of the libertarian faction in the GOP. libertarians have long clamored for a return to the gold standard. but libertarians really don't like price controls.
gold standard proponents tend not to see it in terms of the government fixing the price for gold. they view it more about backing the u.s. dollar with something of "real value" rather than just the imagined value of the greenback. but that doesn't make much sense either. it's true that the dollar is only valuable because of the mass delusion that it is valuable. but that's equally true about gold. there's nothing intrinsically valuable about either. gold has a longer history of being viewed as valuable, but otherwise i don't see much of a difference. the value of gold is as real and unreal as the value of a dollar. a gold standard doesn't back the dollar with anything more real than what it already has.
