Good Money

"What Selgin has done here is help us to understand something critically important: were it not for the state, a wholly private money system would emerge from market exchange. That means private coinage, private weights and measures, market-driven exchange rates between different kinds of monies, and a fully private banking system to go along it with it.""

"In fact, this is precisely how money originates: from the within the market. Why does the state intervene? The British case is typical. The state wants to control the economy, tax the economy, and control the people. If a fully private system comes about, the state finds its job all-but impossible. That is why the state takes over at the expense of private enterprise."

"In other words, the state is not responding here to a market failure but a market success. It is not a "public goods" rationale that leads to state intervention but old-fashioned jealousy over power and wealth."

Good Money