Some degree of socialism is baked into our Constitution, quite intentionally, by our founders. Article 1: Section 8 gives Congress total authority over the money supply via taxation and new money creation, and it mandates that Congress “coin” the money “for the common welfare”. Organizing an economy around a currency that the central government holds a monopoly on creating is a biggie on the list of purposes of any government.
If you are an oligarch with ambitions of power over the people, this monopoly part has to be sticking in your craw. After all, any attempt you might make to exercise your power can be negated with a tax, regulation, or simply an injection of money into the economy by the representative and elected Congress of the people. Your worst nemesis is an honest politician with the best interest of his/her constituency in mind. Your best ally is one that can be corrupted with the one thing you can offer in abundance, money.
However, corruption is too often uncovered and the backlash from that discovery can be greater than the gains offered, especially if you can be held criminally liable. A far better approach is to corrupt the perspective of the people so they view their own elected government with mistrust and disdain. It is then quite easy to manipulate public opinion so that you are even further elevated in stature and given the title of “job creator”. After all, everyone works for someone richer than themself and pays taxes to the government.
It isn’t at all difficult to see how their perspective as a “user” of the currency might be projected onto the government so that the people mistakenly believe that “they” fund it, not the other way around. If the myth of taxation “paying for” the spending of government can be sufficiently propagated and promoted it would easily become the accepted assumption of our monetary system given how well it meshes with the experience of the average voter that must “get” currency from some source prior to spending.
In a democratic system, enough voters sharing the same mistaken assumption would eventually elect politicians who are likeminded and restricting the ability of government to spend or legislate for the public purpose would become a top priority among them. The oligarchy would have an army of watchdogs to prevent the government from any action that would block their agenda.
