Central banks primarily arose, directly or indirectly, from legislation that created privileges to promote the fiscal interests of the state or the rent-seeking interests of privileged bankers, not from market forces.
Pointer from Mark Thoma (!).
I think that one could write essentially the same sentence to explain quantitative easing.
I agree there is an important point here — market forces vs. government and rent-seeking — and it works for those of us for who associate appropriate consequences with markets. Partly because I think the point is important, the framing in terms of motives troubles me. After all, markets are often criticized for encouraging individuals to indulge their “greed” while rent-seeking receives a “reciprocity” gloss. We best avoid such quibbles when focusing clearly on effects.
Perhaps the value of a single money is so high due to the network effects (e.g. the ease of maintaining the collective fiction) that the marginal value of a new currency must be very high in order to outpace the costs imposed by government fiat money. Perhaps Bit coin has come the closest because some of its value is in defray ing the very costs of government monopoly money.