"Free Banking" in Scotland

Miscellaneous History
1

I was first introduced to the supposed stalwart of free banking, the Scottish banking system (1714-1844), when I read Ron Paul’s minority report “The Case For Gold”

However, I just finished reading Rothbard’s “The Mystery of Banking” and in his appendix, he claims that the Scottish banking system was not free in any sense of the word.

So my question is two-fold:

  1. Am I correct in assuming that Rothbard’s assessment is the correct one

  2. Are there any examples of true free banking in history from which a model can be drawn?

2

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE2_1_15.pdf - he would argue against it’s being free banking.

Perhaps ~1840 - 1863 in America? Otherwise, I don’t think so.

3

Bump because I don’t have an answer to question 2.

4

Well, the pre-Civil War era in the US definitely wasn’t free banking. Rothbard’s History of Money and Banking shows that. I don’t think there ever was a pure example.

At least 3/5 listed here are not free banking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_banking#History_of_Free_Banking

Sweden- http://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hastef/0541.html

This seems like a good book on this:

http://www.fee.org/PUBLICATIONS/THE-FREEMAN/article.asp?aid=4747