"If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity.
From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable. ”
Benito Mussolini, Diuturna
That philosophy described by Benito is fiat with a capital 'F.'
In a fascist or more properly statist regime, the state is above all else. All values, including money, are whatever we say that they are, to the extent that can back them up with whatever amount of fraud and force that are required. Everything that a tyrant does is legal, because they hold their power as the ultimate source of the law.
This is directly opposed to the principle of a higher justice that is embodied in the rule of law. There can be no real independent justice if there is no value transcending human power. If there is no standard of truth, then all ideas are equally meaningless and without inherent value unless backed by power and the will to decree 'let it be done.'
A trillion dollars may be represented by market tested legal debt, by a finite store of gold, a single platinum coin, or the stalk of a rotting turnip, if we say that it is so. All of these ideas are equally true says the sophist, and all value is arbitrary, to be decided by the will of the state.
This is the very blueprint for abuse from the extremes of both the left and the right, the statists of the Socio-Political Continuum who see power as the greatest good, whether their perspective is from the left or the right.
The great American innovation was to claim that certain values are self-evident, true without contingency to a counterparty, because they have been endowed as a part of nature by a transcendent power. They may have made sometimes strong distinctions between human religions and that transcendent power, but the acknowledgement of the subordination of the law to certain higher values is unmistakable. And because those values did not come from the state, they are 'inalienable' even by the state.
Yes, we can argue about the implications, dimensions and definitions of rights and freedoms. But we can never cynically dismiss them as did the statists of the 20th century, most of whom also by necessity adopted a state religion, from state atheism to a vague neo-pagan mythology of the blood or some other state sponsored belief that was a tool of their official will.
I know this should be obvious, but it is remarkable how easily people can forget the basis for the great American experiment and the principles that inspired it. It is the philosophical notion of the legal restraint of power and accountability of government to its source in the people themselves endowed with values and privileged by a power above the state.
Now, one can certainly argue how those standards will be incorporated into the law, and what those standards ought to be in practice. But it is undeniable that there must be non-arbitrary standards, and that the law is not in any way sufficient to itself. This is no form of legalism or a religion of the law.
The law itself is answerable to those standards of authority granted by the consent of the governed with the bounds of recognizing that which exists transcendently.
"If there's no God and no life beyond the grave, doesn't that mean that men will be allowed to do whatever they want?'
'Didn't you know that already?' he said and laughed again. 'An intelligent man can do anything he likes as long as he's clever enough to get away with it."
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
And once again, I am not saying that there ought to be a gold standard per se. Not at all. There are many ways to set standards and maintain them, with gold having many of the key characteristics of a good external standard. And so it can inform us by its historical example.
All things can be turned to evil, even inherently good things. Our system is capable of corrupting almost anything including the word of God itself, and our own Constitution if we allow it. Our hypocrisy knows few bounds, and our law has too often descended into a mere ritual of legality with little enough reference to justice.
But those things that are transcendent of human power and our pride at least remind us that we are doing evil, and that we are not sufficient unto ourselves as the arbiters of the universe.
But I will go so far to say that virtually every would-be statist who wishes to set themselves up as an authority by fiat will almost certainly find gold to be troublesome, an impediment, and something to be feared and if possible, controlled.
Like private conscience, and a belief in a power greater than the power of the state, gold whispers in the silence to us, that something is terribly wrong.
It was a quiet option expiration on the Comex today. More on that tomorrow.
