Inflation is a curse of modern monetary system, but money emission is not its greatest cause.
I’m curious what you believe the greatest cause of inflation is. (I’m using the colloquial sense here, that is, “price inflation.”)
The government has the most to gain from currency inflation: first, by spending printed money at current value; second, by decreasing the real value paid back for loans (this benefits all borrowers); third, by increasing the apparent capital gain subject to taxation; and fourth, by forcing citizens into higher tax brackets. The gov’t has a strong incentive to devalue currency, and, given the almost complete lack of understanding of the origins of price inflation, virtually no incentive to hold prices level.
As for commodities and commodity-backing; true, no commodities have intrinsic value, and it is only through general agreement as to their value that people are incented to accept currency backed by a given commodity. Ironically, currency itself does have intrinsic value, due to the efficiency gained in trade regardless of the value of the traded goods to any individual. The question that naturally follows from recognizing this is: is commodity-backing necessary to effective currency? The answer, I believe, is: no. In fact, a good argument can be made that backing currency with an (arbitrary) commodity results in an artificial shifting of the value of that commodity, such that the value no longer reflects the non-currency, or underlying, value of the commodity. Clearly the resulting reduction of open market supply of the commodity results in some level of inefficiency introduced into the economy, as valuable commodity capital is diverted into backing for exchange. Why not just agree on a currency standard and allow, gold for instance, to reach its natural price in open and free exchange?
The problem is that only fiat (that is, a gun) can force people to accept an unbacked currency, and, there is no natural way to prevent a gov’t from printing unwarranted amounts of money for its own gain. Of course, that problem exists also with (ostensibly) backed currencies, as we saw early in the last century. A potential solution is to establish an unbacked currency, by consent and mutual agreement of the citizenry, as part of the government charter, with the necessary requirement to constrain the government’s ability to print money, so that a sufficiently representative basket of commodity goods maintains a constant currency value. The basket would buffer the economy from upsets in any one commodity.
This would allow the money supply to exactly (within the fidelity of the commodity basket) track the real economic growth of the economy, and provide stability in costs to aid the economic decisions of all individuals.
The justification for gov’t’s role in currency control would be similar to that for law enforcement, military and justice: that is, the assurance of fair, voluntary exchange between free citizens. This includes protection from fraudulent private currency providers (which is hard to write with a straight face).
The problems we see today in fiat currency are common to all areas of legitimate gov’t control. They are due, in large part, to the situation in which our three branches of government are enmeshed in a conspiracy of graft, unaccountable and out of control, openly offering their services (i.e., our property) to the highest bidders.