#798: The Roman Playbook for Destroying a Currency with Jeremy Ryan Slate

SPEAKER_1 (0:07)

You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.

When you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven.

SPEAKER_2 (0:18)

I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.

SPEAKER_1 (0:29)

I mean, that's part of the bold case for Bitcoin.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. Probably should be.

Marty Bent (0:35)

Probably should be. Jeremy, thank you for joining me.

Jeremy Ryan Slate (0:38)

Thank you for having me, man. I appreciate you inviting me on.

Marty Bent (0:40)

Well, I'm very excited for this conversation.

It's been a meme for the last couple of years, but men thinking about the Roman Empire and what the trajectory of modernity, how it compares to what happened in Rome. I was telling you before we record how I found it. I think I remember now. I think it was a clip from your Sean Ryan episode.

Jeremy Ryan Slate (1:03)

The Federal Reserve one or no?

Marty Bent (1:04)

No, it wasn't about money because I was pumped when I DM'd you. I was like, hey, we'd love to have you on the show to talk about the history of Rome, but through the lens of their monetary system, you're like, this is my favorite topic.

Jeremy Ryan Slate (1:16)

It's the most important. Everything else that was happening, sure, history is never mono-causal, it's never one thing, but monetary policy, if you've got good money, you can make a lot of mistakes and everything will be okay.

Marty Bent (1:27)

Well, that's like one of our taglines of the show is fix the money, fix the world. So this just started in this city nine years ago. I moved around, I was in Texas, now in Philadelphia, but now coming up to record at Pubkey. But I started the show because I'm a Bitcoiner, people are looking to learn about Bitcoin. And I truly believe that a lot of the issues that we see today as it pertains to social, political, economic stem from the fact that we've broken the money. And money is the root of everything we do in society.

Jeremy Ryan Slate (1:57)

Well, I'm glad this interview finally happened then because like I had been banging the drum for this for probably five years that it's like border shore, you know, social policy shore, but like money fixes a lot of mistakes. And, you know, I think the Roman East is a really good example of that the Eastern Empire, which history likes to call the Byzantine Empire, that word didn't exist until the 16th century.

One of the major reforms Constantine did is he actually fixed the money. And that gave them 700 years without real inflation, which is pretty wild. So it can fix a lot of mistakes.

Marty Bent (2:28)

Well, before we get to Constantine. Yeah.

Jeremy Ryan Slate (2:30)

Sorry, I got ahead.

Marty Bent (2:31)

No, no. I think because I think it's important to like set the stage of how the denariah, how it was initially issued and how it inevitably became debased. And I mean, we don't have to go through the whole timeline, everything exactly happened, but like I guess a broad brush.

Jeremy Ryan Slate (2:48)

Yeah.

Marty Bent (2:49)

What was happening socially in parallel to the debasement of the currency? What were the justifications for it? And how did it happen initially?

Jeremy Ryan Slate (2:55)

Well, I think just the one thing important to understand before we get into that is the idea of like what was Rome? Because I think a lot of people get confused. They hear, you know, Roman Empire, Julius Caesar being the first emperor, which he wasn't. You know, Rome is it's a kingdom first in 753 BC. It becomes a republic in 509 BC and then an empire somewhere between it's debated, somewhere between 31 and 27 BC and in the West that goes to 476 So very often we're talking about monetary debasement. We're actually talking about the empire. So we're talking about kind of that second century is a really good period of time to put it. And if you want to look at coinage, the reason coins existed, their main purpose was actually to pay the military. So it's important to understand when you're going to see a coin, why would you put the things on it you're going to put on it? So if you're a weak emperor, you're going to put a lot of things on it to make you look strong, because you want the military to take that coin and be like, oh, that's badass. Yeah, of course, I'll take this money. And that was a very important key component of trust. So money isn't just money. It's also an amazing propaganda tool.