Socialism is rising because our money is dying

I've been thinking a lot about intellectual giants lately. Specifically, three towering figures who shaped my understanding of economics and liberty: Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard. These three didn't agree on everything. In fact, they had some spectacular disagreements. Rand famously expelled Rothbard from her inner circle. Mises and Rand differed on philosophical foundations. Rothbard took Austrian economics places that even Mises wouldn't go.

But here's what strikes me: despite their differences, I'm absolutely certain all three would look at Bitcoin and see the same thing. They'd see sound money. They'd see individual sovereignty. They'd see the antidote to monetary manipulation that each of them, in their own way, spent their lives warning us about.

The money they all despised

Let me start with what united them: their visceral hatred of fiat currency and central banking.

Mises wrote extensively about the "crack-up boom" that comes from endless money printing. In Human Action, he warned that government manipulation of money would lead to economic calculation becoming impossible. When prices no longer reflect real supply and demand because the money itself is corrupted, how can anyone make rational economic decisions? He saw this as the fatal conceit of socialism: the belief that planners could replace market prices with bureaucratic decisions.

Rand, in Atlas Shrugged, gave us one of fiction's most powerful scenes about money. Francisco d'Anconia's money speech remains the definitive moral defense of wealth creation. "Money is the barometer of a society's virtue," he declares. But what happens when that barometer is rigged? When governments can create money from nothing, they're creating claims on wealth that doesn't exist. It's the ultimate fraud, the kind of systematic dishonesty that Rand saw as civilization's greatest threat. "Whenever destroyers appear among men," Francisco warns, "they start by destroying money."

Rothbard went even further. In What Has Government Done to Our Money?, he didn't just criticize fiat currency; he called for its complete abolition. He saw the Federal Reserve as a criminal counterfeiting operation, plain and simple. Every dollar printed was theft from those who had earned and saved. The state's monopoly on money was, for him, the cornerstone of tyranny.

All three understood a fundamental truth: when money is corrupted, everything else follows.

The socialist infection has no boundaries

Look around today and you'll see exactly what they predicted. But here's what's truly terrifying: socialism hasn't just captured the Bernie Sanders, AOC, Zohran Mandamni types. It has infected every political party, every ideology, every supposed defender of free markets.

Trump just won reelection promising not to touch Social Security or Medicare, the largest socialist programs in American history. He handed out stimulus checks with his signature on them like some medieval lord distributing alms. He pressured the Fed for lower rates and easier money. He ran deficits that would make FDR blush. This is the "capitalist" option Americans voted for. The businessman president governed like a monetary socialist.

In Canada, Mark Carney, the supposed "responsible" economic voice who ran both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, championed quantitative easing that destroyed savers and created the everything bubble. Now he's Prime Minister, positioning himself as the adult in the room while advocating for climate policies that amount to central planning of the entire economy. The architect of monetary destruction wants to plan your economic future.

Keir Starmer's Labour isn't your grandfather's socialist party, they tell us. Yet he's pushing for digital IDs that would make Orwell shudder, wealth taxes that punish success, and energy policies that give government unprecedented control over every aspect of industry. The Tories before him? They ran the highest tax burden since World War II and the largest state spending outside of wartime. These are your "conservatives."

Macron in France, supposedly the "centrist" bulwark against extremism, presides over a state that consumes 59% of GDP. Nearly six out of every ten euros earned goes through government hands. He bailed out every failing company during COVID, implemented price controls on energy, and created a system where more people work for the government than in manufacturing. This is centrism now: socialism with a smile.

Even the so-called "far-right" parties in Europe promise to protect pensions, increase welfare for natives, and use state power to direct the economy. They're not opposing socialism; they're just arguing about who deserves the handouts. National socialism versus international socialism, but socialism all the same.

Even the "Anarcho-Capitalist" surrenders

The most damning evidence comes from Argentina, where we thought we finally had our champion.

Javier Milei ran as a self-described "anarcho-capitalist" who would take a chainsaw to the state. He quoted Rothbard in speeches. He carried Austrian economics textbooks to interviews. He called central banking a crime against humanity. He promised to abolish the central bank and dollarize the economy. Finally, we thought, someone who truly gets it.

But what happened once he took office?

The central bank still exists. The peso still circulates. He's maintaining the very currency controls and capital restrictions he called criminals. The social welfare programs he promised to eliminate? Many remain in place, just "reformed" and "optimized." He's negotiating with the IMF instead of defaulting on odious debt. He's implementing export taxes, the literal definition of state theft from producers.

Yes, he's cut some spending and fired government workers. Good for him. But he's also increased taxes on imports, maintained price controls on utilities, and kept the state's monopoly on numerous industries. The chainsaw became pruning shears. The anarcho-capitalist became another fiscal conservative trying to make socialism more efficient.

Even more telling: Milei has embraced the money printer when convenient. He's using central bank reserves to manipulate exchange rates. He's maintaining monetary controls that would make Mises weep. The man who spoke eloquently about the Austrian business cycle is now just another politician managing fiat currency decline, trying to achieve a "soft landing" instead of honest money.

If even Milei, with his Austrian education and libertarian rhetoric, can't escape the socialist trap once in power, what hope is there within the political system?

None. The answer is none.

The great convergence: When east and west trade places

Perhaps the greatest irony of our time is watching China and the West slowly switch economic models while desperately clinging to their old labels.

China calls itself communist. The Chinese Communist Party controls the state. Xi Jinping quotes Marx in speeches. Yet for fifty years, China has been unleashing competition and creative destruction. They went from three state-owned car companies to over 100 competing manufacturers. Their EV companies like BYD and Nio innovated so aggressively that they're now crushing Western automakers on price and quality. So much so that America, the supposed free market champion, needs 100% tariffs to protect Ford and GM from Chinese competition. Think about that: Communist China produces cars so efficiently that Capitalist America needs government protection from them.

Meanwhile, the West keeps preaching free markets while eliminating competition at every turn. America has gone from 30 major banks to 4 too-big-to-fail giants. The airline industry consolidated from dozens of carriers to 4 major players. Tech is dominated by a handful of firms that buy any potential competitor. Healthcare, insurance, media, agriculture, every industry has seen massive consolidation under the watchful eye of regulators who were supposed to preserve competition. Corporate welfare has replaced creative destruction. Bailouts are guaranteed for the connected. Regulations are written by incumbents to crush upstarts. A Chinese entrepreneur can start a business in days; an American needs lawyers, permits, and regulatory approval that can take years.

The reversal is stunning. China allows thousands of businesses to fail every year; America won't let a single large corporation die. China's tech companies compete brutally for market share; America's tech giants divide the market through regulatory capture. China builds a new subway line in two years; America spends two decades on environmental reviews. Chinese consumers have dozens of smartphone brands to choose from; Americans basically have two. Chinese capitalism is more cutthroat than anything Adam Smith imagined, while American "capitalism" is more controlled than many socialist economies of the past.

But here's the crucial point: both systems are built on the same monetary fraud. China prints yuan as aggressively as America prints dollars. Both operate on pure fiat, both manipulate interest rates, both use monetary policy to paper over economic reality. The Bank of China and the Federal Reserve are brothers in arms, inflating away the value of human labor. The convergence isn't just political or economic, it's monetary. Whether you call it communism or capitalism, when your money is fake, your economy becomes fake too. The labels on the bottle don't matter when the poison inside is identical.

The root of all socialist evil

Here's what everyone is missing: it's not capitalism that failed. It's our money.

When you can't save because inflation eats your purchasing power faster than you can earn it, when houses cost twenty times the median income because asset prices are inflated by money printing, when the game seems rigged because those closest to the money printer get rich while workers fall behind, of course people feel like something has to change.

They're right about the problem. They're catastrophically wrong about the solution.

Every political party now offers the same poison in different bottles: more state control, more money printing, more redistribution. Republicans redistribute to corporations through bailouts and subsidies. Democrats redistribute to welfare programs and government employees. But nobody questions the redistribution itself. Nobody questions the money printing that makes it possible.

The average person knows something is deeply broken. They see billionaires' wealth double during lockdowns while small businesses get destroyed. They watch asset prices soar while wages stagnate. They witness the Cantillon Effect in real time: those who get newly printed money first get rich, everyone else gets poorer. But without understanding monetary theory, they blame "capitalism" for what is actually monetary socialism, the state's complete control and manipulation of money itself.

Mises predicted this perfectly. In Socialism, he demonstrated that without honest prices, economic calculation becomes impossible. Our current system doesn't have honest prices because it doesn't have honest money. The distortions compound year after year until people lose faith in the system itself. Then they turn to anyone promising change, even if that change is more of the same poison that's killing them.

Enter bitcoin: The money they dreamed of

This is where Bitcoin becomes not just interesting but absolutely essential. It's everything these three thinkers would have designed if they could have imagined the technology.

For Mises, Bitcoin solves the calculation problem. It's money that can't be manipulated, that maintains its integrity regardless of political pressure. The Austrian school always emphasized that money should emerge from the market, not from government decree. Bitcoin is exactly that: money chosen by users, not imposed by force. No committee sets its supply. No politician can pressure it to print more. Mathematical certainty replaces political whim.

Rand would love Bitcoin's incorruptibility. There's no way to create unearned Bitcoin. You either mine it through proof of work, spending real resources and energy, or you trade value for it. Every satoshi represents either computational work or economic value exchanged. It's money that embodies her trader principle: value for value, with no room for moochers or looters. No one can print Bitcoin they didn't earn. No one can steal Bitcoin without the keys. It's property rights encoded in mathematics.

Rothbard would see Bitcoin as the revolution he always wanted but couldn't quite envision. In For a New Liberty, he called for a complete separation of money and state. Bitcoin doesn't ask permission. It doesn't negotiate with governments. It simply exists outside state control, a parallel system that makes the old one increasingly irrelevant. It's the monetary secession he dreamed of, accomplished not through politics but through code.

The price of growing up

Yes, Bitcoin's price has been consolidating lately. As Jordi Visser recently pointed out in his brilliant analysis of Bitcoin's "Silent IPO," we're seeing something like a changing of the guard. Early holders who've made life-changing gains are distributing to institutions and new believers. The wild volatility that characterized Bitcoin's first decade is giving way to something more stable, even boring.

Some see this as disappointing. They miss the 10x years, the manic rallies, the heart-stopping crashes. But I see it as Bitcoin growing up, becoming what these three giants always said money should be: boring. Stable. Reliable. A foundation for economic calculation rather than a casino game.

Real money shouldn't make you rich just for holding it. It should preserve value, not create it from nothing. The fact that Bitcoin is becoming less volatile, less exciting, less get-rich-quick, that's not a bug. It's the ultimate feature.

The unity they never achieved

What fascinates me most is how Bitcoin would unite these three thinkers despite their bitter disagreements.

Mises, the utilitarian, would appreciate Bitcoin's practical effectiveness. It works. It solves real problems. It enables economic calculation in a way fiat currency increasingly cannot. No theory needed, just observable functionality.

Rand, the Objectivist, would see Bitcoin as moral money. It rewards producers, punishes parasites, and makes fraud impossible through mathematical certainty rather than government force. It's the physical embodiment of the trader principle.

Rothbard, the anarcho-capitalist, would celebrate Bitcoin as the tool that finally makes his vision possible. Money without the state. Economic coordination without coercion. The peaceful revolution through technology rather than politics.

They fought over methodology, philosophy, and strategy. But on Bitcoin, they would speak as one voice: this is honest money. This is what we were fighting for.

The revolution is monetary, not political

The socialist resurgence we're seeing isn't the beginning of something new. It's the death rattle of the fiat system.

When every politician is a socialist, when every party prints money, when every "solution" involves more state control, the answer isn't to find better politicians. It's to make politicians irrelevant to money.

Mises taught us that socialism fails because it can't calculate. Rand showed us it fails because it's immoral. Rothbard proved it fails because it requires coercion. But they all understood that socialism's greatest tool was its control of money.

Take that away, and socialism dies. Not through revolution. Not through election. But through obsolescence.

Every time someone buys Bitcoin, they're voting with their wealth for honest money. Every time someone saves in Bitcoin, they're rejecting the inflation tax. Every time someone transacts in Bitcoin, they're routing around state control.

This isn't about getting rich. It's about getting free.

The choice before us

They're right to be angry about inequality. They're right that the system is rigged. They're right that something fundamental needs to change.

But socialism isn't the answer to monetary socialism. More state control isn't the solution to state-controlled money. The answer is to separate money and state entirely, just as we once separated church and state.

Bitcoin is that separation. It's the monetary revolution these three giants saw coming, even if they couldn't see its exact form. It's the vindication of everything they taught us about sound money, individual sovereignty, and economic truth.

Mises gave us the theory. Rand gave us the morality. Rothbard gave us the vision.

Bitcoin gives us the tool.

The choice is becoming clearer every day: socialist money that enriches the politically connected while impoverishing everyone else, or honest money that rewards value creation and punishes parasitism.

They disagreed on many things. But on this, I'm certain they would speak with one voice: Bitcoin isn't just the future of money. It's the only escape from the socialist monetary prison we've built around ourselves.

The revolution they dreamed of doesn't require violence. It doesn't require voting. It doesn't even require convincing others.

It just requires opting out of their money and into ours.