We have inherited a culturally-dominant ideology that private currencies are always unstable and lead to financial crises. In fact, history has shown that the opposite has often been true. Private currencies have often been remarkably stable and sound—and as a result, they were key opponents that governments had to defeat as they sought to fund growing expenses (most pressingly, war) by monopolizing currency issue.

Financial crises have actually tended to happen as a result of both public and private-sector folly converging together in a self-reinforcing spiral. Finger-pointing in this as in all other matters tends to reflect an abdication of responsibility. Governments in particular must be held responsible because they create the legal and military game conditions that incentivize good and bad behavior by private actors.

Stories help us understand the world and our place in it. Those in power seek to control historical narratives so they can shape the self-understandings of countless people in ways that serve them. The reason we (at least, some of us) study history is to tell better—that is, truer—stories.