My New Freeman Article

The January/February 2008 issue of The Freeman is now available online.  I have an article therein entitled "Free-Market Money:  A Key to Peace," (PDF) based on this blog post.  I argue that the classical liberal concern with keeping money production out of the hands of the state was, and is, a means by which its anti-imperialism could be effected.  Without recourse to the printing press, the State is that much less likely to be able to afford foreign aggression.  In fact, most central banks have grown out of the need for surreptitious forms of revenue, especially for war. The free bankers and the peaceniks need to get together and see their common ground:  if one believes in peace and opposes the warfare-imperialist state, one needs to consider seriously the arguments against central banking.  The beast needs to be starved.

One of the great things about having the time to blog this year (thank you SLU for your generous sabbatical/leave policy) is that it really can be a platform for first drafts of other things, or just a space to organize your thoughts in a less than fully formal way.  The transformation of a blog post into a Freeman piece is precisely why blogging is, or at least can be, really productive for a scholar.

Cross-posted at The Austrian Economists.