Dollar Liberation

Llewellyn Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute has written an excellent blog on monetary reform and the gold standard.

Rockwell notes:

"It is the perfect storm: the big banks loot us through government, while the academic economists approve it as applied science.

"Moreover, there seems to be no test of whether or not what they are doing is a good thing. When the market responds negatively to a new infusion of cash, they say that it isn't enough. When the market responds positively, they take credit for fixing the problem. The state maintains the charade that it is the one infallible institution."

Llewellyn argues that the problem with a gold standard is that:

"the people charged with implementing it will invariably be the very people, advancement of whose interests has caused the current problem and have the least incentive to change the system. We've seen in the last several weeks how these people are willing to blow up the world rather than face liquidation. So the question becomes, how can we take steps toward sound money and banking without depending on the good will of the officials in charge?"

Rockwell recommends several books:

-Hans Sennholz's Money and Freedom
-George Selgin's Good Money

and the writings of Jörg Guido Hülsmann. FA von Hayek also advocated competitive currencies. Under the free market view of money:

"People should be free to use any money they can get each other to accept. More than that, people should be free to introduce new moneys based on gold or silver or any other commodity, and develop payment systems based on this, whether that means paper signifiers or digital goods. The market is capable of policing this system the same way it does retail trade."

View the whole thing here.