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The political system determines whether or not gold is part of a monetary system. Historically, when there has been greater political liberty, gold has been an integral part of the monetary system. In periods of increasing government intervention in and control of economic decision- making, in war or in peace, gold has been forcibly removed from the monetary system. A quarter century has passed since the governments of he world stripped their currencies of any connection to gold. All national monies are now purely paper, backed solely by force through legal tender laws. The past quarter century has seen the value of fiat paper monies gyrating beyond all expectations against one another and against gold. This period has seen bouts of price inflation and deflation, volatile interest rated, boom and bust business cycles, and bank failures. These problems have appeared before in human history, but they now pervade our world. No nation is immune from them. What few people recognize is that each of these problems reflects in some way the abandonment of gold money. This book examines the economics and the future of gold both as money under a system of free-market capitalism, and as an investment under a system of welfare statism.