“If the world as a whole returned to the gold standard there would be such fluctuations in the value of gold that it would very soon prove impractical.Today an international gold standard could only mean that a few countries would maintain a real gold standard. The other countries would hang on to the system through a gold exchange standard — where the currency isn't really redeemable in gold but the government attempts to keep a fixed rate between its currency and gold.”

Austrian economist and philosopher

Friedrich August von Hayek was an Austrian economist and philosopher. He was a notable member of the Austrian school of economics, and is best known for his work in political economy, political philosophy, and intellectual history. He shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for work on money and economic fluctuations, and for showing how economic, social, and institutional forces depend on one another. He is also widely remembered for his account of how prices convey information, an idea that became an important contribution to economics.