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There was an increase in trade and Rome became one of the most prosperous cities in the ancient world. [...] bronze coins represented national money and were paid into circulation by the state and each was only of value in as much as the symbols on which its numbers were recorded, were scarce or otherwise. This money was thus based on law rather than the metallic content. [...] This can be considered as an early example of the successful use of fiat money.
While fiat money is much criticised in some quarters, for example by the followers of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, there is nothing wrong with it, as long as it is issued by government, not by private bankers, and is carefully protected against counterfeiters. Non-fiat money, in contrast, has the serious drawback that who ever sets the prices of gold and silver, i.e. private bankers, can control the nation’s economy.
[...] in September 45 BC, Caesar found the streets and cities crowded with homeless people, who had been forced off the land by usurers and land monopolists. 300,000 people had to be fed daily at the public granary. Usury was flourishing with disastrous consequences. [..] Caesar fully understood the evils of usury and how to counter them. He recognized the profound truth that money is a national agent, created by law for a national purpose, and that no classes of men should withhold it from circulation so as to cause panics, in order that speculators could advance the rates of interest, or could buy up property at ruinous prices after such panic.
Caesar introduced the following social reforms:
- Restoration of property was done at the much lower valuations which held prior to the civil war (49-45 BC).
- Several remissions of rents were granted.
- Large numbers of poor citizens and discharged veterans were settled on allotments.
- Free housing was provided to 80,000 impoverished families.
- Soldiers’ pay was increased from 123 to 225 denarii.
- The corn dole was regulated.
- Provincial communities were enfranchised.
- Confusion in the calendar was removed by fixing it at 365¼ days from 1 January 44 BC.
His monetary reforms were as follows:
- State debt levels were immediately reduced by 25%.
- Control of the mint was transferred from the patricians (usurers) to government.
- Cheap metal coins were issued as the means of exchange.
- It was ruled that interest could not be levied at more than 1% per month.
- It was decreed that interest could not be charged on interest and that the total interest charged could never exceed the capital loaned (in duplum rule).
- Slavery was abolished as a means of settling debt.
- Aristocrats were forced to employ their capital and not hoard it.
These measures enraged the aristocrats and plutocrats whose “livelihood” was now severely restricted. They therefore conspired to murder Caesar, the hero of the people.
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The 'Ides of March' Denarius (43/42 BC), a declaration of the Republic's 'liberation' from tyrannical Caesar.
Ironically, Brutus appears on the obverse professing he killed Julius Caesar on the Ides of March.
This is one of the most sought-after coins from the Roman world.
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Stephen Mitford Goodson (1948 - 2018) was a South African economist, author, politician and former Director of the South African Reserve Bank. He was the leader of South Africa's Abolition of Income Tax and Usury Party, and stood as a candidate for the Ubuntu Party in the 2014 General Elections.
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