# Some Questions About Libertarianism and the Free State Movement **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 26, 2012, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975 "2012-04-26T01:34:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/1 "2012-04-26T01:34:04Z")
Thanks to Tune-in Radio I’ve recently gotten into some libertarian/Free State talk radio thanks to lrn.fm. I’ve got a few questions about Libertarianism in general and the Free State Movement in particular. 1. Does this admiration (for lack of a better choice of words) of gold and silver mean that Libertarians would have gold and/or silver be traded as legal tender? Does this system reject the idea of national currency all together? If I lived in a Libertarian society, would this week’s paycheck be [some number of milligrams of gold]; would I buy an oil change with [some number of grams of silver]? \*Please: I’m not trying to be snarky. I really don’t understand this subject. 2. In the absence of the Federal Reserve, how would loans be made? Would any one bank have to rely strictly on its customers’ deposits to lend money? 3. Are the Free-Staters in Keene mostly merchants or retirees and the like? Or do most of them have day jobs? * * * Thanks, I’m sure I’ll think of more later. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/2 "2012-04-26T02:39:32Z")
1 and 2 reflect what they say. They never explain how it works in detail. Or more importantly, how the system will deal with the obvious problems. As for 3, how many Free-Staters have actually moved to New Hampshire? ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/3 "2012-04-26T10:14:02Z")
You could look up how things were before the advent of the Fed. There were loans, there was paper money, everything was honky-dory. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/4 "2012-04-26T10:45:09Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > 1. Does this admiration (for lack of a better choice of words) of gold and silver mean that Libertarians would have gold and/or silver be traded as legal tender? Does this system reject the idea of national currency all together? If I lived in a Libertarian society, would this week’s paycheck be [some number of milligrams of gold]; would I buy an oil change with [some number of grams of silver]? \*Please: I’m not trying to be snarky. I really don’t understand this subject. I assume in practice, transactions will still be conducted with pieces of paper, but these papers could, in theory, be taken to a bank and exchanged for precious metals. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/5 "2012-04-26T11:41:21Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > As for 3, how many Free-Staters have actually moved to New Hampshire? About 10,000 have signed the charter pledging to move there, about 1500 have actually moved. cite: [http://shiresociety.com/immigration/](http://shiresociety.com/immigration/) ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/6 "2012-04-26T11:49:31Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > 1. Does this admiration (for lack of a better choice of words) of gold and silver mean that Libertarians would have gold and/or silver be traded as legal tender? If people want to. > [@](#): > > Does this system reject the idea of national currency all together? No, or at least not necessarily. The issue for libertarians is not so much that the government prints money, but that ONLY the government is allowed to print money. (That’s a general libertarian principle to apply to many issues). > [@](#): > > If I lived in a Libertarian society, would this week’s paycheck be [some number of milligrams of gold]; would I buy an oil change with [some number of grams of silver]? If that’s what you and your employer agreed upon. Otherwise, you’d get paid in bank-issued dollars. Or government-issued dollars. Or in scrip. Or in cans of spam. > [@](#): > > 1. In the absence of the Federal Reserve, how would loans be made? Would any one bank have to rely strictly on its customers’ deposits to lend money? Same as there was before the Federal Reserve. As a practical matter, I suspect that freely-operating banks would be more cautious in their lending practices. Nonetheless, banks would still make loans, as they did for centuries prior to the rise of central banking. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/7 "2012-04-26T22:45:02Z")
> [@](#): > > No, or at least not necessarily. The issue for libertarians is not so much that the government prints money, but that ONLY the government is allowed to print money. Say what? Anyone who wants to is allowed to print their own money, and plenty of folks do. All of the non-government monies are pretty limited in scope, but that’s just because the free market prefers the government money. But if you wanted to, you could post prices in your store in Delta Skymiles, or WoW gold pieces, or Mastercard Reward Points. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/8 "2012-04-26T23:14:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Say what? Anyone who wants to is allowed to print their own money, and plenty of folks do. All of the non-government monies are pretty limited in scope, but that’s just because the free market prefers the government money. But if you wanted to, you could post prices in your store in Delta Skymiles, or WoW gold pieces, or Mastercard Reward Points. I was going to a say that at first, but I _think_ that what **furt** means is that they want to be able to print the same currency the government does. Of course, the problem with that is that the value of US currency in large part rests on the fact that it’s made and backed by the US government; not Bill Smith in his garage. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/9 "2012-04-26T23:32:35Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > You could look up how things were before the advent of the Fed. There were loans, there was paper money, everything was honky-dory. We had a functioning country before we had electricity too. But we can do a lot more now that we use electricity. We could, in theory, go back to a pre-electric society but we’d be giving up a lot. And that’s a pretty fair analogy for the problems of a gold-based economy. It was okay back when we didn’t have a better system but it would be foolish to throw out our current system and go back to gold. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2012, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/10 "2012-04-27T00:24:11Z")
Thought of another question: what’s with the obsession with porcupines? There’s the Porc Therapy show on lrn.fm, there’s the realtor who advertises on various shows whose phone number includes PORC, there’s [Porcfest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porcfest), and the attendant Free State flag with the porcupine on it. What gives? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/11 "2012-04-27T01:58:36Z")
They probably like to think of themselves as dangerous to mess with; “prickly”. It’s part of their mythology after all that individualists are tough and dangerous, not weak. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-questions-about-libertarianism-and-the-free-state-movement/619975/12 "2012-04-28T14:54:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Say what? Anyone who wants to is allowed to print their own money, and plenty of folks do. [ > [@](#): > > The original National Banking Act (ch. 58, 12 Stat. 665; February 25, 1863) was originally known as the National Currency Act and was passed in the Senate by a narrow 23-21 vote. The main goal of this act was to create a single national currency and to eradicate the problem of notes from multiple banks circulating all at once. The Act established national banks that could issue notes which were backed by the United States Treasury and printed by the government itself. The quantity of notes that a bank was allowed to issue was proportional to the bank’s level of capital deposited with the Comptroller of the Currency at the Treasury. To further control the currency, the Act taxed notes issued by state and local banks, essentially pushing non-federally issued paper out of circulation. [2] ]([National Bank Act - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bank_Act_of_1863)) Things like Skymiles or Reward Points are, AFAICT, not regarded as currency. Small, local currencies are allowed, _provided they are redeemable in US dollars_. But the fed is not going to allow Citibank to issue a trillion dollars of their own private currency. It could well be that nobody would want an alternative currency; but under current law, we don’t know.