Money and the State: Intermediate Course

Money existed long before governments did. People chose gold, silver, and other scarce goods as money through centuries of voluntary trade. Then the state stepped in — first by stamping coins with a king’s face, then by replacing gold with paper promises, and finally by severing the last link to anything real on August 15, 1971.

What happened next is a story of slow-motion theft. Purchasing power evaporates. Wealth silently flows upward. Governments wage wars they could never afford with honest money. And most people never notice, because the mechanism is invisible.

graph LR
  S1["Step 1
Nixon Shock"] --> S2["Step 2
Inflation Tax"]
  S2 --> S3["Step 3
Moral Hazard"]
  S3 --> S4["Step 4
Capital Controls"]
  S4 --> S5["Step 5
Payment Censorship"]
  S5 --> S6["Step 6
Bitcoin Solution"]
  style S1 fill:#f7931a,stroke:#f7931a,color:#000
  style S6 fill:#3fb950,stroke:#3fb950,color:#000

This course traces how money became a tool of the state, what that has cost ordinary people, and why Bitcoin was designed as a structural exit from the whole arrangement.