Good for Steve Chapman for quoting Mises: “Government is the only agency which can take a useful commodity like paper, slap some ink on it, and make it totally worthless.”
The only problem is that no one can seem to verify that Mises actually said this. It more or less reflects his thought but the prose is not his style.
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Well, if he didn’t say it, he should have said it!
At first glance it seems like a good line, but if you think about it nearly anyone could “take a useful commodity like paper, slap some ink on it, and make it totally worthless.” Am I wrong?
Yes, xteve, I’m with you. On close inspection, I’m not sure that it makes much sense. It’s clever but lacks the precision of Mises.
the quote as shown seems to have been paraphrased. The alleged Mises quote is elsewhere reported as:
“Government is the only institution that can take a perfectly good piece of paper, print some noble words on it, and make it perfectly worthless.”
that surely seems closer to Mises’s style, ( I cant imagine him saying ‘slap some ink….’) although I cant find any verification that he actually said it. But even if he didn’t say it, its abundantly clear that he meant it
I did a google search and found two websites that attribute that quote to Mises; neither had a source of the quote. I doubt Mises said the above quote, because it doesn’t sound like something he would say. For another thing, it is wrong, because the exact opposite happens. The government slaps some ink on a perfectly worthless piece of paper and it instantly becomes valuable. Think about it, people. Also, be very wary of quotes lacking sources.
Also, bad for Steve Chapman. For one thing, it is highly dubious Mises said that and for another it makes Mises look like an complete idiot. How many people think their $100 bills are worthless?
That quote not only isn’t from Mises, it is completely senseless. As “torn” points out, government makes otherwise-worthless paper valuable by printing money. An even more obvious point is that anyone can make paper worthless by slapping ink on it.
As regards monetary policy, you may be interested in someone’s recent foray into making their own fiat currency (Tonybucks!) over on Something Awful. Darned funny.
I Think the Comment still has a degree of valid merit. Obviusly its not perfectly applicible, but it can be extremely close.
Consider…
it says “can”, not ‘has’. therefor the gov. could inflate it indefinetely until it approaches a value of 0. making a fair approximation of the degree of power entrusted with the gov.
However it could also be negated as it is true that a piece of paper with random ink, could be just as useless as a piece of paper with government ink.
Considering that highly inflated money is said to be “not worth the paper it’s printed on,” I think the above quote, although highly unlikely Mises’s, nevertheless has some merit.
According to my research, the earliest printing of this quote comes from Dr. Ron Paul’s 1981 book, Gold, Peace, and Prosperity. On page 15 of this book, Paul attributes the quote to Mises, but fails to provide a source for the quote. I find it highly unlikely that Paul just made it up, but I find it just as unlikely that Mises actually wrote this. Where Dr. Paul actually first heard it, one can only guess.
Yours,
Alex Peak
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought it was Friedman that said this?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought it was Friedman that said this?
I came across this quote in Great Myths of the Great Depression by Lawrence W Reed.
Verbatim it was “Government is the only institution that can take a valuable commodity like paper and make it worthless by applying ink.”
The quote was attributed to Mises. There was a previous comment that anyone can take a piece of paper and make it worthless by applying ink to it. It seems its actually harder for some than it is for government. A publisher who prints a comic book would have to print a huge quantity of these to make them worthless, in fact a comic book can keep up with inflation pretty well.
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