"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank."
— Ron Paul, Pillars of Prosperity, 2008
Pillars of Prosperity collects decades of Paul's speeches and writings on money and banking, published in 2008 as the financial crisis was breaking around it.
The passage here is his standing reply to anyone who read that crisis as an indictment of free markets: you cannot convict a system that was never on trial. An interest rate set by committee rather than by savers is a price control like any other, and it produces what price controls always produce — shortages, gluts, and an eventual reckoning.
