Sound money is not a niche interest.
It is the foundation beneath everything else.

When money is honest, societies tend toward stability, patience, and long-term thinking. When money is manipulated, societies drift toward anxiety, short-termism, and conflict — even if the cause is rarely recognised at the time.

There is a reason the question “what happened?” keeps pointing back to the same period.

1971 Was Not an Accident

There is a body of work — most clearly assembled at wtfhappenedin1971 — that charts what occurred when sound money was finally severed.

Wages disconnected from productivity.
Asset prices decoupled from labour.
Debt exploded.
Family formation declined.
Trust eroded.
Social cohesion weakened.

The charts are not ideological. They are descriptive.

Once currency could be created at will — by states and banks — money stopped being a store of value and became a policy tool. From that moment on, distortion was not a side effect. It was the mechanism.

Inflation: The Silent Enemy

This is not a new insight.

Across political and philosophical divides, the same warning appears again and again:
inflation is the silent destroyer — the enemy that works invisibly, recognised by very few while doing the most damage.

Whether attributed to Keynes, Marx, or Henry Ford, the sentiment is consistent: debasement of currency allows wealth to be transferred quietly, without debate or consent, from those who earn and save to those closest to the issuance of money.

Inflation does not announce itself as theft.
It presents itself as necessity.

That is why it works.

The World Before 1914

Before the First World War — and before the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 — the world functioned largely under conditions of sound money.

This did not mean perfection. It meant constraint.

Capital formation was slower, but more honest.
Savings mattered.
Deflation — natural, productivity-driven deflation — rewarded patience and efficiency rather than leverage.

This period produced extraordinary growth in real terms:

  • railways
  • electrification
  • industrial innovation
  • rising living standards

People became wealthier not because money expanded, but because value did.

Sound money aligned effort, reward, and time.

Currency Destruction and Social Collapse

History is consistent on one point: when money collapses, society follows.

Germany in 1921–23 is the obvious example. Currency destruction hollowed out the middle class and paved the way for radicalisation, resentment, and ultimately war.

France in the 1790s offers another case. Revolutionary money printing did not deliver equality. It delivered instability, distrust, and violence.

These outcomes were not cultural accidents.
They were monetary consequences.

When money loses meaning, contracts fail.
When contracts fail, trust collapses.
When trust collapses, force fills the gap.

The Present Day

Today’s version is quieter, but no less corrosive.

The middle class is being hollowed out — not by laziness or lack of education, but by a monetary system that rewards leverage over labour and proximity to issuance over productivity.

People feel it, even if they can’t name it:

  • working harder for less security
  • assets drifting out of reach
  • savings punished
  • time compressed into survival

This is not a moral failing.
It is arithmetic.

Why Sound Money Matters

Sound money is not about nostalgia or ideology.

It is about:

  • restoring trust between effort and reward
  • allowing people to plan across generations
  • reducing the need for coercive redistribution
  • limiting the state’s ability to extract value invisibly

It imposes discipline — on governments, banks, and individuals alike.

That discipline is precisely why it is resisted.

Choice or Force

There is a final historical constant worth acknowledging.

Monetary systems reset one way or another.

Either:

  • by choice, through reform and restraint

or:

  • by force, through crisis, collapse, and re-pricing of reality

History suggests the latter is more common.

Sound money will return — not because it is fashionable, but because systems built on distortion cannot compound indefinitely.

The only real question is how, and at what cost.

Where I Stand

I support sound money because it aligns with everything else I value:

  • sovereignty
  • responsibility
  • patience
  • and truth over convenience

It is not a utopian solution.
It is simply the least dishonest foundation available.

And foundations matter.