How the State Seized Control of Money

New Mexico 2026 Mises Circle Ryan McMaken

Tags: Gold Standard, Money and Banking, World History

08/15/2026 Ryan McMaken

Ryan McMaken shows how seizing control of money was central to building the modern state — a centuries-long project that culminated in World War I destroying the gold standard.

Recorded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on August 15, 2026. Special thanks to George and Sally Gundrey for sponsoring this event.

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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How the State Seized Control of Money