He does a good enough job laying his views it out in the article.
> misreadings of basic economics
Willing to bet he has never read Basic Economics[1]. If he had, he would know that several of the assumptions he makes in this text are fallacies. Of course, the author does not mean the work of Sowell when he says "basic economics," he means "Keynesian Economics 101 as taught at your local academy."
> The actual desirable property of a currency is one...
Desirable to who? Is it really desirable for savers to have their money debased?
The author subtly admits he is a collectivist, and does not care for the individualist perspective.
When it comes to money and value though, all transactions are performed by individuals of their own volition, unless otherwise coerced. An economy is an emergent property of the individuals. Making decisions about transactions 'for the sake of the collective' is a luxury of the already wealthy (and it is more virtue-signalling than actually benefiting of the collective).
> "with a variable supply which a central bank can control to target a specific low inflation rate by measuring the purchasing power of the currency with respective to the domestic costs of goods."
Author assumes it is even possible to target a specific rate of inflation and to even measure if that target is met, and whether meeting any target is a result of any interventions. Of course this is not possible because there are far too many variables. Mises and Hayek have both written in depth about the economic calculation problem[2]. Prices are the most efficient method for individuals to determine their economic activity - not central planning.
> "A controlled inflationary currency with interventionist monetary controls encourages economic growth and stability over time."
May or may not be true. I won't bother arguing with whether or not I think that is the case, but will note that the author assumes that the interventionist controls will be utilized correctly to the benefit of all. This goes back again to assuming that everyone has the same goals (collectivism), but more worryingly, there are some clear examples of the interventionists creating immeasurable struggle for millions of people. Consider Venezuela, or Zimbabwe. Moving zeroes does not create wealth.
> "A national currency’s value is derived from the requirement to pay taxes in the currency ...
Absolutely false. Won't explain.
> "However deflationary currencies do nothing but encourage hording
True, when competing currencies are present. People will hoard the good money and trade the bad money.
Eventually, people will not accept the bad money for payment of goods and services. They must spend the good money to meet their needs. People offering services will find ways to avoid providing those services to people wishing to pay only with the bad money, or will offer discounts to people paying with the good money.
> ... untethered to the cost of goods ...
The fiat money clearly can't be tethered to the cost of goods because prices keep increasing, almost without fail. The only exceptions are in highly deflationary markets where technological innovation outpaces inflation.
If the price of X increases by 5% in one year, does this tell me that the product became more valuable or scarce, or does it tell me that the money became worth less?
Fiat money can't tell you this. It is impossible to separate one from the other because the intervention influences prices and the prices then influence intervention. This "stability" is like a cat chasing its own tail. It is short-lived stability.
Historically there has never been a "reference" commodity which could be used to determine if the currency is losing value or if other goods are increasing in value over time. The fiat money is typically used as the reference because it doesn't fluctuate much over short periods of time (assuming there no economic catastrophes, which is a big assumption in itself). The author admits he has a high time-preference and he seems unwilling to discuss the long-term effects, such as that on pensions and savings.
A dollar today is 0.7 dollars in 5 years.
1/21M is still 1/21M in 5 years. This is the real stability we want if our goal is to measure how prices change over time. A fixed scale.
> "As we see in crypto, they exhibit extremely volatility since no economic activity can be denominated in terms of them. One could never price a thirty year mortgage in bitcoin because its volatility makes it completely unpredictable and no sensible bank could calculate the risk of covering that debt.
Here the author shows his lack of imagination. Sure it is the case that the bitcoin/fiat exchange rates are volatile now, but how does that change if bitcoin adoption continues to grow? What happens if bitcoin adoption reaches 50%, and has equal market share as fiat money? Does the exchange rate then tell you how volatile bitcoin is, or how volatile dollars are?
In fact, the dollar has lost 99% of its value against bitcoin in one decade[4]. Talk about volatility!
> There can be no separation of money and state, because the state is the only party that could issue money almost by definition.
Wrong again.
Money is an emergent property of people selecting the most saleable commodity, in their own subjective opinion, to conduct trade[3].
The State can only intimidate and coerce through violence. When given free choice, people will act in their best self-interest, which is probably counter to the interests of the central bank and the cronies surrounding it.
That is because somehow it is OK for the state to have no say in which god to believe in, yet for Dahl it is OK for the state to say what money to believe in.
Author seems to have absolute faith in policymakers to do the correct thing, and has a cartoon-like assumption about people only hoarding money.