Professor Hayek: Advocating the use of alternative currencies as early as 1960:
Though I am convinced that modern credit banking as it has developed requires some public institutions such as the central banks, I am doubtful whether it is necessary or desirable that they (or the government) should have the monopoly of the issue of all kinds of money. The state has, of course, the right to protect the name of the unit of money which it (or anybody else) issues and, if it issues “dollars”, to prevent anybody else from issuing tokens with the same name. And as it is its function to enforce contracts, it must be able to determine what is ‘legal tender’ for the discharge of any obligation contracted. But there seems to be no reason whatever why the state should ever prohibit the use of other kinds of media of exchange, be it some commodity or money issued by another agency, domestic or foreign. One of the most effective measures for protecting the freedom of the individual might indeed be to have constitutions prohibiting all peacetime restrictions on transactions in any kind of money or the precious metals.
