> Now governments use taxes to generate revenue and inflation to encourage circulation.
They always used taxes primarily whenever they could. Significant debasement was almost exclusively an outcome of extreme desperation when you had no other options left. If anything expanding the monetary supply is much easier now than when specie money was used. Debasement of course never worked longterm anyway but it was really only feasibly useful when you had the monopoly on issuing currency (e.g. the Roman Empire). In medieval Europe you’d just stop accepting the coins issued by the the city/lord/king who did that, which would be pretty easy when they put both their stamp and the year of issue on it.
They always used taxes primarily whenever they could. Significant debasement was almost exclusively an outcome of extreme desperation when you had no other options left. If anything expanding the monetary supply is much easier now than when specie money was used. Debasement of course never worked longterm anyway but it was really only feasibly useful when you had the monopoly on issuing currency (e.g. the Roman Empire). In medieval Europe you’d just stop accepting the coins issued by the the city/lord/king who did that, which would be pretty easy when they put both their stamp and the year of issue on it.