A semioticist might say that this early money — andnindeed all hard currency — is money as sign, that is to say, sonmuch weight in gold or silver indicates so many jars of oil, sonmany bushels of grain. At first, anyone with a sufficientnsupply of precious metals could coin money, since it wasnworth nothing more nor less than the weight of the metal.nTemples, with the constant stream of offerings pouring intontheir treasuries, were among the first mints, but it did notntake the rulers of Greek city-states very long to figure outnthat it was in their interest to claim a monopoly on creatingnmoney.nPrecious metals in general and money in particular havenmany advantages over flocks and jars of wine, not the least ofnwhich is the ease with which they can be accumulated andnmultiplied. In a pre-monetary economy, power and wealth isna very clumsy and material affair: a thousand armed retainersnwho can be fed and clothed on the lord’s estates, so muchntribute in oil or servants owed from tributary villages. (Thenmainland Greek terms obol and drachma are conventionallynderived from words meaning a “spit” and a “handful ofnspits.”) But with money comes a more efficient system ofntrade and the chance for breeding money by lending it atninterest (the Greek word for interest means “offspring”).nIt may be no coincidence that the introduction of moneynis followed very quickly by a political innovation, both innLydia and Greece, that was known as tyranny, after thenLydian name for this sort of ruler. The unwieldy oldnfamily-based monarchies, chieftanships, and aristocraciesnwere replaced by a new, more efficient style of rule thatndepended on wealth, a paid bodyguard, and the power tonmake popular decisions that were contrary to the customarynusages of the land. Gonservative and reactionary Sparta, itnshould be noted, opposed both tyrants and money, clingingnto its cumbersome iron weights.nNot long after the rulers established their monopoly onnmoney, they began to use it politically. When PericleannAthens embarked on its policy of conquest and empire, thenAthenians tried to impose their money as the only legalntender in the Aegean. Standardization of money was notnnecessarily a bad idea, since the different weight standards ofnthe city-states must have complicated trade considerably. Ofncourse, coins had greater value in their home territory thannelsewhere — if only to cover the cost of striking. There wasnalso the temptation to inflate the money supply by debasingnthe coinage. However, so long as other coinages were inncompetition, these dishonest measures could only succeednin devaluing the state’s currency — and its credit. For thisnreason most Greek cities jealously protected the value ofntheir coinage. The Romans did the same, and much of thenByzantine Empire’s success was due to its hard moneynpolicy; when they were forced to debase the solidus, theirnpolitical as well as their economic power were doomed.nAncient money was always concrete, and the coins werenoften things of beauty. It was as if the Greeks could notnclearly distinguish the hypothetical exchange value of a coinnfrom its intrinsic quality as a work of art. In modern times,nnew and abstract forms of money have been devised: lettersnof credit and bank certificates promising to pay the bearer sonmuch in gold. But even when most advanced nations werenstill sticking to a gold standard for their paper money, banksnand governments could issue notes based not only on theirn14/CHRONICLESnnngold reserves but also on money they were owed.nThe inflationary tendencies of flexible gold standards andnfractional reserve banking were pointed out long ago bynLudwig von Mises. From there it is a significant but not angiant step to the creation of fiat money, which stands not fornany amount of gold or flocks or any other form of materialnwealth. It is money not as sign but as symbol, something tonbe pursued for its own sake, bred for its own sake, a sort ofnPonzi scheme in which we are continually taking each othernin as suckers that will someday be repaid by more promisesnto take in more suckers.nStanding behind all fiat money is the bayonet: the powernand majesty of the state and the conviction that, come whatnmay, the state can settle its accounts. On occasion, bankersnlearn that this is not always so, when they make loans tonWeimar Germany, Poland, or Mexico. But in recent years,nat least, it has not been the faith and credit of Poland andnMexico that back their loans and support their seashellncurrencies. It is the United States and the internationalneconomy in which U.S. interests dominate.nWe began this 1066 and All That monetary historynwith Eurodollars because of their challenge to thensovereign interests of the United States in the conduct of itsnforeign policy, but there are even broader implications fornsovereignty. If it is true that the creation of money (asnopposed to bank notes redeemable in money) has generallynbeen the exclusive prerogative of the state, then — settingnaside historical complications like the early American reliancenon Spanish coins or occasional coinages by banks — wencan see that money and sovereignty have been to a largenextent coextensive. (The rulers of the Athenian and RomannEmpires certainly thought so.) If a new internationalncurrency has really emerged in the past twenty-five years,nthen perhaps the New Wodd Order for which we arenshedding our blood is an already accomplished fact, and thenmost paranoid fantasies of the John Birch Society were onlynthe faintest glimmerings of the real nightmare: a world ordernbrokered by the great internationalists, men of the stripe ofnRobert McNamara, James Baker, ARAMGO executives,nand David Rockefeller; a world in which the great nationstates,nafter sucking the juice out of regional and statencommunities, are now to be themselves drained and absorbedninto the higher order of the global economy.nIt is easy to see what the executives of multinationalncorporations and international banks get out of the newnorder, but what are the rewards for the shopkeepers, smallnfarmers, and factory workers — for the bulk of humanity atnthe end of the great chain of capital? Adam Smith wouldnhave said that foreign trade generally benefits all the partiesnconcerned. Division of labor and specialization of skillsncreates markets for new goods that feed the human appetitenfor novelty. When we buy Japanese cars and video equipment,nthey use the money to buy houses in San Francisconand golf courses in Iowa, and everyone benefits economically.nIn a more philosophical vein. Smith might point out thatnman is not self-sufficient and is formed by nature to live innsociety. This argument goes back to Aristotle, who tracednthe development of human society to the incompleteness ofnmale and female and the impossibility of living successfullyn