leftlibertarian.org

On this week’s Econtalk, Russ Roberts and George Selgin discussed the very important topic of free banking. In the podcast, Selgin argues, and correctly so, that free banking, far from a chaotic mess, would actually be more stable and effective in finding an equilibrium rate for money than the state’s central bank could ever hope to achieve. Considering my background in Proudhon’s philosophy of order being the daughter and not the mother of freedom, I think it goes without saying that Selgin’s views travel hand in hand with that of the left-libertarian movement.

This aside, though, what’s perhaps most intriguing about Selgin’s argument is that it contradicts so much of the old gold-bug positions that other “free bankers” use. This intrigues me especially as I seek venues of American Anarchism that make it capable for libertarians to evolve from the gold-fetishes of a Murray N. Rothbard. With that in mind, I think Selgin presents an intelligent and highly academic case disproving the traditional “Rothbardian” insights, returning to an older Misesian view of banks and their proper management.

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