Quinn Slobodian in The New Statesman:
In 2010, a precious metals blogger called Peter Boehringer posted an image of Karl Marx’s head floating over Frankfurt, the home of the European Central Bank. Like many online “gold bugs,” his message reflected the belief that currencies without the backing of gold amount to “monetary socialism” and pave the way to government overreach and eventual economic collapse. Boehringer now sits in the German Bundestag for the Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), and chairs the parliament’s budget committee.
A few years later, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen launched a campaign to return French gold deposits kept in New York. The gold bars “do not belong to the state, nor the Bank of France, but to the French people,” she announced. Last month, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called gold the “property of the Italian people” and threatened to plug a gap in the budget by selling off Italy’s gold deposits. Gold has also caught the attention of far-right politicians further eastwards. In 2018 Poland began stockpiling gold; Hungary, under the leadership of Viktor Orbán, has multiplied its gold reserves tenfold.
Why is the far right fixated on gold?
More here.