Comment & Analysis

In early December Jan Skoyles from The Real Asset Co interviewed Conservative MP Steve Baker. Mr Baker is the founder of the Cobden Centre, a source often used by The Real Asset Co. The Cobden Centre stands for “Honest Money and Social Progress”, something which is frequently discussed on our research pages. He sees his role is to create a paradigm shift in policy making and economic thinking.

Mr Baker recently gained attention in the media after his speech in Parliament at Prime Minister’s questions this month when he called for “this country to lead Europe into the hope and potential of a new post-bureaucratic age.” Mr Baker, in his interview with The Real Asset Co, speaks candidly on his ideas regarding the E.U telling us that he feels it should be abolished. He wants “free trade, peace and fundamental liberties,” which can be arbitrated under the Council of Europe.

Mr Baker discusses central-bank suppressed interest rates and believes that with further monetary expansion we are heading for catastrophe and a collapse of the fiat monetary system. He believes that ultimately we will return to a commodity-backed monetary system, which has traditionally been gold and silver. For Mr Baker the main objective is to give people honest money… so that when they earn a day’s pay, that pay will be worth the same amount in a year’s time.

“The monetary system we have today has only really been around for the last 40 years but we talk about it as if it was a fixed fact of nature. But it really isn’t. We can change it, we can abandon it or we can do something else. These are profound things to do. But what we shouldn’t believe is that our current monetary system is an immutable fact of nature.”

The graph which Mr Baker refers to is a graph from a James Turk essay which can be found here.

Mr Baker recommends the following literature for those interested in finding about more about Austrian economics and the Cobden Centre:

Ludwig von Mises – A Primer – Eamon Butler

Cobden Centre Primer

What Has Government Done to Our Money? – Murray N. Rothbard 

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