Hayek's suggestion for currency competition

a central banker's view

Otmar Issing

Samuel Brittan

pp. 185-194

in: Stephen F. Frowen (ed), Hayek: economist and social philosopher, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997

Abstract

Friedrich August von Hayek's work Denationalisation of Money, written in 1976, which called for the abolition of the government's monopoly of the issue of money and the introduction of comprehensive currency competition, triggered a far-reaching and controversial debate on the role of the government in the monetary system. In the course of this debate, even Milton Friedman — a vehement advocate of capitalism and unfaltering opponent of government intervention in general, and of discretionary, inflationary monetary policy in particular — was forced on to the defensive.