My GMU Econ and Mercatus Center colleague Larry White takes on my Mercatus Center colleague Scott Sumner on the merits of the gold standard (or, more generally, more free-market monetary systems) compared to merits of fiat money.
Gold Manipulators
Image source: Pixabay
I’m no specialist in monetary theory, but my assessment of Larry’s and Scott’s interesting conversation is that Larry has the better argument. (I must say that I’ve never understood why the state any more should control the supply of money than it should control the supply of wheat or of steel or of rubber bands. That is, I’ve never seen any reason why money cannot be and should not be supplied privately.)
This ran on CafeHayek
Donald J. Boudreaux
Donald Boudreaux is a senior fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a Mercatus Center Board Member, a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University, and a former FEE president.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
