A specter is haunting the world: the increasing prospect of a new totalitarianism under the extended covid response.

After the Taliban captured Kabul far faster than anyone in Washington forecast, secretary of state Tony Blinken went on Sunday morning talk shows and announced that the US mission in Afghanistan had been “successful.” Unfortunately, there will be plenty of robotic civil servants and political appointees who recite that deranged verdict in the coming years.

In early July, Ron Paul penned a column titled “It’s Saigon In Afghanistan,” invoking the imagery of the fall of Saigon in 1975, when US military helicopters scrambled to evacuate personnel from the roof of the US embassy. But Paul suggested that maybe the situation in Afghanistan was “perhaps not as dramatic” as the situation in Saigon forty-six years ago.

But that was six weeks ago.

This is the fiftieth anniversary of the demise of the gold standard and the beginning of the current fiat paper standard. Many will say “good riddance” to gold and “thank goodness” for the “good ole greenback”! Reflection, however, produces an alternative conclusion.

It is common for commentators and economists to refer to something called the “economy,” which sometimes performs well and at other times poorly. The “economy” is presented as a living entity apart from individuals.

For example, various experts report that the “economy” grew by such and such percentage, or that the widening in the trade deficit threatens the “economy.” What do they mean by the term “economy”? Does such an entity actually exist?

Within this framework of thinking, the “economy” is assigned a paramount importance while individuals are barely mentioned.

This weekend the US experienced another “Saigon moment,” this time in Afghanistan. After a 20 year war that drained trillions from Americans’ pockets, the capital of Afghanistan fell without a fight. The corrupt Potemkin regime that the US had been propping up for two decades and the Afghan military that we had spent billions training just melted away.

Today [August 15] marks 50 years since President Richard Nixon closed the “gold window,” ending the ability of foreign governments to exchange United States dollars for gold. Nixon’s action severed the last link between the dollar and gold, giving the U.S. a fiat currency.

America’s experiment with fiat has led to an explosion of consumer, business, and—especially—government debt. It has also caused increasing economic inequality, a boom-bubble-bust business cycle, and a continued erosion of the dollar’s value.

The collapse of the American-backed state in Afghanistan brings home the wisdom of Murray Rothbard’s essay “The Death of a State,” written in July 1975. The lessons that Rothbard drew from the fall of South Vietnam apply equally to the present crisis.

Jack Dorsey, Vipassanā meditation practitioner and billionaire CEO of Twitter, is known for cultivating an eclectic image as a guru and deep thinker. He is also well-known as a supporter of bitcoin, having a personal stake and speaking at conferences to dedicated hodlers. But over this past weekend he used his sizable Twitter account (5.6 million followers!) to go a step beyond simply questioning the currency regime and post a decidedly provocative link to mises.org: 

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary since Nixon suspended the convertibility of the US dollar into gold. This began the era of a global fiat money, debt-fueled economy. Since then, crises are more frequent but also shorter and always “solved” by adding more debt and more money printing.