{"id":66345,"date":"2023-12-11T13:33:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T18:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66345"},"modified":"2023-12-11T13:33:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T18:33:10","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-clxix-fiat-currency-devaluation-a-ruling-elite-solution-to-growth-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66345","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0CLXIX–Fiat Currency Devaluation: A Ruling Elite \u2018Solution\u2019 to Growth Limits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0CLXIX<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Teotihuacan, Mexico (1988). Photo by\u00a0author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fiat Currency Devaluation: A Ruling Elite \u2018Solution\u2019 to Growth Limits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s post is my comment on the latest Honest Sorcerer\u2019s piece<\/a> regarding the misuse of the term \u2018inflation\u2019 and how currency devaluation and the coming energy squeeze overlap.<\/p>\n

Another well-articulated summary of yet a further aspect of our species\u2019 predicament brought about by a society\u2019s attempts to pursue infinite growth on a finite planet and how our ruling class attempts to keep the party going for a tad longer (mostly for them and their ilk) as we bump up against and try to ignore the planet\u2019s biogeophysical limits to growth.<\/p>\n

Debauching a currency as a society continues to expand but encounters diminishing returns on its investments in complexity has a long and storied history. In fact, the \u2018strategy\u2019 of economic machinations of this type to kick-the-can-down-the-road as it were has been around for about as long as complex societies and their currencies have been. The most famous (at least for those schooled in Western cultures) is that of the multi-generational devaluation of the Roman denarius[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Nicolas Perrault III\u200a\u2014\u200aOwn work, CC0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=67224989<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I penned a rather lengthy Contemplation on the economic manipulation we will experience increasingly as part of a series on our energy future. In this fourth and final installment<\/a> (that aligns with your piece) I begin with this:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Part 1<\/a>, I argue that energy underpins everything, including human complex societies. In Part 2<\/a>, I suggest that the increasing need for diminishing resources, especially finite or limited \u2018renewable\u2019 ones, invariably leads to geopolitical tension between competing polities. Part 3<\/a> further posits that this geopolitical competition creates internal societal stresses that are met with rising authoritarianism and attempts at sociobehavioural control of domestic populations by the ruling elite.<\/p>\n

Economic manipulation\u200a\u2014\u200amostly through the financial\/monetary systems of a society, that the ruling caste controls\u200a\u2014\u200ais part and parcel of addressing the societal stresses that arise as things become more complex (as a result of the problem-solving aspects of a society), competition with other polities increases, resources become more dear, and control of the population takes on greater urgency.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pre\/history has witnessed this story play out countless times in a rather predictable fashion. First, a society addresses its various problems using the least expensive and easiest-to-achieve \u2018solutions\u2019. The surpluses that result from this approach allow for a society to continue expanding (hydrocarbons having strapped powerful rockets to this recurrent tendency). Eventually, however, diminishing returns on these \u2018solutions\u2019 are encountered. More expensive and harder-to-achieve \u2018solutions\u2019 are then pursued.<\/p>\n

Surpluses can stave off having to abandon growth for a while but eventually a point is reached where the masses begin to bear the brunt of the economic contraction that accompanies expansion or even just to maintain the status quo\u200a\u2014\u200athe elite finding ways to insulate themselves for as long as possible. In a society with a complex economic\/monetary system, manipulation via currency devaluation is one of the go-to \u2018solutions\u2019 since it can disguise responsibility for the inevitable decline in living standards that are experienced from it while benefitting a few at the top of the power and wealth structures that exist in large, complex societies.<\/p>\n

On the surface this approach can appear to be effective, and certainly the narrative managers that work on behalf of the ruling class to steer beliefs amongst the masses stress this to be the case. In reality, however, this currency devaluation is like eating one\u2019s seed corn: it always ends badly, for everyone since it is stealing from the future\u2026<\/p>\n

I provide some further thoughts on this phenomena in these posts: Collapse Cometh IV<\/a>; Collapse Cometh XI<\/a>; Collapse Cometh XXXII<\/a>; Collapse Cometh CXII<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0CLXIX Teotihuacan, Mexico (1988). Photo by\u00a0author. Fiat Currency Devaluation: A Ruling Elite \u2018Solution\u2019 to Growth Limits Today\u2019s post is my comment on the latest Honest Sorcerer\u2019s piece regarding the misuse of the term \u2018inflation\u2019 and how currency devaluation and the coming energy squeeze overlap. Another well-articulated summary of yet a further aspect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,5,6,7],"tags":[150,30371,1099,309,6979,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-66345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-collapse","tag-collapse-cometh","tag-currency-devaluation","tag-fiat-currency","tag-ruling-elite","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66346,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66345\/revisions\/66346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}