Free Market Gold Standard vs Government-Guaranteed Gold Standard
Monday, January 3rd, 2011How to Defend the Free Market Gold Coin Standard: Stop Defending the Government Counterfeits
Characteristic features of a free market gold standard:
- Private property
- The right of contract
- The enforcement of contracts by the government
- No government licensing of banks
- Open entry in coin production
- No government mint
- No government currency or coins
- Therefore, no legal tender laws
When anti-gold economists attack the gold standard, they are attacking the phony gold standard — the imitation standard — created by major European governments in the 19th century. Those governments did the following:
- Limited private property
- Did not allow the right of contract
- Did not enforce all voluntary contracts
- Licensed banks
- Forbade entry in coin production
- Ran government mints
- Established government currency and coins
- Passed legal tender laws
GaryNorth.com 2010 December 27
Two Kinds of Gold Standards
This is why the free market is the only reliable source for the re-establishment of a gold standard. Honest money begins with these steps: (1) the revocation of legal tender laws that require people to accept the State’s money; (2) the enforcement of contracts; (3) laws against fraud, which fractional reserve banking is. The free market can do the rest.
LewRockwell.com 2003 August 26
