Nixon Ends Gold Convertibility

1971 CE — North America, United States

Today: The United States (and the global monetary system)

President Nixon cut the last link between the U.S. dollar and gold, ending the system that had anchored world money and putting the entire globe on 'fiat' currency — money backed by nothing but confidence in the governments that print it. It was meant as a temporary fix; it became the permanent architecture of modern finance. The logic of Rome's denarius and Song China's paper is now planetary: the value of money rests, everywhere, entirely on trust.

Worth knowing: Every dollar, euro, and yen in your accounts is backed by nothing physical at all — just collective belief — an arrangement barely 50 years old, and the one every earlier debasement had been feeling its way toward.

Pattern: Monetary debasement — A money's intrinsic or backed value is diluted to fund obligations; confidence in it erodes, often into inflation.

Entry 226 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.