Too much state-created money is by definition a bad thing. And so is too little. But how do we know how much is too much and how much too little? The brief dogmatic answer is that we cannot. We can only “suck it and see”. The gold standard may have been excessively maligned by would-be progressive commentators. But paper money has one genuine advantage. While gold, silver and many other precious metals are difficult to eliminate once they have been extracted from the ground, paper money can be annulled. And the edifice of bank credit that rests upon it can, at least, be tapered off.
按照理論，政府印鈔過多是件壞事。印鈔過少也不好。但我們如何知道什么是太多、什么是太少呢？簡短的教條式的答案是，我們不可能知道。我們只能試著看。黃金本位制也許已遭到有意“與時俱進”的評論員的過度詆毀。但紙幣有一個真正的優勢。金、銀以及其他貴金屬一旦從地底下開采出來之后就很難被銷毀，但紙幣可以作廢。建立在紙幣基礎上的銀行信貸“大廈”至少可以逐漸拆除。