I think one of the principal reasons why corruption is such a problem in the Third World is that the local currency has historically been based upon foreign aid and foreign debt instead of getting pegged to the productive capacity of the local economy. It is easier for officials to rationalize their institutionalized embezzlement when they perceive the former colonial master to be the victim. When foreign suckers give away foreign aid in their games of guilt and power, embezzlement can become a national sport. In Zaire, embezzlement did become a national sport. It is far more difficult to condone theft when it is a fellow tribesman who is wronged and not some distant foreigner.
Al-Qaeda and its allies seek to force the world economy to go onto a gold standard. After all, an economy based upon a gold standard is more efficient for brigands to loot. When an economy is based on the gold standard, he who owns the gold makes the rules. Besides, the root culture of al-Qaeda hates the dollar yet worships gold as if the hand of Hubal were still its true deity. Meanwhile, fiat currency combined with the availability of international credit to corrupt officials is an open invitation to embezzlement.
In contrast, a currency based upon foodstuffs would feel tangible to people in the Third World, nothing like the monopoly money that masquerades as currency in Zimbabwe and similar kleptocracies. A currency based upon a food basket means that money can literally grow on trees, so a food-based currency encourages agriculture just as a gold standard encourages gold mining. A food basket also forces a government to buy foodstuffs to combat inflation while opening its granaries to combat deflation (and starvation). Why shouldn’t a nation like Guatemala base the value of its currency upon the prices of bananas, mangos, and rubber? Why shouldn’t a nation like Syria peg the value of its currency to the prices of wheat, chickpeas, figs, and dates?
When a nation bases its currency upon a tangible domestic resource, any looting by officialdom becomes more transparent and correspondingly easier to punish.
