Below is a deck of pictures, courtesy of Casey Research, showing various currencies from different parts of the world that have expired or have been abandoned.
It is foolish or naïve, for some, to believe that political actors willed or deliberately engineered the demise of these currencies, or that these have been the responsibility of the private sector.
Instead, the spate of currency extinction overtime signifies as the outcome of a series of actions undertaken by political leaders which essentially collided with economic reality and failed.
In other words, hyperinflation or war, which had been mainly responsible for the demise of most of these currencies, represents as the unintended effects from the desire to preserve or expand of political power by incumbent political leaders during their era.
As the great Ludwig von Mises reminds us, (bold emphasis mine)
But then, finally, the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The crack-up boom appears. Everybody is anxious to swap his money against "real" goods, no matter whether he needs them or not, no matter how much money he has to pay for them.
Within a very short time, within a few weeks or even days, the things which were used as money are no longer used as media of exchange. They become scrap paper. Nobody wants to give away anything against them.
It was this that happened with the Continental currency in America in 1781, with the French mandats territoriaux in 1796, and with the German Mark in 1923. It will happen again whenever the same conditions appear. If a thing has to be used as a medium of exchange, public opinion must not believe that the quantity of this thing will increase beyond all bounds. Inflation is a policy that cannot last forever.
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