Douglas Carswell's Blog

Currency competition is coming

European monetary union is doomed. One reason is because it is an attempt to impose one currency on dozens of nations when the future lies in dozens of currencies being used in each nation.

One time Euro advocate, Samuel Brittan makes precisely this point in today’s Financial Times. We are, he suggests, moving towards a world in which “businesses and other economic agents would have the opportunity and responsibility to decide in which currencies to denominate their transactions and hold their cash.”

The idea of competing currencies is not new. But the internet – and the way that digital technology makes it possible to use different currencies seemlessly – is. 

Add in the way that various governments around the world have mismanaged their monopoly money, and competing currencies start to look more and more realistic.

Anticipating all of this, I introduced a Bill in Parliament on September 6th 2011 to pave the way towards currency competition.  The Bill could be translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian and even French.

I talk about my proposal for currency competition here:

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