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Money, in the system of symbols, has no meaning. Gold, on the other hand, does. Gold is eternal. It never tarnishes. But when this symbol gets perverted in to money, when the public gets corrupted, …it leads to a fall. This symbol is on the back of the republic because republics are also eternal; the ship of state is and can be programmed to sail forever.

Likewise, if a republic gets corrupted by money, if it is sold of as money, Cicero warns us in his speech De Lege Agraria, then it warns of an immanent fall.

When gold replaces the people as the base of the Republic (or anything for that matter - slaves, black gold), then the state of affairs poses a threat not only to its very foundation, but its whole purpose can be bent and perverted.

“A republic which is not just is not a republic,” Cicero writes in his book by the same name. Rome had this problem. And we could listen more to the lessons of Cicero.

For it is from Cicero that we learn money corrupts government. If Caesar had not been assasinated to please the great statesman, we would also have learned from him that absolute power does not corrupt absolutely - in the hands of a statesman, both are alchemical.

Tags: alchemy, Cicero, Republic, ship of state