The entire narrative of “de-dollarization” is not merely economically flawed—it is, at its core, a collectivist delusion.
The dollar is poison in the praxeological sense. It is fiat currency—unbacked, unstable, and subject to continuous debasement by the US state. Its global dominance is not a mark of monetary virtue, but of comparative vice: it is simply less terrible, or perceived to be, than the alternatives offered by other criminal regimes. Foreigners do not use the dollar because it is sound; they use it because criminals behind their local currencies are even worse. The dollar is, tragically, the tallest dwarf in a monetary wasteland.
Yet even this poisoned fiat retains its position in international trade—not by force, but by preference. No decree from the Washington branch compels a Vietnamese importer, a Nigerian oil trader, or a Swiss banker to use it. They choose it voluntarily because it is liquid, widely accepted, and—relative to other currencies—more predictable.
If individuals around the world ceased to find it useful, it would vanish from global commerce overnight. No statist enforcer, no authoritarian law could preserve its status. Value flows, not from decree, but from subjective individual valuation.
To speak of “de-dollarization” as a strategy is to accept the collectivist fiction that nations act. But “Brazil” does not act; “China” does not choose. Only individuals act.
It is not China that uses the dollar, but individual Chinese trader who—rightly or wrongly—find it expedient to do so in the current environment. There are no countries, no borders, no trade flows from “nations”—only a web of voluntary exchanges between individuals, and criminal groups that actively attempt to prevent them from taking place.
What statist economists call “exports from China” are, in truth, transactions between Mr. Zhang, who manufactures electronic components in Shenzhen, and Ms. Diaz, who distills tequila in Jalisco, Mexico. The border between them exists only in the mind of the bureaucrat.
The very framework of “de-dollarization” is mercantilist: it imagines the world as a battlefield of competing states, where one’s gain is another’s loss. It assumes wealth lies in holding currency or amassing exports, not in goods available for consumption.
The BRICS bloc may construct currency schemes or declare their intentions to reduce dollar dependence, but unless they can produce goods, services, or monetary instruments that are more useful to the individual trader than the dollar, these are empty gestures—political theater, not economic substance.
And in the case of BRICS, the farce is ironic. We are speaking of third-world totalitarian regimes—kleptocracies and central planners—who somehow imagine they can fabricate a currency that the world will trust more than the dollar. This is not merely mistaken. It is delusional.
Not that the dollar isn’t a third-world regime itself—it is. Its endurance is not proof of soundness, but to inertia and a unique historical accident set in motion 200 years ago.
The gravest error lies not in economic miscalculation, but in the philosophical foundation. “De-dollarization” presumes that currencies can be realigned by statecraft. But money—like all economic goods—is chosen. It emerges from the market, not from authoritarian decrees.
Collective currency strategies, alliances of central banks, and engineered blocs are attempts to override the preferences of individuals. They are not market actions—they are criminal impositions. And they are doomed.
The crisis is the anarchy’s revenge. It is not a failure of the free market. It is the free market’s correction of criminality.
To “de-dollarize,” in any real sense, would mean to offer something better. That requires credibility, liquidity, stability—and ultimately, freedom from state manipulation. Until that exists, the dollar will remain—not because it is good, but because the alternatives are worse. When it finally collapses, as all authoritarian creatures do, it will not be replaced by money, but by the next tallest dwarf in the fiat wasteland—uglier, more grotesque, and more desperate.
The language of “de-dollarization” conceals an authoritarian ambition: to replace one fiat empire with another. It is not a step toward sound money, but toward monetary nationalism. It is not liberation from the dollar; it is enslavement to a different tyrant.
True monetary reform requires not a new hegemon, but a return to liberty and markets. Let individuals, not states, choose their money. Let gold—or any other medium the market prefers—emerge once more. Unless and until that freedom is restored, all talk of “de-dollarization” is nothing but collectivist mythology.
