Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation.pdf - The Ludwig von ...

ery inter-human relation by undermining the system of indirect exchange
and money which is called the market. And this is much more important
than any other problems we talk about today. It is the interference of
the government with violence that has spoiled money, that has destroyed
money in the past, and that is perhaps destroying it again today.
Some years ago you could frequently read quotations saying that Lenin
said that the best method to destroy the free enterprise system would be to
destroy the monetary system. Now a professor in Germany has demonstrated
that Lenin never said this. But if Lenin had said this, it would have
been the only correct thing that he ever said.
e monetary problem which we have in this country, which you have
in every country today, is the same—to keep the budget in equilibrium,
to balance income and outgo, revenue and expenditure without printing
an additional quantity of banknotes, without increasing the quantity of
the monetary units. is is not only a problem of economics. It is also the
fundamental problem of constitutional government, you know. Constitutional
government is based upon the fact that the government can only
spend what it has collected in taxes. And it can only tax the people if the
people accept it by the vote of their representatives in parliament. And
in this way the voters are the sovereigns. e problem of monetary management
in a modern country cannot, therefore, be separated from the
constitutional problem, from the doctrine that says that all problems of
government, all governmental matters are decided ultimately by the vote
of the people. Whether you call this democracy or popular government
doesn’t make any difference. But there is no monetary or budgetary problem
that can be separated from the constitutional problem of who rules the
country, who determines ultimately what has to be done in the country.
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