More Swedes want to switch currency from the krona to the Euro, with support the highest it’s been since 2009, according to a survey by Gothenburg University’s SOM Institute.

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  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    The government has to balance the budget anyway.

    This is neoliberal dogma with bad consequences for the majority. While there are plenty of economists who subscribe to it, there are plenty others who don’t. Economics isn’t a well proven science and as a result there are giant gaps filled with unproven hypotheses. While the primacy of budget balancing has been promoted by neoliberal economists since the 70s, evidence has been piling up against it for a while.

    Given that new money is created every time a private bank gives out a loan, the only real difference between the government having the ability to create new money or not is the difference between whether the government has to seek private capital (and pay interest on it) or not. Therefore removing the ability to print your own currency is simply shifting public policy power to private capital. Most people don’t have enough private capital to participate, therefore it’s an increase in the political power of a minority upper class including international actors. One result of this is private capital gaining the power to force austerity by not lending money in need, then profiting from that policy by buying up government services and operating them for profit, typically as monopolies. E.g. healthcare, power, water utilities. The demand for profit means price increases which means inflation.

    Therefore a responsible government should retain the ability to create its own currency, create it and destroy it by targeting metrics such as inflation and employment, not budget balances.