Theft is punished for good reason. It’s a grave problem when those sworn to protect property engage in theft themselves.  Petty theft is harmful, but systematic theft on a grand scale is far worse.  The difference is in degree, not in kind.

Governments around the world engage in theft through inflation.  This is done nonstop.  Every newly printed unit of currency dilutes the purchasing power of existing money.  The theft is concealed because it doesn’t take from your bank account directly.  Instead, it takes from the value of what you own.  Savings are eroded.  Wages buy less.  The debt machine continues running, and the public is told that rising prices are natural or even necessary.

Under sound money, wealth must be produced before it can be spent.  However, in a system of fiat currency, wealth is merely decreed into existence.  Governments and central banks have the legal privilege to create money out of thin air, spending it before the market can adjust.  The early recipients of new money—governments, banks, and politically connected institutions—gain purchasing power at the expense of everyone else.  By the time the new money circulates, the damage is done.  Prices have risen, and those with fixed incomes or savings are left behind.

If an individual printed money in his basement, he’d be labeled a criminal.  Yet when central banks do it, it’s called policy.  The result is the same: a redistribution of wealth from the many to the few.  Inflation is not an accident, it’s a tool.  It funds wars, social programs, and corporate bailouts without direct taxation.  The cost is hidden, but no less real.

Legalized theft is the most insidious of all.  Almost everything is funded by it.  You cannot claim to support private property while endorsing inflation.  It rewards the politically favored at the expense of the productive.  It undermines long-term planning and investment.  It ensures that those who play by the rules are always a step behind those who manipulate them.

Theft is theft, whether it’s committed with a gun or a printing press.

Reference

Murray Rothbard; The Case Against The Fed