[jmyeet]

I like the term "violence consensus algorithm".

I agree: ultimately government is a collective decision on who gets to do the violence.

As for Zimbabwe, the primary difference it and the US is reach. More generally speaking, we've seen currencies collapse when people have lost faith in their value and what happens is people instead use a different currency (eg the US dollar) because they have more confidence in its value.

[spiralx]

More specifically they have confidence in the stability of its value over time. It's the same reason that US T-bonds etc are said to be "risk free" and why the USD comprises 60% of the world's currency reserves. The EU and EUR come in second in terms of reserves (30%) for the same reason.