Rothbard's gold obsession

Generally, libertarians oppose the use of fiat money, defined as a form of money imposed by government decree and not backed by any physical commodity. Rothbard is a well-known libertarian author who argues for the abolition of the FED and the restitution of a Gold Standard. It is easy to understand libertarians' opposition to the government's forceful monopolization of the money supply: as it constrains individuals' freedom from choosing the currency they most prefer, issuing their own currencies, and deciding upon that which constitutes money. I will argue that Rothbard’s vehement advocacy for commodity backed money is misplaced within his anarcho-capitalist ideology, and that similarly, this conclusion can be extended to libertarianism more generally. Rothbard is a Market Anarchist who opposes the very existence of the state, in such a system gold would become the only form of money iff all individuals independently chose gold as money, for otherwise the state would have to impose and enforce its adoption. I will present Hayek’s proposal for the denationalization of money, i.e. a competitive system of privately issued currencies as a more suitable currency regime for Market Anarchism and for libertarian systems more generally.