When we think of the word 'theft', most people conjure images of street crimes and house burglaries, cyber crimes, and ransomware attacks.

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

The idea that taxes are a form of theft isn't widely shared, except inside libertarian circles.

Times have changed from Robin Hood's era, where the Sheriff of Nottingham would go around frisking old dogs for their stash of gold coins.

We might not enjoy it, but today we pay our taxes dutifully, knowing that our countries will be defended, our pensions paid, our children schooled, and so on.

What most people don't ask about, or ponder for too long, is why we also need inflation.

We assume some really smart people have our back, believing that inflation is absolutely necessary for a well-functioning country—a sort of hidden but acceptable tax. Since we're more or less safe, well-fed, and sheltered (at least in the West), we don't even think to complain.

However, what if I told you that for the last 100 years or so, we've been getting robbed—hook, line, and sinker—and that inflation is to blame?

It might help to start with an analogy.

Scenario 1:
A person lacking morals orders a cash counterfeiting machine and uses it to print fake dollar bills. S/he uses these bills to pay for goods and services around town.

The bills are exchanged many times over by people and businesses until they end up at the bank with the final unlucky business, whose account the bank doesn't credit with dollars as they are counterfeit. That business has been a victim of theft.

Scenario 2:
The government decides to print more dollar bills (or add a few more zeros to a database) which they distribute to the economy, via the central bank.

Everyone accepts this new money, but over time, as the market realises there are more dollars in circulation, these dollars are worth less.

The people and businesses who receive the new money first via the Cantillon effect can spend it just like before, with the same purchasing power. But following each exchange, gradually, the market corrects and its value drops.

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In both scenarios, the money printing doesn't affect anyone until people realise they have been fooled.

Now, in the case of the counterfeiting, who would you blame?

The counterfeiter, right?

What about in the government example...? Read it back if you need to.

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Are you doing mental gymnastics trying not to blame the government for printing the money, and instead blaming it on the people and businesses who received the money first?

Maybe you think everyone should share the burden equally since the government must have our best interests at heart, and only immoral businesses would accept this (fake?) money, and spend it knowingly.

Or maybe you simply accept that you win some, you lose some. Hopefully, some of that money will have made its way to government departments, which we all benefit from anyway - right?

Or, maybe you're like me, and can't distinguish any of it from theft.

We could lobby our politicians to turn off the money printer, and/or ask them to spray those shiny new bills our way.

If that doesn't work, maybe we could follow the footsteps of George Washington, lead a revolution for financial independence, and exchange our lives for a better world?

But what if I told you there was a way to circumvent inflation without having to resort to lobbying, coercion, or unlawfulness of any kind?

What if all you needed to do was buy Bitcoin?