The gold standard is far more restrictive than a floating dollar. It's basically socialism. Hypocrites, all of them.
It isn't so much "socialism" as it is an artificial restriction of the money supply enshrined in law (i.e. that whole "force" thing that libertarians like to go on about). But otherwise, yeah.
Private central banks certainly have more credibility when they say they will keep inflation low, including well below target (which reduces their credibility...). The problem being that central banks have two jobs- keeping inflation manageable in the context of a fully employed workforce. Private central banks have an atrocious record on the second part of their job. Take Japan's central bank, or the ECB.
It's very easy for 'technocrats' to allow themselves to be taken in by some new academic fad- it happened in the 80s in the US, with Friedman's silliness, which was ultimately abandoned. Also, the ECB has allowed itself to ignore virtually all credible economic theory in favour of baseless, debunked fantasy. Same in Japan- we have to maintain deflation in order to prevent hyperinflation! Often politicians are actually better economists than the heads of their central banks. Evidence: Alan Greenspan.
It is not the case that academic economists are merely applying objectively necessary policy, policy that will cause short-term pain (so politicians can't enact it) but that everyone qualified knows will produce a positive outcome. They are making a political choice, an ideological choice, between unemployment and inflation. That choice ought to be made by everyone, or the person making it should at least be accountable to everyone.
Well, the problem with Japan and the so-called "
Lost Decade" (which is now more like a lost quarter-century) was that for most of the 1990s, the Bank of Japan A) had no idea of the best policy response and B) the Japanese Ministry of the Treasury and the Bank of Japan did not coordinate their economic plans and at times seemed to work at cross-purposes with each other. (I wrote a paper on this for my master's degree, shit was all kinds of fucked up over there.)
Is that an argument for central bank independence, or against it? It depends how you look at it. If anything, there needs to be clearer communication and a more unified policy response to economic crises.
Having said that, I'm not about to make excuses for the errors of the technocrats. But the question works in reverse too--would an elected legislature have come up with a better policy response on its own? Sure, they could bring in outside consultants to help them, but then you are back to dealing with technocrats again. The technocrats won't always come up with a plan that will be effective or politically palatable, regardless.
