Right.  For a functioning economy with a functioning government, functioning central bank, and functioning currency.  But that is not Zimbabwe in the 2000&#x27;s.<p>Zimbabwe became a dystopian cliché of hyperinflation and societal breakdown, with 80% unemployment and 100% inflation <i>per day</i>.  It is the current example we use when  we summon up the absurdist &quot;wheelbarrows of currency&quot; imagery.  Basically, they were limited to a barter economy, with a thick layer of authoritarian interference in what became a very limited system of production and distribution of goods &amp; services.<p>To create a currency union that&#x27;s sustainable, you have to commit to a fiscal union (where there is stable net wealth transfer from New York to Nebraska through things like social security), and&#x2F;or to a very stiff amount of labor mobility &amp; remittances (where internal migration to the site of available employment is as common as in the Dust Bowl).  The EU did not have enough of the latter (for a bunch of reasons), and chickened out on the former;  In that case failure was unavoidable, and credit availability simply delayed an inevitability.<p>You <i>can</i> give up &#x27;monetary sovereignty&#x27; in a long-term stable manner and sustain a functioning economy if you&#x27;re willing to do these things.  The United States did.  We have whole regions that would be depopulated without social security, Medicare, and welfare to keep the population alive without its manufacturing base.  We have abundant internal migration.<p>But Zimbabwe is a whole other sort of thing.  They didn&#x27;t relinquish much of anything when they gave up their currency; They had to build a new economy from the foundations on up.