LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com. The pathbreaking book first appeared in 1976, during an inflationary bout in the United States. Hayek argued that it is crucial to the health of the market as a whole to bring the forces of competition to bear in currency markets, not just between countries but within them as well. All people should be free to use any currency of their own choosing, Hayek contended, even if that means rejecting the favored domestic one. This provides a check against inflation, permitting citizens to keep assets denominated in any unit. Governments will thus have greater incentive to avoid inflating because a depreciating unit will lead people to flee to other currencies. At least this would work as some check, and it would be a great improvement over the existing system in which citizens in a currency region are caged sheep led to the slaughter. This book is an important work in part because it represents a reform that could take place right now, one that would change the institutional incentives faced by central banks. This is not Hayek's full plan for sound money but rather a creative idea to diminish the total power of central banks within individual countries. It was a good idea in 1976, and it's still a good idea in the 21st century.
Author
Friedrich August von Hayek CH was an Austrian and British economist and philosopher known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought. He is considered by some to be one of the most important economists and political philosophers of the twentieth century. Hayek's account of how changing prices communicate signals which enable individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics. Hayek also wrote on the topics of jurisprudence, neuroscience and the history of ideas. Hayek is one of the most influential members of the Austrian School of economics, and in 1974 shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with Gunnar Myrdal "for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." He also received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from president George H. W. Bush. Hayek lived in Austria, Great Britain, the United States and Germany, and became a British subject in 1938.
