In his 1949 book The Road Ahead: America’s Creeping Revolution, John T. Flynn warns about the “great tides of thought and appetite that run unseen deeply below the surface of society.” These unseen tides are political waves that shape the law and institutional policy, but because they are unseen, there is no widespread awareness of the danger they pose. They are barely debated in academic or policy circles.

The fiat money system will not disappear just like that. Any expectations or hopes to that end should be tempered. Yes, the fiat money system could collapse; yet there is a significant likelihood it will persist longer than most people might think. This prolonged existence may come at a cost: a fascist state encroachment on the freedoms of citizens and entrepreneurs would be more profound than most people realize.