The ultimate reason for studying free banking is not libertarian advocacy but theory: just as understanding tariffs requires a model of free trade, understanding what central banks actually do and the harm they cause requires a theory of free banking, which most monetary economists lack.

normativepending

Speaker

George Selgin

Evidence Quote

our understanding of what tariffs do comes from having theorized about free trade we have free trade models... you can only say what a central bank is doing if you have this underlying notion of what the banking system looks like before the central bank

Source

George Selgin on Free Banking 11/17/2008EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:20:23 AM

My Notes

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