Preface

The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar audiobook

08/05/2026 Murray N. Rothbard

Writing in 1991, Rothbard sets the essay in its original context: Bretton Woods as an international dollar standard masquerading as a gold standard. He contrasts it with the classical pre-1914 system, in which every currency was a defined weight of gold redeemable on demand, then recounts how the breakdowns of 1968 and 1971 tested Misesian predictions against an Establishment certain that gold would fall to $6 an ounce.

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

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Preface