It so happens that the Austrian Scholars Conference this
year takes place in the midst of one of the most spectacular attempts to
reflate the economy ever undertaken in American history. Ben Bernanke might as
well be bombing Wall Street with silos full of cash.
What we see here is different in degree but not in kind to
what has been attempted many times in American history, and also around the
world.
Some books on the topic include Murray Rothbard’s marvelous History
of Money and Banking in the United States. Rothbard traces inflations,
banking panics, and money meltdowns from the Colonial Period through the
mid-20th century to show how government’s systematic war on sound money is the
hidden force behind nearly all major economic calamities in American history.
Never has the story of money and banking been told with such rhetorical power
and theoretical vigor.
In some ways, this book is the successor to the newly
re-printed masterwork by William Gouge: A
Short History of Money and Banking. The book was written in 1833, and it
was a major blast against the trend towards inflation and paper money. He was
an economist, journalist, and Treasury official, and, most of all, the leading
champion of sound money in his day, completely dedicated to liberty hard money
in a way that would classify him among the Austrians.
Another exclusive to the Mises story is the Phillips, McManus,
and Nelson classic on the Great Depression: Banking
and the Business Cycle. This rare treatise appeared in 1937 as an
Austrian-style analysis of the stock market crash and the great depression that
followed.
The history of banking by William Graham Sumner has been
beloved by serious banking historians, but has only recently been reprinted: A
History of American Currency. The goal of this book is to show that there
is nothing good to come out of any paper money experiment, and that sound money
is the only answer in a free society.
Charles Holt Carroll defended sound money in
a blazing series of essays appearing in the latter decades of the 19th
century. They are collected in the book. Here we discover his steadfast
devotion to hard money and his unwavering rejection of fractional reserve
banking in all its forms.
Now, let’s talk about how Bernanke’s tactics can actually
result in the demolition of society itself. Two case studies: one of
Money Inflation in France by Andrew Dickson White. This study was first
written in 1896, and it has not been surpassed, and nor has its power been
diminished. The second is The
Economics of Inflation by Costantino Bresciani-Turroni. “This is the
most comprehensive and authoritative account of the great German inflation from
1914 to 1923,” wrote Henry Hazlitt.
Hazlitt himself wrote a small primer on inflation that
really holds up well: What
You Should Know about Inflation. He presents the Austrian theory of money
in the clearest possible terms, and contrasts it with the fallacies of
government management. He takes on not only the Keynesians but also the
monetarists, as well as anyone who believes that government debt accumulation
and manipulation of interest rates are harmless.
Finally, no list would be complete without the greatest book
of them all: Mises’s Theory
of Money and Credit. Mises wrote this book for the ages, and it remains the
most spirited, thorough, and scientifically rigorous treatise on money to ever
appear. It made his reputation across
and established him as the most important economist of his age.
We need to drop a silo of these books on the Fed!
{ 10 comments }
The timeline according to the Introduction of The Fiat Money Inflation in France is that the book began as a paper read in 1876, during the “greenback craze”, and then revised and expanded, and prepared for publication in 1912, and then finally published in 1914 (according to the Foreward).
This is an incredibly interesting work!
Interesting blogpost, but it’s very difficult to keep up with so many updates in a day…
“We need to drop a silo of these books on the Fed!â€
While these Austrian authors are correct in their analysis of money and banking issues and they deserve to be widely read, I am not so certain that the above action will lead to much constructive change at the Fed. The current arrangement bestows too much privilege upon and unearned financial gain to certain interest groups, including the banking/financial industry and their academic supporters, to believe that they will easily reform. In particular, Murray Rothbard has demonstrated that the Fed was established by the major financial interests as a cartelization device.
I certainly hope that significant constructive reform will occur, but I am not holding my breath.
With the exception of Hazlitt’s work, I wouldn’t recommend any of the books named as a starter for those unfamiliar with the idea of sound money. The best introduction to money I’ve found is still Rothbard’s What Has Government Done to Our Money?/The Case for a 100 percent Gold Dollar. I may send a copy to Bernanke.
Rothbard’s “The Mystery of Banking” is a far better primer on banking than any of the above.
Unfortunately, it’s out of print. If the Mises Institute is really interested in educating the average dufus in DC, they ought to consider putting it back in print!
Mystery is coming.
We need to drop a silo of these books on the Fed!
I’m sure they can reuse the paper to print more money, or even Treasuries-for-toxic-MBS swaps.
We (in Europe) are doing our best to get some of those books translated and published, since the ECB (‘our Fed’) is doing its part as well.
Starting with “What has government done to our money?”
It is very late in the cycle. Get all the precious metals you can afford to accumuate. You will not lose much purchasing power just the years you could have been taking care of the of your savings.
You will probably make it up in the increase the metals willgo up. No doubt about it we are getting ina worse shape every day. Save your self as you cannot get any help at all from any form of government. Try to educate anyone you know what the real situation is. Try to do the impossible. I can not even get any og my family of four college graduates to do anything except agree that the situation that i describe does not look good.
I do not know any way we can pay the $2,000,000,00 a day extra we owe off without a 100 year refinance program of some kind.(wishful thinking). seisco
It is very late in the cycle. Get all the precious metals you can afford to accumuate. You will not lose much purchasing power just the years you could have been taking care of the of your savings.
You will probably make it up in the increase the metals willgo up. No doubt about it we are getting ina worse shape every day. Save your self as you cannot get any help at all from any form of government. Try to educate anyone you know what the real situation is. Try to do the impossible. I can not even get any og my family of four college graduates to do anything except agree that the situation that i describe does not look good.
I do not know any way we can pay the $2,000,000,00 a day extra we owe off without a 100 year refinance program of some kind.(wishful thinking). seisco
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