Include us out of the loosely organized Greenspan for Mt. Rushmore Committee. And count us skeptical toward Ben S. Bernanke, who this day succeeds Mr. Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. We just have a hard time with the idea that downsizing of the dollar ought to be the basis of American monetary policy – as it has been, is now and, by every indication, will long remain.

The departing Mr. Greenspan and the incoming Mr. Bernanke are of one mind on this issue. They believe that the currency in your wallet should buy a little less with every passing year. Its value should never appreciate. Debasement, rather, is the sine qua non of a healthy economy. Not a lot, mind you, just a little. This would be a dislogical doctrine even if the government could measure the rate of inflation with anything like the precision it pretends to.

The dollar is America’s greatest export. Non-Americans accept the currency as their own. They send us merchandise, and we send them dollars. The merchandise is costly to manufacture, while the greenbacks cost next to nothing to print. No American could dream up a sweeter division of labor.

But the dollar is also America’s most fragile export. It is a piece of paper, exchangeable into nothing except pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. No collateral supports its value. Nothing stands behind it except the willingness of America’s creditors to hold and invest it. Yet Mr. Bernanke wants to debase it – just a little bit, of course.

Mr. Greenspan is the greatest central banker – possibly, the greatest human being – who ever lived, his fans insinuate. They cite the macroeconomic record. On Mr. Greenspan’s watch, there have been fewer recessions, and a lower average rate of price inflation, than under previous chairmen. Why can’t Mr. Bernanke, who sat at the master’s feet, perpetuate these blessings?

Feature this reason. It’s the accident waiting-to-happen called the “world monetary system.” The Greenspan Fed had a luxury that few of its predecessors enjoyed. It was the freedom to carpet the world with dollars. Until 1971, a suspicious foreign creditor could present himself and his dollars at our Treasury and demand gold in exchange for greenbacks. The statutory rate of exchange, starting in the early 1930s, was $35 to the ounce. It was a monetary arrangement grounded in the spirit of Ronald Reagan – trust the dollar but verify that there was something behind it. Gold convertibility stayed the hand that cranked the U.S. monetary printing presses.

Now that hand is free to crank until the world cries “uncle.” As a matter of fact, monetary presses the world over are working three shifts a day. The United States, consuming much more than it produces, sends dollars flying east in payment for Asian merchandise. Asian producers sell these dollars to their local central banks, which pay with local currency they have printed for the very purpose. The result is a world awash in money.

No accident, then, that the price of gold has been appreciating in every currency. In terms of the dollar, it has doubled in the past four years. Gold and currencies are forever competing for the market’s favor. When gold gains the edge, as it is doing at a gallop today, central banks are losing it.

As well they might. For reasons that have never persuaded us, short-term interest rates are deemed too important to be discovered in the open market. Central banks must fix them, as, in unhappier times, governments fixed a whole assortment of prices, from rents to air fares. Mr. Bernanke, taking up where Mr. Greenspan left off, will try to set the overnight interest rate just where it ought to be.

With this inspired stroke of policy, it is hoped, the economy will grow, inflation will perk along at 2% or 3% (you will hardly notice the loss of purchasing power) and foreign dollar holders will continue to absorb the $700 billion or so that annually falls into their laps via the U.S. trade deficit. Mr. Greenspan’s true legacy – which Mr. Bush, the Congress and Mr. Bernanke are buying into – is to have proven, yet again, that the American economy can survive any system and anybody.