5 SEPTEMBER 1998, Page 24

Private enterprise

MONOPOLIES, as we ought to have learned, are bad news for their customers. Gold is the competitor. Gold is a store of value and a medium of exchange, which are the two classic functions of money, but it is unique in that its worth does not depend on anybody's promises. No government and no central bank can call gold into being, print more of it, withdraw it, reissue it, default on it or settle down to make it worthless through the slow attrition or the galloping consumption of which this hapless century affords so many instances. In this sense, gold is private-enterprise money. It is the natural ally of the individual against the state. Russians do not need to be told that.