Many people who would like to rewrite history would like you to believe one of two things; the great depression happen because of the gold standard or that if we had a gold standard in place today we would not have any economic troubles. The Great Depression did not happen because of the gold standard, the great depression happened despite of it. What caused the great depression is the same thing that is causing today’s economic troubles, central economic planning.

If every nation had a gold standard in place but they still had central economic planning, having a world wide economic crisis would not be out of the question. (For an in-depth post about this I will refer to: Why The Gold Standard Is Not Enough). To believe a person or a group of people can “run” the economy and plan it to make it operate better than it normally would without intervention has been proven to be wrong over and over again. Today we are witnessing this belief being proven wrong once again (hopefully for the last time).

A group of people no matter how smart they are can not know how much currency a system needs, how to set interest rates if any or what businesses are more important than others. The gold standard is a good tool but it is not the be all and end all to today’s economic troubles. I believe the economic troubles will continue until the belief that central economic planning is some how superior to a true free market (no legal tender laws, central banks, and government manipulation). Unlike many I am optimistic that many will come to this conclusion sooner rather than later.