By Anna Von Reitz
Here, to give you an example, is one of the arguments I have been subjected to this week: it is immoral to use crude oil as an asset-backing for a currency (USD) because crude oil is very useful and is needed to make many commodity items that people need, above and beyond its use as a lubricant and fuel and source of electricity.
I tend to agree. It is immoral to use food as the asset backing a currency for the same reason. People actually need oil and actually need food, so no such commodity should be used as "money". This is precisely what argues in favor of using relatively useless substances like gold and silver as assets backing currencies: they aren't really needed for any other reason or purpose and nobody (in theory) has to starve or freeze for lack of direct possession of a lump of gold or silver.
On the other hand, the use of these otherwise comparatively useless metals as money results in a totally lunatic situation of a different sort--- we are treated to the spectacle of people valuing things that are essentially value-less in the first place, which is why everyone is arguing in favor of using gold and silver as a "moral alternative" to using crude oil or coconuts.
Well, if uselessness is our primary consideration in developing a moral alternative to oil assets backing our currency, why use gold or silver, either?