Não é a História que se repete
.
É a estupidez dos homens. No Financial Times de ontem:
.
President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's ruinous president, is no student of economic history. Last Wednesday he ordered factories and shops to slash prices by 50 per cent - returning them to the level of Monday, the week before last.
.
The Emperor Diocletian - famous for miserliness and his persecution of Rome's Christian minority - tried this trick in AD301. Like Zimbabwe, Rome had a hyperinflation. To halt it Diocletian decreed that all prices should halve and then set maximum prices for many basic goods (from 2 denarii for Egyptian beer up to 150,000 for a lion). Violations were punishable by death.
The Emperor Diocletian - famous for miserliness and his persecution of Rome's Christian minority - tried this trick in AD301. Like Zimbabwe, Rome had a hyperinflation. To halt it Diocletian decreed that all prices should halve and then set maximum prices for many basic goods (from 2 denarii for Egyptian beer up to 150,000 for a lion). Violations were punishable by death.
.
But Diocletian kept minting coins. "Then much blood was shed for the veriest trifles; men were afraid to expose anything to sale, and the scarcity became more excessive and grievous than ever," is how Lactantius, a historian of the times, described the result of fixing prices while continuing to increase the amount of money.
But Diocletian kept minting coins. "Then much blood was shed for the veriest trifles; men were afraid to expose anything to sale, and the scarcity became more excessive and grievous than ever," is how Lactantius, a historian of the times, described the result of fixing prices while continuing to increase the amount of money.
.
Mr Mugabe need not even debase the coinage to achieve the same calamitous effect: he has the printing press, a more efficient tool of monetary destruction. Nor need he bother with the death penalty when bully boys linked to his Zanu-PF party can be dispatched to punish opponents. But the misery of Zimbabwe's citizens will be no less.
Mr Mugabe need not even debase the coinage to achieve the same calamitous effect: he has the printing press, a more efficient tool of monetary destruction. Nor need he bother with the death penalty when bully boys linked to his Zanu-PF party can be dispatched to punish opponents. But the misery of Zimbabwe's citizens will be no less.
.
Even during a hyperinflation, paper money is useful: it is a medium of exchange, it lets a complex economy function. But if goods cannot be sold for a fair price then nobody will sell them; they will turn to barter instead, and trade what little they can scavenge or produce for bread. Then Zimbabwe's inflation will enter a different, dangerous, final phase. Once the monetary economy collapses the government will have no way to pay its civil servants or its soldiers.
Even during a hyperinflation, paper money is useful: it is a medium of exchange, it lets a complex economy function. But if goods cannot be sold for a fair price then nobody will sell them; they will turn to barter instead, and trade what little they can scavenge or produce for bread. Then Zimbabwe's inflation will enter a different, dangerous, final phase. Once the monetary economy collapses the government will have no way to pay its civil servants or its soldiers.
.
The Emperor Diocletian survived his hyperinflation, ruled for 21 years and then retired to Croatia to grow cabbages. Zimbabwe's people can only hope that Mr Mugabe's own supporters dispose of him in time to restore some economic sanity to their suffering country.
The Emperor Diocletian survived his hyperinflation, ruled for 21 years and then retired to Croatia to grow cabbages. Zimbabwe's people can only hope that Mr Mugabe's own supporters dispose of him in time to restore some economic sanity to their suffering country.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário