Benn Steil, Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, thoughtfully contemplates “The End of National Currency” in the May/June 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs. Here’s a taste:

In order to globalize safely, countries should abandon monetary nationalism and abolish unwanted currencies, the source of much of today's instability.

… As for the United States, it needs to perpetuate the sound money policies of former Federal Reserve Chairs Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan and return to long-term fiscal discipline. … It is the market that made the dollar into global money -- and what the market giveth, the market can taketh away. If … the dollar fails, the market may privatize money on its own.

Hear, hear. The essay – like the talk Steil gave at the Cato monetary conference in November – even favorably cites Hayek’s Monetary Nationalism and International Stability (1937).

I guess the CFR has become more market-friendly, if it can provide a home for Steil and visiting fellow Amity Schlaes.