a consequence of its higher value than other metals, which made it unpractical for most laborers to use in everyday transactions (relative to less valuable silver coins). Advocates A return to the gold standard was considered by the U.S. Gold Commission in 1982, but found only minority support. In 2001 Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad proposed a new currency that would be used initially for international trade among Muslim nations, using a modern Islamic gold dinar, defined as 4.25 grams of pure (24-carat) gold. Mahathir claimed it would be a stable unit of account and a political symbol of unity between Islamic nations. This would purportedly reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar and establish a non-debt-backed currency in accord with Sharia law that prohibited the charging of interest. However, this proposal has not been taken up, and the global monetary system continues to rely on the U.S. dollar as the main trading and reserve currency. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledged he was one of "a small minority" within the central bank that had some positive view on the gold standard. In a 1966 essay he contributed to a book by Ayn Rand, titled Gold and Economic Freedom, Greenspan argued the case for returning to a 'pure' gold standard; in that essay he described supporters of fiat currencies as "welfare statists" intending to use monetary policy to finance deficit spending. More recently he claimed that by focusing on targeting inflation "central bankers have behaved as though we were on the gold standard", rendering a return to the standard unnecessary. Similarly, economists like Robert Barro argued that whilst some form of "monetary constitution" is essential for stable, depoliticized monetary policy, the form this constitution takes – for example, a gold standard, some other commodity-based standard, or a fiat currency with fixed rules for determining the quantity of money – is considerably less important. The gold standard is supported by many followers of the Austrian School of Economics, free-market libertarians, and some supply-siders. U.S. politics Former congressman Ron Paul is a long-term, high-profile advocate of a gold standard, but has also expressed support for using a standard based on a basket of commodities that better reflects the state of the economy. In 2011 the Utah legislature passed a bill to accept federally issued gold and silver coins as legal tender to pay taxes. As federally issued currency, the coins