[...] The gold standard was underpinned by the idea of depoliticizing money by linking its quantity to the amount of gold--a metal that politicians could not conjure up from thin air since it was provided exogenously by nature. Today the same fantasy of apolitical money can be foudn not just in the construction of a European central bank that is answerable to no parliament [...] but also in newfound digital currencies like Bitcoin, whose selling point is the absence of political authority over them. Margaret Thatcher's precious point was that controlling interest rates and the supply of money is a quintessentially political activity which, if removed from the purview of a democratically elected parliament, would occasion a steady descent into authoritarianism.