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I wrote the following in defense of my thesis that something like the gold standard is coming back:
I was at first surprised to read that Thomas Jefferson saw that the state-bank elites would take wealth from the rest of the population by alternating inflation and deflation. It was through much evidence and reflection that I saw how true it is.
The role of deflation is not just to protect the reputation of their system by keeping their money 'sound' (though that's very important to them.) It's also to correct the distortions in the economy by re-orienting productive forces and sobering up the over-consumption in order to get the population ready for another round of growth and inflation. (This all sounds reasonable until you realize that it was the elites who caused and benefited most from the inflation that caused the distortions in the first place, and the general public who suffer the most during the adjustment by deflation.) Deflation is every bit as 'necessary' as inflation.
Whether gold standard or fiat money, the basic character of the system has never really changed. (The elites didn't institute gold and silver standards out of the goodness of their heart any more than they did the fiat system!) Even under fiat money, consumer prices in the West haven't risen too quickly, for most of the past 45 years. (You could say consumer goods are a substitute for gold, for now.) Also, under a (de-facto) gold or Bitcoin standard, inflation is possible to create, if the price of gold or Bitcoin is high enough.
There are major differences between hard-money standards and fiat. The big forces that ended the gold standard over the 20th century were increased democracy and power of labor unions in the West. This has tilted policies in favor of inflation, at least in the West. You can see this clearly by how gold prices were flat over centuries from 1690, in Britain and the US, but rose 50-fold in dollars since the early 20th century.
In effect, what is going on is that the elites have been forced to placate the outer ring of their alliance, the Western voters. They have been reducing the severity of deflationary pain in the West, in hopes of keeping these people happy. A bigger share of the pain has been shifted outside the West. The avoidance of painful but economically necessary adjustments in the West has made the countries structurally and temperamentally less productive, while, paradoxically, the supposed strength of these countries are at the heart of the power of the Western elites.
So you can see they have a fundamental problem on their hands, at this point. You can argue that, one way or another, more painful adjustments must take place among Westerners, or the entire modern global system will be damaged, maybe seriously. It may not be a totally done deal, but there are two major reasons now is a good time to impose this severity.
First, it's clear to anyone paying attention that all the financial distortions and boom-bust cycles over the last decades are heavily tied to Western inflationary policies. To convince the educated of the need for 'sound money,' the elites will only need to unleash certain select truths to the media. Second, the rise of 'populism' across the West provides both an indication of the long-term problems of inflation and a convenient scapegoat for the coming pain from deflation. If markets crash and economies contract, it's because of the surface-level problems of Trump's aggressive policies, or Brexit, both of which are the embodiment of this 'populism.' Or at least that's what the mass media will say.
Ultimately, the Western elites' power base includes the perception that they are uniquely friendly to free markets and property rights. State-sponsored asset inflation simply can't go on forever, and a particularly nasty proponent for this, fiat money, might have to be rooted out. Even though, as I mentioned, nothing is 100% certain, and there may be delays and bumps on this road, this is where I would place my bet.
[I wrote the above as a reply to a fellow poster on another forum who argued that the Western elites will never give up fiat money, which is the basis of their power by inflation.]