Liveblogging Wood's The Idea of America: Rothbard Vindicated?
Imagine a situation in which the people, or, we might say, the market, had chosen a particular medium for money. But a central state is established with the purpose of shoving its own preferred money down the people's throats, whether they want it or not. Nevertheless, the people manage to circumvent the central government's attempt to impose its money on them, and use their preferred form anyway. Who are these Rothbardian heroes? Well, they were the ordinary people of the new United States, who, when the central government attempted to thwart their desire for paper money, by imposing gold and silver money upon them, ran an end run around the Feds: Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution had prohibited the states from printing bills of credit, but the needs and desires of all the protobusinessmen and domestic traders were too great to be stymied by a paper restriction. So the states, under popular pressure, got around the constitutional prohibition by chartering banks, h...