David Friedman on monetary freedom

Subscribe to our newsletter at http://www.goldmoney.com/goldresearch. Episode 100: GoldMoney's Andy Duncan speaks to Professor David Friedman, the author of The Machinery of Freedom (1989) (www.daviddfriedman.com) and son of the late great economist Milton Friedman. They discuss the possible future of private competing currencies. With surprising conclusions about the resilience of the current global fiat monetary system and the usefulness of gold as a monetary commodity, Professor Friedman thinks the breakthrough and change in money systems will centre around e-money systems, such as BitCoin. As a supporter of fractional reserve banking, he explains why he thinks fractional reserve banking will outdo 100% reserve banks in a completely private competitive monetary system.

Moving on to the development of liberty in the western world over the last 100 years, Professor Friedman describes what he sees as the various movements of power between the individual and the state, the possibility of territorial secessions in Europe and the United States, and how and why he will be writing a third edition of his seminal work, The Machinery of Freedom.

This podcast was recorded on 12 February 2013.

• Category

  News & Politics

[Flix Moreno]

Very interesting guest. IMHO he's wrong on fiat money collapsing, as history shows, but still his take is welcome.

[TWSceptic]

how dare you

[kessass83]

But why we have to pay interest to central bankers if we have a right to issue interest free

[kessass83]

Why not? they represents the best qualities of money. They are acceptable around the world. But at the end you know what happen with paper currency. They were backed by gold and later nixon took it away. This is consequency of fiat currency backed by nothing. I would say digital currency even easier to counterfeit.

[kessass83]

So do you mean you exchange digital currency into real gold? How about the store of value. Cause digital money is even easier to counterfeit than fiat currency.

[kessass83]

e cash. But no one dares to talk about gold and silver. They are the only currencies that can stand.

[Mick Logos]

Every time he gives "advice", Friedman says he doesn't know enough about it....never trust a guy like this. He's sitting on a pile of gold. On top of that, he's an anarcho-capitalist. In layman's term, someone who cares more about money than the rule of law. A "physicist" should know there are rules in the universe, but money can also make people stupid.

[GoldMoneyNews]

We already offer digital metal payments in Jersey and are looking to activate it again in other countries in the future. That's why we're called GoldMoney.

[mmohr81]

Gold and silver are a great store of wealth, but don't have the attributes of a modern digital currency. As a result, they will not likely become currency again. Could they become a form of backing a digital currency? Yeah, that's possible.

[mmohr81]

He's not saying that fiat money will not collapse, but he's saying we'd need a viable alternative that is MORE attractive (either in perception, or reality) before we'll completely shift away from the current system. If the world doesn't have a good alternative, then people will keep playing the fiat game as they have for over 40 years. It's not a perfect system, but it functions and supports the modern, digital global economy.

[Rich Harvey]

Purely an academic interpretation, void of meaningful historical data.

[matonis]

WTF ? The modern world has learned how to manage paper fiat currencies in the interest of stability. Seriously, come on, David.