[SFJulie]

This already happened circa 1780.

In Europa merchants were taking advantage of the numerous measure of length, weight, volume to make customers unable to be comparing.

There was 117 measure of length used.

So as a result, Louis XVI who was influenced by the early liberal set on course the project of the international system. The idea was a market is more competitive if states regulate the obigation for merchant to make measure comparable.

Hence came the meters, kg, liters and the decimal system.

It was adopted by the republican after the king was overthrown because they were also willing for a fairer competition...

It has always stroked me as weird that USA never saw the inherent liberalist advantage of simple measurement system.

[Gibbon1]

> It has always stroked me as weird that USA never saw the inherent liberalist advantage of simple measurement system.

I read a claim somewhere that the pox of different measurement systems wasn't as much of an issue in Britain and it's American colonies so they stuck with archaic but consistent units a lot longer.