Capital invested in providing a currency is a tax upon the productive resources of the community. ... What is, then, to be said of a monetary system which did not obviate the evil consequences of barter, although enormous capital was withdrawn from productive sources, to act as a single circulator of commodities? Diseased money is worse than want of money.

- B. R. Ambedkar, 1947, p 19, The Problem of the Rupee.