Freedom to use a currency doesn't mean that you can force others to accept said currency. Depending on your choice of a currency you may find nobody that will accept it. Yes, this means you'll be compelled to use whatever currency is the generally accepted medium of exchange in the area where you live. No, that doesn't mean that you live in a "command economy". Freedom works both ways.
I control-f our conversation and the only mention I saw of 'free' or' freedom' was from yourself, not me. Are you debating with yourself?
If freedom to use a currency means that you can't force others to transact in it, then by your own definition we don't have freedom. I'm forced to pay taxes in US Currency whether I want to or not, whether I consent to it or not, even if I have no US currency and never once traded in it nor do I consent to any transaction in USD. I'm compelled to obtain USD.
[freedom] Is a very nebulous concept, I guess it's up to your interpretation as to whether our topic concerns freedom. But sure, it's probably not unreasonable to bring up the comment of freedom, I just wanted to make clear you were the one that introduced the notion of freedom. I find discuss on word 'freedom' are often incredibly difficult to get anything useful out of, because it's such a difficult word to define and work with.
I was talking about command economy of the compelled currency USD, which holds a priveleged legal position in that unlike any other currency in US I have a legal duty and responsibility to transact in it (taxes are the most obvious of these).
The combination of the compulsion, plus the central planning performed by a minority of elected and unelected government officials makes it a 'command economy' of USD for which there is no substitute; it is monopolized. It is simply illegal to trade and use a private currency as a full substitute for USD, and doubly so if you mint coinage.
I believe this monopolized command economy has yielded sub-optimal results, such as the temptation for governments to deliberately debase currency.
I didn't introduce the notion of freedom. You introduced the notion of command economy which implies a lack of freedom. A command economy, or more commonly a planned economy, is an economic system in which a central planner decides what to produce and in what amounts, as opposed to a market economy, where such decisions are made by the producers themselves according to their own judgement. A market economy is not incompatible with the public provision of certain goods and services. In fact, most governments provide policing, armed forces, education and health services, and currency. None of that implies that the economy is a command economy. Nor is it necessarily the case that such public provision of goods leads to sub-optimal results.
I never meant to imply the entire economy is a command economy. I am stating there is a command economy for currency (and parallels in some other nations), and that weaknesses in that economy on which the greater economy may depend can create subpar results in other markets as well as the market for currency itself.
