[isilofi]

The failing of the gold standard was that it never limited money in circulation. Gold standards in practically all economies allowed for unlimited amounts of money to be printed at the whim of the central banks. Just that the central banks had to guarantee to pay out the set value in gold (or sometimes silver). At some point ppl realized that there wasn't enough gold in the vaults, which is why trust in the value of money (which is the actual backing force) vanished and hyperinflation happened.

So the gold standard failed because it was bound to fail. It was bound on the false illusion that every penny in circulation was backed up by a gold brick, which it wasn't.

[bondarchuk]

It seems like what you and sibling (hef19898) are calling "failing of the gold standard", others would already call "abolishment of the gold standard". So it's a question of what perspective you take on the question whether it's still a "gold standard" if it has already been departed from. At the very least, if a fixed ratio of coin:gold were actually maintained these failings wouldn't have happened (almost by definition). Whether that is actually achievable in practical politics is of course another question.

[isilofi]

> At the very least, if a fixed ratio of coin:gold were actually maintained these failings wouldn't have happened

It could still have happened, the mechanism is basically the same as in a bank run. If there isn't enough gold and too much demand for gold payouts, the central bank will run out and the system will explode.

The "other" "abolishment of the gold standard" is actually something different: The transition from commodity money to fiat money. Commodity money is when your money is something of intrinsic value such as gold. Stamping coins in commodity money only serves to assure the holder of weight and purity, but the value of a coin is 1:1 the metal value. In commodity money, it is pointless to mint any coins out of metals other than the precious ones, so that transition is marked by the abolition of actual gold coins. There you transit from intrinsic value to putative ("fiat" means "believe" in latin) value, usually through instilling some kind of trust into that coin by payout guarantees (you may still get some gold if you really want), force of law and guarantees of purchase power (a loaf of bread will always cost some fixed amout, or else...) or just plain trust that it will continue to work as it always has (which is the current state of things). So the actual abolishment of the gold standard was quite some time after the commodity to fiat money transition and just exchanged the "fiat base" of a promised gold payout by plain trust.

However, that "plain trust" can only work if the amount of money in circulation doesn't increase too rapidly compared to the amount of goods and services available and provided. Which is why you really really need strict control of the amount of money in circulation, thus central bank interest rates, austerity and other limitations on "printing" of money.