Denationalization of Money

The right monetary constitution is a central issue, the importance of which is widely underestimated. Not only in economic policy but also in social policy. It could be said that “he who governs money governs the world”.

Liberals therefore do everything in their power to ensure that the discretion of those who create and issue money remains strictly limited. This is especially true in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The public debate focused on the “bad” actors – financial investors, hedge funds and speculators. Too little attention was paid to those who had created the framework conditions, for example by keeping interest rates low. The crisis has fuelled criticism, at least from the liberal side, of any political influence on the monetary system. However, this criticism does not seem to have been really taken on board.

At the 19th workshop of the Progress Foundation, academics from the US, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland met to discuss various variants of denationalisation of the monetary system, based on the now almost classic texts by Milton Friedman, Anna J. Schwartz, James M. Buchanan and Friedrich A. von Hayek: the binding of independent but state-owned central banks to strict rules, denationalisation through a common currency at a higher level or the complete privatisation and demonopolisation of the issue and creation of money.