Gold Is Money - Sennholz, H

GOLD I~; :MONEY
CONTRIBUTIONS IN ECOMONICS
AND ECONOMIC HISTORY
American Financing of World War I

Charles Gilbert
The Depression of the Nineties: An Economic History

Charles Hoffmann
Paternalism and Protest: Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Organized

Labor, 1875-1905
Melton Alonza McLaurin
Business and Politics in America from the Age of Jackson to the Civil War:
The Career Biography of W. W. Corcoran
Henry Cohen
Business Depressions and Financial Panics: Essays in American Business

and Economic History
Samuel Rezneck
Towards an Integrated Society: Reflections on Planning, Social Policy and

Rural Institutions in India
Tarlok Singh
The Age of Giant Corporations: A Microeconomic History of American

Business, 1914-1970
Robert Sobel
Samuel Gompers and the Origins of the American Federation of Labor,

1848-1896
Stuart Bruce Kaufman
Statistical View of the Trusts: A Manual of Large American Industrial and

Mining Corporations Active around 1900
David Bunting
State and Regional Patterns in American Manufacturing, 1860-1900

Albert W. Niemi, Jr.
The American Banking Community and New Deal Banking Reforms, 1933-
1935
Helen M. Burns
GOLD
1$
MONEY
Edited vvith all Introduction by
Jf[<Jns F. Sennholz
Contributions in Ecc)n()mics
and
Economic History, ~~u]mber 12
GREENWOOD PRES~)
Westport, Connecticut- Lc)ndon, England

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Sennholz, Hans F
Gold is money.
(Contributions in economics and economic history; no. 12)

Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Gold standard. 2. Monetary policy. I. Title.
HG297.S44 332.4'5 74-15161
ISBN 0-8371-7804-5
Copyright © 1975 by Hans F. Sennholz
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by

any process or technique, without the express written consent of the
author and publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-15161

ISBN: 0-8371-7804-5
First published in 1975
Greenwood Press, a division of Williamhouse-Regency Inc.

51 Riverside Avenue, Westport, Connecticut 06880
Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS
Introduction vii
1 The Plight of the Dollar 3

G. C. Wiegand
2 Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat Exchange Rates 23

Murray N. Rothbard
3 No Shortage of Gold 41
Hans F. Sennholz
4 To Restore World Monetary Order 61

Henry Hazlitt
5 The Legal Standing of (;old:

Contract vs. Status 77
John A. Sparks
6 The Role of Gold in the Past Century 104

Donald L. Kemmerer
v
vi CONTE~TS
7 Greenback Dollars and Federal

Sovereignty, 1861-1865 122
Gary North
8 Hard Money and Society in the Bible 157

Rousas John Rushdoony
9 Is the Gold Standard Gone Forever? 176

Arthur Kemp
Epilogue 195
Index 199
Introduction
With the breakdown of the international monetary order in
August 1971, the world entered a new phase in international
finance and commerce. For sonle twenty-seven years, since
the Bretton Woods Agreement, the u.s. dollar had been the
most important currency to 'which the free world monetary
system was safely anchored. But the American suspension of
gold payments on August 15, 19~71, the dollar devaluations in
December 1971 and February 19 73, followed by sinking floats
1
in the foreign exchange markets, have lifted the dollar anchor

and cast adrift the international monetary order.
Prospects for creating a more stable system appear remote.
True, some optimists still cling to the hope that the system can
be overhauled in ayear or two. They place their confidence in a
special committee of the InteJrnational Monetary Fund's board
of governors, the "Group of T wenty, " of which eleven are from
1
industrial countries and nine from less developed areas. But

the frequent consultations and rneetings of the group clearly
reveal that it is most difficult to reach agreement. The
differences in attitude and viewpoint among governments are
considerable and the great diversity of national positions and
interests is discouraging.
The official U. S. position as expressed by former Treasury
Secretary George Shultz emlphasizes the need for frequent
exchange rate adjustments in order to correct balance-of-
payments imbalances. Sound international trade and finance
can be achieved either through a system of floating exchange
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
rates involving some occasional official intervention, or

exchange parities subject to frequent and relatively small ad-
justments. Such a system, according to the u.S. view, should
be supported by the convertibility of national currencies into
reserve assets that serve a common denominator or numeraire
for currencies. Of course, these assets must be made to grow in
order to facilitate expansion of international trade and in-
vestment. They must be created periodically in the necessary
amounts. In fact, the United States would like to make Special
Drawing Rights (SDRs) the principal medium of international
reserves. They should cease to be partly repayable in gold,
their guarantees in gold should be ~liminated, and the limits
beyond which the creditor countries are not obliged to accept
SDRs in settlement of debtors' deficits should be lifted.
On the other hand, the creditor countries quickly point out
that any addition of SDRs and the removal of those safeguards
would render the international monetary order even more
inflationary. Financing of persistent deficits by SDRs would
tend to undermine and ultimately destroy the arrangement.
After all, they ask, how long can creditor countries be expected
to finance the chronic deficits of debtors?
And finally, there are the less developed countries who
would like to link the creation of SDRs to economic aid by the
advanced countries. Why, they are asking, should SDRs, for
the most part, be given to the United States and other industri-
al countries? Why should they not be used to finance capital
improvements and alleviate the poverty of the world?
All governments seem to agree that the importance of gold
as international money should be gradually reduced. The U. s.
government whose holdings declined from a record high of
$26.9 billion in August 1949 to some $10 billion in 1971 is
especially eager to reduce the role of gold. The European
countries and Japan, who quadrupled their gold reserves over
the same period and now are holding more than $23 billion,
basically agree with the u.s. position but wonder about the
alternative: u.s. dollars or SDR. With nearly 1,000
Introduction ix
full or partial devaluations of national currencies since the end

of World War II how can anyone currency issued by a gov-
ernment or association of governments be trusted to serve as
international money?
There cannot be any doubt that the world's monetary system
is changing rapidly. The swift course of recent events clearly
indicates that a major change is under way. But what is the
direction of this change? Win it be a patchwork of symptom
remedies that are mere reactions to emerging crises, and as
such will fragment the international financial and economic
order? Indeed, the danger of such reforms is imminent and
profound. How can the monetary authorities that created the
present disorder be expected to bring order and stability to the
world? Accelerating inflation all over the globe and frequent
upheavals in the exchange markets are strengthening in-
flationary expectations. We are now observing the first'in-
dications of a worldwide flight out of money. Since the u.S.
dollar no longer affords a relatively safe monetary haven, and
stringent controls keep investors from access to some stronger
European currencies, an international flight into ""real values"
is developing. The demand for land, housing, and other
durable goods, collector's itemls and, above all, gold, is
growing.
Whoever ventures to speak kindly of gold or the gold
standard places his good name and professional reputation in
great jeopardy. For the number of friends of gold has dwindled
to a tiny remnant whose voi.ce is easily lost in the noise of
popular monetary discussion. After all, most contemporary
economists adhere to the monetary orthodoxy of out time
which makes government the creator and guardian 'of the
people's money. They are dedicated to fiat issues that permit
government regulation and that manipulate and afford
flexibility for the sake of central planning. I~ the name of social
progress, money and credit are managed by central au-
thorities, and the unmanageable gold is decried as a barbaric
metal, a relic of the past.
x INTRODUCTION
This book summarily rejects this statist orthodoxy. Its nine

writers are in full agreement that money is not the product of a
legislative act, but the inevitable result of man's division of
labor and exchange economy. Wherever enterprising men
seek to exchange their goods and services for more marketable
goods that facilitate further exchanges for other goods, the
precious metals, especially gold, are most suited to serve as
money. The writers are aware that for some 2,500 years small
pieces of gold and silver, called coins, constituted universal
money. It survived two millennia in spite of countless attempts
by hosts of governments to manipulate it or replace it with
their own media. They are convinced that gold will soon return
as universal money and prevail long after the present rash of
national fiats is forgotten or relegated to currency museums.
The essays of this collection are the product of a lecture
series given at Grove City College during the 1973 Spring
Semester. Without an editor's blueprint each contributor
chose his own object of analysis. The only plan that helped to
give structure and content to this collection is visible in the
editor's selection of the contributors. As economists, his-
torians, jurists, philosophers, or theologians they all are
members of the gold standard remnant and are the courageous
advocates of the coming monetary order.
We are grateful to the Philip M. McKenna Foundation
whose generous assistance made our work possible. May it
contribute to the memory of Philip McKenna, a great
American and member of the remnant.
H.F.S.
GOLD I:S MONEY
1
The Plight of
the Dollar
(;. C. WIEGAND
Profes~Yor of Economics,
Southern .11linoisUniversity
"The dollar is as good as gold," announced the Bretton

Woods Agreement, and for twenty-five years the dollar passed
freely as the most widely used international medium of
exchange. But while the world accepted the dollar in place of
gold, its inner strength deteriorated slowly until it was
devalued twice in 1971 and again in 1973, and was no longer
freely acceptable. What are the reasons for the debacle?
There are two possible explanations. The weakness of the
dollar may be the result of telmporary international causes
-America's heavy military expenditures abroad, and the
failure of tne American economy to adjust quickly to the
economic recovery of war-torn Europe and Asia. These
temporary causes can be overcome through emergency
measures and "international cooperation." According to the
3
4 G. C. WIEGAND
other explanation, the plight of the dollar is the result of

fundamental disequilibria within the American economy
which cannot be eliminated through "international coopera-
tion" and dollar devaluations. The former was the official view
of the United States, and most of the world, during the 1960s
and early 1970s, despite growing evidence to the contrary. The
latter view is set forth in this essay.
Foreign exchange rates do not exist in a vacuum, and the
flow of international funds in the long run is not controlled by
"speculators," although large-scale hedging operations and
sudden movements of flight capital can, temporarily, turn a
basic disequilibrium into a sudden crisis. Just as the balance of
payments, foreign exchange rates constitute a barometer of
whether the economy and the prevailing price structure of a
nation are more or less in equilibrium with the rest of the
world. This international equilibrium in turn requires that the
national economic structure not be too far out of balance. The
chronic weakness of the dollar stems from the fact· that for
twenty years the United States has increased the supply of
paper dollars more rapidly than the supply of goods and
services, and, as a nation, has consumed too much-in the
private as well as the public sector-and has not invested
enough, until the American economy can no longer fully com-
pete in world markets. The plight of the dollar can be cured
only by eliminating the fundamental socioeconomic dis-
equilibria within the American economy which produce the
chronic overconsumption. .
For more than two decades, Washington and the rest of the
world treated the American balance-of-payments deficit first
as a curiosity and then as a minor problem which could be
handled through ad hoc emergency measures rather than
major policy changes. I By ~he time it became obvious, during
the latter part of the 1960s, that the weakness of the dollar was
the result of fundamental disequilibria within the American
economy, Washington was too preoccupied with the Vietnam
conflict and domestic social tensions to undertake the poten-
The Plight of the Dollar 5
tially politically dangerous economic reforms necessary to

reinforce the dollar. The surplus nations, meanwhile, out of
loyalty to the United States and to the Bretton Woods system
(or, more likely, because they feared the possibility of a
monetary collapse) continued. to support the steadily weaken-
ing dollar often at great cost to their own economies. Thus, a
possibly fateful decade was lost, during which the dollar and
the international monetary systeln of the free world could have
been restored relatively easilly to a sound basis.
OVERSPENDINC; AND OVERCONSUMPTION
The progressive weakening of the dollar, resulting in the

virtual abandonment of the basic assumptions of the Bretton
Woods system, is the direct result of the widespread notion
that a government can assure lasting prosperity and an ever
rising standard of living by creating enough purchasing power
through deficit spending and easy credit. Throughout the
1950s and 1960s, the artificially inflated demand increased
faster than the supply of goods and services, and the American
people consumed more than the American economy could
produce under existing socia.! and political restraints.
The excess consumption was made possible through in-
creased reliance on foreign resources, resulting in the chronic
balance-of-payments deficits, and through inadequate capital
formation in the widest sense. America consumed too much,
domestic as well as foreign goods, and saved too little, which
over the course of years undermined the ability of large
segments of the American economy to satisfy the expanded
demand at home at competitive prices and to meet foreign
competition in world markets. America acted like the man who
enjoyed life, while neglecting to maintain his house, until,
after a few years, the roof began to leak.
The decay of the inner cities and of the railroads; the "energy
crisis" which had been building up for years; the shortage of
lumber resulting from the la(~k of industrial capacity to process
6 G. C. WIEGAND
the available timber; the growing inability of large segments of

the economy to hold their own in world markets-these are all
reflections of the inadequate capital formation during the
1950s and 1960s.
Man-hour productivity depends upon machinery and the
necessary infrastructure, and if capital formation is inade-
quate, productivity increases too slowly. During the 1960s
man-hour productivity in America grew by 35 percent, com-
pared with 188 percent in Japan, 87 percent in Germany, and
75 percent in France. 2 Productivity grew more slowly in
America than in virtually all industrialized nations, and in
almost every yearU. S. wages and fringe benefits increased
more rapidly than productivity, thus raising unit cost and
pushing up prices in general.
The failure of the American economy to meet the inflated
demand must be understood in the widest sense. It is not
merely a question of an excess of imports over exports; the
problem extends to every aspect of America's economic, social,
and political life. High wages and high per unit cost are un-
doubtedly important factors in America's growing inability to
meet foreign competition, and the high unit cost in turn is
partly due, at least in some industries, to technological
obsolescence. The plight of the dollar, however, cannot be
attributed entirely to the fact that the American worker can no
longer compete with the lower paid foreign worker. Between
1970 and 1972, wages and prices rose far more rapidly in
Germany and Japan than in the United States, yet it was during
these years that the traditional American export surplus turned
into a large import surplus, and the dollar crisis became acute,
while the mark and the yen became pillars of strength.
In addition to the high wage scales, many other factors add to
the pressure on the dollar. High taxes, especially state and
local taxes, public waste, the attitude of labor, the ever grow-
ing government bureaucracy, and the threat of increasing
foreign exchange restrictions all affect, directly or indirectly,
the value of the dollar. Most important factor, however, is that
the inflation-fed consumption exceeds the production of goods

and services. American exports and imports are affected more
by the overall demand than by prices. Or, in the language of
the economist, exports and imports are more income- than
price-elastic. The cost of travel in Western Europe increased
by 25 to 30 percent between 1970 and 1973, yet the total
number of American tourists actually increased, because their
disposable income in inflated dollars had increased by 25
percent during the same three years. Nor is the volume of
exports primarily determined by prices. Between 1970 and
1972, American exports rose by about $6 1/2 billion or 13
percent, even though American prices (measured in terms of
consumer prices) rose by 10 percent. Foreigners will buy
sophisticated American machinery in preference to cheaper
Japanese goods because they have more confidence in
American workmanship, design, and especially service. They
buy large American jets and cornputers, whatever their price,
because they are produced only in America.
The plight of the dollar cannot be understood in strictly
economic terms, especially not in terms of relative price levels.
The attempt to "cheapen" the dollar through devaluations in
order to lower the export price of American goods deals merely
with the obvious rather than the more fundamental causes.
Ultimately, the chronic deficit in the American balance of
payments is but a reflection of fundamental cultural and social
changes in America.
THE CHA.NCaNG MOOD IN AMERICA
Man's actions are determined. by the ideas which he holds

about himself, society, and the world in which he lives. During
the past thirty to forty years, the American people have radi-
cally changed their outlook on life. In the 1930s, the great
middle class still clung to the traditional social ethics of hard
work, frugality, and profound distrust of government in-
tervention. Since then, the pendulum has swung in the
8 G. C. WIEGAND
opposite direction. The great majority of the American people

no longer see value in work itself. Work-a minimum of work
at maximum pay-has become a means to an end: to enable all
to enjoy an ever higher standard of living.
At the same time, as the will to produce declined, the desire
to consume increased. We live in a "consumer culture," we are
part of the "fun cult. " Former Mayor Lindsay recently spoke of
New York as the "fun city," even though more than 15 percent
of its people are on relief~a percentage which was reached in
ancient Rome in the third century, when the economic and
social decay progressed rapidly.
The middle class of yesteryears built for the future. It was a
social, if not a moral, obligation to increase the substance of the
family from one generation to the next. As Keynes put it: "The
duty of 'savings' became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth
of the cake the object of a true religion . . . The virtue of the
cake was that it was never to be consumed, neither by you nor
by your children after you. "3 The difference between having a
"cake" and not having one was the nineteenth-century
difference between the middle class and the proletariat. As
Keynes pointed out, the frugality of the middle class con-
stituted an all-important economic asset during the nineteenth
ce'ntury, by providing the capital needed for industrialization.
But then came the great depression of the 1930s, and "over-
saving" became an economic liability. The social virtue of
yesteryears turned into a social vice, at least temporarily. In
the mid-1930s, the Federal Reserve held almost $6 billion in
excess member bank reserves, which would have been enough
to enable the banking system to expand its credit by an amount
almost equal to the total national debt. Obviously, this was a
striking example of "oversaving."
Keynes' analysis was perfectly correct at the time the
"Generai Theory" was published in 1936: the world suffered
from oversaving and underconsumption. But this situation
changed quickly with the outbreak of World War II three years
later. Even before the United States entered the war, the
excess reserves had declined by 40 percent, and ever since

Pearl Harbor, consumption-"guns and/or butter"-has
exceeded production in America. and throughout the world.
Yet this obvious fact is disregarded by the politicians, the
Uexperts," and the general public. During the 1930s, the world
"oversaved" and since the 1~)40s the world has been "over-
consuming." This is the simple explanation for the fact that
between 1945 and 1972, the .Ame·rican dollar lost almost three-
fourths of its domestic purchasing power, 4 and the various
paper currencies throughout the world lost, on an average,
over 85 percent of their value.. Never in the history of mankind
has there been such a drastic destruction of monetary values in
such a short time. The inteUectual and cultural convulsions
throughout Western civilization are to a large extent a reflec-
tion of the loss of confidence in material, that is, monetary
values. This loss of confidence in the future, this Keynesian uin
the long run we are all dead" spirit, in turn, stimulates con-
sumption and hampers inveshnent. Let us live today. "D'apres
nous Ie deluge."
There are various ways in which capital formation can be
measured. As far as the spirit of the time is concerned, the
percentage of savings in relation to disposable income is prob-
ably most significant. Americans save 6 to 8 percent, the
Germans 12 to 15 percent, and the Japanese 20 to 25 percent of
their disposable income. To the extent that these savings are
invested in the maintenance and expansion of productive
capacity, instead of being used to finance the bureaucracy and
the welfare state, man-hour productivity and the overall
productivity of the nation increase. While Americans enjoyed
an ever higher standard of living during the postwar decades
because they consumed much and saved little, and since the
1960s spent an ever larger shslre of the Gross National Product
(GNP) on the cradle-to-the-gravle welfare state, the Germans
and Japanese lived for years at a Iniserably low level, and saved
and invested a very large share of their income. By the mid-
1960s, the results became obvious: Germany and Japan, and
10 G. C. WIEGAND
less obviously other countries, began to outproduce the United

States, a situation which in due course ~ndermined the posi-
tion of the dollar as the key currency of the free world.
The United States accounts for not quite 6 percent of the
world's population. In the 1950s we produced and consumed
about 37 percent of the world's goods and services. By the early
1970s, the percentage had declined to less than 25 percent. But
America is still by far the richest and most productive country
in the world, even though we no longer "earn our way."
A few figures will illustrate the trend. Between 1950 and
1960, during the "conservative" Truman and Eisenhower
years, the output of goods and services, the GNP in fixed
dollars, increased by 38 percent. 5 Federal spending, mean-
while grew from $40 billion to $94 billion, Le., by 135 percent.
Commercial Bank credit rose by 56 percent,6 consumer credit
by 180 percent,7 and home mortgages by 213 percent. 8
At the same time, the balance-of-payments deficit grew
slowly but steadily.9 The gold reserves declined from $24.5
billion at the end of 1949 to $19.5 billion ten years later-"a
wholesome redistribution of international reserves" as some
experts argued-while the foreign short-term obligations
more than doubled, from $8.8 to $19.4 billion.
While private consumption, public spending, and credit
increased far more rapidly during the 1950s than the produc-
tion of goods and services, thus setting the stage for the great
inflation of the 1960s, the Federal Reserve still pursued a fairly
conservative policy. Federal Reserve credit increased by only
34 percent during the 1950s, less rapidly than the real GNP,
and for all practical purposes at the end of the 1950s the dollar
was still "as good as gold"-at least it was regarded as such
throughout the world.
The mood of the country, moreover, was still essentially
conservative. It resembled more that of the 1920s and 1930s
than that of the 1960s. For the great middle class, Horatio
Alger had not yet become a comical figure, and Puritan ethics
were still respectable. To be sure, the goal of "full em-
ployment, ~~ that the federal government can and must provide

every American with a suitable job, had been accepted by
Congress, the White House, and the people. Only Utopians
and social extremists thought that Washington could and
should "abolish poverty."
And then, at a critical point in the nation's history, came the
presidential campaign of 1960, 'with its violent charges and
countercharges and the first serious "dollar crisis," for a short
time the gold price in London rose to $42, equal to a deprecia-
tion of the dollar by about 20 percent. This was obviously a
danger signal, especially since the gold reserves dropped
sharply during 1960 from $19.~) to $17.8 billion, and short-term
obligations rose from $19.4 to ~;21.4 billion. At least some
people began to worry about the d.ollar, even though America's
wealth and productive capacity were so great that the weakness
of the dollar could readily be overcome, provided the
American people and its leaders had the will to make the
necessary sacrifices.
Instead, the country embarked upon the wildest inflationary
spree in its history, reassured by the dictum of the experts that
they could "fine-tune" the economy and assure maximum
employment and growth, greater prosperity, without infla-
tion. The Federal Reserve abandoned its relatively con-
servative policy of the 1950s, and the great mass of the people,
fired by the promises of the politicians, came to believe that
Washington could buy the IniUennium through the clever
manipulation of paper dollars.
Between 1960 and 1972, C;NI) in real terms increased by
almost 60 percent, or at an aLverage of 5 percent, compared
with a growth rate of 3.8 percent during the 1950s. At the same
time, Federal Reserve credit jUlnped by 164 percent, more
than 2 1/2 times as fast as the output of goods and services, and
the money supply (currency, demand, and time deposits in
commercial banks) increased by almost 145 percent. Federal
spending rose from about $9~) billion in fiscal 1960 to almost
$232 in fiscal 1972, an increase of 144 percent, and inflation
12 G. C. WIEGAND
permeated every aspect of the economy. While the disposable

income of the American consumer in depreciating dollars rose
by 126 percent, consumer credit grew by 180 percent, and the
mortgage debt by almost 145 percent. New car sales increased
by 65 percent between 1960 and 1972, an important factor in
the worsening pollution; consumption of electric power rose
by almost 60 percent, which is one of the reasons for the
growing "'energy crisis." What had been regarded as luxuries in
the 1950s-weekend houses, motor boats, swimming pools,
and vacations in Europe-became part of the accepted
standard of living of a wide segment of the middle class. Even
the twenty-five million Americans who were classified as
"poor" by the government experienced a rapid rise in their
standard of living: they too had steaks, cars, TV sets, and
greatly improved medical care.
By the beginning of the 1970s, the policy of chronic "'mild"
inflation was running into serious difficulties. Of the more than
$300 billion of new money created between 1960 and 1972, at
least $60 billion (some estimates run as high as $80 billion)
flowed abroad in payment of goods, services, and assets which
the American economy had failed to produce. These billions in
due course formed the basis of the huge and volatile Eurodol-
lar market. Gold reserves declined from $17.8 to $11 billion
between 1960 and 1970, while short-term foreign obligations,
still supposedly payable on demand in gold, rose from $21 to
$47 billion. The dollar was manifestly no longer "'as good as
gold," and the stage was set for a major crisis.
During the 1960s, Washington had tried to camouflage the
growing weakness of the dollar through a variety of emergency
measures. The London gold pool maintained the price of gold
at $35 an ounce, swap arrangements were used to counteract
sudden runs on the dollar, while year after year new
restrictions were placed on the outflow of dollars. 10
The attempt to restrict the use of the New York capital
market by foreign borrowers and by American multinational
corporations backfired in an unexpected and dangerous fash-
ion. Confronted with increasi.ng restrictions in New York, the

business shifted abroad, as Almel'ican banks opened some 500
overseas branches, II and the Eurodollar market partly replaced
the New York capital market. Since there are no reserve re-
quirements for Eurodollars, JEurodollar credits could thus be
increased freely on the basis of a relatively small fractional
reserve held in New York. The risk was relatively small, since
the banks which created the :Eurodollars did not have to
redeem them in either gold or foreign currencies. This was the
concern of the U.S. Treasury and the foreign central banks,
and the individual Eurobanks were always able to borrow from
each other on a moment's noti(~e. The danger of a general
squeeze seemed extremely remote as far as the Eurobanks
were concerned. By blocking the New York capital market to
foreign borrowers, the Treasury and Federal Reserve in effect
created a monster abroad which, for the time being at least,
proved beyond either national or international control.
Compounding this problenl w'ere the huge liquid assets of
the multinational corporations-,estimated at more than $300
billion on the eve of the dollar cri.sis in January 1973. Once the
corporate officials responsible for these funds became con-
vinced that a second dollar devaluation was unavoidable, they
rushed to hedge future comrnitrnents and to seek shelter for
the endangered dollar balances. In the end, all the gadgets
developed during the 1960s proved powerless in the face of the
torrent of paper dollars.
i
INTERNAL "PROSPERITy VERSUS INTERNATIONAL
.'
STABILITY
How was it possible that }Lmerica, the most powerful and

richest nation in the world, should experience such a rapid and
far-reaching deterioration of its economic and political
preeminence? Since Plato w'rote his Republic in the fourth
century before Christ, philosophers and political theorists
have dreamed of the perfect sta.te, which they would create
14 G. C. WIEGAND
through wise planning and by compelling those who disagreed

to keep in step. Most of the social planners realized that they
would have to confine their perfect society to their own limited
nation-state, for the simple reason that they did not have the
power to force the rest of the world into line. The solution was
simple: cut off the "perfectly planned" nation-state from the
rest of the world through control of exports and imports,
restrictions on foreign travel, and creation of two types of
money: a national currency which could be spent only within
the border (inconvertible paper money in modern days); and
international money, gold and silver, which would be held
exclusively by the government and used only for purposes it
deemed advisable. When President Roosevelt abandoned the
gold standard in 1934, he explained that "the sound internal
economic system of a nation is a greater factor in its well-being
than the price of its· currency in changing term s of the
currencies of other nations ... the United States seeks the kind
of dollar which a generation hence will have the same purchas-
ing power and debt-paying power as the dollar value we hope
to attain in the near future. "'12 Or, as Sir William Beveridge, the
father of the full employment philosophy, put it a decade later:
"Each country must work out its own full employment prob-
lem." In trying to isolate America from the "disturbing foreign
influences," Roosevelt followed a well-trodden path. As did-his
predecessors and his epigoni of the 1960s and 1970s, he over-
looked two important factors: that no man and no government
is wise enough to plan the "perfect society" or the "perfect
economy," or powerful enough to impose it upon the people
except through totalitarian means; and that no nation, particu-
larly a highly developed nation, exists in a vacuum.
The United States may be less dependent upon imports than
Britain, the Netherlands, or Denmark, yet the American
economy and the American way of life require the importation
of large quantities of fuels, metals, and tropical products. In
order to acquire these necessities, America must export goods,
provide services, or draw on its foreign assets. It is a popular
but misleading notion that America need not Hlet the tail," the
$50 billion worth of international trade, Hwag the dog," the
more than $1.1 trillion American economy. America's interna-
tional trade is not so much the HtaH of the dog" as the water
without which the dog can barely survive.
No politician is naive enough to suggest that the United
States follow Plato's blueprint--or the Russian and the
Chinese policies-and cut herself off from the rest of the
world, but neither politicians nor the great mass of the people
will admit that in order to be a part of the world, America must
adjust to the world. In The lvVali Street Journal (August 14,
1972), then Treasury Secretary (;eorge Shultz, for example,
called for Hthe development oJ~ international rules of conduct."
But these rules, he thought, ""luust leave room for that exercise
of national sovereignty which all nations must retain regarding
policies affecting the welfare of their citizens. " We recognize
Hthe growing economic interdependence aIJlong nations," but
if we find it politically expedient to pursue an inflationary
policy at home-for the welfare of the American people-we
should be free to do so.
For centuries, governments have searched in vain for a way
of combining the Hneeds for national sovereignty" with the
Hneeds for international cooperation." Now the experts and
politicians claim to have found the solution: floating exchange
rates, which will supposedly enable the governments to assure
ever rising prosperity within the country, without having to cut
America off from the rest of the world. The dollar is to be
permitted to Hfind its own level."
But what level? As long as consumption in the United States
does not exceed production, and the world has confidence in
the dollar, there is no need for a Cl:floating" rate. The world will
be happy to have a constant dollar as an international standard
of value. But if consumption in America exceeds production, as
it has since the 1950s, a ""floating" dollar will prove to be just a
euphemism for a progressively depreciating dollar. As long as
the deficit spending continues, wages increase faster than
16 G. C. WIEGAND
productivity, consumption exceeds production, and savings

are inadequate to maintain and expand the nation's productive
capacity, thedollar will drift downward. And as the value of the
dollar declines, the cost of essential imports will increase. In
the end, America will be confronted with the same altern~tives
which face the nation today: to reduce consumption (because
of the rising cost of imports), or to spend even less on the
maintenance of the nation's productive capacity, which must
lead to an ultimate collapse. It is not possible, for any length of
time, whether exchange rates are fixed or floating, for the
average unit cost in America to remain above world market
levels, or for interest rates and profits to be maintained artifi-
cially below those of other money and capital markets.
A downward floating exchange rate means higher prices for
imports, such as gasoline and coffee, and indirectly rising
prices in general, which in turn must result in decreasing
consumption and hence a lower standard of living, unless the
government offsets the higher prices through the issuance of
more paper money, which would further accelerate the infla-
tion. The only way to stop the progressive decline of the
purchasing power of the paper dollar, at home and abroad, is to
limit consumption to the actual output of goods and services,
with adequate reserves for depreciation and expansion. This
policy is not an easy one to follow, since in an economy
saturated with an inflationary mentality the emphasis tends to
be upon consumption rather than savings.
According to the so-called Phillips curve, which Senator
William Proxmire and many other experts regard as "one of the
most rudimentary principles ... in economic theory," a nation
accepts a certain rate of chronic inflation in order to reduce
unemployment to a socially acceptable level. Actually, this
notion is far from "rudimentary" in the sense of being univer-
sally valid. It does not apply to situations of chronic inflation
because it does not take into consideration the psychological
effects of steadily decreasing monetary values, which make
people rush into goods, whatever the price-gold, real estate,
art objects, platinum, diamonds, anything which promises

"security" or quick profits--while less and less capital is
available for long-term investments and hence job
opportunities.
SOFT MOl\rEY VERSUS HARD MONEY
The nineteenth-century gold standard provided an interna-

tional currency which created one large, closely interwoven
international monetary and economic system, linking all major
national economies. It functioned because for ninety-nine
years, between Waterloo and the outbreak of World War I, the
world experienced no major war or social unheaval. The
nineteenth century was the age of the rising middle class,
which, on the basis of past experience, felt that "we have gold,
because we cannot trust governments." Under the gold
standard, no government could pursue an inflationary policy
because the volume of money and credit was limited by law to
the available gold reserves. As prices rose and imports
exceeded exports, gold had to he exported to pay for the import
surplus, the gold reserves declined, and thus the supply of
money and credit. A cost-push inflation was impossible be-
cause rising prices, and thus demand for credit, would prompt-
ly run into the ceiling set by the nation's gold reserves.
The ties between gold, the money supply, and prices were
obviously not as rigid as economdc models indicate. 13 World
market as well as domestic prices fluctuated during the
nineteenth century as the produetion of either goods or gold
increased more rapidly, but the fluctuations were much
smaller than those which the ~rorld has experienced since
1914. Above all, prices "fluctuated"; they did not increase
continuously for decades on E:~nd"
The spirit of the nineteenth century did not survive World
War I. The age of the middle class, which feared government
domination, has given way to the age of the "common man,"
who expects the state to solve the problems he himself feels
18 G. C. WIEGAND
unable to solve. For ideological and political reasons, the

twentieth century therefore rejects the automatic controls of
the gold standard because they hamper the freedom of gov-
ernments to do what the governments think desirable or po-
liticallyexpedient. But in the end, entrusting the welfare of
the economy to the government involves a profound risk;
political expediency as a rule outweighs economic rationality
and necessity. This is exactly what happened in the United
States during the 1960s and 1970s.
REMOVING THE CONTROLS
Step for step, the American government has "unshackled"

itself from the restraints of the gold standard. 14 Under the New
Deal legislation of the early 1930s, 15 Americans were
prohibited from owning gold, thus making the dollar
nonconvertible within the United States. At the end of the war
in 1945, Congress, for no compelling reason, lowered the gold
reserves from 40 percent for Federal Reserve notes and 35
percent for member bank deposits to a flat 25 percent, thus
"freeing" more than $5 billion in gold reserves, which went a
long way to finance the postwar inflation well into the 1950s. 16
Likewise without compelling reason, President Eisenhower,
as one of his last official acts, prohibited Americans by
executive fiat from owning gold abroad, thus depriving the
American public of a possible hedge against the progressive
cheapening of the dollar.
If Congress had not lowered the gold reserve requirements
in 1945, the country would have run out of "free gold" during
the Kennedy Administration. The great "prosperity" of the
early 1960s, financed through a vast expansion of credit, would
thus not have been possible. On the other hand, the country
might have been spared the grave economic and social dis-
locations of the late 1960s and 1970s, the end of which is not yet
in sight.
As the inflation continued, the government progressively
"unshackled~~ itself. In 1965, the 25 percent gold reserve re-

quirements for member bank res;erves-which constituted a
restriction on the crea.tion of bank credit-were removed~17
"freeing another $5 billion of gold, which was enough to
finance the inflation during the second half of the 1960s. In
1968 the reserve requirements behind the Federal Reserve
notes were removed as well, thus eliminating the last restraint
upon the government to inflate the currency further. At about
the same time Congress voted to put the phrase "In God we
trust" on the Federal Reserve notes.
After 1968 there was no more link between the paper dollar
and gold as far as the domestic economy was concerned, thus
making it possible for Washington to expand the supply of
money and credit without restraints. Even so, the government
maintained the fiction of intenlational convertibility, although
it warned that the gold window would be closed if foreign
central banks were to try to convert their huge dollar holdings
into gold. By the end of the IH60s, the headlong rush toward
monetary chaos could have been stopped only through heroic
efforts, for which the American people were not prepared, and
which the government apparently did not even consider
because of the dangerous politlical and social tensions through-
out the country. The London gold pool was dissolved in March
1968 because it was no longer possible to maintain the value of
the depreciating dollar at $35 per ounce of gold. A two-tier of
gold prices was introduced: 18 a highly artificial official price of
$35 which applied only to transactions between central banks
and official monetary institutions; and the free market price
which was expected to decline and stay below the official price,
but which actually rose to more than $100 by 1973. In August
1971, President Nixon ended the international convertibility
of the dollar;19 in December t971, under the pressure of the
European creditor nations, Arnerica had to agree to increase
the price of gold to $38; and in February 1973 the gold price
was raised again to $42.22, the second devaluation of the dollar
in fourteen months.
20 G. C. WIEGAND
The introduction of floating exchange rates in 1973 removed

another restraint upon inflation-minded governments in
America and throughout the world. The floating of the dollar in
relation to the six strong currencies of the European Common
Market and to the Japanese yen was obviously advantageous
for the central banks and economies of the hard money
countries: it eliminated the necessity of maintaining a fixed
dollar exchange rate by buying paper dollars of uncertain
value, thus adding to the internal money supply. The picture is
quite different from the American point of view. The official
devaluation of a currency is a traumatic experience which calls
for front-page headlines. A steadily downward floating ex-
change rate, on the other hand, lacks drama. As one
Washington expert put it: "News about the dollar will hence-
forth disappear to the financial page." Politicians and
bureaucrats will thus be able to continue their politically con-
venient policy of deficit spending and of providing the con-
sumer with easy credit, without the public being nlade aware
of the consequences through front-page headlines.
Unless there is a drastic change in the political philosophy of
Congress, the Administration, and the bureaucracy, the float-
ing of the dollar will constitute an invitation to more inflation.
NOTES
ISome Washington experts at times hinted that this might not be

the case. For example, in his surprisingly frank address before the
annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Tokyo in
September 1964, Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, warned: cCThe
risk is that a country might drift into heavy and continuous reliance
upon such essentially short-term credit facilities (swap ar-
rangements, 1MF drawings, bilateral credit arrangements, etc.),
delaying too long the necessary corrective action that should be taken
to adjust its balance of payments."
2N ot all economists agree that capital formation in the United
States has been inadequate. (1) They point to the sharp rise in capital
investments during boom years, such as 1972/1973. But to the extent
that these spurts of capital formation were financed through an
expansion of credit rather than savings, the growth of capital in-
vestments, while adding to the supply of goods, also added to the
inflationary demand. (2) There is ohviously an optimum level for
capital formation. Economists speak of the decreasing marginal
productivity of capital. The United States may have reached this
point in some areas, while Japan and (;ermany still have greater need
for capital investments. (3) In a mature economy, such as the United
States, an increasing share of the Gross National Product consists of
services rather than goods, and capital investments per worker tend
to be lower in most service industries. (4) While capital formation
may be inadequate in some areas of the American economy, it could
be excessive in others. While the railroads suffer from inadequate
maintenance, the airlines may have overexpanded their facilities.
The apparent inadequacy of capital formation in the United States
may thus be due in part to. the mis:allocation of the scarce capital
resources. The end effect, as far as the economy and the value of the
dollar is concerned, however, is the same, whether overall capital
formation is inadequate or whether some of the savings are wasted.
3John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
(N ew York: Harcourt Brace & Howe, 1920), p. 20.
4The Consumer Price Index rose from 53.9 in 1945 to 125.3 in 1972
(1967=100).
5From $318.1 to $439.2 billion in 1954 dollars (Federal Reserve
ccBulletin," March 1961, p. 362).
6From $127.5 to $200.3 billion (Federal Reserve ccBulletin," March
1951, p. 293, and March 1961, p. 318).
7From $20 to $56 billion (Federal Reserve ccBulletin," March 1951,
p. 330, and March 1961, p. 344)..
RI-4 Family Houses, from 45.2 to ~~141.8 billion (Federal Reserve
ccBulletin," March 1961, p. 341).
lYfhe deficit averaged $0.3 billion in 1947-1951; $1.4 billion in
1952-1956; and $3.5 billion in 19157-1960.
1<70 discourage the purchase of foreign securities and the sale of
new foreign stock and bond issues in the New York market, a 15-22
percent Interest Equalization Tax was imposed in 1963. The
purchase of foreign securities dropped by 50 percent within the next
year, but foreign companies in turn began to borrow~correspondingly
22 G. C. WIEGAND
more heavily from American banks. In 1964 restraints were,

therefore, placed on bank loans to foreign borrowers, and in 1968 the
controls of direct American investments abroad were tightened.
llIn 1960 only 8 American banks had foreign branches; in 1971,
well over 50. The number of foreign branche~ rose from 124 to 577,
with assets of $67 billion.
12From President Roosevelt's Message to the World Conference in
London (The New York Times, July 4, 1933, p. 1).
13The best-known of these models is the one developed by David
Hume around 1750, known as price-specie-flow.
14"As the President [Roosevelt] put it, they unshackled themselves
and the federal government . . . They made the manipulation of the
value of the currency an open and admitted instrument of public
policy." John Morton Blum: From the Morgenthau Diaries: Yearsof
Crises 1928-1938, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959), p. 75.
l."The Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933; the Thomas
Amendment of the Agricultural Adjustment of May 1933; and the
Gold Reserve Act of January 1934.
16Between 1945 and 1955, the Consumer Price Index rose by
almost 50 percent, from 76.9 to 114.5 (1947-1949=100).
17"It seems clear that conditions now call for some change in the
U. S. gold cover requirements," declared Federal Reserve Chairman
William McChesney Martin in January 1965. "If developments well
within the range of possibility should be realized, the legal minimum
could be penetrated soon, possibly within a year. Nevertheless, the
dollar is strong, and so is the U. S. economy. Therefore, action on the
gold cover legislation can be taken now, not to deal with a dollar
crisis, but to maintain the dollar's current strength." The hearings
before the congressional committee were limited to one day and the
opposition was given no opportunity to testify, but while liberals
called for a "clean sweep," the removal of all reserve requirements,-
President Johnson opposed the removal of the gold coverage behind
the Federal Reserve notes, because of a "possible psychological
effect." As The Wall Street Journal commented on January 29, 1965,
"Retaining the 25 percent requirement [behind the Federal Reserve
notes] would at least be a sign that the U. S. hasn't thrown overboard
all restraints, all monetary discipline."
1RFederal Reserve Board Chairman William McChesney Martin
referred to the two-tier system as "a form of monetary gadgetry"
which will probably buy the country some time, but ccthe time has
come to stop pussyfooting and get our accounts in order." (Speech
before the Economics Club in ))etroit, on March 18, 1969.)
19"fhe suspension of dollar convertibility, according to Treasury
Secretary George Shultz, ccfreed us to follow the domestic policies
that we feel are the important ones, vvithout having to worry so much
about international developments." (The Wall Street Journal, Au-
gust 14, 1972).
2
Gold vs. Fluctuating
Fiat Exchange Rates
MURRAY N. ROTHBARD
Professor of Economics,
Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute
Scarcely more than a year since it was signed, the

Smithsonian Agreement, the"greatest monetary agreement in
the history of the world" (in the words of President Nixon) lay
in shambles. And so the world vibrates, with increasing in-
tensity, between fixed and fluctuating exchange rates, with
each system providing only a different set of ills. We apparent-
ly live in a world of perpetual international monetary crisis.
In this distressing situation, the last few years have seen the
burgeoning of a school of economists who counsel a simple
solution for the world's monetary illness. Since fixed exchange
rates between currencies seem to bring only currency
shortages and surpluses, black markets and exchange controls,
and a chronic series of monetary crises, why not simply set all
24
Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat E~rchlZnge Rates 25
these currencies free to fluctuate with one another? This group

of economists, headed by Professor Milton Friedman and the
"Chicago School," claims to be speaking blunt truths in the
name of the "free market." 1rhe simple and powerful case of
the Friedmanites goes somewhat as follows:
Economic theory tells us the myriad evils that stem from any
attempt at price controls of goods and services. Maximum
price controls lead to artificially created shortages of the
product; minimum controls lead to artificial unsold surpluses.
There is a ready cure for these economic ills; they are caused
not by processes deep within the free market economy, but by
arbitrary government intervention into that market. Remove
the controls, let the market processes have full sway, and the
shortages and surpluses will disappear.
Similarly, the monetary crises of recent years are the
product of government attempts to fix exchange rates between
currencies. If the government of Ruritania fixes the "rur" at a
rate higher than its free market: price, then there will be a
surplus of· rurs looking for undervalued currencies, and a
shortage of these harder currencies. The "dollar shortage" of
the early postwar years was: the result of the dollar being
undervalued in terms of other currencies; the current surplus
of dollars, as compared to ~Test: German marks or Japanese
yen, is a reflection of the overvaluation of the dollar compared
to these other currencies. }lllo1w all of these currencies to
fluctuate freely on the market, and the currencies will find
their true levels, and the various: currency shortages and sur-
pluses will disappear. Furthermore, there will be no need to
worry any longer about deficits in any country's "balance of
payments." Under the pre-l~171 system, when dollars were at
least theoretically redeemable in gold, an excess of imports
over exports led to a piling up of dollar claims and an increas-
ingly threatening outflow of gold" Eliminate gold redeemabili-
ty and allow the currencies to fluctuate freely, and the deficit
will automatically correct itself as the dollar suppliers bid up
the prices of marks and yen, thereby making American goods
26 MURRAY N. ROTHBARD
less expensive and German and Japanese goods more

expensive in the world market.
Such is the Friedmanite case for the freely fluctuating
exchange rate solution to the world monetary crisis. Anyob-
jection is met by a variant of the usual case for a free market.
Thus, if critics assert that changing exchange rates introduce
unwelcome uncertainty into world markets and thereby hinder
international trade, particularly investment, the Friedmanites
can reply that uncertainty is always a function of a free price
system, and most econQmists support such a system. If the
critics point to the evils of currency speculation, then
Friedmanites can reply by demonstrating the important
economic functions of speculation on the free commodity
markets' of the world. All this permits the Friedmanites to scoff
at the timidity and conservatism of the world's bankers,
journalists, and a dwindling handful of economists. Why not
try freedom? These arguments, coupled with the obvious and
increasingly evident evils of such fixed exchange rate systems
as Bretton Woods (1945-1971) and the Smithsonian (1971-
1973), are bringing an increasing number of economists into
the Friedmanite camp.
The Friedmanite program cannot be fully countered in its
details; it must be considered \at the level of its deepest
assumptions. Namely, are currencies really fit subjects for
cCmarkets"? Can there be a truly cCfree market" between
pounds, dollars, francs, etc.?
Let us begin by considering this problem: suppose that
someone comes along and says, uThe existing relationship
between pounds and ounces is completely arbitrary. The gov-
ernment has decreed that 16 ounces are equal to 1 pound. But
this is arbitrary government intervention; let us have a free
market between ounces and pounds, and let us see what rela-
tionship the market will establish between ounces and pounds.
Perhaps we will find that the market will decided that 1 pound
equals 14 or 17 ounces." Of course, everyone would find such a
suggestion absurd. But why is it absurd? Not from arbitrary
Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat Exch(j~nge Rates 27
government edict, but because the pound is universally

defined as consisting of 16 ounc~es. Standards of weight and
measurement are established by common definition, and it is
precisely their fixity that makes them indispensable to human
life. Shifting relationships of pounds to ounces or feet to inches
would make a mockery of any and all attempts to measure. But
it is precisely the contention of the gold standard advocates
that what we know as the~ ntlmes for different national
currencies are not independent entities at all. They are not, in
essence, different commodities like copper or wheat. They
are, or they should be, simply names for different weights of
gold or silver, and hence should have the same status as the
fixed definitions for any set of \\reights and measures.
Let us bring our example a bit closer to the topic of money.
Suppose that someone should COlrne along and say, HThe exist-
ing relationship between nickels l[lnd dimes is purely arbitrary.
It is only the government that has decreed that two nickels
equal one dime. Let us have a free market between nickels and
dimes. Who knows? Maybe the nlarket will decree that a dime
is worth'7 cents or 11 cents. Let us try the market and see."
Again, we would feel that such a :suggestion would be scarcely
less absurd. But again, why? ,,vhat precisely is wrong with the
idea? Again the point is that cents, nickels, and dimes are
defined units of currency. The dollar is defined as equal to 10
dimes and 100 cents, and it would be chaotic and absurd to start
calling for day-to-day changes in such definitions. Again, fixity
of definition, fixity of units of weight and measure, is vital to
any sort of accounting or calc:ulation.
To put it another way: the idea of a market only makes sense
between different entities, between different goods and
services, between, say, copper and wheat, or movie ad-
missions. But the idea of a mlarket makes no sense whatever
between different units of the same entity: between, say,
ounces of copper and pounds of copper. Units of measure
must, to serve any purpose, relmain as a fixed yardstick of
account and reckoning.
The basic gold standard criticism of the Friedmanite posi-

tion is that the Chicagoites are advocating a free market be-
tween entities that are in essence, and should be once more,
different units of the same entity, i.e., different weights of the
commodity gold. For the implicit and vital assumption of the
Friedmanites is that every national currency-pounds,
dollars, marks, and the like-is and should be an independent
entity, a commodity in its own right, and therefore should
fluctuate freely with one another.
Let us consider: what are pounds, francs, dollars? Where do
they come from? The Friedmanites take them at face value as
things or entities issued at will by different central gov-
ernments. The British government defines something as a
"pound" and issues or controls the issue of whatever number of
pounds it decides upon (or controls the supply of bank credit
redeemable in these cCpounds"). The United States govern-
ment does the same for cCdollars," th~ French government the
same for cCfrancs," and so on.
The first thing we can say, then, is that this is a very curious
kind of "free market" that is being advocated here. For it is a
free market in things, or entities, which are issued entirely by
and are at the complete mercy of each respective government.
Here is already a vital difference from other commodities and
free markets championed by the Chicago School. Copper,
steel, wheat, movies are all, in the Friedman scheme, issued by
private firms and organizations, and subject to the supply and
demand of private consumers and the free market. Only
money, only these mysterious "dollars," "marks," etc., are to
be totally under the control and dictation of every government.
What sort of "free" market is this? To be truly analogous with
free markets in other commodities, the supply of money would
have to be produced only by private firms and persons in the
. market, and be subject only to the demand and supply forces of
private consumers and producers. It should be clear that the
governmental fiat currencies of the Friedmanite scheme
Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat E~:change Rates 29
cannot possibly be subject only to private and therefore to free

market forces.
Is there any way by which the respective national moneys
can be subject solely to private market forces? Is such a thing at
all possible? Not only is the ans",rer yes, but it is still true that
the origin' of all these currencies that the Friedmanites take at
face value as independent entities, was, each and every one, as
units of weight of gold in a truly private and free market for
money.
To understand this truth, we must go back beyond the
existing fiat names for money and see how they originated. In
fact, we need go back only as far as the Western world before
World War I. Even today, the "'dollar" is not legally an in-
dependent fictive name; it is still legally defined by U. S.
statute as a unit of weight of gold, now approximately one-
forty-second of a gold ounce. Before 1914, the dollar was
defined as approximately one··twentieth of a gold ounce. That's
what a "'dollar" was. Similarly the pound sterling was not an
independent name; it was deHned as a gold weight of slightly
less than one-fourth of a gold ounce. Every other currency was
also defined in terms of a weight of gold (or, in some cases,
of silver.) To see how the system worked, we assume the
following definitions for three of the numerous currencies:
1 dollar defined as one-twentieth of a gold ounce
1 pound sterling defined as one-fourth of a gold ounce
1 franc defined as one-hundredth of a gold ounce
In this case, the different national currencies are different in

name only. In actual fact, they are simply different units of
weight of the same commodity, gold. In terms of each other,
then, the various currencies are immediately set in accordance
with their respective gold weights, namely,
1 dollar is defined as equal to one-fifth of a pound

sterling, and to 5 francs
1 franc is defined as equal to one-fifth of a dollar, and to

one-twenty-fifth of a pound
1 pound is defined as equal to 5 dollars, and to 25 francs.
We might say that the "exchange rates" between the various

countries were thereby fixed. But these were not so much
exchange rates as they were various units of weight of gold,
fixed ineluctably as soon as the respective definitions of weight
were established. To say that the governments "arbitrarily
fixed" the exchange rates of the various currencies is to say also
that governments "arbitrarily" define 1 pound weight as equal
to 16 ounces or 1 foot as equal to 12 inches, or "arbitrarily"
define the dollar as composed of 10 dimes and 100 cents. Like
all weights and measures, such definitions do not have to be
imposed by government. They could, at least in theory, have
been set by groups of scientists or by custom and commonly
accepted by the general public.
This "classical gold standard" had numerous and con-
siderable economic and social advantages. In the first place,
the supply of money in the various countries was basically
determined, not by government dictates, but-like copper,
wheat, etc.-by the supply and demand forces of the free and
private market. Gold was and· is a metal that has to be dis-
covered, and then mined, by private firms. Its supply was
determined by market forces, by the demand for gold in
relation to the demand and supply of other commodities and
factors; by, for example, the relative cost and productivity of
factors of production in mining gold and in producing other
goods and services. At its base, the money supply of the world,
then, was determined by free market forces rather than by the
dictates of government. While it is true that governments were
able to interfere with the process by weakening the links
between the currency name and the weight of gold, the base of
the system was still private, and hence it was always possible to
return to a purely private and free monetary system. To the
Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat Exchange Rates 31
extent that the various currency names were kept as strictly

equivalent to weights of gold, to that extent the classical gold
standard worked well and ha:rmoniously and without severe
inflation or booms and busts.
The international gold standard. had other great advantages.
It meant that the entire world v~as on a single money, that
money, with all its enormous advantages, had fully replaced
the chaotic world of barter, where it is impossible to engage in
economic calculation or to figure out prices, profits, or losses.
Only when. the world was on a single money did it enjoy the full
advantage of money over barter, with its attendant economic
calculation and the corollary advantages of freedom of trade,
investment, and movement bE~tween the various countries and
regions of the civilized world. One of the main reasons for the
great growth and prosperity of the United States, it is generally
acknowledged, was that it con:dsted of a large free-trading area
within the nation: we have always been free of tariffs and
trading quotas between New York and Indiana, or California
and Oregon. But not only that. We have also enjoyed the
advantage of having one currency: one dollar area between all
the regions of the country, lEast, West, North, and South.
There have also been no currenlCY devaluations' or exchange
controls between New York and Indiana.
But let us now contemplate instead what could happen were
the Friedmanite scheme to ·be applied within the United
States. After all, while a nation or country may be an important
political unit, it is not really an economic unit. No nation.could
or should wish to be self-suffi(~ien.t, cut off from the enormous
advantages of international specialization and the division of
labor. The Friedmanites would properly.react in horror to the
idea of high tariffs or quota walls between New York and New
Jersey. But what of different currencies issued by every state?
If, according to the Friedmanites, the ultimate in monetary
desirability is for each nation to. issue its own currency-for the
Swiss to issue Swiss francs, the French their francs, and so
on-then why not allow New York to issue its own "yorks,"
New Jersey its own "jersies," aqd then enjoy the benefits of a
freely fluctuating "market" between these various currencies?
But since we have one money, the dollar, within the United
States, enjoying what the Friedmanites would call "fixed
exchange rates" between each of the various states, we don't
have any monetary crisis within the country, and we don't have
to worry about the "balance of payments" between New York,
New Jersey, and the other states.
Furthermore, it should be clear that what the Friedmanites
take away with one hand, so to speak, they give back with the
other. For while they are staunchly opposed to tariff barriers
between geographical areas, their freely fluctuating fiat
currencies could and undoubtedly would operate as crypto-
tariff barriers between these areas. During the fiat money
Greenback period in the United States after the Civil War, the
Pennsylvania iron manufacturers, who had always been the
leading advocates of a protective tariff to exclude more
efficient and lower cost British iron, now realized that
depreciating greenbacks functioned as a protective device: for
a falling dollar makes imports more expensive and exports
cheaper. I In the same way, during the international fiat money
periods of the 1930s (and now from March 1973 on), the export
interests of each country scrambled for currency devaluations,
backed up by inefficient domestic firms trying to keep out
foreign competitors. And similarly, a Friedmanite world with-
in the United States would have the disastrous effect of func-
tioning as competing and accelerating tariff barriers between
the states.
And if independent currencies between each of the fifty
states is a good thing, why not go still one better? Why not
independent currencies to be issued by each county, city,
town, block, building, person? Friedmanite monetary theorist
Leland B. Yeager, who is willing to push thie reductio ad
absurdum almost all the way by advocating separate moneys
for each region or even locality, draws back finally at the idea of
Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat Exchange Rates 33
each individual or firm printing his own money. Why not?

Because, Yeager concedes, "'Beyond some admittedly in-
definable point, the proliferation of separate currencies for
ever smaller and more narrowly defined territories would
begin to negate the very concept of money."2 That it would
surely do, but the point is that the breakdown of the concept of
money begins to occur not at sorne "'indefinable point" but as
soon as any national fiat paper enters the scene to break up the
world's money. For if Rothbard, Yeager, and Jones each
printed his own "'Rothbards:, " "Yeagers, " and "'Jones" and
these were the only currencies, each among billions freely
fluctuating on the market, it is clear that the world would be
back in an enormously complex and chaotic form of barter and
that all trade and investment would be reduced to a virtual
standstill. There would in fact be no more money, for money
means a general medium for all exchanges. As a result, there
would be no money of account to perform the indispensable
function of economic calculation in a money and price system.
But the point is that while we can see this clearly in a world of
"every man his own currency," the same disastrous principle,
the same breakdown of the money function, is at work in a
world of fluctuating fiat currencies such as the Friedmanites
are wishing upon us. The way to return to the advantages of
a world money is the opposite of the Friedmanite path: it is
to return to a commodity whlich the entire world can and does
use as a money, which means in practice the commodity
gold.
One critic of fluctuating exchange rates, while himself a
propon'ent of "regional currency areas," recognizes the classi;-,
cal argument for one wo~ld rnoney. Thus, Professor MU9dell
writes:
It will be recalled that the older economists of the

nineteenth century were jinternationalists and generally
favored a world currency. Thus John Stuart Mill wrote
Principles of Political Econoflrl,y, vol. 2, p. 176:
... So much of barbarism, however, still remains in the

transactions of most civilized nations, that almost all
independent countries choose to assert their nationality
by having, to their own inconvenience and that of their
neighbors, a peculiar currency of their own.
Mill, like Bagehot and others, was concerned with the
costs of valuation and money changing, not stabilization
policy, and it is readily seen that these costs tend to
increase with the number of currencies. Any given money
qua numeraire, or unit of account, fulfills this function
less adequately if the prices of foreign goods are expressed
in terms of foreign currency and must then be translated
into domestic currency prices. Similarly, money in its role
of medium of exchange is less useful if there are many
currencies; although the costs of currency conversion are
always present, they .loom exceptionally larger under in-
convertibility or flexible exchange rates. Money is a con-
venience and this restricts the optimum number of
currencies. In terms of this argument alone, the optimum
currency area is the world, regardless of the number of
regions of which it is composed. 3
There is another reason for avoiding fiat paper currency

issued by government and for returning instead to a commodi-
ty money produced on the private market (e.g., gold). For once
a money is established, whatever supply of money exists does
the full amount of "monetary work" needed in the economy.
Other things being equal, an increase in the supply of steel, or
copper, or TV sets is a net benefit to society: it increases the
production of goods and services to the consumers. But an
increase in the supply of money does no such thing. Since the
usefulness of money comes from exchanging it rather than
consuming it or using it up in production, an increased supply
will simply lower its purchasing power; it will dilute the
effectiveness of anyone unit of money. An increase in the
supply of dollars will merely reduce the purchasing power of
Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat Exch(J~nge Rates 35
each dollar, i. e., will cause ""hat is now called "inflation." If

money is a scarce market comlmodity, such as gold, increasing
its supply is a costly process and therefore the world will not be
subjected to sudden inflationary additions to its supply. But
fiat paper money is virtually costless: it costs nothing for the
government to turn on the prilnting press and to add rapidly to
the money supply and hencE~ to ruinous inflation. Give gov-
ernment, as the Friedmanites would do, the total and absolute
power over the supply of fiat paper and of bank deposits-the
supply of money-and we put into the hands of government a
standing and mighty temptation to use this power and inflate
money and prices.
I am not impressed when the Friedmanites become sur-
prised and chagrined to see the government use its power to
inflate in what they see as an excessive manner. It is virtually a
law of politics that government will use the power that it is
given. If it has the power to print money, it will use that power
to the hilt-to pay for its own deficits, to subsidize favored
businesses and groups in the society, and the like. Give to any
group the compulsory monopoly over the money supply, and it
will tend to use that power to the full: why should government
be the exception? Certainly, the grisly inflationary record of
government over the centuries should hold out no hope that
government will suddenly become ascetic in its use of in-
flationary power.
Given the inherent tendency of government to inflate the
money supply when it has the chance, the absence of a gold
standard and "fixed exchange rates" also means the loss of
balance-of-payments discipline, one of the few checks that
governments have faced in their eternal propensity to inflate
the money supply. In such a system, the outflow of gold abroad
puts the monetary authorities on increased warning that they
must stop inflating so as not to keep losing gold. Abandon· a
world money and adopt fluctuating fiat moneys, and the
balance-of-payments limitation vvill be gone; governments will
have only the depreciating of their currencies as a limit on their
36 MURRAYN.ROTHBARD
inflationary actions. But since export firms and inefficient

domestic firms tend actually to favor depreciating currencies,
this check is apt to be a flimsy one indeed.
Thus, in his critique of the concept <;>f fluctuating exchange
rates, Professor Heilperin writes:
The real trouble with the advocates of indefinitely flexible

exchange rates is that they fail to take into sufficient
consideration the causes 01 balance-ol-payments dis-
equilibrium. Now these, unlike Pallas Athene from Zeus'
head, never spring "full armed" from a particular
economic situation. They have their causes, the most
basic of which [are] internal inflati<;>ns or major changes in
world markets ... uFundamental disequilibria" as they
are called ... can-and-do happen. Often however, they
can be avoided: if and when an incipient inflation is
brought under control; if and when adjustments to exter-
nal change are effectively and early made. Now nothing
encourages the early adoption of internal correctives
more than an outflow of reserves under conditions of fixed
parities, always provided, of course, that the country's
monetary authorities are "'internationally minded" and do
their best to keep external equilibrium by all internal
means at their disposal. . . .4
Heilperin adds that the desire to pursue national monetary and

fiscal policies without regard to the balance of payments is uone
of the widespread and yet very fallacious aspirations of certain
governments . . . and of altogether too many learned
economists, aspirations to "'do as one pleases' without suffering
any adverse consequences." He concludes that the result of a
fluctuating exchange rate system can only be "'chaos," a chaos
that "would lead inevitably ... to a widespread readoption of
exchange control, the worst conceivable form of monetary
organization. "5
If governments are likely to use any power to inflate fiat
Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat E~'Ccha,nge Rates 37
currency that is placed in their hands, they are indeed almost

as likely to use the power to impose exchange controls. It is
politically naive in the extreme to place the supply of fiat
money in the hands of govern:ment and then to hope and
expect it to refrain from controlling exchange rates or going on
to impose more detailed exchange controls. In particular, in
the totally fiat economy that the world has been plunged into
since March 1973, it is highly naive to expect European
countries to sit forever on their accumulation of 80-odd billions
of dollars-the fruits of decades of American balance-of-
payments deficits-and expect them to allow an indefinite
accumulation of such continually depreciating dollars. It is also
naive to anticipate their accepting a continually falling dollar
and yet do nothing to stem the flood of imports of American
products or to spur their own exports. Even in the few short
months since March 1973 central banks have intervened with
"dirty" instead of "clean" floats to the exchange rates. When
the dollar plunged rapidly downward in early July, its fall was
only checked by rumors of increased "swap" arrangements by
which the Federal Reserve would borrow "hard" foreign
currencies with which to buy dollars.
But it should be clear that such expedients can only stem the
tide for a short while. Ever since the early 1950s, the monetary
policies of the United States and the West have been short-run
expedients, designed to buy tilme, to delay the inevitable
monetary crisis that is rooted jtn the inflationary regime of
paper money and the abandonment of the classical gold
standard. The difference nO~N is that there is far less time to
buy, and the distance between monetary crises grows ever
shorter. All during the 1950s and 1960s the Establishment
economists continued to assure us that the international
regime established at Bretton '\Voods was permanent and im-
pregnable, and that if the harder money countries of Europe
didn't like American inflation and deficits there was nothing
they could do about it. We were also assured by the same
economists that the official gold price of $35 an ounce-a price
which for long has absurdly undervalued gold in terms of the

depreciating dollar-was graven in stone, destined to endure
until the end of time. But on August 15, 1971, President
Nixon, under pressure by European central banks to redeem
dollars in gold, ended the Bretton Woods arrangement and the
final, if tenuous, link of the dollar to redemption in gold.
We are also told, with even greater assurance (and this time
by Friedmanite as well as by Keynesian economists) that when,
in March 1968, the free market gold price was cut loose from
official governmental purchases and sales, that gold would at
last sink to its estimated nonmonetary price of approximately
$10 an ounce. Both the Keynesians and the Friedmanites,
equal deprecators of gold as money, had been maintaining
that, despite appearances, it had been the dollar which had
propped up gold in the free-gold markets of London and
Zurich before 1968. And so when the "two-tier gold market"
was established in March, with governments and their central
banks pledging to keep gold at $35 an ounce, but having
nothing further to do with outside purchases or sales of gold,
these economists confidently predicted that gold would soon
disappear as a monetary force to reckon with. And yet the
reverse has happened. Not only did gold never sink below $35
an ounce on the free market, but the market's perceptive
valuation of gold as compared to the shrinking and depreciat-
ing dollar has now hoisted the free market gold price to some-
thing like $125 an ounce. And even the hallowed $35 an ounce
figure has been devalued twice in the official American
accounts, so that now the doHar-still grossly overvalued-is
pefrMed officially at $42.22 an ounce. Thus, the market has
continued to give a thumping vote of confidence to gold, and
has broug4lt gold back into the monetary picture more strongly
than ever.
Not only have the detractors of gold been caught napping by
the market, but so have even its staunchest champions. Thus,
even the French economist Jacques Rueff, for decades the
most ardent advocate of the eminently sensible policy of going
Gold VS. Fluctuating Fiat Exchlange Rates 39
back to the gold standard at a higher gold price, even he, as late
as October 1971 faltered and lconceded that perhaps a doubling
of the gold price to $70 migh.t be too drastic to be viable. And
yet now the market itself places gold at very nearly double that
seemingly high price. 6
Without gold, without an international money, the world is
destined to stumble into one acc:elerated monetary crisis after
another, and to veer back and forth between the ills and evils of
fluctuating exchange rates and oJf fixed exchange rates without
gold. Without gold as the basic Dloney and means of payment,
fixed exchange rates make leven less sense than fluctuating
rates. Yet a solution to the lDOSt glaring of the world's
aggravated monetary ills lies near at hand, and nearer than
ever now that the free-gold Ioarket points the way. That solu-
tion would be for the nations of the world to return to a classical
gold standard, with the prJice fixed at something like the
current free market level. 'With the dollar, say, at $125 an
ounce, there would be far more gold to back up the dollar and
all other national currencies. Exchange rates would again be
fixed by the gold content of each currency. While this would
sClrcely solve all the monetary problems of the world-there
would still be need for drastic reforms of banking and central
bank inflation, for example--a giant step would have been
taken toward monetary sanity. At least the world would have a
money again, and the spectre of a calamitous return to barter
would have ended. And that would be no small accom-
plishment.
NOTES
IOn depreciating fiat currency as a protectionist device during the

Greenback period, see Murray IN. Flothbard, CCMoney, the State, and
Modern Mercantilism," in H. Schoeck and J. W. Wiggins, eds.,
Central Planning and Neomef'cantilism (Princeton, N.J.: D. V~n
Nostrand, 1964), pp. 149-151.
2Leland B. Yeager, ccExchange Rates within a Common Market,"

Social Research (Winter 1958): 436-37. See also Yeager, ccAn Evalua-
tion of Freely-Fluctuating Exchange Rates" (Ph. D. dissertation, Co-
lumbia University, 1952).
3Robert A. Mundell, International Economics (New York: Mac-
millan, 1968), p. 183.
4Michael A. Heilperin, Aspects of the Pathology of Money
(London: .Michael Joseph, 1968), p. 227.
.5Ibid., pp. 222, 293.
6Jacques Rueff, The Monetary Sin of the West (New York:
Macmillan, 1972), pp. 210-211.
3
N 0 Shortage Of Gold
HA1V5~ F. SENNHOLZ
Grove City College
Many economists seem to agree on the virtues of the gold

standard. It limits the power of governments or banks to create
excessive amounts of paper currency and bank deposits, that
is, to cause inflation. It also affords an international standard
with stable patterns of exchange rates that encourage interna-
tional trade and investments. But the same economists usually
reject it without much hesitation because of its assumed dis-
advantages. The gold stand.ard, they say, does not allow
sufficient flexibility in the supply of money. The quantity of
newly mined gold is not closely related to the growing needs of
the world economy. If it had not been for the use of paper
money, a serious shortage of money would have developed and
economic progress would have been impeded. The gold
standard, they say, also makes it difficult for a single country to
isolate its economy from depression or inflation in the rest of
41
42 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
the world. It does not permit exchange rate changes and resists
government controls over international trade and payments.
The gold standard does in fact make it difficult to isolate one
country from another. After all, the common currency that is
gold wou!d invite exchanges of goods and services and thus
thwart an isolationist policy. For this reason completely
regimented economies cannot tolerate the gold standard that
springs from economic freedom and inherently resists
regimentation. The gold standard also exposes all countries
that adhere'to it to imported inflations and depressions. But as
the chances of any gold inflation and depression that would
follow .such an inflation are extremely small, the danger of
contagion is equally small. It is smaller by far than with the
floating fiat standard that suffers frequent disruptions and
uncertainties, or with the dollar-exchange standard that actual-
ly has inundated the world with inflation and credit expansion.
It must also be admitted that the gold standard is incon-
sistent with government controls over international trade and
payment. But we should like to question the objection that the
newly mined gold is not closely related to the growing needs of
business and that a serious shortage of money would have
developed without the issue of paper money. This popular
objection to the gold standard is rooted in several ancient
errors that persist in spite of the refutations by economists.
There is no shortage of gold today just as there has been no
such shortage in the past. Indeed, it is inconceivable that the
needs of business will ever require more gold than is presently
available. Gold has been wealth and the medium of exchange
in all of the great civilizations. Throughout history men have
toiled for this enduring metal and have used it in economic
exchanges. It has been estimated that most of the gold won
from the earth during the last 10,000 years, perhaps from the
beginning of man, can still be accounted for in man's vaults
today, and in ornaments, jewelry, and other artifacts through-
out the world. No other possession of man has been so jealously
guarded as gold. And yet, we are to believe that today we are
No Shortage of Gold 43
suffering from a serious shortage of gold and therefore must be

content with fiat money.
Economic policies are the product of economic ideas. This is
true also in the sphere of monetary policies and the organiza-
tion of the monetary system. Tile advocates of government
paper and the foes of gold are motivated by the age-old notion
that the monetary system in scope and elasticity has to be
tailored to the monetary needs of business. They believe that
these needs exceed the availahle supply of gold which deprives
it of any monetary usefulness and thus make it a relic of the
distant past.
THE MONETARY NEEDS OF BUSINESS
With most contemporary economists the notion of the

monetary requirements of business implies the need for an
institution, organization, or authority that will determine and
provide the requirements. It ultimately implies that the gov-
ernment must either establish such an institution or provide
the required money itself. These writers accept, without
further thought, government control over the people's money.
Today, all but a few economists readily accept the apparent
axiom that it is the function of the government to issue money
and regulate its value. Like the great classical economists, they
blindly trust in the monetary int4egrity and trustworthiness of
government and the body politic. But while we can understand
Hume, Thornton, and Ricardo, we are at a loss about the
confidence of our contemporaries. We understand Ricardo
when he proclaimed that "In a free society, with an
enlightened legislature," the :povv-er of issuing paper money,
under the requisite checks oJr convertibility at the will of the
holder, might be safely lodged in the hands of commissioners.
. . ."1 The English economists had reason to be proud of their
political and economic achievements and to be confident in the
world's future in liberty. However, it is more difficult to
understand the naive confidence of our contemporaries. After
44 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
half a century of monetary depreciation and economic in-

stability still to accept the dogma that it is the proper function
of government to issue money and regulate its value reflects a
high degree of insensibility to our monetary plight.
And yet, the world of contemporary American economics
blindly accepts the dogma. True, we may witness heated
debates between the Monetarists and Keynesians about the
proper rate of currency expansion by government, or the
proper monetary/fiscal mix of federal policy. But when their
squabbles occasionally subside they all agree on "the dis-
advantages" of the gold standard and the desirability of fiat
currency. They vehemently deny the only other alternative:
monetary freedom and a genuine free market.
The money supply needs no regulation. It can be left to the
free market in which individuals determine the demand for
and supply of money. A person wants to keep a certain store of
purchasing power, a margin of wealth in the form of money. It
does not matter to him whether this wealth is represented by a
few large units of money or by numerous smaller units with the
same total purchasing power. He is not interested in an in-
crease in the number of units if such an increase constitutes no
addition to his wealth. This is not to deny that people frequent-
ly complain about their "lack of money" or th.eir cCneed for more
money." What they mean, of course, is additional wealth, not
merely more monetary units with smaller purchasing power.
This popular mode of expression probably has contributed to
the spread of erroneous notions according to which monetary
expansion is identical with additional wealth. Our present
policies of inflation seem to draw public support from this
primitive confusion.
More than 200 years ago John Law was a victim of this con-
fusion when he stated that "a larger quantity (of money) em-
ploys more people than a smaller one. And a limited quantity
can employ only a proportionate number." It also made Ben-
jamin Franklin denounce the "want of money in a country" as
"discouraging laboring and handieraft from coming to settle in

it." And it made Alexand~rHamilton advocate currency expan-
sion for the development of the "vast tracts of waste land." But
only additional real capital in the shape of plants and
equipment can employ additional people at unchanged wage
rates, or develop new tracts of land. Even without additional
capital, a market economy readily adjusts to additions in the
labor supply until every worker w'ho seeks employment is fully
employed. In this process of adjustment, however, wage rates
must decline because of the declining marginal productivity of
labor. Monetary expansion tends to hide this wage reduction as
it tends to support nominal \vages, or even may raise them,
while real wages decline.
The "full employment" economists, such as Lord Keynes
and his followers, recommend monetary expansion because of
this very wage reduction. They correctly realize that institut-
ional maladjustments may prevent a necessary readjustment
and thus cause chronic unemployment. The labor unions may
enforce wage rates that are higher than the market rates which
inevitably leads to unemployment. Or political expedience
may call for the enactment of minimum wage legislation that
causes mass unemployment. Under such conditions the full
employment economists recolnmend monetary expansion as a
face-saving device for both the labor government and labor
unions. While it alleviates the unemployment, it causes a new
set of ominous effects. It originates the economic boom that
will be followed by another recession. It benefits the debtors at
the expense of the creditors. Finally, while. it depreciates the
currency, .it causes maladjustment and capital consumption
and destroys individual thrift and self-reliance. The effects of
currency depreciation, no matter how expedient such a policy
may be, are worse than the restrictive effects of labor legisla-
tion and union policies. Furthermlore, monetary expansion as a
face-saving device sooner or later must come to an end. If not
soon abandoned by a courageous administration, it will destroy
46 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
the currency. If it is abandoned in time, the maladjustments

and restrictive effects of labor legislation and union policies
will then be fully visible.
No matter how ominous and ultimately disastrous this array
of consequences of currency expansion may be, it is immensely
popular with the short-sighted and ignorant. After all, curren-
cy expansion at first generates an economic boom; it benefits
the large class of debtors; it causes a sensation of ease and
affluence; it is a face-saving device for popular but harmful
labor policies; and last but not least, it affords government and
its army of politicians and bureaucrats more revenue and
power than they would enjoy without inflation. All these
effects may explain the popularity of currency expansion, but
they do not prove the necessity of expanding the stock of
money for any objective reason. In fact, an increase in the
money supply confers no social benefits whatsoever. It merely
redistributes income and wealth, disrupts and misguides
economic production, and as such constitutes a powerful
weapon in a conflict society.
In a free market economy it is utterly irrelevant what the
total stock of money should be. Any given quantity renders the
full services and yields the maximum. utility of a medium of
exchange. No additional utility can be derived from additions
to the money quantity. When the stock is relatively large, the
purchasing power of the individual units of money. will be
relatively small. Conversely, when the stock is small, the
purchasing power of the individual units will be relatively
large. No wealth can be created and no economic growth can
be achieved by changing the quantity of the medium of
exchange. It is so obvious and yet so obscured by the specious
reasoning of special interests spokesmen that the printing of
another ton of paper money does not create new wealth. It
merely wastes valuable paper resources and generates the
redistributive effects mentioned above.
Money is only a medium of exchange. To add additional
media merely tends to reduce their exchange value, their

purchasing power. Only the production of additional con-
sumer goods and capital goods enhances the wealth and in-
come of society. For this reason some economists consider the
mining of gold a sheer waste of capital and labor. Man is
burrowing the ground in search of gold, they say, merely to
hide it again in a vault underground. And since gold is a very
expensive medium of exchange vvhy should it not be replaced
with a cheaper medium, such as paper money?
If gold merely served as a medium of exchange, new mining
would indeed be superfluous. But it is also a commodity that is
used in countless different w'ays. Its mining therefore does
enrich society in the form of ornanlents, dental uses, industrial
products, and the like. Gold lmining is as useful as any other
mining that serves to satisfy humlan wants.
THE LAW OF (~OSTS APPLIES TO MONEY
The great expense of gold mlining a'nd processing assures its

limitation of quantity and therefore its value. Both gold and
paper money are ,subject to the c41aw of costs" which explains
why gold has remained so valuable over the millennia and why
the value of paper money always falls to the level of costs of the
paper. This law, which is so well established in economic
literature, states that in the long r'un the market price offreely
reproducible goods tends to equal the costs of production. For
if the market price should rise considerably above cost,
production of the good becomes profitable and in turn invites
additional production. When more goods are produced and
offered on the market,· the price begins to fall in accordance
with the law of demand and supply. Conversely, if the market
price should fall below cost and inflict losses on manufacturers,
production is restricted or abandoned. Thus, the supply in the
market is decreased, which tends to raise the price again in
conformity with the law of supply and demand. Of course, the
48 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
law of costs does not conflict with the basic principle of value
and price. Their determination originates in the consumers'
subjective valuations of finished products.
The law of costs obviously is applicable to gold. When its
exchange value rises, mining becomes more profitable, which
will encourage the search for gold and invite mining of ore that
heretofore was unprofitable because of low gold content or
other high mining costs. When additional quantities of gold are
offered on the market, its exchange value or purchasing power
tends to decline in accordance with the law of supply and
demand. Conversely, when its exchange value falls, the op-
posite effects tend to ensue.
That paper money is subject fo the law of costs is vehemently
denied by all who favor such money. After all, they retort, the
profit motive does not apply to its production and man-
agement. Its exchange value may be kept far above its cost of
manufacture through wise restraint and management by
monetary authorities.
It must be admitted that the law of costs works slowly on
money, more slowly indeed than on other goods. It may take
several decades before the paper money exchange value falls to
the level of manufacturing costs. After all, the fall is rather
considerable, from the value of gold for which the paper
money first substitutes to that of the printing paper. Few other
commodities ever experience such a large discrepancy be-
tween market value and manufacturing costs when the law of
costs begins to work. This original discrepancy does not refute
the applicability of the law; it merely offers an explanation for
the length of time needed for the price-cost adjustment.
It must also be admitted that a certain measure of restraint
prevents an immediate fall of the paper money value to the
level of manufacturing costs. Popular opposition prevents the
monetary authorities from multiplying the quantity of paper
issue too rapidly, which would depreciate its value at in-
tolerable rates and lead to an early disintegration of the
exchange economy. In a democratic society these monetary
authorities and their political employers would soon be

removed from office and be replaced by others promising
more restraint.
But no matter who manages the fiat money the law of costs is
working quietly and continuously. Certainly, the manufac-
turers do profit from a gradual expansion of the money supply.
The profit motive is as applica.ble to money as it is to all the
other goods. The only differen(~e between the manufacturer of
fiat money and that of other goods is the monopolistic position
of the former and the normally competitive limitations of the
latter. Who would contend that the incomes and fortunes of
central bankers and the jobs of m,any thousands of their em-
ployees do not provide a powerful motive for currency expan-
sion? To stabilize the stock of Inoney is to deny them position
and power and thus income and ,;vealth.
The profit motive for fiat money expansion is even stronger
with the administration in po~'er and the thousands of
politicians seeking the votes of their electorates. Election to
high political office usually assures great personal fortune,
prestige, and power, and successful politicians quickly rise
from rags to riches. In order to be elected in a redistributive
conflict society, commonly called the welfare society, the
candidate for political office is tempted to promise his
electorate any conceivable benefit. He may at first propose to
tax the rich members of his society whose few votes may be
ignored. When their incomes and fortunes no longer yield the
additional revenue needed for costly handouts, called· social
benefits, the welfare politician resorts to deficit spending.
That is to say, he calls for currency expansion that facilitates the
government expenditures that hopefully win the vote and
support of his electorate and thus assure his election. When
seen in this light the profit motive is surely applicable to the
manufacture of paper money.
Or, the politicians in po",er conduct full employment
policies through easy money and credit expansion. In search of
the popular boom that wouldl assure their reelection, they
50 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
spend and inflate and thus set into operation the law of costs.
Who would believe that such policies are not motivated by the
personal gains that accrue to the politicians in power?
This profit motive must be sharply distinguished from that
in the competitive exchange economy. When encompassed by
competition, the motive is a powerful driving force for the best
possible service to the ultimate bosses, the consumers. It raises
output and income, and leads to capital formation and high
standards of living. In the case of the monopolistic man-
ufacture of paper money by government authorities, the profit
motive finds expression in currency expansion, which is infla-
tion. In the end, when the law of costs has completely
prevailed and the exchange value of money equals the cost of
paper manufacture, not only the fiat money is destroyed but
also the individual-enterprise private-property· order. Infla-
tion· not only bears bitter economic fruits but also has evil
social, political, and moral consequences.
NO OBJECTIVE FACTORS DETERMINE THE DEMAND

FOR MONEY
The fundamental error that permeates the writings of most

economists is the notion that the demand of money is a given
quantity determined by objective factors. From John Law to
John Maynard Keynes the idea emerged that the monetary
requirements of business, as determined by these objective
factors, demanded larger quantities of money than actually
were available. In their analyses of the "requirements" one or
several of the following factors invariably played a decisive
role: the volume of trade, the ave,age velocity of circulation,
and the price level.
Such an approach is basically spurious and fruitless for an
investigation of monetary phenomena because it is entirely
holistic. That is, it makes social phenomena that merely are the
result of individual motivation and action the starting point.
Business and society, however, merely demand money in-
asmuch as the individual members demand money. Therefore,

any investigation of monetary phenomena must begin with the
motivations and actions of individ.uals.
When the holistic ambiguity is brushed aside, the money
requirements of business consist of the cash which busi-
nessmen deem necessary for the proper operation of their
businesses. Their cash demand is determined by their value
judgments, not by any objective fact. And each one is
motivated by his own concern, not by holistic considerations.
Depending on his future plans allld his anticipation of future
needs, a businessman wants to :maintain a certain cash balance.
As the size and kind of his comulodity inventory reflect his
anticipation and planning, so d.oes his cash holding reflect his
deliberate demand for cash. Just: as his inventory decisions
tend to affect commodity prices--no matter how minute his
influence may be-so also do hils decisions regarding cash
holdings affect the purchasing power of the money.
Admittedly, a person's demand for money depends on its
purchasing power. At first glanc~e, this explanation indeed
moves in a vicious circle. It SE~ems to explain the purchasing
power of money by reference to the individual demand for
money, and then the individual demand for money by
reference to its purchasing power. In reality, though, the
explanation is no less logical than that regarding the inventory.
A businessman's inventory de4cisions are affected by present
prices and by his anticipation of future prices. Yet, no
economist will deny that it is this a.nticipation and the demand
it creates that may affect inventory prices. The same is true
with regard to money. Our kno,~ledgeof the recent purchasing
power of money and our evaluation of future conditions induce
us to keep a certain cash reserve. But our decisions undoubted-
ly affect the objective exchange value of the monetary unit.
Although our knowledge and anticipation of a certain purchas-
ing power help us to arrive at a certain demand for money, it is
nevertheless our demand intensities that determine the
purchasing power.
52 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
Before there was any monetary demand for precious metals,

their value was determined solely by the industrial demand.
When people began to use them as media of exchange, the
monetary demand for the metals tended to enhance their
market values. Of course, the people's demand decisions were
affected by their knowledge of the metals' exchange values,
which at that moment were determined solely by industrial
demand. This regression analysis, which was first developed
by Ludwig von Mises, endeavors to explain the first emer-
gence of a monetary demand for a commodity that hitherto was
used for industrial purposes only. It explains how the present
purchasing power of money emerged as the result of both
kinds of demand, monetary as well as industrial.
Changes in the purchasing power of money may be brought
about by changes in the demand for money. If people decrease
their money holdings, i. e., if their demand intensity for money
declines, its purchasing power will decrease and prices of
goods will rise. On the other hand, if people endeavor to
increase their money holdings, its purchasing power will tend
to increase, i.e., prices of commodities and services will tend
to decline. Thornton, Ricardo, and especially the banking
theorists made this observation in connection with their
analyses of the trade cycles. But instead of making the in-
dividual, his motivation and action, the subject matter of their
inquiries, they became entangled in holistic concepts such as
c'circulation" and its cCrapidity" or ccvelocity." This unfortunate
error led the banking theorists and their contemporary
followers to place ccrapidity of circulation" in the very center of
their cyclical investigations. They were led to denounce
cchoarding," which merely depicts a cash holding that is unusu-
ally great in the opinion of the observer, as being
ccdeflationary" and thus detrimental to the economy. They
were led to denounce speculation, the ccovertrading of some
bold projectors," as Adam Smith had called it, as the causative
factor of an economic boom that ultimately had to lead to a
bust. Up to this very day the notion of the average velocity of
circulation has played a fateful role in monetary theory and

policy.
Money is not merely in ucirculation,H it is always in the
ownership of individuals, banks, business associations, gov-
ernments, or other social organizations. Being always under
the control of someone and in sOlneone's cash holdings even
when in transit, it is the object of individual valuation and
employment. Some owners prefer larger cash reserves than
others. Some are increasing theirs, others reducing theirs. If
one individual increases his cash holding, which tends to in-
crease the objective exchange value of the monetary unit,
another may be reducing his, which fact will counteract the
former tendency. Of course, in every cash transaction the
buyer of a commodity reduces his cash holding while the seller
increases his, which leaves the total cash holdings unchanged.
Yet, this exchange may affect the purchasing power of the
money. It reduces it if the exchange results from an increase in
the intensity of the commodity demand or a decrease in the
intensity of money demand. Other conditions being equal, the
purchasing power of the monetary unit tends to decline and
commodity prices to rise whenever the subjective value of the
monetary unit declines or that of the commodity increases with
either the buyer or seller or hoth.
The volume of trade and velocity analysis must always be
spurious because it makes the na.tional economy its object of
investigation. In the realm of individual conduct there is no
room for such concepts. As a potential buyer or seller the
individual is guided by his subjectjive valuation of the economic
good and that of the medium of exchange. His actions in turn
exert an influence on the ratio of exchange that emerges on the
market. How does a holistic equation in any way indicate this
casual relation? While it airns at an analysis of the factors
determining the value of money, it assumes commodity prices.
In other words, in the very equation that is to explain the
purchasing power of money these theorists assume an ex-
change ratio between commodities and money which in fact
54 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
assumes a certain purchasing power of money. In the final

analysis, the exchange equation is merely a mathematical
game, with the economic proposition that the purchasing
power of all the money spent in a given time equals the prices
of the goods exchanged for the money.
ECONOMIC EXPANSION REQUIRES NO MONETARY

EXPANSION
Changes in the dollar's purchasing power of money can also

be brought about by changes in the supply of commodities and
services, which in turn affect the demand for money in
exchange. In this case we speak of ccgoods-induced" changes in
purchasing power. If the supply of goods declines, other things
being equal, the purchasing power of the medium of exchange
necessarily declines. On the other hand, if the supply of goods
increases while that of money remains unchanged, a tendency
towards enhancement of the purchasing power of money
results. This fact is probably the most popular reason advanced
today for policies of monetary expansion. cCO ur expanding
national economy," economic and monetary authorities
proclaim, cCrequires an ever growing supply of money and
credit in order to assure economic stability."
No one can seriously maintain that the present expansionary
policies have brought about economic stability. During the last
forty years of almost continuous monetary expansion the
American economy underwent no fewer than six distinct
depressions or recessions. It is obvious that the monetary
expansion, whatever else it may have achieved, did not
facilitate economic stability. Rather, it gave our age its
economic characteristic-unprecedented instability.
Even if no other objection could be raised against the
expansionary endeavors, the assumption of a constantly rising
national product must be questioned. It is true that in terms of
current dollars the national product probably will rise to
astronomical figures, but in terms of real goods the national
product can hardly be expected to rise much further in this era

of extreme interventionism. Economic progress, if any, must
be painfully slow. The econonlY is carrying a tax burden larger
than any in history. Excessive taxes by all levels of gov-
ernment, federal, state, distrilct, and local, are destroying the
revenue sources they tax and are inflicting penalties on prog-
ress. They have quelled individual incentive and are consum-
ing productive capital. They are rising steadily and taking more
than $350 billion a year, which amounts to more than one-
quarter of the value of everything produced in the nation.
Inflation even accelerates the destruction through taxation
inasmuch as it increases money income and prices, and thus
subjects the citizens to higher and higher rates of taxation.
Our skepticism as to future growth of the national product is
strengthened by the present dh;integration of the world divi-
sion of labor. Nationalization of vital industries built with
European capital has become at popular policy in most un-
derdeveloped areas of the "free vvorld. " The Far East, Middle
East, North Africa, South Africa, and some parts of South and
Central America are in a political turmoil. Trade relations are
deteriorating to the detriment of all nations participating in the
world division of labor. The United States is also affected by
the disintegration of the world market. For these and other
reasons stemming from the sway of radical collectivism in most
parts of the world and the disintegration of the world monetary
order, we cannot share the popular belief in a continuously
rising national product.
But even if it should rise, there is no need for credit expan-
sion. On the contrary, a rising national product presupposes
absence of monetary adventures that lead to capital consump-
tion and malinvestment. Rising productivity without monetary
expansion would result in lower product prices and higher
wages. Throughout most of the nineteenth century prices were
declining because of capital accuIrlulation and higher labor
productivity. For the same reason wages were rising. How-
ever, declining prices, according to prevailing monetary opin-
56 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
ion, call for more money until a desirable "price level" has
been attained. The "monetary requirements of business," as
seen by some economists, are conditioned by the ""level" of
commodity prices. A falling level is assumed to indicate the
need for more money; a stable level indicates the desirable
state of stability; and a rising level reveals an excess of money
over the true requirements. The level itself is said to vary
directly with the quantity of money in circulation. That is, it
rises or falls in proportion to the increase or decrease of the
money supply.
The notion of a price "level" must be rejected for being
deficient and misleading. Changes in the quantity of money do
not affect the prices of all goods at the same time and to the
same degree. They cause price upheavals, not uniform
changes of all prices. Just as the prices of all commodities and
services are determined by their demand and supply, so is the
purchasing power of money. If the supply increases, the
holders of the new money-either the federal government or
other institutions and individuals-are in the position to buy
more goods than they did before. Now, the prices of those
goods that are demanded in additional quantities tend to rise
while those of other goods at first remain unaffected. The
sellers of the products whose prices are rising reap an addition-
al income. They, too, can now purchase more than they could
before the increase of the money supply. Thus, prices continue
to rise until all prices have risen, but they do not increase
simultaneously and to the same degree. This fact causes some
people to gain and some people to lose. The sellers of products
or services marketed at higher prices obviously must gain if
they can continue to buy in markets not yet affected by price
rises. On the other hand, the sellers of products whose prices
have not yet risen must lose if they are purchasers in markets
with higher prices. When the readjustment process finally
comes to an end, the material position of all people has been
affected.
The old quantity theory failed to recognize these changes in

the price structure and in the nrlaterial position of the holders of
money. It asserted a constant relationship between the money
supply and "the level of prices." But there are neither propor-
tional changes of commodity prices nor a constant relation
between the volume of money and prices.
Even if we were to admit the existence of price "levels," we
still would have to question the need for more money
whenever prices are falling. In a rnarket economy unhampered
by monetary experiments, prices would decline continuously
and wages would rise. The purchasing power of the monetary
unit would increase as a result of rising productivity and out-
put. Of course, individual prices may nevertheless increase
due to changes in consumer preferences and production con-
ditions.
The advocates of price stability dread price declines. Only if
price declines are avoided, they believe, can business operate
profitably. Undeniably, however, the profitability of business
arises from the spread between the prices of products and the
business costs, not from price stability. It is very conceivable
that business is profitable while prices decline, provided costs
decline equally or to an even :greater degree. During the last
three decades of the nineteenth century prices declined
steadily, and yet it was a period of unprecedented capital
accumulation and economic gro""th. Although hourly wages
rose continuously, business costs declined because of rapidly
rising productivity.
An economist who advocates monetary expansion for the
sake of price stability faces the following problem: who is to get
this additional money? Is it to go to the government for addi-
tional spending? Such a proposal w'ould surely find a willing ear
with politicians and civil servants. But then the question arises:
who are to be the beneficiaries of this government spending?
No matter what the answer, the government spending will be a
point of contention with the various pressure groups struggling
58 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
with each other for the spoils of the additional spending.

Or business may get the additional money. The central bank
may buy securities in the open market and thus increase bank
reserves. Now, should it buy commercial bills, bankers'
acceptances, U·. S. Treasury bills, certificates, or notes and
bonds? Whatever it should decide upon, the purchase will
benefit some people and discriminate against others. Again, a
general struggle would arise among the various groups of
potential beneficiaries. Finally, there are two more methods of
increasing the money supply: the central bank may lower the
reserve requirements of member banks, or it may lower the
bank rate, or discount rate, in order to facilitate the expansion.
Again, arbitrary decisions have to be made. How much of the
additional money should go to the various banks in various
parts of the country, how much to country banks or city banks?
Also, if the discount rate is to be lowered, the capital market,
too, deserves extra consideration. All these problems indicate
irrefutably that an increase of the money supply involves many
arbitrary authoritative decisions.
As has already been demonstrated above, whoever gets the
money first will benefit from it. Let us assume it is poured into
the building industry, which is a favorite child of the in-
terventionist state. Then there will be more building activity
than there otherwise would be. The building industry will
prosper and attract, through the operation of higher prices,
additional labor and capital from other industries. A building
boom will develop. It will come to an end as soon as the
industry has adjusted to the money influx. The building in-
dustry will suffer from acute unemployment if, in the next
year, the monetary authorities should decide to pour the
money into different industries. The building industry thus
depends on continuous government help in the form of in-
flationary injections. It becomes a highly unstable industry
subject to the mercy of the monetary authorities. While it
becomes so dependent on additional money, it will form a
militant pressure group to assure an adequate share of the new

money. Other industries will form similar pressure groups
eager to attain their proper :)hares. Ultimately, the annual
increase of the money supply "rill have to be raised continuous-
ly. In other words, there is no stopping point once the au-
thorities embark upon a policy of lmonetary expansion in order
to assure price stability.
Wherever the money first enters the economy, it depresses
the interest rate below that of the market. This effect is in-
evitable, for the additional money would find no borrowers at
the unhampered market rate. Hut as soon as the interest rate is
lower than the unhampered rate, economic maladjustment
takes place. At the lower interest rate some businessmen will
be eager to borrow additional funds and embark upon addition-
al purchases. They will withdraw capital and labor from other
employments and employ less effilcient labor than was hitherto
unemployed. Wages and other factor prices will rise until more
and more businesses become unprofitable. A recession will
finally set in. In other words, an increase of the money supply
sets into motion the effects described by the trade cycle
theory. This is true not onlywilthan increase of 10 percent, but
also of 5 percent of even 1 percent. Of course, the effects of a
I-percent increase will be miJlder than one of 10 percent.
A policy of monetary expansion thus presents us with the
insoluble problem of distributing the additional money supply.
It depends on authoritative discretion. It opens the gates of
corruption and pressure politics. It makes the recipients
dependent on continuous government help. And it causes the
booms followed by recessions. ][t must be rejected without
hesitation.
Despite these problems, monetary expansion continues at
ever accelerating rates. The political pressures for economic
redistribution generate largelr and larger fiscal deficits that
make currency expansion politically expedient and unavoid-
able. This is why the gold standard that makes the quantity of
60 HANS F. SENNHOLZ
money independent of government is totally unacceptable to a

society committed to redistributive policies. Such a society
prefers to listen to a host of opportunist economists who ap-
plaud the popular policies and decry the gold standard. Their
assertion of the shortage of gold must be seen in this light.
NOTE
I David Ricardo, "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation,
U in
Piero Sraffa, ed., The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo
(Cambridge, England: University Press for the Royal Economic
Society, 1951), I, 362.
4
To Restore World Monetary
Order
HENRI'" IfAZLITT, Author
lIVilton, Connecticut
As we talk here tonight the w'orld is in a monetary crisis.

Within the last six weeks the ,American dollar, considered for
the last thirty years as the very linchpin or anchor of the free
world monetary system, has heen devalued. Some currencies
have been devalued along with it:; some have been upvalued;
most have been allowed to "float. " In recent weeks the world's
leading foreign exchange markets have even been officially
closed.
Nobody seems quite sure vvhat any currency will be worth
tomorrow. For the last forty years we in the United States have
had no assurance regarding how lmuch goods and services our
dollar would buy the following year. We only knew that it
would buy less, but we could never tell exactly how much less.
Now we do not even know wha.t aI1lY currency will buy next year
in terms of any other currency.
62 HENRY HAZLITI
There is a temptation to say: "What's the point in discussing

the subject now? Let's wait till the dust settles. " But it may be a
long time before the dust settles. It hasn't really settled for the
last fifty-nine years. And it may very well be-I personally
think it is-precisely when the turmoil and uncertainty are at
their height, that it is the function and duty of those of us who
professionally study these questions to try to bring whatever
clarification we can to these grave problems, and to urge the
reforms necessary to restore monetary stability, integrity, and
order.
We can only understand the problems if we get back to
fundamentals and the long historic view. Our present national
and world monetary crisis is not the result simply of the mis-
takes that President Nixon and his advisers may have made
since he came into office. In its monetary policies the world has
been on a disaster course for at least the last half century. The
trouble began with the wartime inflation that broke out shortly
after 1914 in practically all of the world's developed countries.
At the end of that war the victors, vanquished, and neutrals
alike, found themselves with immensely expanded currency
and credit. They mistakenly diagnosed their predicament as a
"shortage of gold."
There was indeed a shortage of gold in relation to the im-
mensely expanded volume of fiduciary media ostensibly con-
vertible into gold. So at conferences in Brussels in 1921 and at
Genoa in 1922 the principal industrial nations agreed to
"economize" gold by adopting what was called a gold exchange
standard. This probably should have been called a dollar and
sterling standard, and later simply a dollar standard. It meant
that the central banks of other nations could count their
holdings of U. S. dollars as part of their "reserves." This meant,
in other words, that they could count their paper dollars as
added reserves against which they could in turn issue more
paper francs, guilders, lire, or whatnot. Of course, this
encouraged and almost forced a further world inflation.
The detailed way in which the gold exchange or dollar
To Restore World Monetary Order 63
standard worked to insure continuous world inflation has been

best explained by M. }acqu(es lRueff, the eminent French
economist, in innumerable articles and several important
books over the last five decades, of which I would especially
like to mention The Balance af Payments, published in 1967
(New York: Macmillan). M. Rueff has explained how the gold
exchange standard systematically brings about a chronic
balance-of-payments deficit in a reserve currency country
because that country is under no pressure to correct the
deficit. The gold exchange standard systematically brings
about a growing world inflation because the debtor country, if
it is a reserve currency country, does not lose, when it "pays"
its debts, what its creditor countries gain.
So much for the period from 1922 to 1944. In the latter year,
the representatives of forty-three nations, chiefly under the
guidance of Lord Keynes of England and Harry Dexter White
of the United States, agreed at Bretton Woods on a scheme
calculated to cause a far gre:ater expansion of paper money
inflation. The Bretton Woods plan embodied the gold ex-
change standard, but it carried the principle even further.
Each country was asked to fJix an official "par value" for its
currency. It was under no oblilgation to maintain that par value
by making its currency convertible into gold at that rate.
However, it was under an obligation to maintain its currency
unit within 1 percent of that value by buying or selling other
currencies, principally dollars, when its own currency showed
signs of departing from that value.
Only one country, the United States, was under obligation
to maintain its currency within 1 percent of its par value, fixed
in gold at $35 an ounce, by Blgreeing to buy and sell gold on
demand at that rate. It was not obliged to do this on the
demand of any private person anywhere who presented
dollars, but only on demand of a foreign central bank. This was
still.another device for "economizing" gold.
It is important to note that 'what was wrong with this system
was not primarily technical. IJ~ all other countries had refrained
64 HENRY HAZLITI
from inflation and had bought and sold dollars when required
to retain their own currency at a fixed parity, and if above all
the U.S. government had refrained from inflation and bought
dollars from and sold gold to foreign central banks on demand,
the system could have worked smoothly enough. All other
currencies would have maintained their fixed rate to the dollar,
the dollar would have maintained its fixed rate to gold, and so
all currencies would have maintained a fixed rate to gold.
To repeat: the trouble was not primarily technical. What was
wrong was that no direct discipline was put on any country but
the United States to keep its currency always convertible into
gold. The American authorities did not seem to have the
slightest realization of the immense responsibility that had
been put upon them to uphold the whole world monetary
network by refraining rigorously from inflation in order to
maintain continuous gold convertibility.
But it was in order to permit and encourage inflation (though
no one dared to state it so bluntly) that the whole Bretton
Woods structure had been set up. It did permit an enormous
world inflation, although it did not, as the years went on,
permit enough inflation to satisfy the government officials of
most of the member countries, including our own.
And so successive steps were taken to validate or consolidate
past national inflations and to make bigger future inflations
possible. There was not a single participating currency that was
not devalued at least once, and some were devalued many
times. The British pound, whose par value up to 1931 had been
$4.86, was devalued in September 1949 from $4.03 to $2.80.
That action touched off twenty-five devaluations of other
currencies within a single week. Then in November 1967 the
pound was devalued again from $2.80 to $2.40. The French
franc and other leading currencies were devalued many times.
(Let me add here as a personal note, that I was repeatedly
unable to obtain from the International Monetary fund, when
writing my weekly economic column for Newsweek, any com-
plete record or tabulation of the number of devaluations of
their currencies by members of the Fund. So far as I know, the

huge statistical department of the IMF has failed to put
together such a simple one-page or single-figure tabulation to
the present day.)
After about 1957, the dollar itself began to get into chronic
trouble as a result of our ow'n inflation. Our Presidents and
monetary managers attempted to solve these problems by a
succession of hastily improvised expedients to get by each
emergency. In 1945, the percentage of gold reserves required
against Federal Reserve notes was reduced from 40 percent to
25. In 1965 the gold backing required for Federal Reserve
deposits was eliminated. In 1B67 the requirement for any gold
cover even for outstanding Federal Reserve notes was re-
moved. In 1968, a two-tier gold system was adopted.
Desperate expedients were adopted in still other directions.
Beginning in July 1963, under the false belief that our balance-
of-payments deficit was caused by our investments abroad, a
penalty tax was placed on purchases of foreign securities. This
tax was extended in later years, together with other restrictions
on foreign investments. These restrictions still exist.
All these expedients failed, of course, because our gov-
ernment continued to run up huge deficits in the federal
budget, and to permit or create huge increases in the supply of
paper money and credit. The governments of the world
blamed everything but their own inflationary policies. Once
more it was urged, as at Genoa in 1922 and at Bretton Woods in
1944, that the real trouble was not prior inflation but a
Ushortage of gold."
So the Special Drawing llights were invented. This was
thought a brilliant stroke. Instea.d of each country printing its
own paper money, and so depreciating not only the purchasing
power of each unit of that money in terms of goods, but also in
terms of other currencies, why not have all the countries
collectively issue a new unit of paper money, permit this new
money, these uSDRs," to be used as reserves against which
each country could issue more of its own paper money, call this
66 HENRY HAZLITI
new money "paper gold," and get each country to agree to

accept up to a given amount of it, instead of gold, in settlement
from other countries?
And so 3.4 billion units of these SDRs were allocated on
January 1, 1970, another 3.0 billion units on January 1, 1971,
and a third 3.0 billion units on January 1, 1972, making a total
of some 9.4 billion SDRs, each ostensibly equal to the value of
a dollar when the dollar was $35 ,an ounce. Even this huge
amount, created out of thin air by international fiat, was not
"enough. "
The United States openly suspended gold payments on Au-
gust 15, 1971. Within fourteen months the dollar was devalued
twice-first by 8.57 percent on December 18, 1971, and then
by 10 percent on February 12, 1973.
Yet today practically all the new "solutions" to the latest
crisis are proposals to make it possible to print still more paper
money for still more inflation to save us from the consequences
of previous inflation.
It would be impossible to analyze all of these schemes here.
To save time and effort I shall disregard all private or individual
proposals and concentrate on the set of proposals, elaborated at
an overall length of nearly thirty pages, in the annual report of
the President's Council of Economic Advisers on January 31,
1973. These we may take to be the official proposals of the U. S.
government.
It 'Yould be hard to imagine a more ominous scheme. It is
put forward for the most part in technical euphemisms that
obscure realities, but what it amounts to is this:
There is to be, of course, "increased flexibility of exchange
rates. " The guide to what should be done by anyone nation (or
central bank) is the amount of "reserves" that it holds. "Dis-
proportionate changes in reserves in either direction [are] to
be used as the primary indicator 'of the need for balance-of-
payment adjustment." In plainer English, if the reserves of
one natio~ got "too low," it would be obliged to devalue its
currency unit; if its reserves got "too high, " it would be obliged
to revalue its currency unit upward. In other words, it would
be encouraged to continue to follow rash inflationary policies
because the penalties would be removed: it need not pay its
debts 100 percent on the dollar in which they were contracted,
but periodically could tell its foreign and domestic creditors
that its 10Us would be paid off at only 90 percent or less of
their original value.
On the other hand, a country would be penalized for follow-
ing prudent monetary and fiscal policies and refraining from
inflation. For in that case it would almost certainly gain
reserves from the inflating countries. Therefore it would be
obliged to upvalue its currency unit, that is, to bring about
deflation and lower prices at home, and so to hurt its export
trade by initially making its export prices higher for the
nationals of other countries.
This is what the Council of Economic Advisers calls making
"discipline symmetrical for both deficit and surplus coun-
tries." That is, you make discipline "symmetrical"» not only by
rewarding the heedless countries for inflating by allowing
them and even requiring th.em to keep devaluing, but you
"symmetrically" punish the prudent countries for not inflating
by requiring them to upvalue.
This part of the Economi(~ Advisers' plan implies fixed or
"established" official exchange rates, subject, however, to con-
stant change. But the Advisers also tell us that if other
countries wished, "the u.s.. proposal would permit either
transitional or indefinite periods of floating." Apparently, any-
thing is to be tolerated except a currency that keeps its value.
We come now to the most oDrtinous part of the u.s. plan.
The international monetary system must have what the
Advisers call "adequate reserves.. " As they explain: "Failure to
provide the system with adequate reserves puts deflationary
pressure on deficit countries." Translating this. into plainer
English, unless we keep supplying the more recklessly inflat-
68 HENRY HAZLITI
ing countries with "adequate reserves," we are in danger of

discouraging them from inflating further. This must at all costs
not be allowed to happen.
Of what are these reserves to be composed? Let me quote:
"The U. S. proposal envisages an increase in the importance of
.the SDR ... [and] a gradual diminution of the role played by
gold in the international monetary system" [pp. 123-24].
"From the end of 1969 to the end of October, 1972, gross
international official reserves increased from $78 billion to
$152 billion, or almost 100 percent in 3 years" [po 128]. The
implication seems to be that this was not enough.
In any case, "For the future the United States supports
movement toward increasing reliance on the SDR as the
primary source of world reserve growth and toward pro-
gressive reduction in the role of gold as a reserve asset. The
U.S. proposal also assumes that currencies [i.e., U.S. dollars]
will also play a much smaller role in reserve holdings in the
future than they do today." The SDRs are to be "the primary
international reserve asset. They should become the formal
unit of account of the system, to serve as the common
reference point for currency rates and as a common measure of
the value of reserve assets" [po 129].
"The rules of the International Monetary Fund should also
be changed to permit SDRs to be used in all IMF transactions
now permitting or requiring gold. SDRs would thus truly
become the basic international money.... The United States
believes that the role of gold in the international monetary
system should continue to diminish, and would support order-
ly procedures to facilitate that process" [po 130].
So there you have it. The U. S. government wants to reduce
the value of its own currency unit by reducing the world
demand for it. It still has the largest gold holdings in the world
(some $11 billion at the last method of counting), but it wants to
be sure that these are devalued to the maximum extent by
being permanently demonetized.
And then in place of all this it wants to give the international
To" Restore World Monetary Order 69
bureaucrats the unlimited power by their mere fiat to create

out of thin air the basic money we are all to be obliged to use
and trust. Paper money issued by an international institution,
the 1M F, is to be allocated periodically by an arbitrary political
form ula to the various nations or their central banks. This
u
paper is to serve as "reserves for whatever paper money the
individual nations choose to print. These paper SDRs are to
serve as "reserves" simply because the individual central banks
have agreed in advance so to accept them. It will not be
necessary for any central bank to hold anything real. There is
no provision for these SDRs to be redeemed in anything real.
In fact, no government, no bank, and no individual has any
legal obligation to redeem even a pro rata amount of SDRs.
There is no obligor. As the former central banker, John Exter,
has put it, an SDR is not even an IOU, but a Who Owes You.
At best the SDRs are an attemlpt to substitute international
debts for gold. What they do is to entitle some countries to be
automatic borrowers by obliging others to be automatic
lenders.
It is obvious that the proposal of the Economic Advisers is
merely a formula for a perpetual and unlimited world inflation.
It will be in some respects worse than individual national
inflation because it will not be as visible. When Ruritania
inflates faster than other countries, this soon becomes manifest
either by a depreciation of its currency unit in terms of other
countries' currency units, or hy a depletion of its reserves. But
this world inflation through paper SDRs will only be revealed
through a continued rise in world prices. As the more reckless-
ly inflating countries will be continuously running short of
even their SDR reserves, and the more prudently managed
countries will be continually obliged to accept them, the more
prudent will continually be subsidizing and paying for the
inflations of the reckless countries. '
If this plan were to be adopted, the 1M F bureaucracy could
apparently bypass even Congress .or any other national
assembly in providing more inflation.
70 HENRY HAZLITI
For the very reason that it puts such unrestricted power into
the hands of the world's central bank bureaucracy, there is a
frightening likelihood that some such plan will be adopted.
The only worse scheme I know of is the New York Times'
editorial proposal of February 20, 1973, that "The world now
needs a central bank to provide unlimited [italics mine] support
for any nation whose currency is in trouble." Here is the most
enticing invitation to reckless national inflation that could be
imagined. But perhaps this is really no different from the
Economic Advisers' proposal, with the IMF standing for that
central bank and handing out SDRs in exchange for no value
received whatever.
Of course, what the world really needs is the exact opposite
of all this. A nation or central bank that has got itself into
trouble through its own imprudence should be obliged to
borrow in the open market and at whatever rate its credit
standing warrants. It was a mistake of the International
Monetary Fund from the beginning to grant any country au-
tomatic credit. Instead of issuing still more SDRs through the
IMF, the SDRs already allotted should be retired. What each
nation originally got is a matter of record; it should be asked to
turn back that amount. The nations that have passed some of
them on should be allowed to buy them back from present
holders at the existing market rate for their own currencies.
Then the IMF itself should be dismantled, and asked to return
its own gold holdings to its member countries in proportion to
the respective quotas paid in. The IMF has served merely as a
world inflation factory. It imposes a constant threat of more
inflation as long as it exists.
These are, of course, only the first steps in reform. Eventu-
ally, what we need is not to phase out what remains of the gold
standard, as the Economic Advisers suggest, but to return to a
full gold standard.
The reason for this proposal is clear and imperative. The
constant convertibility of a currency into gold on demand, and
to any amount, and to anybody who holds it, is necessary
because experience has sho'N'n this to be the only way to

prevent unlimited paper money inflation. David Ricardo
stated the principle succinctly ill 1817:
Though it [paper money] has no intrinsic value, yet, by

limiting its quantity, its value in exchange is as great as an
equal denomination of coins, or of bullion in that coin....
Experience, however, sho'ws that neither a State nor a
Bank ever have had the unrestricted power of issuing
paper money without abusing: that power; in all States,
therefore, the issue of paper money ought to be under
some check and control; and none seems so proper for that
purpose as that of subjecting the issuers of paper money to
the obligation of paying their notes either in gold coins or
bullion.
In other words, it is not for SOIne purely "technicar' reason that

we need convertibility into gold on demand, but because we
cannot otherwise trust the issuers, whether banks or poli-
ticians, to limit the supply.
It is not gold that carries sonne irrational mystique, but paper
money. The mystique is the n:aive assumption that we can trust
politicians or bureaucrats to issue paper money without their
grossly abusing the power to do so.
It is not enough for those of us who believe in the restoration
of the gold standard merely to ask for this-period. We have to
recognize the tremendous obstacles, both political and
economic, in tlte way of returning to that standard. And we
have to answer four main questions:
1. What are the immediate steps to be taken?
2. What interim policies should be followed?
3. How can we solve the tremendously difficult problem of
fixing a rate, which will be neither inflationary nor defla-
tionary, at which convertibility can be announced and
maintained?
4. What kind of gold standard should be set up?
72 HENRY HAZLITI
The first question can be answered mainly by spelling out

what we should stop doing:
1. A first step would be for our Federal Reserve authorities
to stop printing more paper money and credit, to stop pumping
funds into the money market. That is precisely what has gone
into the process of inflation.
2. In order to remove any excuse, the federal government
should start to balance its budget at the earliest possible
moment, and entirely by slashing its grossly swollen ex-
penditures, not by imposing still heavier taxes.
3. The Federal Reserve authorities should abandon all
efforts to hold down short-term interest rates, either by pump-
ingmore funds into the money market, or by fixing an un-
justifiably low discount rate, or by threats against individual
banks for allegedly charging excessive interest. Rates' should
be left to competition in the free market.
4. The U. S. government should immediately repeal the laws
which forbid or restrict private Americans from owning, buy-
ing, selling, and making contracts in gold.
The removal of this latter prohibition would have an in-
stantaneous effect which it would be difficult to overestimate.
It would not only remove an inexcusable abridgment of human
liberty, but would go far to restore clarity to our monetary
thinking. A really open gold market would appear within a few
days. This would reflect the true discount on the dollar and on
every other paper currency. A weight of gold, an ounce or a
gram, would provide a common objective standard in terms of
which the market value of all the world's currencies would be
quoted.
Gold would immediately become, whether monetized any-
where or not, a de facto world currency in terms of which
international transactions would once more be made. Ex-
porters and other creditors would want to be paid in money or
in a commodity of dependable long-term value. This does not
necessarily mean that actual gold would change hands in each
transaction, but that gold would be a money of account, a
numeraire, in terms of which payment would be specified.

So much for the steps to lmonetary reform that could be
taken, or at least announced, 'within a week, if the will existed
to take them.
We come now to the question of what interim policies
should be followed. We might call this Phase Two. The first
step, I think, would be to try to arrange with our creditors some
way of funding our huge overhanging liquid dollar liabilities to
foreigners. In December 1972 we had a total of some $83
billion such liquid liabilities, of which more than $61 billion
were owed to foreign official institutions. Somehow or other
we must arrange to consolidate these liquid or short-term
liabilities into long-term debt. Apart from this, our principal
interim policy should be, of course, to stop increasing the
supply of paper money and bank credit.
As long, however, as we and the rest of the world are on a
mere paper money basis, we should not try to maintain a fixed
rate for the dollar vis-ii-vis other currencies. This could only be
maintained by government-·pegging operations, by swap
arrangements, and by government intervention daily in the
foreign exchange market to buy and sell other currencies. As
long as governments are all inflating at different rates, these
pegged rates are bound to break down, with sudden and
violent overnight changes jolting to business confidence.
Insofar as the world is on a paper basis, the least ob-
jectionable policy is to let the dollar float in the foreign
exchange markets. Floating paper currencies, of course, are
not a satisfactory solution of anything. There are 120
currencies in the International Monetary Fund. If all float
freely, there will be more than 14,000 cross-rates (counting
each plus its reciprocal) bouncing around daily and hourly in
the foreign exchange markets-hardly an ideal situation. We
need at least one constant objective standard of measurement.
Ultimately, the world must return to the gold standard.
What does the gold standard mean? It means that any unit of
fiduciary currency is convertible on demand into a given
74 HENRY HAZLITI
weight of gold, and vice versa. In the pre-1914 world each

major nat~onal currency was in fact convertible on demand into
a specific weight of gold. In turn each national currency unit
was convertible into any of the others at the proportional rate.
Because a pound sterling was convertible into 4.86 times as
much gold as an American dollar, the pound was equivalent to
$4.86.
There was no formal international covenant, signed by a
hundred nations, or even by a Big Twenty or a Big Ten. No
formal international agreement was needed. All that was
needed was that each country pay its debts and honor its
pledges to keep its currency unit convertible into the specific
amount of gold it had fixed. As long as each country did this, all
currency rates were necessarily fixed in terms of each other.
The only form of international cooperation that is now
necessary or desirable, once we readopt a gold standard, is that
the relative gold conversion rates fixed by the principal
countries be easily translatable into each other in round
figures-one to one, two to one, four to one, or, say, one-
quarter gram of gold, one-half gram, one gram. In addition,
international economic cooperation need consist merely in
each nation refraining from protectionism and beggar-my-
neighbor policies.
But if we are ultimately to return to a gold standard, we face
the delicate question of how we can find, without creating
either inflation or deflation, the most suitable and sustainable
rate of conversion of the dollar into gold. It can never again be
the $20.67 an ounce actually maintained from 1879 to 1933, nor
the $35 an ounce nominally maintained from 1934 to 1971, nor
the short-lived nominal rate of $38 an ounce established in
December 1971; nor can it be the almost purely fictitious
$42.22 an ounce ostensibly prevailing today.
We need merely glance at a few current figures. The
Treasury's gold stock today, even at a $42.22 an ounce rate,
amounts to only some $11 billion. Against this there are out-
standing about $258 billion of currency and demand deposits,
and some $533 billion if we count time deposits in commercial

banks. This means that for every gold dollar in the Treasury
there are more than $48 of liquid paper claims. With such a
ratio of paper claims to gold, no gold conversion could possibly
be sustained, particularly after all the shocks to confidence in
their money that Americans have experienced since 1933, and
even since 1973.
The most promising procedure would be for our gov-
ernment to allow its citizens to hold gold and to trade in it
freely, to keep stringent limits on its increases, if any, in the
paper money supply, and to watch at what rate the price of gold
tends to stabilize. This could be at best only a provisional
guide, because the price of gold in the open market would
itself depend to a large extent on what speculators (which
potentially includes all of us) thought the government was
eventually going to do.
There would be further problems in choosing a "correct"
gold conversion rate, which it would be premature to try to
deal with in detail here. One point I would like to make
emphatically now, however, is that during this floating paper
dollar period, the u.s. government should itself neither buy
nor sell gold, but simply holel on to its present stock.
I come finally to the question of what type of gold standard
the United States should attempt to return to. And here, I am
afraid, I shall have to differ with rnany of my friends who share
my belief in a gold standardl but who would be content to
return to, say, the Federal Fleserve System as it functioned
. from 1914 to 1933. I must say in all candor that I have come to
have the gravest doubts about: the Federal Reserve System. It
seems to me that like the IMF the Federal Reserve has served
~ainly as an inflation factory. I have come to have the gravest
doubts, in fact, about the wisdoDl of central banks anywhere,
and, going further, even about the whole fractio~al reserve
system. By its alternate expansions and contractions of the
money supply, it tends to breed booms followed by credit
crises, panics, and depressions. We could not return today to a
76 HENRY HAZLITT
"pure" gold standard, of course, without an intolerable con-

traction of the money supply, but we could return to a system
which locks the paper money and credit supply just where it is.
However, this brings us to a subject so large that it could
itself occupy a fulllecture----or a full book-or a full library. All
this is premature. I am afraid that in the present atmosphere
even the immediate and interim steps I have been suggesting
will sound wildly unrealistic.
The nations of the world are not only inflating as never
before; they are drenched in an ideology of inflation. Nearly
everybody in official circles in every country now seems to
believe that continuous and perhaps even accelerated inflation
is necessary to maintain "full employment" and "economic
growth." As long as this inflation ideology prevails, I see no
possibility of returning to a sound currency anywhere. Norcan
I even see what, short of some crisis or crack-up that I do not
like to contemplate, will finally bring this worldwide in-
flationary mania to an end.
5
The I~egal Standing
of Gold-
Cont:ract vs. Status
,!()HN A. SPARKS
Associate Professor of Economics,

Hillsdale College
"FR()M STATUS TO CONTRACT"
Sir Henry Maine, English historian and lawyer, said in his

book, Ancient Law: "The lmovement of the progressive
societies has hitherto been a movement from status to con-
tract."1 Maine is well known for his contrast of a "status"
society with a "contractual" one. His observation provides the
general framework for our analysis of the legal standing of
monetary gold today.
'77
78 JOHN A. SPARKS
The Status Society
Status has been defined as "a legal, personal relationship,

not temporary in its nature nor terminable at the mere will of
the parties, with which third persons and the state are con-
cerned."2 [emphasis mine] F.A. Hayek described status as "an
assigned place that each individual occupies in society, "
because of the conference of "special rights and duti~s" by the
state upon some and not others. 3 These definitions describe
status as:
1. a fixed relationship which is not terminable, between

persons in a society, and
2. a condition conferred by a governmental agency
-the state-or a person with quasi-governmental au-
thority.
Historically, the best example of a status society is medieval

feudalism. As early as the middle of the sixth century its basic
outlines were discernible. Proto-feudalism, that is, an in-
cipient' status system, existed i~ Europe because of the
breakdown of the Roman Empire. "In these lawless times, the
weak were forced to seek the assistance of the strong, who
furnished them with protection and sustinence."4 The creation
of numerous lord-vassal relationships set the stage for formal,
fully developed feudalism in which the lord held large amounts
of quasi-governmental power over tenants under him. Each
man's place or position depended on his relation to the lord.
"Divisions within society. . . were established or protected by
law . . . one was born into a particular class and might be
expected to remain in that class for the whole of his life."5
Feudalism was truly a status society.
The Emergence of a Contract Society
The history of the late Middle Ages illustrates the movement

The Legal Standing of Gold 79
from a status society to a contractual society. In England, for

example, formal feudalism (which had been imported by
William in 1066) began to c~hange. In the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, lords began to hire labor for cash rather
than rely upon the labor of their villeins (serfs). 6 Though it may
not seem important, this process of hiring tenants was
significant. Distinctly contractual relations were being
established. At the same time th{~ town merchants were gain-
ing greater contractual freedonl. 7 Transactions within the
towns were often released from the lord's control by special
charters. Within the town's boundaries a kind of freedom to
hold markets and fairs existed. By the fifteenth century, the
old status-nobility had been divested of much of its power by
wealthy merchants who had attained their place largely by
contractual activities. 8
The Contractual Society
A contract society had begun to emerge, although an in-

termediate "system" existed jfor several centuries which was
neither feudalistic nor fully contractual. Under mercantilism,
as it came to be called, the post-medieval state intervened in
contractual dealings through elaborate commercial regula-
tions, control of precious metals, restrictions on trade, and
preoccupation with the balance of payments. But, in the
eighteenth century, the contractual society become fully
developed. It differed in many fundamental legal respects
from the status society which preceded it.
First,' relationships were created one to another by mutual
assent. Second, these ties were more temporary than the
interminable status ties..A contract between two parties was
likely to run only a short time before the performance of the
parties discharged them froRi further obligation. Third, and
most important, the state became only incidental to the con-
tract. Government was not responsible for creating the con-
tractual relationship. As it is said: "Contracts receive legal
80 JOHN A. SPARKS
sanction from the agreement of the parties. "9 The state's func-
tion is merely to enforce the wills of the parties if one or the
other should balk at doing what he had earlier agreed to do. As
Hayek said, the contract is the "instrument that the law sup-
plies to the individual to shape his own position. "1.0 "Status to
contract" as it is being used here means the enlargement of the
sphere open to the individual for the creation of voluntary
relationships with his fellow men. By contrast, the citizen of a
status society finds himself immobilized by legally created and
maintained restrictions.
Contract and Money
Accompanying and complementing the emergence of the

contract society is the sine qua non of promissory rela-
tionships-money. The contract-exchange society is un-
thinkable without a medium to facilitate transactions. Money
and contract are like two good friends-wherever one is found,
one finds the other. By contrast, the decreased use of money
forebodes the decline of contract. The disappearance of
Roman gold coins in many parts of Roman and barbarian
Europe by the end of Justinian's reign was a prelude to the
relapse of Europe into the primitive local economies of
feudalism. 11
The complementary and inseparable nature of contract and
money was recognized in our own constitution. The Founders,
in an effort to promote the benefits of a contractual society, set
out to protect the medium which facilitated contracts-gold
and other money metals. The constitutional protections that
the Founders afforded to money metal are discussed below.
THE CONSTITUTION-GUARDIAN OF GOLD
In General
The U. S. Constitution was originally designed to promote

T/he Legal Standing of Gold 81
the contractual society. Obvious provisions come to mind:

states are forbidden to impair contract obligations l2 ; no express
power is granted to the United States to deal with contracts;
real and personal property, the fruits of contracts, are specific-
ally protected. 13
Some of these provisions, along with others, were also clear-
ly intended to promote the contractual society by protecting
the medium of exchange-monetary gold and other money
metals. Rights to money were intended to be sustained in three
ways:
1. The integrity of gold and silver coin was to be

protected.
2. The individual citizen's right to specify what shall be

the medium of exchange in a contract was to be protected.
.3. The retention of money metal in the cash holdings of

individual citizens was to be protected.
The Coinage Clause
Understanding the "coinage clause" in Article I, § 8 of the

Constitution is the starting point: for grasping the Founding
Fathers' conception of money. By that provision, the Con-
stitution gives Congress the power "to coin money, regulate
the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and to fix the standard of
weights and measures. "14 Except for some differences in other
regards, the power to coin is taken from a similar provision in
the Articles of Confederation. U'nder the Articles, the Con-
tinentalCongress was given two limited powers. One was to
regulate "the alloy," that is, vvhat portion of the coin shall be
valuable money metal and what portion shall be baser metal.
The other function was to fix the value of the coin by determin-
ing the total weight of the money metal contained in it com-
pared to other coins. 15 During 1785 and 1786, proposals
82 JOHN A. SPARKS
suggesting various weights and alloys came forth. The Con-

gress took action on one proposal, but the act never became
fully operative. 16
Eventually, the power to set the weight or value and alloy
appeared as the coinage provision of the new Constitution of
1787. By 1792, the young U. S. Congress had set the weight of
gold, silver, and copper coins. 17 Thereafter, U. S. citizens,
upon entering a contract, knew that their insistence on
payment in "dollars" meant that they would be entitled to
receive so many ounces of gold or silver. The udollar" was
really a word which described a unit of weight. The gov-
ernment's role was limited to that of assaying the money metal
and stamping it into coins which would be identifiable as
containing a certain quantity of gold or silver.
There is further textual evidence that this was the intent of
the writers of the Constitution. Included in the coinage clause,
and only set apart by a comma, is the charge "to fix the standard
of weights and measures." The juxtaposition of the two powers
is commented on in The Federalist: "The regulation of weights
and measures . . . is founded on like considerations with the
preceding power of regulating coin. "18 Fixing the number of
inches in a foot and determining how many grains of gold were
to be in a "dollar" were similar functions. Thus, similar powers
granted in the Articles, The Federalist commentary, and the
logic of construction, all indicate that the power to coin money
and regulate its value was limited to the guaranteeing of the
weight and fineness of coins in circulation. Governmental
minting was an anti-fraud device designed to promote safer
contractual exchange.
No less an economist than Ludwig von Mises has supported
the traditional prerogative of state mintage in the limited sense
prescribed by the U. S. Constitution. He says in The Theory of
Money and Credit:
... the whole aim and intent of state intervention in the

monetary sphere is simply to release individuals from the
necessity of testing the weight and fineness of gold they

receive, a task which can only be undertaken by experts
and which involves very elaborate precautionary mea-
sures. The narrowness of the limits within which the
weight and fineness of the coins is legally allowed to vary
at the time of minting, and the establishment of a further
limit to the permissible los5: by wear of those in circula-
tion, is a much better means of securing the integrity of
the coinage than the use of scales and nitric acid on the
part of all who have commerlcal dealings. 19
Elsewhere in the same volurne, Mises reiterates that man-

ufacturing coins with similarity of appearance, weight, and
fineness "was and still is the premier task of state monetary
activity. "20
It is not necessary to our argument here that the author be
entirely satisfied with the sagacity of the "coinage clause." Dr.
Hans Sennholz and Dr. Murray Rothbard have both pointed
out the desirability of private mintage. 21 As an anti-fraud
device, private minting and testing may be preferable to a
government mint. Nevertheless, the coinage clause did give
the U. S. government the limited power to protect the integrity
of coined money metal. Mises states that there have been
governments which "considered the manufacturing of coins
not as a source of surreptitious fiscal lucre but as a public
service designed to safeguard a smooth functioning of the
market. "22 Mises' statement captures the intent of the
Founders.
Money and Constitutional Contract Protection
The Constitution, as ratified, protected the freedom to use

money metal such as gold in aU exchanges. Contractual rights
included the right to exchange one's goods and services for
gold or to exchange one's gold for someone else's goods and
services. In fact, during and ;after the Civil War, contracts,
84 JOHN A. SPARKS
especially long-term obligations, contained "gold clauses"

which specified that payment was to be made in gold coin or in
other money equal in value to a certain weight of gold. 23 Such
contract clauses were designed to protect the parties to the
contract from unbargained for gains or losses due to the
depreciation of the currency (U. S. notes or "greenbacks") then
being circulated.
The constitutional protections afforded contracts are un-
ambiguous. First, the states are expressly prohibited from
passing any law impairing the obligation of contracts. 24 No state
may, in effect, say to a party, "you shall be discharged from
your contractual obligation by doing something other than you
agreed to do." Experience with the states during the pre-
constitutional period actually accounts for the prohibition.
Justice Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution
describes the kinds of laws passed by various states which
altered the performance of one of the parties. 25 There were
laws declaring state-issued money and all sorts of real and
personal property legal tender. There were appraisement laws
which fixed outlandishly high values on property sought by a
creditor and installment laws which put off the payment of the
debt past its originally-agreed-upon due date. Finally, there
were laws suspending debts altogether. In short, almost any
piece of legislation which one might imagine to impair con-
tracts existed in one state or another. Since the states had
abused contract rights so consistently, the Founders negated
any question that might have existed on the matter by enjoin-
ing them from such actions.
The constitutional injunction against the states was plain to
see, but, did it apply to a federal law impairing contract? It is
true that no specific prohibition exists upon the powers of
Congress to impair contracts. But outright prohibition is not
the only way in which the Founders restricted the powers of
Congress. In addition to outright prohibitions, the framers of
the Constitution relied upon the doctrine of delegated powers.
The newly created government was to be one of· specifically
granted or delegated powers. 1fhe powers which the new gov-

ernment possessed were limited to those given to it by the
Constitution. 26 The negative implication of the doctrine was
that those powers not given to the new central government
resided elsewhere, either in the states, or if not there, in the
people. Article X contains the reasoning in a nutshell: uThe
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people." One searches in vain to find
any specifically delegated power to impair contracts. And,
since that power is specifically denied the states, it resides in
no governmental body, but remains with the people.
In summary, if parties to a contract designate payment in
money metal or use a term whlich stands for a certain quantity
of money metal (such as dollar), then neither the state nor the
federal government has any delegated authority to impair the
obligation created.
Money as Property Under the Due Process Clauses ofthe Fifth

and Fourteenth Amendments
Ownership has been described as a ubundle of rights" which

includes the right to possess, use, receive income from,
alienate (transfer title to), and devise tangible or intangible
property. Under the Fifth and ]~ourteenthAmendments to the
Constitution, both the federal government and the states are
denied the right to deprive persons of life, liberty, and proper-
ty without due process of law. The Founders provided protec-
tion for all property and, since gold and other money metals
qualify as items of property, they too are protected.
The'"due process of law" concept has been traced as far back
as the Magna Carta,27 where it originally operated as a limita-
tion on legislative powers by placing certain procedures
beyond the reach of lawmakers. 28 But, as Mussatti has pointed
out, "'due process of law" means something more than a set
procedure. The essence of due process is "'substantive due
86 JOHN A. SPARKS
process," that is, "a fair procedure where the law is interpreted
in keeping with constitutional limitations. "29 Corwin shows that
as early as 1857 in the Dred Scott case the Supreme Court
interpreted the Fifth Amendment to prohibit the denial of
property because such a denial was substantively prohibited,
not because the procedure for enforcing the act in, question was
improper. 30 In several cases over the next eight decades the
Supreme Court struck down various attempts to regulate the
economy under the due process clauses of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments. 31 Therefore, until the 1930s the fact
that a law was passed or a procedure established was not
. enough to satisfy the due process requirement. Interference
with property could not exceed constitutional limits.
Furthermore, when private property was taken under
procedures which were fair and under powers properly
granted to the government, the Constitution ordered a CCjust
compensation" to be paid. The determination of just com-
pensation was to be made in such a way that the owner had an
opportunity to be heard.
In summary, the protection against the taking of one's
property was procedural and substantial. After th~se hurdles,
if property was constitutionally available, remuneration had to
be paid for it. Personal and real property, including gold and
other money metals, was well protected by the Constitution.
THE CONSTITUTION PERVERTED
In General
Over neBrly 200 years, the pro-contract thrust of the Con-

stitution has been whittled away bit by bit. Those portions
reviewed above, which protected ownership and exchange of
money metal, have fared very badly. Executive orders,
legislative enactments, and court interpretations, running con-
trary to the concepts of property in money, contract in money,
and integrity in coinage, have become commonly accepted.
Witness the position of gold in the United States from 1933 to

1974.
With minor exceptions, the yellow metal cou~d not be freely
acquired, held, imported, or exported. Practically speaking,
no private, domestic, or international transactions were legally
sanctioned in gold. Gold payments could not be insisted upon
by parties to a private contract. Gold could not be coined, nor
was it, for much of the period., backing for circulating paper
media. From 1971 on, gold was not payable in settlement of
international debt.
There is neither space nor need to trace historically the
demise of the gold coin standard. It is more important to
explore the legal arguments which have so completely un-
dermined the pro-contract, pro-money provisions of the Con-
stitution. A lasting restoration of the gold standard will not be
possible unless the constitutional protections guaranteeing
such a standard are revived and the arguments against those
protections are repudiated.
The Legal Tender Cases
The exigencies of the Civil War soon created an important

break in the constitutional armor that surrounded money
metal. On February 25, 1862, Congress authorized the
issuance of United States notes (greenbacks) to be lawful
money and legal tender for all debts public and private. There
was no precedent for such a designation. Other similar acts
soon followed. The whole matter provoked heated debate.
Even supporters of the legal tender issuance argued that such a
measure was only justified, given the grave state of the
Union. 32 Secretary of Treasury Chase said that he felt "a great
aversion to making anything but coin a legal tender in payment
of debts."33 After the end of the war, disputes arose concerning
the questions of specie resumption and note retirement. As a
result, a group of cases was appealed to the U. S. Supreme
Court questioning the constitutionality of the Civil War
88 JOHN A. SPARKS
legislation. The "Legal Tender Cases,"34 as they came to be

called, deserve to be read carefully by political economists and
lawyers. (Unfortunately, most recent constitutional law
casebooks do not include the opinions.) They contain the
fundamental arguments which eroded the protections for
sound money as well as vigorous defenses of the right to hold
money metal.
In Knox v. Lee, one of the Legal Tender Cases, Mr. Justice
Strong set forth the reasoning by which the court concluded
that the Legal Tender Acts were constitutional. Though one
might expect the main argument to be that the power to make
notes legal tender was auxiliary to an express power-probably
the power to coin money-this was not the case. Given the
constitutional atmosphere then prevailing, such an argument
based on the "power to coin" would have been regarded as an
unwarranted expansion of that clause. The power to establish a
mint, for example, might be "necessary and proper" to the
express coinage power, but the issuing of legal tender notes
certainly was not considered to be so. Consequently, Mr.
Justice Strong and the legal tender majority relied upon an
argument called "the resulting powers doctrine."
It was certain, the reasoning went, that the United States
had been given the power to levy taxes, coin money, raise and
support an army and navy, and that these powers were given to
establish a sovereign government "with the capability of self-
preservation. "35 The derivation of authority from a single
enumerated power was unnecessary to sustain an act of Con-
gress. Powers did exist that were neither expressly given nor
implied from any single power. Powers of this sort were result-
ing powers and arose from the sum of the powers of gov-
ernment. Justice Strong concluded that the legal tender
enactments were based on properly exercised resulting
powers.
The resulting powers doctrine was used to justify further
strengthening of the government's control of money. In
fulliard v. Greenman,36 the doctrine served as the basis. for the
conclusion that the legal tender power was not just a war
emergency power but a regular peacetime power as well.
Much later, in the Gold ClaUlse Cases, the Supreme Court
relied upon a "broad and comprehensive national authority
over the subjects of revenue, finance and currency ... derived
from the aggregate of the powers granted to the Con-
gress embracing the powers to lay and collect taxes, to bor-
row money, to regulate commerce . . . to coin mon-
ey. . . . "37
.
However, the Legal Tender Cases contain more than
arguments about resulting powers. The pro-legal tender
Justices had to deal with specific constitutional provisions
opposing the Legal Tender Acts. The objections had been
eloquently raised by Chief Justice Chase in the first Legal
Tender Case (Hepburn v. Griswold) where the court had
found the acts unconstitutional.
The Constitution, Chase had said, prohibited the state
legislatures from passing any laws impairing the obligation of
contracts. Further, by refusing to grant such a power to the
federal Congress, the Founders assumed that no such authori-
ty would be exercised by that body either. 38 Also, added Chase,
the Fifth Amendment forbade the taking of property without
due process of law. Contracts were property, and clearly con-
tracts were being impaired and property improperly taken
when debts and obligations were diminished in value. 39
Justice Strong attempted to counter Chase's assertions.
Whenever Congress passes a bankruptcy act or declares war,
claimed Strong, many contracts are impaired and a great deal
of property is taken with the mere flourish of the legislative
pen. If such acts are constitutional, then the fact that contracts
are impaired and property ta.ken by the enactment of legal
tender laws is just another case where the power of Congress
may be exerted for a legitimate purpose, but in the process
annul or impair contracts. 40
Chase's rejoinder was that the power to declare war and to
make uniform bankruptcy laws were examples of expressly
90 JOHN A. SPARKS
delegated powers. He was not claiming, he said, that "'a law

made in execution of any other express power, which, in-
cidentally only, impaired the obligation of a contract can be
held to be unconstitutional for that reason." But the Constitu-
tion grants no express power, nor does it, properly understood,
allow any implied power to issue legal tender notes. 41
Despite Chase's strict constitutional arguments, the Legal
Tender Cases upheld the power of Congress to make the
United States notes legal tender for all debts public and
private. Fortunately, cases decided in 1868 and 187242 con-
strued the Legal Tender Acts as not applying to contracts in
which payment was expressly limited to gold coins. Therefore,
a dual system of gold and legal tender notes continued. 43 Even
though gold could still be insisted upon in exchange, danger-
ous precedents had been set. It has been observed: "How
irresistible a force is faulty precedent, exception becomes the
rule ... if a stand ever is to be made, it must be at the outset.
Once the dike of constitutional gu~rantees is out, innova-
tion pours through without interruption. "44 The dike was
broken.
The Federal Reserve System
During the period between the Legal Tender Cases and the
New Deal, the weakening of protections for property and
contracts was occurring in ways too numerous to explore within
the confines of this paper. 45 These changes were to surface
dramatically in 1933 and 1934. However, attention will now be
directed to establishment of the Federal Reserve System in
1914.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1914 presented no constitutional
problem to legal commentators. Most had conceded the posi-
tion of McCulloch v. MarylancJt6 where Justice Marshall
asserted that the establishment of a national bank was
legitimately derived from the power to coin and borrow
money. Although challenges to the Federal Deposit Insurance

Corporation 47 and the provision permitting state banks to
become members of the Federal Reserve System 48 have been
unsuccessfully made, no constitutional challenge to the act as a
whole has been made. 49
Despite the unfortunate centralization of banking which
later made government controls on money simpler to adminis-
ter, the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act did not
eliminate the use of gold bullion and coin. Bakewell points out:
"D nder the act [Federal Reserve Act] ... the basic banking
asset continued to be gold, which was our coin and our
standard of value, and in which all currency could be
redeemed upon demand. The Federal Reserve Act itself said
that nothing in it repealed the law of 1900 [Gold Standard
Act]. "50 Contractual dealings using gold money would last for
two decades after its enactment.
There was reason for concern, from a legal standpoint, about
another aspect of the Federal Reserve Act. A large portion of
the expanded power of Congress over banking and money was
delegated by the legislation to a quasi-governmental entity,
the Federal Reserve Board. Initially, the delegation of the
monetary powers did not see:m so important, for the reserve
system was "established when the gold standard ruled
supreme. "51 It was the requirement of gold reserves which was
regarded as the continuing check on an unwarranted increase
in the s\lPply of money, not the Federal Reserve Board.
However, as the gold standard was gradually abandoned
worldwide and finally domestically, the discretionary control
which had been vested in the Federal Reserve became, by
default, a substitute for the regulation of the gold standard. As
a
history has proven, it has been poor substitute.
The way was now paved for the co.mplete demise of gold.
Governmental power over money matters had been greatly
expanded and then delegated to an independent agency
removed from the control of the citizenry.
92 JOHN A. SPARKS
1933 TO THE PRESENT-THE DEMISE OF GOLD
Rothbard is correct when he says that the abandonment of

the gold standard worldwide from 1931 to 1933 ccwas not a
sudden shift from gold weight to paper name; it was but the last
step in a lengthy complex process. "52 The death knell for con-
stitutional protections of monetary gold rang in the distance
until 1933. There was no mistaking its peal after that year.
Only two days after taking office, President Roosevelt issued
an executive order in which he proclaimed a three-day ccbank
holiday. "53 He relied for such powers on a 1917 war enactment
called the Trading With the Enemy Act. 54 Section 5(b) of that
act had given wartime President Wilson the power to ccin_
vestigate, regulate, or prohibit ... any transactions in foreign
exchange and the export, hoarding, melting or earmarking of
gold or silver coin or bullion or currency." The rather heavy
maximum penalty prescribed by the wartime measure was to
be applied to all violators of the President's executive order
-namely, a fine of up to $10,000 and, for natural persons, up
to ten years of imprisonment or both. On March 9, 1933, the
earlier order was extended ccuntil further proclamation by the
President. "55 On the same day the Congress approved and
confirmed the President's action by passing the CCEmergency
Banking Act. "56 That act amended the Trading With the
Enemy Act so as to give the President the power to prohibit
gold hoarding, melting, or export "during time of war or during
any other period of national emergency declared by the Pres-
ident [emphasis mine]. "!)7 Perhaps, the most portentous part of
the emergency legislation was the addition of Section II(n) to
the Federal Reserve Act, which granted the Secretary of the
Treasury the power to protect the currency system of the
United States by requiring ccall individuals, partnerships .... '
and corporations to . . . deliver" to the Treasurer of the United
States ccany and all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates
owned" by them. Ironically, in order to "protect the currency"
U.S. citizens could be ordered by the government to relin-
quish money metal and claims to money metal. The Emergen-

cy Banking Act went on to promise that should such action be
necessary, the Secretary of the Treasury would pay for the
gold, but only in any other form of coin or currency coined or
u
issued under the laws of the United States [emphasis mine]. "~R
In less than a month, Roosevelt issued another executive
order which required "all persons . . . to deliver . . . to a
Federal Reserve Bank ... all the gold coin, gold bullion, and
gold certificates . . ." which they then owned. 59 There were
some minor exceptions. 60 Member Federal Reserve Banks who
were to receive this gold were merely conduits. Gold
deposited with them had to be turned over to Federal Reserve
District Banks. 61 If that was not enough, Congress gave further
power to the President by passing an amendment to the
Agricultural Adjustment Act:, called the Thomas Amend-
ment. 62 The amendment allowed for note issuance up to $3
billion and a proclamation by the President reducing the gold
content of the dollar by no more than half.
Private and public contracts still contained provisions calling
for payment in gold or its equivalent in value. Many contracts
and "'almost all bonds~~ public or private contained gold clauses
in 1933. 63 "Gold Clauses" were nullified by a Joint Congres-
sional Resolution which claimed that the clauses obstructed
the power of Congress to regulate the value of money and keep
". every dollar of equal value. 641'herefore, "every provision con-
tained in or made with respect to any obligation which purports
to give the obligee a right to require payment in gold ... is
declared to be against public policy. . . . Every obligation,
heretofore or hereafter incurred ... shall be discharged upon
payment, dollar for dollar, in any coin or currency which
at the time of payment is legal tender for public and private
debts. "65
Another executive order followed 66 and on January 15, 1934,
the President requested new legislation to "'organize a curren-
cy system that will be both sound and adequate. "67 He said in
part:
94 JOHN A. SPARKS
. . . the free circulation of gold coins is unnecessary, leads

to hoarding, and tends to a possible weakening of national
financial structures in times of emergency. The practice of
transferring gold from one individual to another or from
the government to an individual within a Nation is not
only unnecessary, but is in every way undesirable ...
Therefore it is a prudent step to vest in the government of
a Nation the title to and possession of all monetary gold
within its boundaries and to keep that gold in the form of
bullion rather than in coin. 68
Congress responded to the President's request by passing the

Gold Reserve Act of 1934. 69 All gold coin and bullion held by
Federal Reserve Banks were to pass to the U.S. government. 70
Under the act every Federal Reserve Bank had to maintain
certain reserves: gold certificates or lawful money of not less
than 35 percent of deposits and gold certificates of not less than
40 percent of Federal Reserve notes in circulation. 71 Section 5
of the Gold Reserve Act eliminated gold coinage and Section 6
proclaimed that except when allowed by regulations issued by
the Treasury with presidential approval, "No currency of the
United States shall be redeemed in gold.... " In Section 12 of
the Gold Reserve Act Congress declared that the weight of the
gold dollar could not be fixed any higher than 60 percent of its
existing weight. The following day, January 31, 1934, Roose-
velt reduced the gold content of the dollar by executive order
from 25.8 grains, * nine-tenths fine,. to 15 5/21 grains, nine-
tenths fine. 72 This was a reduction in the gold content of the
dollar to about 59 percent of its former value.
In less than a year's time the acquisition, holding, exporting,
and earmarking of gold had been eliminated with a few minor
exceptions. Domestic convertibility of paper money to gold
had been abandoned. The gold content of the dollar for
*25.8 grains was the content originally designated by the Gold

Standard Act of 1900 (31 Stat. L. 451).
.purposes of foreign settlements had been reduced by 40

percent. Gold in the hands of the public had been nationalized.
The constitutionality of the Joint Congressional Resolution
abrogating the gold clauses in private contracts came before
the Supreme Court in 1935. 7:3 The opinion written by Chief
Justice Hughes disregarded the sanctity of private contracts
and relegated them to a position of inferiority.
In the contract at issue in the suit, the parties had agreed that
the principal and the interest payments would be made cc • • • in
gold coin of the United States of America of or equal to the
standard weight and fineness existing on February 1, 1930. "74
First, the court interpreted the contract as requiring payment
in "money," not in bullion or coin. 75 After referring frequently
to the Legal Tender Cases, the opinion continued: ""Contracts
may create rights of property, but when contracts deal with a
subject matter which lies within the control of Congress, they
have a congenital infirmity. Parties cannot remove their trans-
actions from the reach of dominant constitutional power by
making contracts about theml. . . . If the gold clauses now
before us interfere with the policy of the Congress in the
exercise of [constitutional] ... authority they cannot stand. "76
By a margin of five to four the court found that they did
interfere and that Congress acted within its legitimate 3;uthori-
ty. (The arguments which di.spute that position were made
earlier in this paper.) Associate]ustice McReynolds summed it
up when he reportedly blurted to the packed courtroom: ""As
for the Constitution, it does not seem too much to say that it is
gone. "77
By legislation enacted in 1945, 78 1965,79 and 1968,80 Congress
demonetized gold domestically. President Nixon's suspension
of international gold payments in August 1971 resulted in a
complete fiat standard.
From 1934 to 1974 America.n citizens had no full ownership
rights with respect to holding or exchanging gold. Instead they
had, at best, residuary rights, which were enumerated in the
""Gold Regulations," a seventeen-page booklet of rules issued
96 JOHN A. SPARKS
by the Department of the Treasury. Legal gold ownership~1

was possible only to the extent permitted by the gold reg-
ulations and the licenses issued thereunder. 82 The only
exceptions which allowed some interest in gold to be held by
citizens were the ccrare coin," cccustomary use," and gold-
mining share exceptions. 83
One could acquire, hold, and exchange gold coins of rec-
ognized value to collectors without a license. 84 One could apply
for a license to make a legitimate and customary use of gold in
an industry, profession, or art. 85 The holding of gold mining
shares was not prohibited. 86 However, the ordinary citizen who
wanted to purchase bullion and hold it or use it in exchange
could not do so. *
Under an amendment to the International Development
Association (IDA) bill, to become effective December 31,
1974, U. S. citizens are, once again, allowed to buy and sell gold'
bullion. 87 What appears to be the restoration of fundamental
contract and property rights may be something less than that,
however. First, the authority to accord citizens the right to
own gold' is now clearly viewed as a legislative prerogative.
Moreover, it is unfortunately true that an "emergency"
declared by the executive could once again result in restriction
on gold ownership.
Secondly, while the privilege to buy and sell gold as a
commodity is granted by the legislation, the legality of gold
clauses in contracts is still uncertain. As a recent article in the
American Bar Association Journal has pointed out, there are
practical problems with gold clauses, involving tax con-
siderations, usury laws,' specific performance and negotiabili-
*There exists a low-level federal court case where the defendants

successfully challenged the criminal provisions'of the law. In a 1962
District Court decision, Southern District of California Judge
William C. Mathes dismissed criminal charges ~gainst two de-
fendants who owned gold bullion. Unfortunately, the decision is of
little value as a precedent and says nothing of the civil penalties that
require forfeiture and a penalty payment.
ty.88 But the central question concerns the legal status of gold
ownership in the light of the gold clause cases referred to
above: HIn view of the involved reasoning of the Gold Clause
Cases . . . it is possible that the Supreme Court, on some
theory, might hold that the use of gold clauses would still be
ineffective, even after our right to hold gold has been
restored. "89 Barring favorable judicial construction, the "gold
ownership" privilege established by recent legislation is but a
shadow of the full-fledged, pre-1934 right of ownership.
WHICH WAY: STATUS TO CONTRACT OR THE

REVERSE?
Maine's observation of the movement from "status to con-

tract" rings hollow in the face of the astounding anti-
contractualism of our day. Instead of promoting contracts by
maintaining the integrity of the medium of exchange, the state
has engaged in sophisticated coin clipping. Instead of the right
to make contracts which specify gold as the medium of the
exchange, citizens must rely on various complicated
strategems to compensate for the instability of fiat currency.
Instead of the right to retain money metal in one's cash
holdings, one must venture into the fields of numismatics, gold
mining shares, real property investment, or some other in-
direct hedge against monetary depreciation. These occur-
rences have made some contracts impossible to enter into and
have made all contractual dealings difficult and roundabout.
There is no doubt that the sphere of contract has declined. But
to assert that there has been a decline of contractualism is one
thing; to suggest that there has been a movement toward a
status society is another.
It is the historian's province to make final determinations on
these matters. And, let it be cJlear that it is not contended here
that a neo-feudal-status society exists or is over the horizon.
But a case can be made that elements of a new mercantilism
have been becoming more obvious. It is interesting' that,
98 JOHN A. SPARKS
historically, mercantilism was the intermediate stage between

the status society and the contract society. It is reasonable to
assume that a society moving away from contract and back
toward status might have neo-mercantilistic characteristics.
Two decades ago Rogge and Van Sickle claimed: "Today we
are far closer to 18th century mercantilism than to 19th century
liberalism. National state planning is again in vogue. Produc-
tion and trade are highly regulated ... national economic
policies are, in fact, dominated by the same balance of
payments preoccupations that inspired so much of the plan-
ning of the age of mercantilism."90 About the same time Ballve
said that "exacerbated nationalism" and "socialism" and "dis-
trust of individual initiative" had combined "at the end of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth in
neomercantilism. "91 Certainly, circumstances have become
more mercantile since these observations. Barriers to trade,
domestic and international regulation of foreign exchange,
legislation to encourage exports and discourage imports, and
bills to erect further barriers in the offing do not indicate a
decline of neo-mercantilist influence.
Recently, Sennholz once again ,warned of the prospects of
further disintegration of international trade and finance due to
the abandonment of sound monetary policies. He foresaw
more neo-mercantilism such as foreign exchange controls,
multiple exchange rates, and disruption of world economic
relations unless nations altered their· current courses. 92 The
decline of sound money has bolstered the movement away
from contract, but the trend is reversible. It is the rees-
tablishment of proper protections for the gold standard which
will once again impel us toward a contractual society.
NOTES
ISir Henry Maine, Ancient Law (London: Dent and Sons, 1917), p.
100.
2Holzer v. Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, 159 Misc. 830, 290
N~Y.S. 181,191.
3F. A. Hayek, The Constitution ofLiberty (Chicago: The Universi-
ty of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 154.
4Archibald R. Lewis, Emerging Medieval Europe (New York:
Knopf, 1967), p. 24.
5Clarence A. Carson, The Flight from Reality (New York: The
Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1969), p. 336.
6W. E. Lunt, History of England (New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1957; 4th ed.), p. 176.
7Ibid., pp. 237, 246.
IlLunt, History of England, p. 289.
9"Contractus legem ex combentione accipiunt," Digest of
Justinian, 16, 3, 1, 6, in Henry C. Black, ed., Law Dictionary (St.
Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1957), p. 398.
IOHayek, Constitution of Liberty, p. 154.
II Lewis, Emerging Medieval Europe, pp. 17, 20.
12U. S. Constitution, Article I ,& 10.

13U.S. Constitution, Amendment V and XIV, Sec. 1. It is interest-
ing to note that the states and the United States are forbidden to
create legal classes-the basis for the status society. U. S. Constitu-
tion, Article I, Sec. 9 and 10.
14U.S. Constitution, Article I & 8.
I. Articles of Confederation, Article XI.
5
16A. Barton Hepburn, A History of Currency in the United States

(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1924, revised ed.; reprint, Augustus
M. Kelley, Publishers, 1967).
17Ibid., p. 43.
IIlThe Federalist (New York: Wiley Book Co., 1901), XLI, 233.
19Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), pp. 66-67. See also Human
Action (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), pp. 774-776.
2°Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 71.
21Hans Sennholz, Inflation 01' Gold Standard? (Lansing, Mich.:
100 JOHN A. SPARKS
Bramble Press, 1969), pp. 28-29, and Murray N. Rothbard, "100%

Gold Dollar," in Leland B. Yeager, In Search of a Monetary Con-
stitution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962).
22Mises, Human Action, p. 775.
23Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of
the United States (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press,
1963), p. 468, 71n.
24U. S. Constitution, Article I, Sec. 10.
2.5Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, Sec. 1371,
cited in fulliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 421 (1884), Field's dissenting
opinion.
26William J. Palmer, The Courts vs. the People (Chicago: Chas.
Holberg & Co., 1969), p. 68.
27See Sir Edward Coke, Institutes, Part 2, cited in Roscoe Pound,
The Development of Constitutional Guarantees of Liberty (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), p. 47.
2REdward S. Corwin, The Constitution, What It Means Today
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1958), p. 217.
29James Mussatti, The Constitution ofthe United States (Princeton,
N. J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1958), p. 84.
30Corwin, The Constitution, p. 218.
31See Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S. Ct. 539,49 L. Ed.
937 (1905), Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525, 43 S. Ct.
394, 67 L. Ed. 785 (1923).
32Hepburn, A History of Currency, pp. 186-190.
33Ibid., p. 187. Note that Chase as Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court was later to find the Legal Tender Acts, which he himself
promoted, unconstitutional.
34Knox v. Lee, 12 Wall. 457, 20 L. Ed. 287 (1871); Hepburn v.
Griswold, 8 Wall. 603, 19 L. Ed. 513 (1870); see also fulliard v.
Greenman, 110 U.S. 421, U.S. Ct., 122,28 L. Ed. 204 (1884).
35Knox v. Lee, reprinted in Herman E. Krooss, A Documentary
History of Banking and Currency in the United States (New York:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1969), p. 1555.
36fulliard v. Greenman, Ohio R.R., 294 U.S. 240,55 S. Ct. 407,79
L. Ed. 885 (1935); reprinted in Krooss, A Documentary History of
Banking, pp. 2848-2849.
37 Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R., 294 U. S. 240, 55 S. Ct. 432,
79 L. Ed. 912 (1935).
311 Hepburn v. Griswold, reprinted in Krooss, A Documentary

History of Banking, p. 1533.
39Ibid., p. 154l.
4°Knox v. Lee, in Krooss, A Documentary History of Banking, p.
1540.
41 Hepburn v. Griswold, in Krooss, A Documentary History of
Banking, p. 1540.
42Bronson v. Rodes, 7 Wall. 229, 19 L. Ed. 147, and Trebilock v.
Wilson, 12 Wall. 687, 20 L. Ed. 460, respectively.
43Friedman and Schwartz, A Monetary History, p. 15.
44Russell Kirk, John Randolph of Roanoke (Chicago: Henry
Regnery Co., 1964), p. 66.
45See Gottfried Dietze, In Defence of Properly (Chicago: Henry
Regnery Co., 1963), Chapters 4,. 5, 6.
\1;4 Wheat. 316, 4 L. Ed. 579 (1819).
47Doherly v. U.S., C.C.A. Neb. 1938,94 F. 2d 495, Cert. denied,
58 S. Ct. 763, 303 U.S. 658, 82 L. Ed. 1117.
41lHiatt v. U.S., C.C.A. Ind. 1924,4 F. 2d. 374, Cert. denied, 45 S.
Ct. 638, 268 U.S. 704, 69 L. Ed. 1167.
49Arthur S. Miller, CCLegal View of the Monetary System," in Lewis
E. Davids, ed., Money & Banking Casebook (Homewood, Ill.:
Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1964), p. 418.
·50Paul Bakewell, Inflation in the United States (Caldwell, Idaho:
Caxton Printers, 1958), p. 16. J. D. Paris excludes the Federal
Reserve Act from his ccChronology of Important Events Relating to
Gold," in Monetary Policies of the U. S., 1932-38 (New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 1938), p. 118. Perhaps his reasoning follows
the analysis of Bakewell.
51Milton Friedman, Dollars dr Deficits (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 183.
52M urray N. Rothbard, ccThe Case for a 100 Per Cent Gold Dollar,"
in Leland B. Yeager, In Search of a Monetary Constitution
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 105.
.53 Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, II, 25-29; Krooss, A
Documentary History of Bankiflg, pp. 2694-2695.

5440 Stat. L. 411 (October 6, 1917).
55 Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, II, 48; Krooss, A
Documentary History of Banki,J,g, p. 2696.
5648 Stat. L. 1 (March 9, 1933).
102 JOHN A. SPARKS
,,)7Ibid., Sec. 2.
51112 USCA Sec. 248 (n).
.,)9Executive Order No. 6102, 31 CFR, 1936 ed., Part 50 (April 5,
1938).
60Each person was allowed to keep no more than $100 worth of gold
coins and certificates, gold customarily used in a legitimate industry
or profession (dentist, jeweler) and gold coins having special value to
collectors. Gold coin and bullion earmarked for a foreign government
or foreign central bank was not ordered in. Executive Order 6102,
Sees. 2(a), 2(b), and 2(c).
61Ibid., Sec. 5.
6248 Stat. L. 51 (May 12, 1933). Note that twice in 1936 the AAA was
held unconstitutional. Butler v. U.S., 296 U.S.l, and Rice Mills v.
Fountenot, 297 U.S. 110. Finally, in 1939theactwasupheldduetoa
change in court personnel. U. S. v. Rock Royal Co., 307 U. S. 533. 'See
Lyman A. Garber, Of Men and Not ofLaw (New York: Devin-Adair,
1966), pp. 34-35.
63Charles H. Pritchett, The American Constitution (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 250.
64H. ]. Res., 192, 73d Cong., 1st Sess. (1933).
6.'>Another part of the s~me resolution abrogated gold clauses in
U. S. government obligation.
66Executive Order No. 6260, 31 CFR, 1938 ed., Part 50.
67Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, III, 40-45; Krooss, A
Documentary History of Banking, p. 2789.
6RKrooss, A Documentary History of Banking, p. 2790.
69 31 USCA 440, 48 Stat. L. 337.
7°Ibid., Sec. 2(a).
71Ibid., Sec. 2(b) 3.
72public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, III, 64-66.
73Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R., 294 U.S. 240,55 S. Ct. 407,
79 L. Ed. 885 (1935). See also Perry v. United States, 294 U.S. 330,
55 S. Ct. 432, 79 L. Ed. 912 (1935) where the court denied Congress
the right to abrogate gold clauses in government obligations but then
denied the plaintiff recovery because he could show no/damage.
74Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R., in Charles G. Fenwick, ed.,
Cases on American Constitutional Law (Chicago: Callaghan & Co.,
1953), p. 318.
75Ibid., p. 320.
76Ibid., pp. 321, 322.

77pritchett, .The American Constitution, p. 250.
7R 59 Stat. L. 237.
79 79 Stat. L. 5.
110 12 USCA Sec. 413, 82 Stat. L. 50 (March 18, 1968).
Illlt is estimated that some $287 million in gold was retained illegal-
ly in the hands of the public. Friedman and Schwartz, A Monetary
History, pp.464-465n.
1l2Gold Regulations Sec. 54.12
1l3Literature is available on gold coin investment and gold mining
stock ownership, both of which a.re legal. See Donald]. Hoppe, How
to Invest in Gold Coins, and How to Invest in Gold Stocks (New
Rochelle: Arlington House, 1970 and 1972).
1l4Gold Regulations, Sec. 54.20 as amended.
Il.5Gold Regulations, Sec. 54.4(14),. 54.22-54.25.
1l6Gold Regulations, Sec. 54.1,4 (b).
1l7"President Signs Ownership Bill," Coin Investments Market Let-
ter 1, no. 19 (August 1974), Coin Investments, Inc., Birmingham,
Mich.
IlIlRene A. Wormser and Donald L. Kemmerer. "Restoring 'Gold
Clauses' in Contracts," American Bar Association Journal 60:
942-946.
1l9Ibid., p. 946.
9OJohn V. Van Sickle and Benjamin A. Rogge, Introductory
Economics (New York: D. Van :Nostrand, 1954), p. 543.
91Faustino Ballve, Essentials of Economics (New York: The
Foundation for Economic Education, 1963), p. 7.
92Sennholz, 'The Crisis in International Economic Relations
(Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College, March 1973), 2 Imprimis, No.3.
6
The Role Of Gold
In The Past Century
DONALD L. KEMMERER
University of Illinois
Human experience, as recorded by historians or re-

membered by man himself, is the laboratory of the social
sciences. That is a major reason for the study of economic and
financial history, which can teach us far more about the
economic behavior of man than can mathematical formulas and
equations. Despite economics' recent romance with mathe-
matics to try to erase the stigma of being an "'inexact science," it
remains a social science and remains inexact. Economic
experiments or experiences cannot be controlled the way those
in a chemistry laboratory can. Pour hydrochloric acid over iron
filings and you'll get the same results each time, but "pour" a
sharply increased money supply onto a nation of people and
the immediate results will differ considerably, although higher
104
Gold in the Past Century 105
,prices ,will almost certainly be the eventual consequence.

Mathematical formulas may suggest that a paper money
standard is as useful as a gold coin standard, but a study of
economic history suggests otherwise.
What does the record of human experience reveal about
monetary standards and money? Man has used just about
everything one can imagine a.s money ever since he needed a
medium of exchange to make trading easier. Among the items
have been beads, pretty seashells, feathers, large stones,
tobacco, cattle, iron coins, preci.ous metal coins-the list is a
long one. Chase Manhattan Bank of New York has a fascinating
money museum with exhibits of many of these and the story of
each. Generally, the "money" was something valued for its
beauty or its usefulness to nearly everyone, but also it was
usually something that man could not quickly produce in great
quantity, thus inflating the money supply. The tobacco
standard in seventeenth-century Virginia ceased being
effective when a large part of the population operated their
own mints, i. e., cultivated their fields of tobacco. And modern
sea dredging put an end to the cowry shell standard of East
African peoples. Over the centuries two products in particular
emerged as world favorites, namely gold and silver, and in the
last century gold triumphed over silver. True, from about 1690
on, a latecomer standard, fiat paper money, challenged the
precious metal standards again and again. Despite fiat money's
many disastrous failures, its popularity with governments
steadily increased. They never stopped giving it another
chance.
The use of gold coins may be traced back to the time of
Darius the Great of Persia (5~Zl-485 B.C.), but the rules of the
modern gold standard have developed only in the last 250
years, starting in 1717 in England. Thanks to the new gold
standard Britain had a stable currency in the eighteenth
century, despite wars nearly half of the time and bad examples
set by her paper-money-minded American colonies and her
neighbor, France.
106 DONALD L. KEMMERER
In 1848 gold was discovered in California, leading to the

famous Gold Rush of 1849. Similar discoveries and rushes,
only slightly smaller, took place in 1851 and 1853 in Australia.
One might suppose that the production of gold, even sizable
finds of it, would not have a great impact on the accumulation
of the ages, for gold is so valuable that once produced it is
carefully guarded and little is lost. Yet, between 1850 and
1862, the monetary gold of the world doubled and between
1850 and 1875 the world's estimated supply of gold doubled. In
general, in the past about half of the gold mined has gone into
monetary uses and the rest into ornamentation and other CCin_
dustrial" uses. Twice since the mid-nineteenth century, the
gold stock has again doubled over a relatively short time. Once
was in the 1885-1918 period because of Alaskan and South
African gold discoveries, plus the introduction of the cyanide
process for refining gold. Another was between 1934 and
World War II because of the American devaluation of the
dollar which raised the price of gold by 69 percent. The same
thing could happen again if the present price of gold should
remain close to where it is now.
But returning now to the 1850s-because of the scarcity of
gold most sound money nations had used two precious metals,
gold and silver, a bimetallic standard, until the last third of the
nineteenth century. This worked moderately well and would
have worked better if the nations had seen the need and had
been able to agree on a single value ratio between the two
metals ,before minting their coins. Suffice to say this caused
problems and when gold became more plentiful after mid-
century, a growing number of countries, taking note of
England's long success with the single metal (gold) standard,
either shifted to that, or adopted it to begin with if they were
stabilizing after a long period of inflation. The shift to gold
might have taken place sooner if it had not been for a spate of
mid-century wars. Both Austria and Russia sought to return to
hard money around 1860, but war and revolution nullified
those efforts to stabilize. Civil War in the United States caused

us to suspend specie payments for seventeen years (1862-
1879), and Prussia's defeat of France in 1870 likewise took
France off hard money for about five years. But it may be
noted that these countries did not forbid their citizens to own
gold or trade in it. The Western world, despite these setbacks,
was on the threshold of the great era of the gold coin standard.
The success of England's pound set the example, the recent
experience some nations had had with inflation (the United
States) or floating exchange rates (Italy) provided the in-
centive, and the discoveries and ensuing enormous production
of gold afforded the opportunity. Between 1873 and 1912 the
number of primary and secondary nations on the gold standard
grew from nine to forty-one.
By this time the definition of a modern gold standard had
become fairly clear. It could be described as a money standard
in which the unit of value in which prices and wages are
customarily expressed was a fixed weight of gold. From this
four conclusions followed.
1. There must be free coinage of gold, that is, anyone might
bring any amount of gold to the mint to be coined, but not
necessarily free of the manufacturing cost of minting the coins.
2. There must be freedom to export or melt down gold coins.
That did not, of course, mean freedom to reduce in any way the
weight of the coin and then try to pass it on at face value.
3. All moneys of the country, including checking accounts in
practice, must be convertible to gold coin.
4. Gold coin must be full legal tender, that is, if a debtor
offered to pay his creditor in gold coin and the creditor
refused, he could not sue the debtor for nonpayment of the
debt.
The monetary unit, the dollar for example, was the value of
the stated amount of gold in a free market, and the conditions
set forth above ensured that the country itself remained such a
free market. If an individual preferred a dollar to 23.22 grains
of pure gold, he could convert his gold to a dollar, and if he

preferred gold to a dollar, he was free to export or melt his gold
coin.
Let us look at the adoption and operation of the new gold
standards. Most Americans are familiar with the story of our
resumption of specie payments during 1875-1879 after sev-
enteen years on inconvertible paper. Secretary of Treasury
Sherman piled up a substantial gold reserve, purposely with-'
held some greenbacks from circulation, and limited official
resumption to only one place in the nation, the New York
subtreasury. On the fateful day, January 2, 1879, only a few
persons presented greenbacks for redemption but many more
turned in gold for paper since they felt the paper was now
equally safe. It was an anticlimax. From 1896 until the out-
break of World War I the cash reserves against deposits and
bank notes of all commercial banks were rarely far off 25
percent, with gold coin and gold certificates sometimes con-
stituting at times as much as about 40 percent of this total.
In Europe where several major nations were returning to
gold or making preparations to do so around 1900, finance
ministers, central bankers, and bankers showed even greater
conservatism. Italy held 60 percent gold reserves in 1903, and
on April 11 of that same year the London Economist com-
mented, "After the Bank of France, the Austro-Hungarian
Banks stands on the broadest base of any note bank in t!Je
world." Yet Austria-Hungary, which had made a good par,lal
step toward convertibility in 1901 by issuing gold coins,
hesitated to guarantee full convertibility for another decade for
fear her gold reserves would not be adequate. Buttheprize for
caution must go to Russia which had over 107 percent gold
cover for her notes in 1896 but did not resume specie payments
for another year.
I mention all of th~se, and I might have added others,
because they stand in '>such sharp contrast to Great Britain.
With a net national income ranging from $8.3 billion to $9.6
billion between 1901 and 1910, she carried on a merchandise
trade of about half that amount each year, easily the world's
greatest at the time. This was toward the end of the Boer War
(1899-1902), an era of frequent clashes on India's Northwest
Frontier, and mounting tensions in Europe. Yet, Britain's
bullion reserves against all bank notes and deposits of the
nation ranged from 3.5 to 3.0 percent and her net exports of
bullion in anyone year never exceeded $33 million. If there
were fears of inadequate liquidity to carry on this enormous
trade, they were muted. How did she do it? She had heavy
investments overseas earning her citizens substantial profits
every year, she carried almost half the world's shipping, and
London's CCCity," or financial center, was the world's most
important. Although merchandise imports exceeded mer-
chandise exports every year" the British were living within
their income, living off the profits of good investments and not
(yet) trying to save the world. All of this gave her pound
sterling great credibility. If a currency has that, it does not
need a substantial gold backing.
Going back to the 1873-1914 era, a study of resumptions of
specie payments is also rewarding. I dug into this subject some
years ago because I was unhappy about generalizing from the
American experience of 1875··1879 that Amercians know best.
Ministers of Finance, Secretaries of the Treasury, leading
bankers-i.n brief those with responsibility for successfully
putting their nation back on a gold standard-were, almost to a
man, fearful that they did not have enough gold, that a run on
their CClimited" supply by speculators and others would
succeed, humiliate the nation, and damage their own repu-
tations. All of this is understandable. Some of them piled up
rather enormous reserves against that CCmoment of truth,"
notably in Austria and Russia. But in actual practice the most
important ingredients for success were a firm announcement
of intention combined with a. clearly sincere effort to carry it
out. It came down most of all to confidence. Japan had showed
her sincerity by minting and jlssuing gold coin and at the same
time withdrawing paper bank notes and silver when she
resumed on October 1, 1897. This courageous effort by her

Finance Minister, Count Matzukata, succeeded despite a
sizably adverse trade balance that year, the onset of a depres-
sion, and some erosion of her modest gold reserves. True, the
danger did not end until 1900. Yet once back on a convertible
basis, and with a respectable past, Japan and Russia (she had
also resumed in 1897) fought a costly and bloody war (1904-
1905) without either having to give up their newly acquired
gold standards.
By the end of the nineteenth century, and even earlier, most
of the economically important nations of the world were on a
gold standard. Brazil, China, Spain, and Turkey never made it
but just about all the others did. How well did it work? As the
late Dr. Melchior Palyi states in his posthumous book, The
Twilight of Gold, 1914-36: "The gold standard was 'sacrosanct'
to the generations brought up on the Adam Smith ideals of free
markets ... it was an essential instrument of economic free-
dom. It protected the individual against arbitrary measures of
the government by offering a convenient hedge against ... the
depreciation or devaluation of the currency. Above all, it
raised a mighty barrier against authoritarian interferences with
the economic process." (p. 5) And later he adds, "The role of
the gold standard in unifying the economy of the civilized
world can scarcely be overestimated. It was the condition sine
qua non of the international capital flow, both short-term and
long-term, a basic instrument in opening up the world to
economic progress and diffusing modern civilization. And the
capital flow under the gold standard operated with a minimum
of actual gold transfers and with modest gold reserves [notably
so for Britain, the great investor]." (p. 9) Along with the gold
standard went the practice of making gold transfers promptly if
sufficient payment could not be made by swapping the
proceeds from the international trade of goods and services.
These gold transfers tended to reduce the paying nation's gold
reserves and to result in tighter money and higher interest
rates. If not taken care of promptly, that situation could be
Gold in the Past Century III
mildly painful but nowhere nearly as painful and humiliating as

it would be if ignored or delayed for months or years. But it
would leave a mistaken impression to imply that the gold
standards were quite automa.tic and that central bankers or
others did not sometimes manage or soften the impact of
sizable outflows of gold. For they did, and not always without
some deserved penalty. Even so, the system was more automa-
tic in its workings than earlier inconvertible systems had been,
and more than our modern ones have been. All is relative.
In the summer of 1914, World War I burst upon the world
and destroyed this financial naechanism. The war lasted over
four tragic years. From our viewpoint it was the change in
attitudes, the bad habits that emerged from those traumatic
years, that matter most, although these were not immediately
evident. No sooner had the war ended than the major powers
resolved to restore the still :much esteemed gold standard.
International monetary conferences at Brussels in 1920 and at
Genoa in 1922 called for restoring it as soon as possible. Even
its renowned later opponent, John Maynard Keynes, said in
1922, "If gold standards could be reintroduced throughout
Europe, we all agree this would promote, as nothing else can,
the revival not only of trade and production, but of internation-
al. credit and the movement of capital to where it is needed
most. "
The first major nation to return to a gold standard after
World War I was the United States, and it did so simply by
removing its embargo on gold exports on June 10, 1919.
Lithuania and Costa Rica returned to it in 1922, and before the
end of 1923, Austria and Colombia. Sweden, Guatemala, and a
chastened Germany (following her horrendous postwar infla-
tion) followed in 1924. If Great Britain's pound sterling was
going to regain its prestige once more and if London's financial
center was to prosper as before, by 1925 it was high time that
Britain return to gold. And ]if the old image was to be re-
captured, then the old 4.86 relationship to the rival dollar had,
if at all possible, to be reestablished too. With some effort and
mutterings of anxiety among her leaders, Britain did return to

a gold bullion standard, and at a 4.86 ratio of the dollar to the
pound on April 28, 1925. In 1926 France, too, stabilized her
franc. Another nine countries, including Italy and India,
followed in 1927. All in all, fifty "nations" returned to gold, the
last in July 1931.
Of these fifty countries twelve had a gold coin standard, six a
gold bullion standard (most quickly defined as a gold coin
standard with the only coin a bar worth, say, $8,000), and the
other thirty-two a gold exchange standard. Some of these types
were more than a little intermingled, i. e., Holland had coins
but also very important deposits in the Bank of England. The
gold exchange standard nations relied on the gold bullion
standards of Britain and France, or the gold coin standard of
the United States. In this country in the 1920s, some 3 percent
of the money "in circulation" was still gold coin. But on the
whole the nations of the world used gold coin in everyday
transactions far more sparingly than before 1914. Increasingly,
one heard that there was not enough gold in the world or being
produced to service all of these gold standards. Gustav Cassel,
Joseph Kitchin, and others voiced this view in widely read
books and articles.
Of course, if a nation doubles its money supply, as happened
here between 1913 and 1920 (and even after the 1920-1921
depression and adjustment, the price level was 60 percent
higher than in 1913) but leaves the price of gold unchanged, it
must expect its gold reserves to be relatively scarcer, the
mining of gold to be discouraged, and gold's uses for.
ornamentation to be encouraged at the lower price. To offset
this scarcity of gold in the 1910s and 1920s, nations were
making their banking systems more efficient and turning to
gold standards that economized on the use of gold-not using it
for coins, for exampIe.
Still another device, employed in particular in the United
States, from about 1922 on was open market operations. They
were presumed to be for stifling booms and bringing the
country out of a recession. But their use could also delay

balance-of-payments adjustments and thus make the gold
standard less effective than it had been before 1914. One may
well ask whether the long-run effects of this credit control
device may have been more harmful than helpful.
Time is far too short to do more than mention the 1929
collapse and the depression that ensued.
In the spring of 1931 Austria's overextended Kredit-Anstalt
collapsed, taking that truncated little nation off her gold
exchange standard. Panic spread to nearby Germany whose
banks had borrowed on short term but loaned on long, and in
July she too gave up her tie with gold. The currents of doubt
struck at England next. Many felt at the time, and later also,
that she defended herself rather ineffectively by not raising
her discount rate higher than just 4 1/2 percent. Governor
Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, the architect and
promoter of many of the world's gold exchange standards, had
to be away during the latter part of the crisis because of illness.
Before he returned, and much to his displeasure and con-
sternation, Britain, too, broke her tie with gold on September
19, 1931. That, of course, swept off the gold standard all those
gold exchange standard nations, as well as others who kept
substantial reserves in the Bank of England.
The year 1932 was the bottom of the depression. Since the
President-elect of the United States was known to be listening
to the advice of economists favoring policies that would halt the
fall in prices that had been going on since 1929, and might even
scrap the gold standard to stop that decline in prices, some
anxious individuals, by February 1933, were as worried about
the future value of the dollar as they were about the solvency of
their banks. Some Americans began hoarding gold. Continued
runs on banks culminated in the Bank Holiday at the time of
the new President's inauguration (March 4). With that holiday
came a temporary embargo on gold exports, then an order
forbidding citizens henceforth to buy or own gold coin and to
turn in their gold coins and gold certificates to the government.
Finally, on April 20, a more permanent embargo was an-

nounced, followed by a drop in dollar exchange. Beyond any
remaining doubt the United States had left the gold standard.
Congress gave the new President authority on May 12 to
devalue the dollar by as much as 50 percent, institute
bimetallism, issue $3 billion in greenbacks, or engage in open
market operations to the extent of $3 billion, or any portion or
combination of these he might deem desirable. In June the
government decreed that the gold clause prevalent in contracts
since Bronson v. Rodes (1868) would not be respected. In July
the United States announced to an International Economic
Conference about to be held in London that we would make no
agreements with other nations over the extent to which we
would devalue the dollar. In October the Treasury began
bidding up the price of gold. In January 1934 the United States
devalued the dollar by 41 percent, fixing the new "price" of
pure gold at $35 an ounce and thus the new dollar at 13.71
grains of pure gold.
Henceforth the United States agreed to redeem its liabilities
in gold only to foreign central banks or treasuries but not to
American citizens or, indeed, individuals of any nation. This
put the nation back on a weak form of gold standard, some-
times called a "qualified gold bullion standard." Under the
definition cited earlier, it would hardly pass at all as a gold
standard, but those who wanted to consider it as such
emphasized that the dollar was the buying power of 13.71
grains of free gold on a free market for gold and such a market
existed in London. For another two years there were better
gold standards in the so-called Gold Bloc nations of France,
Belgium, Switzerland, Holland; and Italy. One by one these
left gold-Italy in 1934, Belgium in 1935, and the rest in 1936;
France reduced her parity in three steps, 1936, 1937 and 1938,
until it wound up with its 1928 relationship to the dollar. By
now the American "qualified gold bullion standard," unworthy
as it was by older criteria, was the best in the world. As the
French sometimes say, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed
man is king."
The 1933 devaluation of the dollar was unique in the annals
of devaluation, and yet for the next generation many
Americans were wont to generalize from it. We devalued then,
we said, because prices had fallen too much. One may well ask
what sort of a financial patent :medicine a devaluation is that it
cures all our economic ills. M[ost devaluations are reluctant,
even forced, admissions by a nation that it has inflated its
currency too much, or at least has done so to a greater degree
than the nations around it. Devaluation is essentially a nation's
way of declaring bankruptcy and trying to start over. Our 1971
and 1973 devaluations are of this kind. But a devaluation
purposely to bring about a rise in prices and thereby cheat a
segment of society in the course of doing so has always seemed
to me to be particularly inexcusable.
Within a decade of the appearance of Gustav Cassel's and
Joseph Kitc4in's writings doubting that there was enough
monetary gold, Professors Frank D. Graham and Charles
Whittlesey of Princeton brought out The Golden Avalanche,
which became a best seller. The so-called mint price of gold,
the $35 an ounce figure of recent memory, was really not a
market price at all, but rather the number of dollars, of 13.71
grains each, that a troy ounce of gold (480 grains) would coin
into, i. e., almost exactly 35. So, when the United States cut the
size of the dollar from the previous 23.22 grains to the new
figure of 13.71 grains, it autornatically changed the mint price
from $20.67 to $35. This was a 69 percent rise in the price of
gold, with the Mint required to "buy" (take as if to coin) all the
gold anyone brought to it, without limit. The devaluation of
January 1934 raised the dollar value of American reserves from
$4 billion to $6.8 billion and stimulated the gold mining
business beyond imagination. The stock of The Homestake
Mining Company of California, the nation's largest gold mine,
. paid $2 extra monthly from July 1934 to May 1937 and in
addition paid a special extra of $20 a share on December 5,

1935. The Treasury's holdings of gold grew from $6.8 billion in
February 1934 to $22.7 billion in December 1941, at the time
of the outbreak of World War II. There were growing fears of a
gold inflation. Political unrest, too, was sending "hot money"
to the United States from all over the world at this time.
At this stage most individuals with gold preferred to turn it
into dollars, and that continued to be true for the next fifteen to
twenty-five years. American holdings of gold reached their
peak in September 1949 ($24.8 billion) and did not start flow-
ing out, at least virtually without interruption, until early in
1958. Since then individuals have increasingly shown their
preference for gold over dollars. It was a warning the United
States should have acted upon more vigorously than it did at
the time.
World War II, like World War I, produced some frightful
inflations. As it drew to an end, the nations of the world again
determined to set up a new world monetary system. Delegates
from forty-four nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hamp-
shire, in July 1944 and drew up a set of agreements providing
for an International Monetary Fund, a sort of central bank of
member central banks, into which they put deposits of gold,
dollars, or their own currencies and from which they might
borrow. The relationship of their monetary units to each other
was to remain fixed, although within limits and by agreement it
could be· altered. The nations in the 1M F elected to treat
dollars as gold since dollars were redeemable to their
treasuries and central banks on demand in gold. This made the
dollar the "reserve currency" of the world. It created what
economist Jacques Rueff calls another gold exchange standard
situation, on a gigantic scale, with the U. S. Treasury and
Federal Reserve playing much the same role that Montagu
Norman's Bank of England did in the 1920s.
Meanwhile, a new goal had gained priority in the minds of
the managers of our economy. The goal of stable prices had
become passe. By the terms of the Full Employment Act of
1946, the President was instructed to seek to maintain full

employment. It is not always easy to protect simultaneously
the best interests of the laboring man and the best interests of
businessmen. Anyway, it followed, in the minds of many
economists, that a little inflation stimulated business activity
and hence employment, whereas a raising of interest rates
would cause unemployment. In fact, even stable prices were
looked upon as really not satisfactory. So "a little inflation" was
regarded favorably. Professor Paul Samuelson, whose eco-
nomics principles textbook began to be a best seller in this era,
said in his first edition that an annual inflation rate of 5 percent
was quite acceptable and probably beneficial. The United
States had had just that during 1939-1952, and it cost the dollar
half its purchasing power in those thirteen years. In about 1960
a still newer priority came into vogue under President John
Kennedy; this was economic growth, and a little inflation was
said to stimulate that too. Inflation also made what growth
there was seem greater than it actually was.
Of course, not everyone then, as now, was happy with the
chronic deficits and the creeping inflation. There were peri-
odic demands for greater economy in government, and a com-
mission headed by ex-President Hoover reported on
streamlining the executive branch of the government. A con-
gressman from Nebraska, the late Howard Buffett, candidly
pointed out what the AmericBln people had lost in 1933-1934
when the country abandoned the gold coin standard and in-
stituted the qualified gold bullion standard in its stead, the
latter forbidding American citizens to receive gold for their
paper money. Congressman Buffett said that what chiefly
influences a congressman's stand on any issue is his estimate of
what most of his constituents want. That is where the election
votes are and he wants to be reelected. Let me quote him. " ...
an economy-minded Congressman under our printing system
is in the position of a fireman running into a burning building
with a hose that is not connected with the water plug. His
courage may be commendable, but he is not hooked up right at
the other end of the line . . . with the tax payers to give him
strength. When the people's right to restrain public spending
by demanding gold coin was taken from them, the automatic
flow of strength from the grass roots to enforce economy in
Washington was disconnected." (Commercial and Financial
Chronical, May 6, 1948).
As the United States over the ensuing two decades ran
deficits year after year, with only rare exceptions, and in-
creased its money supply in so doing, som,e of these surplus
dollars found their way to European central banks. (They were
presumably redeemable in gold, thus as good as gold.) In the
1940s they were very welcome and at times in the 1950s too,
although by then their amount was causing anxieties. As major
nations recovered from the ravages of war, they preferred to
keep more of their reserves in gold itself, and some countries
demanded gold for dollars. Despite our excess of merchandise
exports over imports, which of itself would have attracted gold
to the United States, this country had an adverse balance of
payments. Short-term liabilities to foreigners rose from $6.9
billion in December 1945 to $13.6 in December 1957 to $28.8
in 1964 to $41.7 in December 1970 to $60.7 billion at the end of
1972. Obviously, our creditors became concerned as they
watched us, year after year, live beyond our means, offer more
and more IOUs, and draw down our most liquid assets, gold.
American holdings of gold dropped from $22.9 billion in
December 1957 to $15.5 billion in December 1964 to $11.1 in
December 1970.
To reassure our creditors and make our own citizens aware of
the worsening situation, our government applied a series of
"band-aid" remedies, such as recalling families of servicemen
abroad, forbidding American citizens to own gold abroad,
taxing investments made overseas, lowering tourists' customs
free allowances, to name just a few. When in 1960 the price of
gold rose to over $40 on the free market for gold iIi London, we
arranged with other central banks to dump enough gold onto
that market to drive the price down to $35 again and remove
the danger sign from public sight. That was in one sense "the
first appearance of the "two-tier system" of gold prices-$35
officially and something else on the London gold market. Eight
years later, in March 1968, the hunger of gold buyers had
become so insatiable that central bankers no longer wanted to
dip into their reserves to hold down the price of gold. 'Total
central bank gold reserves in the free world had actually
shrunk because of this dipping, and did so despite free gold
production of $11 billion of gold in that time. So now this
coterie of central bankers, the United States a ringleader,
proudly announced their solution, namely, have a two-tier
system of pricing gold. They made a virtue, or at least a
solution, of what they had regarded as a menace eight years
before. Few experts thought this new-old solution would last
long.
During those eight years, Treasury officials and others came
forth with all kinds of promises and good resolves, but we
never got around to the fundarnental problem of balancing the
budget and thus staunching the constant outflow of dollars and
of restraining the buildup of short-term indebtedness. True,
we had to wage a costly war in Asia in the 1960s, but if that was
of top priority, then expenditures for other foreign aid, con-
tinuing farm price-support programs, and welfare programs
should have been curtailed until we were in a position to afford
them again. Instead we kept them all, created more dollars,
some of which went abroad, and further increased our short-
term liabilities. These traveling dollars enlarged the reserve
accounts of foreign nations and encouraged them to inflate
too-and they did. Since the A.merican dollar was the world's
reserve currency, an honor accorded the dollar and a special
privilege accruing to the United States, we should have be-
haved more responsibly in maintaining its integrity.
Everyone knows the rest of the story, where all this has
ended. With our trade situation worsening and short-term
liabilities mounting at an alarming rate in the spring and
summer of 1971, President Nixon finally announced on August
15 that we would no longer redeem our dollars in gold to

central banks and treasuries. At the Smithsonian Institution in
December we agreed to devalue the dollar by 7.9 percent.
Many persons believed that was not enough, and the second
lO-percent devaluation of February 12, 1973, plus the recent
extreme weakness of the dollar, would appear to support that
belief.
Some economists, and I am one of them, believe it is past
time to ·consider returning to the gold standard, and preferably
a gold coin standard to restore confidence in the American
dollar. Some of our foreign friends have been hinting that a
general devaluation of gold might be open for discussion.
The cry that there is not enough gold is becoming less and
less plausible and it never was true. Gold revalued at, say,
$87.50 an ounce would increase world monetary reserves two
and a half times, or to $100 billion, and it would greatly
stimulate gold mining, as it did in the 1930s. Moreover, the
higher price would kill some of the industrial users' interest in
gold-it already has the jewelers badly worried. If a gold
standard restored confidence and provided more price stabili-
ty, as one might hope it would, then hoarding gold would be
less attractive, for gold pays no interest and is chiefly a
defensive action against inflation. Much of the gold now
hoarded would come out of hiding. In short, I believe there
would no longer be a shortage of gold. Indeed, much of the
present shortage is basically a consequence of inflation.
As for trying to substitute something else in the place of
gold, which has repeatedly shown itself superior to eager
rivals, that would involve a "selling" job to the world that
would cost billions of dollars and make even Madison Avenue
promoters shrink before the enormity of the undertaking.
Why throwaway a tradition, the world's respect for gold, that it
has taken millennia to build up and is ours for the asking to use.
Any attempt to replace itwould be like deciding that we don't
like our Great Lakes, one of God's great gifts to the United
States, and trying to remove them in order to put another

water system of our own devising in their place.
A return to a gold standard rnight solve other problems too.
Annual enactments of debt ceilings by Congress have become
a farce, presidential impound.ments of congressional appro-
priations are an annoyance, and congressional denials of
responsibility for deficits are irnpossible to believe. So how do
we discipline ourselves? Maybe we should restore the gold
coin standard and put some of the control over our money back
in the hands of the people, as suggested by Congressman
Howard Buffett twenty-five years ago. Since Congress took
that power away from the people in 1934, per capita federal
expenditures "have risen from about $115 to close to $2,500,
and even in terms of dollars of a constant purchasing power
there has been a ten-fold increase. This is a further reason for
reconsidering the gold standard. It played a more important
role in our economy, and our political system too, than many
people realized.
7
Greenback Dollars And
Federal Sovereignty
1861-1865
GARY NORTH
Economist, Chalcedon,
Canoga Park, California
It was not that we declared paper a legal tender, but

that we adopted a rule of action under the operation of
which public credit was but an empty sound. It was not
that the Treasury happened to be in a strait for money, but
that it pretended to pay when it did not. The fact that the
measure was accepted by the country as a just and proper
one made the matter worse, because the sanction of
public opinion was thus given to a ruinous principle, and
the principle was, for this reason, more likely to become a
standard policy.
Simon Newcomb (1865)
122
Greenback Dollars and Federal Sovereignty 123
Inescapably, the most fundamental of all political questions

is the question of sovereignty. Who has the authority to make
the final decision in any particular situation (not simply brute
power, but legitimacy-authorityl)? Which institution is the
final court of appeal in the case of a dispute between men or
institutions? In short, whose rule is legitimate in any given
sphere of human existence?
There are many possible marks of sovereignty. It may be
seen in a seal or a stamp; it may be designated by an in-
strument, such as the Roman magistrate's fasces or the scepter
held by a bishop. Special clothing may characterize authority,
such as black robes worn by judges, university graduates, or
priests (all marks of sovereignty in the Middle Ages). But in the
realm of economics the primary sign of sovereignty is the right
to coin or print money. The political state for millennia has
claimed exclusive monopoly rights in this area, to be shared
with other agencies only by the state's explicit permission.
The implications of this right of coinage were understood far
better in the ancient world, and· especially the classical
civilization of the Roman Empire, than today. Ethelbert
Stauffer, theologian, numismatist, historian, has written that
one of the earliest longings of mankind His the longing for God
to appear on earth. "2 The theological term for such a divine
manifestation on earth is theophany. This longing for a
theophany was a dominant theme of the politics of the ancient
world, from Egypt and Babyllon to Greece and Rome. "The
official expression of this political philosophy," Stauffer writes,
His the classical coin. On the obverse of the coin we see the
portrait of the ruler, decorated with the marks and emblems of
deity, and framed in titles of divine dignity. For the ruler is the
god who has become man. l'he reverse of the coin usually
depicts the most symbolically potent event in the life of the
ruler, his advent."3 Significantly, the first to have the word
adventus inscribed on the coins was Nero. 4 The coins had
become political weapons, used first by Cleopatra and Au-
gustus, since they were primary means of communication:
124 GARY NORTH
they were the newspaper, radio, and television of their day. 5

To some extent, the modern world is returning to the theolo-
gy and political philosophy of the ancient kingdoms. Men of
today long for political salvation. The American sociologist
Robert Nisbet has commented on this phenomenon: ceTo go to
the root of a thing today is to go to its politics. Every-
thing-business, science, race, the arts, even states of mind
like hope and despair-must be placed in the category of
politics. The word itself is talismanic.... What is business but
the politics of production; education but the politics of teach-
ing and research; religion but the politics of grace? Politics, in
short, is not today what it was for the American intellectual for
so many decades: a separate realm of values, a highly
specialized and limited activity. It is a total process, unique
perspective, even redemptive vision."6 As the state becomes
the primary agency of salvation-the absolute sovereign-as it
was in the pagan ancient world, it arrogates unto itself the
claim of total authority. But since this authority is illegitimate,
the quest of the new statist theologians is now for total power. 7
Hayek's warning should be borne in mind: under such con-
ditions, the worst members of society tend to get on top. Ii
Since the latter days of the American Civil War, it has been
illegal for U. S. coins or paper money to bear the picture of any
living American. 9 It is interesting that the 50 cent piece bearing
the portrait of the late President John F. Kennedy (rushed into
production in 1964, several years before the legal expiration
date of the Franklin half dollars) has become a collectors'
favorite. 'There is no numismatic reason for its great popularity;
well over a billion of the coins had been minted by 1969.
Professional numismatists shy away from investing in Kennedy
halves. 10 Yet, the public throughout the world has made almost
a fetish out of the coin. Even in 1971, when the paper dollar bill
was not regarded by Europeans as a particularly impressive tip
from an American tourist, the American could still delight a
European with a copper-clad Kennedy half. The personal
charisma of an otherwise mediocre President was transferred
Greenback Dollars and Fede1'"al Sovereignty 125
to the coins bearing his image. The modern world is not so far
removed from ancient paganism.
The framers of the Constitution had gained considerable
experience with the economic effects of an unlimited gov-
ernmental sovereignty over the monetary unit. The paper
money inflations of the colonial era, followed by the disastrous
Revolutionary wartime inflation, and finally another threat of
inflation by Daniel Shays' rebellious supporters in Massa-
chusetts (1786-1787), served as sufficient warnings for the men
in Philadelphia. Gerald Dunn{~ has written that "the Founding
Fathers regarded political control of monetary institutions
with an abhorrence born of bitter experience, and they seri-
ously considered writing a sharp limitation on such gov-
ernmental activity into the Constitution itself. Yet they did
not, and by 'speaking in silences' gave the government they
founded the near-absolute authority over currency and
coinage that has always been considered the necessary conse-
quence of national sovereignty."l1 The results of their failure to
include specific prohibitions against federal fiat money (as the
Constitution does contain with regard to state governments)
were not to become manifest until the great upheaval of 1861-
1865. There had been prelinlinary warnings, however: the
Panics of 1819, 1837, and 185'7, all created by prior monetary
inflations.
THE JACKSONIAN ERA
Andrew Jackson had been a "hard money" man from the

very beginning of his political career. He had owned fairly
extensive landholdings in Tennessee in the late 1790s, which
he lost in the Panic of 1797. lie had gone bankrupt in 1804.
Never again was he to be anything resembling a high-flying
speculator. During the Panic of 1819-this nation's first truly
modern depression-he had reaffirmed his resolute opposi-
tion to fractional reserve banking at any level, state or national.
He was convinced, as he wrote in a letter to William B. Lewis,
126 GARY NORTH
that banking involving note issue of any kind was unconstitu-

tional. 12 Jackson was never to waver from this belief. He was to
repeat himself on this point to Thomas Hart Benton during the
years of the struggle against the Second Bank of the United
States. 13 As Rothbard notes, many of the anti-bank, hard
money leaders in Jackson's Democratic party, including
Benton and James K. Polk, first came to this outlook during the
Panic of 1819. 14
It was well understood by most political leaders at the na-
tional level in the 1830s and 1840s that only gold and silver
coins could serve as legal tender payments for all debts. Daniel
Webster, a strong supporter of the Bank of the United States, a
believer in,"conservative" fractional reserve banking so long as
it maintained full redeemability in coin, and an opponent of
Jackson, was forced to admit that "if we understand by curren-
cy the legal money of the country, and that which constitutes a
lawful tender for debts, and is the statute measure of value,
then, undoubtedly, nothing is included but gold and silver.
Most unquestionably there is no legal tender, and there can be
no legal tender, in this country, under the authority of this
government or any other, but gold and silver, either the
coinage of our own mints, or foreign coins, at rates regulated
by Congress. This is a constitutional principle, perfectly plain,
and of the very highest importance. "15 Indeed, it was of crucial
importance, and the abandonment of this fundamental con-
stitutional principle was to lead to the great monetary dis-
ruptions, North and South, after 1861.
American political parties, then as now, were not rigidly
doctrinal and could encompass men of fairly wide persuasions
on any given issue, but the Jacksonians were generally suspi-
cious of banking, if not utterly hostile. William Gouge, one of
the intellectual leaders in the Jacksonian camp, wrote a book
which was to become a kind of touchstone, A Short History of
Paper Money and Banking in the United States (1833). Gouge
saw the close interdependence between the monopoly
privileges of currency creation held by the banks and the need
of governments for cheap loans. He was convinced that banks

were not so much a conspiracy foisted upon unsuspecting
legislators as the express creations of the legislatures. His
opposition to fractional reserve banking was based entirely on
principle; personalities were (~ompletely irrelevant.
As hanks are the creatures of Government, all the evils

they produce must be ascribed to the Government. It is to
afford opportunities for speculation to themselves, their
personal friends and their political partisans, that our
law-givers establish Banks. It was through the attempt to
carryon the war [of 1812] by means of Bank notes and
Bank credits, that the suspension of specie payments was
produced. It was through the connivance of the Gov-
ernment, that the suspension of specie payments was so
long continued. It was through the issue of treasury notes,
that the amount of Bank notes in circulation was im-
mediately increased. . . . It is of very little moment
whether it is Mr. WIGGINS or Mr. SPRIGGINS that is
president of a Bank, or whether the JONES' or the
GILES' are directors. The fault is in the system. Give the
management of it to the 'wisest and best men in the
country, and still it will produce evil. 16
In his war against the Second Bank of the United States,

Jackson decided to transfer the government's funds to the state
banks, thus removing a substantial portion of the Bank's
reserves. This decision later drew the criticism of hard money
proponents like Benton. "Oldl Bullion" himself announced in
1837: "I did not join in putting down the Bank of the United
States to put up a wilderness of local banks. I did not join in
putting down the currency of a national bank, to put up a
national paper currency of a thousand local banks. "17 From
Jackson's day until quite recently, the President's decision to
transfer the government's funds to state banks has been
regarded as ultimately infla1tionary. The implication is, of
128 GARY NORTH
course, that the Bank, as the nation's central bank, was more
conservative, more responsible than unregulated (or less reg-
ulated) state banks. Only recently has this thesis been
challenged. Hugh Rockoff has estimated that the transfer may
have increased the money supply by less than 2 percent. 18 State
banks were far more inflationary as depositories than the In-
dependent Treasury system, introduced in 1840, abandoned in
1841, and reintroduced in 1846. That system was not involved
in fractional reserves. But state banks may have been no worse
than the Second Bank. Thus, the estimate of Roger
Taney-Secretary of the Treasury in 1833 and later Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court-was probably correct. His
justification for the use of state banks in preference to a central
bank for the government's deposits was based on the question
of limited versus total sovereignty: "For no one of these
corporations will possess that absolute, and almost unlimited
dominion over the property of the citizens of the United
States, which the present bank holds, and which enables it at
any moment, at its own pleasure, to bring distress upon any
portion of the community, whenever it may deem it useful to
its interest to make its power felt. The influence of each of the
state banks is necessarily limited to its own immediate
neighborhood, and they will be kept in check by the other local
banks. "19 If the people must tolerate the sovereignty of banks
in currency matters, let that sovereignty be limited and local.
The Jacksonian persuasion was decentralist to the core.
There was another factor in the Jacksonians' hostility to
banking. Bray Hammond, the leading historian of banking
during the Jacksonian period (and an uncompromising admirer
of central banking), has called attention to this factor. What
most offended them about banking was the character of the
banks as limited liability corporations. Unincorporated
partnerships in which the partners bore the full personal
responsibility for the failure of the bank were not regarded
with the same intense hatred. 20 Grant a bank a corporate char-
ter, however, and a "vast monopoly," to use Taney's words, is
created. 21 As Benton said on the floor of the Senate, "This

exclusive privilege is contrary to the genius of our Gov-
ernment, which is a governrrlent of equal rights and not of
exclusive privileges.... "22 In his massive book, Thirty Years'
View (1854), Benton listed as one of several basic flaws in
fractional reserve banking the fact of "the exemption of the
stockholders from individual responsibility in the failure of the
bank." He argued that "'This privilege derogates from the
common law, is contrary to the principle of partnerships, and
injurious to the rights of the community. "23 Here is the essence
of the Jacksonian persuasion: anti-monopoly, anti-special
privilege, and very much pro-personal responsibility.
There is no question concerning the basic thrust of
Jacksonian economic theory and policy: at the national level,
Adam Smith had triumphed. No other period in American
history could more reasonably be described as laissez-faire. 24
Modern historians are for the most part repelled by this fact;
they try to find signs here and there that the government really
was quite active in economic affairs. At the state government
level, this was true: railroads, canals, schools, and other basic
institutions were financed in part by tax revenues. But at the
federal level, the evidence is clear. A few post roads, a bit of
surveying here and there, federal deposits in state banks
(which the Independent Treasury system was drawn up to
limit): such was the extent of the "positive intervention" of the
federal government. 25 Reading contemporary historians as
they seek to evaluate the economic thought of the Jackson era,
one can sense the feelings of horror in the hearts of our
modern, "neutral" scholars. Bray Hammond writes: "Jackson
sought first to keep the federal government 'pure' and modest-
ly within its constitutionallimits--its virtue to be not that it did
great things but that it left its people free to do them. He
succeeded too well."26 But Glyndon Van Deusen's comments
are the most forthright; in his obiter dicta we see the operating
presuppositions of the vast bulk of modern historical scholar-
ship: "It [Jacksonianism] was also, in the opinion of this writer,
130 GARY NORTH
a movement so heavily imbued with archaic notions about

corporations, currency, banking and do-nothing national gov-
ernment, that it would sooner or later have gone down to
political defeat, even without the aid of the great depression
[of 1837] which,it helped to bring on. "27 Jeffersonian
agrarianism-the philosophy of limited government and the
strict construction of the Constitution-"lay like a heavy hand
upon their [Jacksonian Democrats'] shoulders. "28 And finally,
so that his readers might not miss his "subtle" earlier remarks,
he writes: "At the same time, their narrow view of the function
of the national government repeatedly kept them from using
the government for constructive ends.... Their hard money
ideas were negative and inadequate for dealing with the prob-
lem at hand-how to establish a currency and credit that would
be both sound and ample. "29 A currency both sound and ample;
with enough of it, but not too much of it; money to grow on but
not enough to choke on; eating our cake but having it, too: here
is the rhetoric of the modern inflationist, always searching for
the impossible, and then, when the balance proves impossible
in practice, siding with those favoring monetary expansion.
Always willing to inflate the currency to stimulate growth, then
hesitating when the artificially stimulated boom turns into a
bust when the monetary expansion slows or stops, and then
returning to more expansion to bring back the boom: here is
the macroeconomics of contemporary scholarship. It is not
surprising that modern scholars are appalled by the Age of
Jackson, an era in which a President of the United States could
announce: "We have no emergencies that make banks
necessary to aid the wants of the treasury; we have no load of
national debt to provide for, and we have on actual deposit a
large surplus. "30
The American Civil War was to destroy the appeal of the
Jacksonian philosophy, even as the depression of the 1930s
destroyed the "conservative" interventionism of the post-Civil
War period. Professor Sidney Fine echoes the opinion of most
of his academic colleagues when he writes: "Thus in 1865,
G, reenback Dollars and Federal Sovereignty 131
though Americans saw a new industrial society emerging, they

were without an adequate philosophy of state action to cope
with the problems of society. What was needed," we are
informed by Professor Fine, "was a new philosophy of the
state, a new liberalism embodying something of the spirit of
. ]effersonianism but ready to use government as an agency to
promote the general welfare. Industrial America made
necessary the evolution of the general-welfare state. "31
There had been state economic intervention prior to the
Civil War (although little federal intervention). As Professor
Goodrich has concluded, such activity for "internal improve-
ments" was in large measure a frontier phenomenon, "a great
instance of frontier collectivism." As the communities grew,
private business tended to replace the formerly statist
activities. 32 Furthermore, as Fine himself notes, the range of
economic activities in which the federal government was in-
volved shrank noticeably just prior to the Civil War. 33 State
bonds and securities, so popular with London and other
foreign investors in the 1820s and 1830s, lost that popularity
abroad in the 1840s as a result: of outright forfeiture by several
state legislatures. 34 There was widespread resentment by
voters against taxation and a willingness to abandon investors
to their fate, especially foreign investors. Thus, it should not
be surprising to learn that states were compelled to reduce the
extent of their financial aid for projects of economic de-
velopment.
The question then that remains is one concerning the impact
of the Civil War on America.n attitudes toward government
enterprise. The democratic strain in Jacksonian thought, so
favored by contemporary historians, was to further "a new
philosophy of the state" after 1865. Yet it was not the war itself
which created industrialism, that industrialism which Fine and
most other recent scholars believe made necessary an expan-
sion of federal economic intervention. The war may not have
retarded industrialization, as ~rhomas Cochran has argued, but
few scholars are willing to a.ssert that it intensified the in-
132 GARY NORTH
dustrialization process already well developed in the 1850s. 35

What brought the new philosophy of state action into being
was an acceptance of the legitimacy of federal centralization in
all spheres of economic and political life. It was therefore a
shift in opinion concerning the legitimate use of federal power,
or, in Nisbet's framework, the shift from federal power to
federal authority. When the phrase (pre-1860) "the United
States are" became cCthe United States is" (post-1865), some-
thing more than a mere alteration of grammar was involved.
What was involved was a revolution in the concept of federal
sovereignty, that most crucial of political questions.
THE CIVIL WAR
HThe problems of Reconstruction finance were sewn in the

thirteen feverish months following Lincoln's election," writes
Irwin Unger. HTheacute political crisis, the unprecedented
drain on the country's human and economic resources, the
releasing of restraints as the political and military shock jarred
men loose from customary practices-all combined to raise up
a host of new financial problems that would trouble America
for a generation. "36 The most important of these Reconstruc-
tion economic issues was the money question. Professor
Nugent says that "No one realized it in 1865, but money was
destined to become the chief perennial issue in national
politics for over thirty years, reaching a culmination in the
election of 1896 with William Jennings Bryan's campaign for
free silver. "37 The year 1862 saw the coming of the greenbacks,
and both in symbol and its implications for federal power,
there is hardly a more important event in American economic
history.
Any statistical estimate of the actual costs of the Civil War is
bound to be faulty. Too· many human costs are simply not
subject to statistical calculation. How much is lost, for exam-
ple, by the death of some potential inventor or financier or
clergyman (or potential father of the same) on some long-
forgotten battlefield? What might have been accomplished for

human betterment with capital otherwise expended in four
years of carnage? We can barely guess, constructing some
hypothetical "as if" historical framework as a model. Another
more concrete limitation on assessing the costs of the war is the
woefully incomplete status 01r economic statistics prior to the
1870s. The records we do have are very often confused, mis-
leading, or unusable for the purposes at hand. Monetary
statistics prior to 1867 are incomplete. In fact, the statistics
concerning banking are better for the years prior to 1863 than
after, ironically because the Jrramers of the National Banking
Act of 1863 were so overconfident about the new plan's
potential for integrating all of the nation's banks that organized
federal collecting of state bank statistics ceased. 38
We do know a few facts, however. In 1860, the national debt
was in the range of $65 million. By 1865 the figure had
skyrocketed to a staggering $~~.8 billion. 39 In 1860, the federal
government had annual expenditures of about $63 million. In
1865 the expenditures totaled almost $1.3 billion for the year. 40
Financing such unprecedented costs involved the Union in a
fiscal revolution.
Four-fifths of the expenditures of the federal government
during the war were paid for through borrowing and the crea-
tion of fiat paper money. 41 Much of the borrowed money itself
was the creation of the banking system. The money and bank-
ing statistics, however flawed, do testify to/a vast expansion of
money during the Civil War in the North. (Oddly enough, the
South's well-known experience with paper money and the
resulting price inflation-"Save your Confederate money,
boys, the south shall rise again"--has received only a fraction
of the scholarly attention focused on the North's experience. 42
The incredible array of money and quasi-moneys also testifies
to the difficulty of assessing either the monetary policies of the
era or the extent of the monetary inflation.
First, there was specie: silver coins (which had been driven
out of circulation before 1861 by Gresham's Law, since the
134 GARY NORTH
legal exchange rate, fixed by federal law, between gold and

silver had artificially overvalued the silver, as California and
Australian gold discoveries had made gold more plentiful),
gold coins, and subsidiary token coins. By early 1862, the gold
coins were no longer in circulation. Gold was used to purchase
foreign exchange and to pay tariffs on imported goods (and to
pay the interest on government bonds), but it commanded a
varying premium over paper money throughout the war. Sec-
ond, bank notes of the state banks. Third, bank deposits,
although contemporaries generally did not understand that
these constituted money as such. Fourth, after 1861, non-
interest bearing legal tender notes (old demand notes and the
U. S. notes, i. e., greenbacks). Fifth, after 1861, certificates of
indebtedness. Sixth, after 1862, postage currency. Seventh,
after 1863, fractional currency C"shinplasters," of paper money
with a face value of less than $1). Eighth, after 1863, various
interest-bearing, legal tender notes. Finally, the coin, bullion,
and paper money in the Treasury. 43 This has led the major
historian of the greenbacks, Wesley Clair Mitchell, to com-
ment: "It is altogether impossible to determine whether there
was a close correspondence between the course of prices and
the volume of the currency, as was affirmed by some writers
and denied by others, because, as it has been shown at length,
the quantity of money in use cannot be ascertained. "44
U sing the extended definition of the money supply supplied
by Mitchell (but the more recent figures supplied by Historical
Statistics of the United States in those cases where Mitchell's
figures have been updated), we find that in 1865 there was
about $1.7 billion in various currencies or near-currencies (not
counting gold coin), and $689 million in bank deposits, for a
total of $2.4 billion. In 1860, specie totaled $207 million, bank
deposits were also at the $207 million level, and deposits were
about $310 million, for a total of about $750 million. In addi-
tion, according to William Donlon, a specialist in paper money
numismatics, Civil War counterfeiting was "unusually
prevalent," and it accounted for one-third of the currency in

circulation. 45 This,of course, is only a rough estimate, but it is
interesting that the subject of counterfeiting and its impact on
the aggregate money supply is virtually unexplored in the
professional economists' studies of the Civil War. If he is
correct, the total money supply may have reached $3 billion, or
about the same level as the national debt stood in 1865.
This total is probably too high. The tables in Historical
Statistics do not include the various debt certificates as money,
but merely list "other U. S. currency." These figures produce a
total of $1.6 billion, considerably less than Mitchell's total, but
still over twice the money supply of 1860, even if we ignore the
counterfeiting factor. Thus, between two and four times as
much money was in circulation in 1865 as had been present in
1860.
Milton Friedman does not attempt to estimate the money
supply in 1865, but he writes that the money supply in 1867
was probably lower than it had been at the end of the war. He
estimates that the 1867 figure was $1.59 billion. 46 The price
level had declined, Friedman asserts, by 25 percent in the
intervening two years. 47 Thus, it would seem safe to estimate
that the total money supply, including counterfeit currency,
was in the $2 billion range, and possibly higher. In an earlier
study, Friedman presented conclusions concerning his
estimates of such matters as the velocity of money and
aggregate price changes in the Civil War, World War I, and
World War 11. 48 For what such exercises are worth-and if
taken too seriously, they are probably more trouble than they
are worth 49-he estimates that the aggregate price level in-
creased between the outbreak of hostilities and the high price
point of the war Ganuary 1865) by a factor of 2.3. 50 This figure
compares with Mitchell's estimate of a doubling in price of
two-thirds of all commodities in the same period. 51 Wages,
Mitchell argues, did not keep pace with prices.
Aggregate figures of prices and wages conceal a great deal.
136 GARY NORTH
Which groups benefited and which ones paid more than their
share of the war's costs? On this point, obviously a crucial one,
historians cannot seem to agree.
Farmers: These were the most numerous segment of the
population throughout the nineteenth century. Mitchell con-
cludes that farmers as a group were net losers during the war,
CCamong the most unfortunate" of all producers. 52 But Emerson
Fite explicitly rejects Mitchell's conclusion in the case of west-
ern farmers; they prospered, paid off mortgages and other
debts, saw their incomes grow, and the West received eager
immigrants from eastern farming areas. This would indicate a
fall in productivity of eastern farms, however. Depopulation of
eastern rural areas was widespread. 53 The effects of price infla-
tion and war expenditures did not hit all farmers equally.
Wage-earners: Mitchell states unequivocally that "in no case
did the wage-earners escape a considerable loss of real income.
. . . While the fluctuations of real wages are seen to have been
by no means uniform in all cases, there is no industry in which
the advance in money wages kept pace with the advance in
prices."54 Most workers-98 percent of them-earned less
than $2.50 per day in 1860, and they did not all work through-
out the year, given seasonal employment and trade cycle dis-
ruptions. 55 Most men earned from $1 to $1.50 per day. Money
wages for the highest paid workers in 1860 appreciated least
rapidly-by one-fourth to one-third-while lower paid work-
ers received increases of two-thirds to three-fourths. 56 Real
wages fell, given the doubling of prices. 57 In a later study,
Mitchell admits the weakness of the available data; never-
theless, he remains convinced that wage-earners were worse
off in 1865 than in 1860. 58 Currency depreciation, he estimates,
amounted to cca confiscation of perhaps a fifth or sixth of real
incomes."59 (The costs were borne willingly, for the most part,
except in 1864, when the gold premium was at its highest. 60)
Thus, concludes Mitchell, C'the chief cause of the extraordinary
advance in American prices between 1862 and 1865 was the
substitution of irredeemable paper for specie as the money in

which prices were quoted. "61
Michell's claim that greenbacks and other fiat currency
caused the fall in real wages has been challenged by Alchian
and Kessel. They· have argued, rather, that the wages of
laborers fell because of factors other than monetary deprecia-
tion. They concentrate on three of these factors: the boom
conditions in 1860, distorting Mitchell's base-year figures
(least important); the rise in the rate of foreign exchange
relative to domestic price increases (due to unfavorable terms
of trade when the South's cotton exports disappeared); and the
tax system used to finance the war. They go so far as to argue
that monetary inflation may have kept wages higher than they
would have been if the North had raised tax revenues by means
of additional tariff and excise tax increases. 62 Mitchell, while
admitting that war tariffs and internal taxes ccalso are
responsible for some portion of the advance in prices,"63 still
insists that ccthe suspension of specie payments and the legal-
tender acts must be held responsible for all of the far-reaching
economic disturbances following from the price upheaval."64
Alchian and Kessel have made this dogmatic statement un-
tenable.
But why should monetary inflation be seen as a potentially
defensible form of taxation? The central difficulty with the "tax
on cash balances" involved in all monetary expansion is its
unpredictability. Noone is quite sure exactly who will bear the
brunt of the tax burden. ~~o one is even very clear in
retrospect, as the conflicting interpretations of economic
historians should indicate. It leads to a misallocation of scarce
economic resources because of the illusion fostered by higher
money wages and higher paper profits. It creates a boom-bust
cycle through its interferenee in the rate of interest. 65 It
penalizes the less informed, less mobile members of the com-
munity, since professional speculators (including those
economists who understand economics-more numerous,
138 GARY NORTH
proportionately, in the 1850s than today) are better able to

hedge against and even profit from changes in relative prices.
Monetary inflation makes it far more difficult for citizens to
assess the true burdens of government expenditures.
Furthermore, it makes it far easier for government officials to
blame the "evil speculators" for the economic difficulties. This
last criticism is no idle charge; in the North and the South, such
arguments were freely indulged in. 66
There is an ironic note to the search for those who bore the
heaviest tax burden as a result of currency depreciation. Clerks
employed in the federal government's service were clearly
heavy losers. 67 Senator Sherman, in his speech in favor of the
National Banking Act in 1863, alluded to this fact in his
criticism of U. S. notes (for which he had voted regularly). 68
Draftees into the army were also hard-pressed, although
volunteers did fare better because of the high bounties paid to
volunteers. 69
Holders of government paper money and bonds saw their
assets decline in value. 70 Obviously, as in all inflations, those on
fixed incomes suffered. In fact, thefaithful bore the brunt of
the costs. Simon Newcomb, in a superb little book published in
1865 prior to the end of the war, explained it as well as anyone
ever has: "A system of paper money may be described, in
general, as a convenient device for throwing the entire burden
of an extraordinary expense upon that class of the community
who have the most faith in paper money."71 He went on to cite
the inflation of the American Revolution. The Tories im-
mediately spent the paper, leaving the patriots to watch it
depreciate. Those who believe neither in the cause nor the
means employed to achieve victory escape the burdens. This is
inevitably the case in any war financed through monetary
inflation, which means all of them. The cynics come out the
economic victors.
Beyond the question of relative tax burdens, relative prices,
gold premium, and foreign exchange is the overriding question
of political sovereignty. The Civil War left a legacy of confu-
sion in the monetary and fiscal spheres, including the boom-

bust cycles of the next generation. But when we reflect on the
fact that the national debt of $2.5 billion was reduced to $1.5
billion by 1885, and in 1916 it was down to $1.25 billion (which
World War I was to escalate permanently), we begin to un-
derstand that the dollars and cents problem was less
fundamental than the revolution in the concept of federal
sovereignty. Bray Hammond has grasped this fact better than
any other recent historian (he rejoices in the fact of that
revolution), and his book, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, is
well named. The debates that took place in Congress in 1861
and 1862 concerning war finance and the legal tender question
reveal that the participants understood quite well what they
were arguing. Would the Jacksonian-Jeffersonian tradition of
strict construction, limited government, and fiscal frugality be
abandoned? The New York Times, following the lead of most
other newspapers in the North, swung over to the fiat money
side in early 1862. It editorialized (January 6, 1862): all persons
uwho regard the government as anything more than a con-
federation of states to be broken or weakened at will by seces-
sion or rebellion-all who believe the federal authority a
power for the general good of the whole people as well as the
symbol of sovereignty and allegiance-will welcome this
resumption of one of its most important rights and duties. "72
What was being uresumed" wa.s the inflationist tradition of the
Revolutionary War; what was not being resumed was the
payment of gold for paper rnoney. (Banks had suspended
payment in late December 1861, the week before the editorial
appeared.)
George Pendleton, a congressman from Ohio, stood before
his colleagues on January 29, 1862, and delivered perhaps the
most cogent speech against legal tender fiat currency in U. s.
history. (Yet even he was to be swept into the greenback camp
before the war had ended, so strong was the inflationary
opinion of his day.) Legal tender, he said, is a violation of
contract, a departure from the philosophy of the Founding
140 GARY NORTH
Fathers, unconstitutional, and an illegitimate extension of the

federal.power.
In all its external relations, standing among the nations of

the earth, the Government of the United States is
sovereign, and is invested with all the attributes of
sovereignty; but in its relations to its own citizens, in its
relations to the States, in its relations to its own con-
stituents, it has no power except that which is granted. It
has no original power; its powers are all delegated, and
delegated by the terms of the Constitution itself. I
repudiate the idea that all the sovereign power which
rightfully resides in the nation must necessarily find
expression in any department of the Government,
whether it be national or State. 73
It was a strong speech, and it went unheeded, even by

Pendleton in later years.
As is the case in most crucial political questions, the appeal
to practical considerations-pragmatism-won out. Clement
Vallandigham, the continual Democratic thorn in Republican
sides, appealed to the Constitution, but devoted most of his
efforts to .showing why the taxation of fiat money was not
necessary. The nation was wealthy, and the govenment had the
power to lay taxes. He well understood that his colleagues, like
most politicians, desperately desired to hide the true costs of
their schemes from their constituents. Unwilling to use direct
taxes, they were "willing and eager to use force upon the
people instead of taxes, the unconstitutional, despotic, and
most disastrous coercion of a paper currency to be received in
satisfaction of every debt.... If you are afraid of the people, be
afraid to do wrong, not to do right. "74 But he was outvoted.
John Crisfield of Maryland argued that there was not enough
time to tax, and "we are left with no option. The supply of
precious metals is inadequate for our wants. "75 Here is the
age-old argument for monetary inflation, as popular with
Keynesians, Technocrats, Social Crediters, and Chicago

School economists (when they are not doffing a theoretical cap
to 100-percent reserve banking and slowly falling prices, just
before they return to their call for 3-percent to 5-percent
continuous monetary expansion) in the twentieth century as it
was then. There is just not enough money to go around, given
the level of present prices and the present distribution of
resources. 76 Apparently, what governments need during wars
is lots of green paper slips; resources will take care of
themselves. 77 As Newcomb put it, "if we need twice as much
cloth for uniforms, all we need is to reduce the official defini-
tionof one yard and we will have twice as many yards of cloth.
Admittedly, our soldiers would be twice as tall, and therefore
still short of uniforms, but think of the fear such giants will
induce in the enemy!"78
But would the currency not depreciate? No, answered
Crisfield, and endless other defenders of the greenbacks, since
they will be convertible into f)-percent bonds. But the bonds
will not sell at par. Not so:; they will be easily sold for
greenbacks, since the greenbacks will be plentiful. 79 Again,
citing Newcomb, we can keep two ships from drifting in a
storm by lashing them to each other. 80 Yet both in the North
and the South, legislators argued some variation on this line of
reasoning. 81 So the value of the currency fell, and the bonds fell
as well, unless, as in the North, certain issues bore interest
payments in gold. Of course, if the gold was worth twice as
much as a comparable face amount of currency, then the actual
rate of interest paid was double this official 6 percent. But
somehow the credit of the governlment would be saved, for the
bonds would stay at par. New,comb said it best: "Government
credit is a fact, not a mathenlatical theorem. It is not to be
measured by calculating our resources, praising our honesty,
and demonstrating our ability to pay, but by observing what
our bonds sell for in the public market. "82 Few legislators,
North or South, wanted that kilnd of a test. It was easier to give
speeches.
142 GARY NORTH
What of constitutional restraints? We have only one Con-

stitution, announced Thaddeus Stevens: self-preservation. 83
He feared the effects of legal tender, but he promised that only
$150 million would be necessary. 84 Yet he voted for $300
million more within the next thirteen months.
Senator Timothy Howe used an approach which had been
used effectively by men like Daniel Webster in their earlier
battles against Jacksonian economic stringency. He argued
that all of the practices which the hard money men were
denouncing as unconstitutional and ultimately disastrous were
already fully accepted features of the American economy. U. S.
notes will be irredeemable. Why should that make any
difference? All paper money is ultimately irredeemable,
whether issued by private banks or governments. There is
never enough specie available to meet the calls for redemption
if everyone should want his specie at one point in time. Howe
delivered an extremely telling speech against fractional
reserves and the fraud involved in promising men that their
paper claims on gold or silver are to be honored, but only if
they are not actually brought in for redemption. 80'S Yet, instead
of concluding that anything less than 100 percent specie
reserves would not be permitted, he only asked why the banks
rather than the federal government should have this right of
creating fiat money. He also refused to consider the possibility
that the threat of specie withdrawals does act as a restraining
factor on bank note issues, whereas with a pure fiat standard
such a direct restraint does not exist. Since the government
could never redeem all the notes at once anyway, it should not
promise to pay any specie at all. He then offered the classic
argument of all greenbackers, well over a century old in this
country, and growing in popularity even today within
supposedly "conservative" circles: "Make the notes like the
coin, a sufficient tender for all debts due to both the Gov-
ernment and to individuals. Congress has the power to 'reg-
ulate the value' of both. Let the value of both be the same. "86
Like the kings of old, wrote Newcomb, our rulers dislike the
laws of the market, laws that permit the prices of commodities

desired by them to rise under the pressures of increased
demand. The leader "attributes all this to the machinations of
his enemies, and the heartless selfishness of individuals, and
forthwith resorts to penal and mandatory legislation for a
remedy. He enacts that his promises to pay shall be as valuable
as gold. Gold instantly disappears. He then enacts that they
shall be legal tender. Immediately every man who has goods
for sale doubles or trebles their prices, so that the government
is still no better off than before. "87
With the suspension of specie payments by the New York
banks on Monday, December 31, 1861, $100 worth of paper
currency would no longer purchase whathad been $100 worth
of gold the week before. The gold premium, which was really a
premium on foreign exchange, never disappeared during the
war. From the end of 1861 until the resumption of specie
payments in 1879, the United States was in effect on a floating
exchange rate system with respect to foreign currencies, the
price of gold serving as the equivalent of the price of all foreign
currencies that maintained convertibility into gold (primarily
England, as far as American trade was concerned, but also
Germany and France). 88 When, in July 1864, the gold premium
climbed to $285 in greenbacks for $100 in gold (or $35 in gold
for $100 in greenbacks)-the high point in the premium during
the greenback era-there could be little question that Senator
Howe's hypothesis was incorrect: Congress (or kings) cannot
regulate the value of money. The market performs that
service; no other agency can.
Senator John Sherman of Ohio, whose name was attached to
some of the most unsound pieces of federal economic legisla-
tion in the nineteenth century, announced, quite accurately,
that the bankers wanted Congress to pass the greenback
legislation. 89 Let us bow, he said, to their expert opinion.
Almost a year later, to the day, Sherman spoke in favor of
another piece of legislation, the National Banking Act, and
criticized the greenbacks for their use by the banks as legal
144 GARY NORTH
reserves for new rounds of inflationary bank note expansion. 90

Without gold to support their notes, the New York banks were
officially breaking New York state banking law; they needed
something that was legal tender to back up their note issue. As
Hammond has noted, "Instead of being curbed (as some peo-
ple supposed later), the powers of the banks were augmented
by' the legal tender issues. "91 But in 1862, Sherman was four-
square behind the legal tender fiat paper money. We have no
choice, he argued; we have debts to pay, supplies to buy. Let
us waive our constitutional doubts and proceed. 92 What does it
matter that this legal tender status of government fiat money in
some way may violate contracts? We do it all the time!
But Congress every day passes laws that affect the value of
property and of money, and therefore incidentally the
value of contracts. The other day the Senator from Iowa
[Mr.. Grimes] introduced a bill to establish a street
railroad in the city of Washington. We were all in favor of
it; but did any Senator dream that by doing that he was
impairing the obligation of contracts? And yet we affected
the value of omnibuses that now run on the streets of
Washington. Every act that you pass, almost every event
in our political history now, impairs the value of prop-
erty.93
So why be squeamish now? Most of them weren't, as it turned

out a few weeks later.
But economics played only a partial role in Sherman's
thought. The hard facts of economics were not his ultimate
concern. His ultimate concern was federal sovereignty. A year
later he spoke:
But, sir, there is still a higher motive for the passage of

this bill. It will promote a sentiment of nationality. There
can be no doubt of it. The policy of this country ought to
be to make everything national as far as possible; to
nationalize our country, so that we shall love our country.

If we are dependent on the United States for a currency
and a medium of exchange, we shall have a broader and
more generous nationality..The want of such nationality, I
believe, is one of the great evils of the times. This doctrine
of State rights, which substitutes a local community-for,
after all, the most powerful State is but a local com-
munity-instead of the United States of America, has
been the evil of our times; and it is that principle of State
rights, that bad sentiment that has elevated State authori-
ty -above the great national authority, that has been the
main instrument by which our Government is sought to
be overthrown. 94
This time, however, he was not arguing in favor merely of fiat

money; this time he was supporting the creation of a national
banking system. He took Halmilton's old idea that a national
bank would unify the nation's sentiment through shared debt,
and converted it into the doctrine that a national banking
currency would unify the nation's loyalty. As Hammond
writes, "It was a time when Inost men committed to uncom-
promising defense of the Union-whether in Congress or
not-began committing themselves to a militant elevation of
all federal powers, long neglected, and to a curtailment of
states' powers. "95
Many of those who had originally opposed the idea of paper
money, both in the North and South, were impelled by the
crisis and a new ideology to reverse their older views.' Sec-
retary of the Treasury Chase, an opponent of fiat currency in
1861 and after the war when he served as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, defended the greenbacks in 1862. Senator
Pendleton, the eloquent opponent of greenbacks, eventually
became a strong supporter of the idea. The economic boom
created by the fiat money made friends out of former enemies,
especially western farmers. The citizenry's allegiance to hard
money Jacksonian principles shifted radically during the war.
146 GARY NORTH
'.The precedent, as Newcomb warned in 1865, was not easily

broken. 96
The real question was the question of federal sovereignty.
The economic records of the period may be poor and incom-
plete, and the interpretations of the historians may differ as to
which of the wartime policies caused what economic results.
There may be little assurance as to which groups paid more or
less of the costs of the war. Nevertheless, the passage of the
first legal tender act on February 25, 1862, marks a major
transition in U. S. history. While $450 million worth of
greenbacks were authorized during the next thirteen months,
and probably $431 million were actually distributed, it was that
first issue of $150 million that was crucial-erucial.as a political
precedent, not as an economic factor of major impact.
Hammond, in a lengthy paragraph, has spelled out the im-
plications of that decision better than anyone has:
Though somewhat limited in scope and temporary in

purpose, the act was revolutionary. It went counter to the
principle of the tenth amendment that the federal gov-
ernment possessed only those powers specifically
assigned to it by the Constitution. It was contrary to the
understanding that the authors of the Constitution had
intended the power of issuing paper money be withheld
from the federal government as well as forbidden the
states. It was contrary to the popular belief, religious as
well as economic, that there could be no money, real and
legal, but silver and gold and that the Almighty, as
professed three years later by a Secretary of the Treasury,
Hugh McCulloch, had placed the precious metals in the
earth for the specific purpose of providing mankind with a
standard of value and medium of exchange. It was con-
trary to the monetary practice of the United States since
its formation-a practice the government had never
before departed from. It recovered from desuetude the
responsibility of the federal sovereignty to do what had
hitherto been generally considered both unconstitutional

and inexpedient. It established a national monetary
medium which derived its value from the will of the
government. It overrode state laws. 97
The messianic sovereignty of federal power was announced

more openly on February 25, 1862, than ever before. The
government had accomplished the impossible-on paper, at
least. It had turned stones into bread. 98 It had created wealth
merely by stamping ink on little green slips of paper. It
announced, on principle, not the advent of a golden age, but
the advent of a verdant age, "as good as gold." If we are to
search for the intellectual roots of the New Deal, we should not
look to the "Age of Jackson," as Schlesinger has tried to con-
vince us; we should look at that legislation which marked the
end of the Age of Jackson.
POSTSCRIPT: THE MYTH OF "LINCOLN MONEY"
The old Jacksonian fervor against the monopolists, the

bankers, the "moneyed interests," was transformed from a
hard money position to a pro-greenback position during the
Civil War. The populists of the late nineteenth century were
the spiritual, though not the intellectual, heirs of the more
nativist strain of the Jacksonian movement. 99
The neo-populist economies of the twentieth century, in-
cluding the foreign import of Social Credit (which achieved
political success not in England but in western Canada), -rep-
resents a throwback to the ;greenbackers of the 1860s and
1870s. Today, however, this filat money philosophy dominates
the American right wing's more radical fringes. The poorly
printed and widely read books from the Omni Press of
Hawthorne, California, continue the tradition.
One of the most popular of these peculiar books is Gertrude
Coogan's Money Creators, first published in 1935. 100 It had
gone through nine printings by 1963, but none between 1943
148 GARY NORTH
and 1963. The opening paragraph of the first chapter is

illuminating: ccWhen Lincoln wanted to issue constitutional
money, he was violently opposed by the 'Bullion Brokers," as
the international bankers were called in those days. Lincoln
was, perhaps, the greatest exponent of honesty and of the
Constitution that this country has had since Washington. He
persisted in demanding honest money, until he was silenced. ""
I have searched this paragraph diligently, and I have yet to find
a single sentence that is true.
First of all, Lincoln had begun his political career as a Whig.
The Whigs were opponents of the more conservative
Jacksonians (using ccconservative"" to mean limited gov-
ernment, hard money ideas). In the 1830s, Lincoln had ex-
plicitly opposed Jackson"s hard money policies. In 1839 he
delivered a speech in Springfield, Illinois, attacking President
Van Buren's proposal of an Independent Treasury (nonfrac-
tional reserve) system, and he actually defended Biddle"s Sec-
ond Bank of the United States. 101
Second, there is little evidence to indicate that Lincoln was a
prime mover in the greenback legislation of 1862. (I am being
cautious; I have found absolutely no evidence of his direct
intervention one way or the other.) His Secretary of the
Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, initially opposed the legislation,
although after the suspension of specie payments by the banks
he reluctantly capitulated. 102 His hope, as he stated in the
Annual Treasury Report of 1862, was to resume specie
payments. 103 The real leader-the CCFather of the Greenbacks, ""
as Mitchell refers to him lO4-was Congressman E. G. Spauld-
ing, a banker from Buffalo. 105
Third, the bankers supported the legal tender legislation
with unhesitating enthusiasm. The legal tender notes would,
and did, allow them to replenish their legal reserves after the
suspension of specie payments. The notes did serve as the
foundation of a heavy extension of notes and deposits, a fact
criticized by Chase and Sherman (see n. 90).
Fourth, and most important, Lincoln in his note to Congress
of January 19, 1863, criticized further issues of greenbacks,

although he signed the bill authorizing an additional $100
million of them. What President Lincoln wanted was a national
banking system which would enable the federal government to
unify and utilize the "resources" of the banks, i. e., the frac-
tional reserve process. Here are Lincoln's words concerning
"Lincoln money":
While giving approval [to a further issue of $100 mil-

lion], however, I think it Illy duty to express my sincere
regret that it has been found necessary to authorize so
large an additional issue of lJnited States notes, when this
circulation and that of the suspended banks [meaning the
suspension of specie paym,ents] together have become
already so redundant as to increase prices beyond real
values, thereby augmenting the cost of living to the injury
of lab9r, and the cost of living of the whole country.
It seems very plain that: continued issues of United
States notes, without any check to the issues of suspended
banks, and without adequate provision for the raising of
money by loans, and for funding the issues so as to keep
them within due limits, rnust soon produce disastrous
,consequences. And this matter appears to me so im-
portant that I feel bound to avail myself of this occasion to
ask the special attention of Congress to it. 106
He then proposed the national banking system, which was

approved on February 25, 1863, one year to the day after the
approval of the first Greenback Act.
It would seem safe to say, then, that Lincoln was not
murdered by a paid hireling of the International Banking
Conspiracy, as argued so implausibly by "Dr. R. E. Search" in
Lincoln Money Martyred (OnIni, 1935, 1965). Lincoln money
was martyred, all right; it was martyred the day Abraham
Lincoln signed the National Bank Act of 1863, the legislation
he had been pushing for in the first place.
150 GARY NORTH
NOTES
IOn the sociological distinction between power and authority, see
Robert A. Nisbet, The Social Bond (New York: Knopf, 1970), pp. 142
ff.; Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (New York: Basic Books,
1966), Ch. 4.
2Ethelbert Stauffer, Christ and the Caesars (Philadelphia: West-
minster Press, 1955), p. 36.
3Ibid., p. 38.
4lbid.
.5lbid., pp. 55-56.
6Nisbet, Tradition and Revolt (New York: Random House, 1968),
p.163.
7R. J. Rushdoony, Politics of Guilt and Pity (Nutley, N. J.: Craig
Press, 1970); Nisbet, .The Quest for Community (New York: Oxford
University Press [1st ed., 1953] 1969).
IIF. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1944), Ch. 10.
91'he portraits of Lincoln and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P.
Chase appeared on some of the U. S. Notes in 1862 and 1863 (Lincoln:
$5; Chase: $1). However, when Spencer Clark, chief ~lerk of the
National Currency Division of the Treasury, had his own portrait
placed on half a million 5 cent notes ("shinplasters"), Representative
Russell Thayer thought he had gone too far. He introduced the
prohibiting legislation, which then passed and is still in force. On the
story of the prohibition, see William P. Donlon, United States Large
Size Paper Money, 1861 to 1923 2d ed. (lola, Wis.: KraiIse, 1970),
p.17.
wGary Palmer, "Still Saving Kennedy Halves?" COINage (Sep-
tember 1969): 7.
IIGerald T. Dunne, Monetary Decisions of the Supreme Court
(New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1960), Preface.
12Jackson to Lewis Guly 16, 1820); cited by Charles G. Sellers,
"Banking and Politics in Jackson's Tennessee," Mississippi Valley
Historical Review (now the Journal ofAmerican History), 41 (1954):
76.
13Jackson to Benton (n.d.); cited in ibid., p. 77. See also Jackson's
State of the Union Message (December 5, 1836); reprinted in
Herman E. Krooss (ed.), Documentary History of Banking and
Currency in the United States (N ew York: Chelsea House and
McGraw-Hill, 1969), II, 974.

14Murray N. Rothbard, The Panic of 1819 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1962), p. 188.
1.5Daniel Webster, Speech Calling for the Repeal of the Specie
Circular, December 21, 1836; in Documentary History, II, 1027.
16William Gouge, A Short History ofPaper Money and Banking in
the United States (Philadelphia: T. W. Usteck, 1833), p. 171. In part
reprinted in Documentary History, II, 904-905.
17Benton, cited by Hugh Rockoff, "Money, Prices, and Banks in
the Jacksonian Era," in Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman
(eds.), The Reinterpretation of American Economic History (New
York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 448.
lRIbid., p. 457. The inflation came from increased specie, multi-
plied by fractional reserve banking. It came from abroad.
19Roger B. Taney [pronounced Tawney], Treasury Report on the
"Removal" of Government Deposits from the Bank of the United
States, December 3, 1833; in Documentary History, II, 966.
2°Bray Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 19n.
21Taney, in Documentary History, II, 955.
22Benton (1832), in Documentary History, II, 811.
23Benton, Thirty Years' View (New York: Appleton, 1854), 1,201.
For a similar critique of limited liability corporations, see the com-
ments of the late nineteenth centu'ry southern Presbyterian
theologian (and Stonewall Jackson's pastor) Robert L. Dabney, Dis-
cussions: Philosophical (Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee on
Publications, 1892), III, 329 ff. Cf. Rushdoony, "Limited Liability
and Unlimited Money," Politics of Guilt and Pity, pp. 254 ff.
24Pure laissez-faire has never existed, but Henry Boude's comment
is accurate: "Before the Civil War, government intervention in
economic life was widespread but it was concentrated at the state
level." Boude, "The Role of the State in American Economic
Development, 1820-1890" (1959), in Thomas C. Cochran and
Thomas B. Brewer (eds.), Views ofAmerican Economic Growth: .The
Agricultural Era (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 127.
2.5Stanley Coben and Forest G. Hill have included three very
telling articles illustrating this point in their book, American
Economic History: Essays in Interpretation (Philadelphia:
152 GARY NORTH
Lippincott, 1966): Robert A. Lively, ccThe American System: A

Review Article," Business History Review 29 (March 1955); Carter
Goodrich, ccAmerican Development Policy: The Case of Internal
Improvements," Journal of Economic History 16 (December 1956);
Forest G. Hill, ccFormative Relations of American Enterprise, Gov-
ernment and Science/' Political Science Quarterly 75 (September
1960). Hill focuses primarily on the army corps of engineers.
26Hammond, Sovereignty, p. 17. Cf. p. 357 for a summary of
Jacksonian thought.
27Glyndon C. Van Deusen, ccSome Aspects of Whig Thought and
Theory in the Jacksonian Period," American Historical Review 63
Ganuary 1958); reprinted in Edward Pessen (ed.), New Perspectives
in Jacksonian Parties and Politics (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1969), p.
140.
28Ibid., p. 154.
29Ibid., p. 155.
3°Message by, President Martin Van Buren on the ccEconomic
Revulsion," of 1837, September 4, 1837; Documentary History, II,
1070.
31Sidney Fine, Laissez Faire and the General-Welfare State (Ann
Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press [1956], 1964), p. 25.
32Carter Goodrich, in Coben and Hill, Essays, p. 201.
33Fine, op. cit., pp. 19-20. His list of federal interventions into the
economy indicates how desperate modern historians are to attribute
twentieth-century concepts of government planning to pre-Civil
War national political life.
34Reginald McGrane, ccSome Aspects of American State Debts in
the Forties," American Historical Review 38 Guly 1933); in Cochran
and Brewer, Views, pp. 165 ff.
35'fhomas C. Cochran, ccDid the Civil War Retard Industrializa-
tion?" (1961), in Cochran, The Inner Revolution (New York: Harper
Torchbook, 1964). Cochran believes that the war did retard in-
dustrialization. His thesis has been challenged by Pershing
Vartanian, ccThe Cochran Thesis: A Critique in Statistical Analysis,"
American Historical Review 51 Gune 1964). Vartanian argues that
Cochran selected misleading years to present his series, often chose
the wrong products to prove his point, and overemphasized the use
of statistics, especially flawed statistics from that era, in the writing of
history. He does not say that Co(~hran is absolutely wrong, but only
that he does not prove his case. Vartanian thinks that the war merely
continued the trend toward industrialization already in progress in
the 1850s. A less impressive critique is Stephen Salsbury's essay,
ccThe Effect of the Civil War on American Industrial Development,"
in Ralph Andreano (ed.), The Economic Impact ofthe American Civil
War (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1962), pp. 161-168.
36Irwin Unge~, The Greenback Era (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1964), p. 13.
37Walter T. K. Nugent, The Money Question During Reconstruc-
tion (New York: Norton, 1967), p. 22.
3RMilton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of
the United States, 1867-1960 (published for the National Bureau of
Economic Research by Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 3.
39 Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), pp.
720-721. This book was compiled by the Bureau of the Census and is
widely used.
4°Ibid., pp. 718-719.
41Milton Friedman, ccPrice, Income, and Monetary Changes in
Three Wartime Periods," American Economic Review, Papers and
Proceedings 42 (May 1952): 624 [hereafter cited as AEcR]: ccTaxes as a
fraction of expenditures."
42Cf. Eugene M. Lerner, CCMoney, Prices, and Wages in the Con-
federacy, 1861-65," Agricultural History 33 (July, 1959); reprinted in
Andreano, Economic Impact. The reason for this neglect is probably
the dearth of reliable statistics for the South.
43Wesley C. Mitchell, A History of the Greenbacks (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press [1903], 1960), chart, p. 179.
44Ibid., p. 271.
45Donlon, Paper Money, p. 15., The Secret Service was established
in July 1865 to combat the counterfeiters.
46Friedman, Monetary History, pp. 4, 29.
47Ibid., p. 86.
4RFriedman, AEcR.
49Cf. Louis Spadaro, CCAverage and Aggregates in Economics,"in
Mary Sennholz (ed.), On Freedom and Free Enterprise (Princeton,
N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1956), pp. 140-160.
154 GARY NORTH
·50Friedman, AEcR, p. 624.

.'HMitchell, Gold, Prices & Wages Under the Greenback Standard
(New York: Kelley [1908], 1966), p. 26.
.52Mitchell, History, p. 388.
.53Emerson D. Fite, "Agricultural Development of the West Dur-
i,ng the Civil War," Quarterly Journal of Economics 20 (February
1906), in Andreano, Economic Impact, p. 56.
.54Mitchell, History, p. 344.
sSIbid., p. 305.
,';6Ibid., chart, p. 304.
s7Ibid., chart, p. 344.
sRMitchell, Gold, pp. 245 ff.
s9Mitchell, History, p. 351.
6OEmerson D. Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North
During the Civil War (New York: Peter Smith, 1930), p. 136.
61Mitchell, Gold, p. 41.
62Reuben A. Kessel and Armen A. Alchian, "Real Wages During
the Civil War: Mitchell~s Data Reinterpreted:~Journal of Law and
Economics 2 (October 1959), in Fogel and Engerman, Reinterpreta-
tion, pp. 459-467.
63Mitchell, History, p. 270.
64Ibid., p. 279.
6.5Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1949), Ch. 20. Cf. Murray Rothbard, America loS Great Depres-
sion (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1963), reprinted by Nash
Publishing Company, Los Angeles, 1971.
a
6Wfhe Richmond Examiner une 3, 18, 1863) blamed the South's
currency depreciation on speculators: Joseph Dorfman, The Eco-
nomic Mind in American Civilization (New York: Kelley [1946],
1966), II, 985. Rev. Prof. Lyman Atwater, of the College of New
Jersey (later Princeton), used the same argument in the North: ibid.,
p. 970. Secretary of the Treasury Chase, in his Annual Report of
1862, blamed gold speculators for driving up the price of gold, and he
absolutely denied that the greenbacks were in any way at fault:
Documentary History, II, 1346. Even Hugh McCulloch, later an
outspoken foe of paper money, saw fit in his report of 1864 as
Comptroller of the Currency to blame speculators for the rise in the
price of gold, which in turn forced up commodity prices: ibid., II,
1421. Gold, cut loose from bank notes or government paper money,
was simply another commodity, and it had no direct impact in raising
other prices.
67Mitchell, History, pp. 333-334.
61l Documentary History, II, 1358.
69Mitchell, History, pp. 334-335.
7°Hammond, Sovereignty, pp. 259-260.
71Simon Newcomb, A Critical Examination of Our Financial Poli-
cy during the Southern Rebellion (New York: Greenwood [1865],
1969), p. 114.
72Cited in Hammond, Sovereignty, p. 204.
73 Documentary History, II, 1269.
74Valland~gham (February 3, 1862): ibid., II, 1284.

75Crisfield (February 5, 1862): ibid., II, 1287.
76See my essay, ccDownward Price Flexibility and Economic
Growth," The Freeman (May H}71); reprinted in Gary North, An
Introduction to Christian Economics (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press,
1973), Ch. 9.
77Newcomb, Critical Examination, pp. 38 ff., 42.
7IlIbid., pp. 127-128.
79Crisfield, Documentary History, II, 1290.
lloNewcomb, Critical Examination, p. 98.
IlIHammond, Sovereignty, pp. 259-260.
1l2Newcomb, Critical Examination, p. 20.
1l3Stephens Ganuary 22,1862); cited by Hammond, Sovereignty, p.
193.
1l4Stephens (February 8, 1862): Documentary History, II, 1297.
ll!Yfimothy Howe (February 12,- 1862): ibid., II, 1304.
1l6Ibid., II, p. 1308.
1l7Newcomb, Critical Examination, p. 11. The South, it should be
noted, did not declare its currency a legal tender: Hammond,
Sovereignty, p. 256. However, unlike the North, the South did
impose price and wage controls until shortly before the end of the
war, when they were found to be too disrupting: Dorfman, Economic
Mind, II, 987.
IlIlFriedman, Monetary History, pp. 58 ff.
1l9Sherman (February 13, 1862): Documentary History, II, 1313.
9°Sherman (February 10, 1863): ibid., II, 1359. Cf. Chase, Annual
Report (1862): ibid., II, 1348.
9lHammond, Sovereignty, p. 246.
156 GARY NORTH
92Sherman, Documentary History, II, 1316-1317.

93Ibid., II, 1317-1318.
94Sherman (February 10, 1863): ibid., II, 1369.
95Hammond, Sovereignty, p. 140.
96Newcomb, Critical Examination, pp. 100-101. (Cited as the in-
troduction to this paper.)
97 Hammond, Sovereignty, pp. 226-227.
9RLudwig von Mises, ~~Stones into Bread, The Keynesian Miracle,"
in Henry Hazlitt (ed.), The Critics of Keynesian Economics
(Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1960), pp. 305-315, makes the
same point with respect to the inflationary economic proposals of
Keynes.
99Unger, Greenback Era, Ch. 6.
lOoCf. my essay, "Gertrude Coogan and the Myth of Social Credit,"
in North, Introduction to Christian Economics, Ch. 11.
IOIHammond, Sovereignty, p. 24.
102Annual Treasury Report (1861): Documentary History, II, 1343;
Mitchell, History, pp. 62, 68 ff.
103Annual Treasury Report (1862): ibid., II, 1350.
104Mitchell, History, index, p. 575; cf. p. 70.
JO, 0 n Spaulding's occupation as a banker, see Dorfman, Economic
5
Mind, II, 972-973.

I06Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 3d Session, pp. 392-393.
8
Hard Money and
Society in the Bible
ROUSAS JOHN RUSHDOONY
President, Chalcedon,
Canoga Park, California
For all too many academicians of our time, the ultimate in

scholarly pornography is to think in Christian theistic or bibli-
cal terms. The militantly hurnanistic scholarship of our time
has a tabu on such an approach and is informed by a religious
humanism. However, since our civilization is a product of
twenty centuries of biblical faith and law, it is important for us,
in analyzing our monetary. crisis, to understand the biblical
framework of our heritage.
Biblical law speaks of money, not in terms of coinage, but as
weight. Leviticus 19: 35~37 declares:
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-

yard, in weight, or in measure.
157
158 ROUSAS JOHN RUSHDOONY
Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin,

shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought
you out of the land of Egypt.
Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my
judgments, and do them: I am the LORD.
The significance of the term weights has been lost on us in

recent years because of our custom of regarding money
primarily as a paper currency, and secondarily as coinage. Not
only was coinage a late development of the monetary scene,
and paper currency a modern development, but, long after the
appearance of gold and silver coins, monetary exchange was
governed by weights of gold and silver. Bush, in commenting
on Leviticus 19: 35-37, wrote:
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment. The word

"judgment" in this connexion is very plausibly referred by
the Hebrew writers to all the particulars that follow. On
this construction it is held, that Moses uses the word here
in order to intimate of what solemn moment he would
have the law considered, which relates to true measures
and weights. The man that falsified either was to be
regarded as a corrupter of judgment, an emphatic
designation, equivalent to vile, wicked, abominable in a
very high degree--. In mete-yard. Heb. bammiddah; a
measure of length or surface, such as the yard, cubit, foot,
span, &c.--In weight. Heb. bamishkol; such as the
talent, shekel, & c.-In measure. Heb. bammesurah; by
which is denoted measures of capacity, such as the homer,
ephah, seah, hin, &c. In all these articles, as well as in the
balances or scales, weight-stones, &c., mentioned in the
next verse, they were to observe the most honest
exactness, and never allow themselves to practise any
species of fraud in their dealings and commerce, because
they might not think it of easy detection. I
Hard Money and Society in the Bible 159
That weights meant money was once well known. Thus,

Fairbairn's Bible Encyclopedia (1866) discusses the shekel
under the classification of weights. .T he Bible speaks of money
as a weight. For example, we are told that "David gave to
Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight" (I
Chronicles 21: 25); in other words, the payment was made in
terms of a specified weight of gold. In Isaiah 33: 18, Lowth
translates, "Where is he now, the accountant? where the
weigher of tribute?" The Berkeley Version reads, "Where is
the weigher?" The reference is to the payment of tribute by
weight, apparently by Hezekiah to Sennacherib. From the
days of Abraham to at least the time of Hezekiah, money meant
gold and silver, ready cut and weighed.
While we have no direct: evidence of the weight of the
Hebrew shekel as cited in the law of Moses, we do have enough
data from later sources, Josephus in particular, to construct a
table of weights. Kennedy ga.ve us a table of the weights 2 from
the conquest of Canaan to the extinction of the Jewish nation,
the weight being listed to the nearest large fraction:
Gold Standard
[leavy Light
Shekel 252i grs. troy 1261 grs.
Mina 50 shekels 12,630 grs. troy 6,315 grs.
Talent 3000 shekels 758,000 grs. troy 379,000 grs.
Silver Standard
Shekel 224+ grs. troy II2t grs.
Mina 50 shekels 11,225 grs. troy 5,660 grs.
Talent 3000 shekels 673,500 grs. troy 336,750 grs.
The ordinary or heavy gold shekel, weighing 252 2/3 grains

troy, was thus a little more in weight than two modern British
sovereigns, the weight of the sovereign being 123.274 grains

troy.
Early coinage, while still called by various names, such as
drachma or trahm, was still governed by weight. As a matter of
fact, the Puritan and bibilically oriented nature of early
America led to a return to weight. Not all colonial coinage
carried a denomination; although called shillings, groats, and
pence, these terms did not usually appear on the coins. The
first gold coin actually struck for the United States was the half
eagle or $5 gold piece, which, from 1795 to 1806, did not bear
any mark of value. The Coinage Act of April 2, 1792, required
simply that the coin weigh 135 grains, 916 2/3 fine. The weight
was changed by the Act of June 28, 1834, to 129 grains, 899.225
fine, and, finally, fineness became, by the Act of January 18,
1837, .900. The early eagles ($10 gold) also carried no
denomination until 1838. The silver trade dollar, issued for
circulation in the Orient (1873-1885), carried the denomina-
tion "Trade Dollar" and also the weight, "420 grains 900
Fine."3 The most popular of all coins, the famous Austrian
Maria Theresa thaler, never carried a denomination but was
used in almost every continent as a weight of silver. In the
United States, some of the private "coinage" was merely a
weight of gold. Thus, Moffat & Company of San Francisco was
the most important of the California private coiners. From
1849 to 1853, Moffat issued small rectangular pieces of gold in
values from $9.43 to $264. The known surviving types are the
$9.43, $14.25, and $16 ingots. The face of the $14.25 ingot
read, "Moffat & Co., 21 3/4 carat, $14.25," and the other side
listed the weight and grains.
In terms of biblical law, honest money is honest weight, in
gold or silver. James Moffat, in his translation of the Bible,
rendered Leviticus 19: 35, "You must never act dishonestly, in
court or in commerce, as you use measures of length, weight,
or capacity."4 Biblical law, in its case law specifics, forbids
fractional reserve. 5 It also regards all departures from money as
weight as fraud and counterfeiting, and as part of a broader

pattern of apostasy and moral collapse. This appears plainly,
for example, in Isaiah's citation of God's bill of indictment
against Judah and JerusalelIl, whereby judgment will over-
whelm them. According to Isaiah 1: 21-24,
21. How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full

of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now
murderers.
22. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with
water:
23. Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of
thieves: everyone loveth gifts (bribes), and followeth
after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth
the cause of the widow come unto them.
24. Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the
mighty ONE of Israel, .Ah, I will ease me of mine
adversaries, and avenge IIle of mine enemies.
The picture is one of a decadent and inflationary society, one in

which money had become dross or refuse, the impurity in
melted metal rather than the silver itself. The image of wine
mixed with water not only describes adulteration but the
essence of inflation. In Ezekiel 45: 9-12, God indicts false
weights and calls for the renrloval of ccviolence and spoil" and
the administration of civil justice, and He establishes the exact
ratio of the shekel to its lesser and greater weights, as well as
dealing with balances and rrleasures of capacity. As a result,
Crawford Toy, writing in ccProverbs" (p. 324) from a liberal
viewpoint, states frankly, that, in the text of Scripture, ccGod is
the ordainer of the machinery of commercial transactions."6
This is not a condition which sets well with modern man. But
let us examine its implications and context.
First, as we have seen, God's requirement, according to the
Bible, is that money must be in terms of a weight of gold or
silver. This is required because justice calls for full value at all
times. To short-weight a man either in selling him grain or
money is theft, and the law declares plainly, "Thou shalt not
stear~ (Exodus 20: 15). A false weight or shekel of gold or silver
is "spoil" or "despoiling the people" and is contrary to ""law and
justice" (Moffat's rendering, Ezekiel 45: 9).
Second, a very limited state is allowed by biblical law, and its
taxing power is limited to a head tax, or poll tax, on all males
over twenty years of age, and the same for all (Exodus 30:
11-16). ,The basic social financing is not by the state, but by
means of the tithe, which finances religion, education, health,
welfare, etc. 7
Third, biblical law has no prison system but rather requires
restitution. A thief restores the thing stolen, plus a penalty,
from double the value of the article to four- or five-fold,
depending on the nature of the item. Thus, ""If a man shall steal
an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen
for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep" (Exodus 22: 1). Sheep
have an income potential as a source of wool, as meat, and for
breeding, so that more than double restitution is required.
Oxen were valuable for their meat and hide, and very im-
portant as well-trained beasts of burden, capable of hauling
greater weight than horses; hence, their value was greater.
Crime thus did not pay: full value had to be restored; the
habitual criminal had to be executed.
The goal of the law was thus restitution, where offenses
occurred (full value retained for property), and full value in all
monetary transactions by requiring a standard and unchanging
weight of gold and silver as the medium of exchange. Not only
is hard money the standard of Scripture, but it is plainly
declared to be the law of God. This is a very serious considera-
tion. It accounts fo~ the persistence, in times of a biblically
governed faith, of a demand for hard money. Insufficient
attention has been paid to the critique of debased coinage by
the early Church Fathers. The reformers were also aware of
the problem. Thus, Luther, in commenting on God's

judgment on all sinners in his key work, the Commentary on
the Epistle to the Romans, declared, with respect to Romans 2:
2, 3, that
Today we may apply the A.postle's words first to those

(rulers) who without cogent cause inflict exorbitant taxes
upon the people, or by changing and devaluating the
currency, rob them, while at the same time they accuse
their subjects of being greedy and avaricious. Even worse
are the blinded ecclesiastical rulers who commit similar, if
not greater wrongs as everybody knows. 8
Rulers have not changed much since Luther's day. They still
debase the currency and blame the people for the resulting
inflation.
Matthew Henry (1662-1714) said of Leviticus 19: 35-37, "He
that sells, is bound to give the full of the commodity, and he
that buys, the full of the price agreed upon, which cannot be
done without just balances, weights, and measures."9
It is clear, from the foregoing, that the kind of society that
biblical law calls for has a certain rigidity of framework with
respect to values. God's unchanging law governs all things, and
God requires that all weights and measures represent His
requirement, that they be full value. The matter can be
expressed thus: a modern definition of money has it that
money is a representation of ,;vealth or property. This is a fair
definition of a paper currency: it is a representation of wealth,
not the real thing, and its value is fluid and changeable. In
terms of the biblical requirement, money cannot be a rep-
resentation of wealth: it must be wealth, so that all transactions
should be exchanges of wealth, not of real wealth for a symbol
or representation of wealth.
Biblical law thus has a rigid framework in order that men
may have .freedom within that framework, and so that
productivity can flourish without penalty as a result of that

framework.
Something of the significance of this fact appears in a
statement by John Sherman, a prominent American statesman
of the last half of the nineteenth century, who, unfortunate-
ly, is best remembered for the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. In
a Senate speech on February 27, 1865, Sherman said in
part:
We cannot fix the price or value of any commodity,

whether Gold, Silver, or Food. The attempt has been
made by many Governments in different ages, and has
uniformly failed. The standard of value may be fixed by
the Government, but a higher Law (Economic Law) fixes
the relative value of all commodities as measured by this
standard. We may as well recognize as an axiom of politi-
cal economy, proven by the experience of Nations, by
every form of Government-Despotic, Monarchic, or
Republican-that the fixing of the values of commodities
is beyond the power of legislation. We may fix the
Standard of Value, we may fix the Tax upon the commodi-
ty, and there our power ends. And especially is this so of
Gold, which has value in all civilized nations of the world;
and, except with Nations for a time involved in War, is
everywhere the Standard of Value. It is therefore man-
ifest that the first duty of Congress is to keep our lawful
money, as a Standard of Value, as near as possible to the
Standard of Gold. 10
The biblical premise is that the law framework is constant,

and that men are not. Men change, and productivity changes,
but not the basic rules of God concerning man, money, com-
merce, and life in general. The framework is rigid and constant
in order to provide man freedom within that framework.
How strongly this standard persisted is apparent in the
Talmud. Coming many centuries later than the law, and with
the use of debased coinage commonplace by that time in one

nation after another, the Talmud is still plainly dedicated to a
hard money standard. The rabbinic lawyers whose com-
mentaries make up the Talmud were sometimes firmly faithful
to the word of the law, and, at other times, like the U. S.
'Supreme Court today, very mluch given to exploiting the word-
ing of the law to push it to very alien conclusions from its
original meaning. With respect to money, however, the
Talmud raises essentially one question: a gold standard, or a
silver standard? Shall gold be established as the standard, and
silver regarded as a product, or vice versa? The debate was
waged by the rabbis over this issue. For example, we read the
following, with respect to the opinion of one leading authority,
R. Judah the Prince:
Rabbi taught his son R. Simeon: Gold acquires silver. Said

he to him: Master, in your youth you did teach us, Silver
acquires gold; now, advanced in age, you reverse it and
teach, Gold acquires silver. Now, how did he reason in his
youth, and how did he reason in his old age ?-In his youth
he reasoned: Since gold is more valuable, it ranks as
money; whilst silver, which is of lesser value, is regarded
as produce: hence (the delivery of) produce effects a title
to the money. But at a later age he reasoned: Since silver
(coin) is current, it ranks as money; whilst gold, which is
not current, is accounted as produce, and so the produce
effects a title to the money. II
This is a revealing fact. The strait-jacket of the law was seen as

so binding money to gold and. silver that the only possible open
question for the Talmudic lawyers was their relationship:
which one set the standard? However, by requiring a strait-
jacket concept of money, the law thereby provided freedom
for man.
In modern society, man has declared his independence from
God and from the law of God. The religious humanism which
undergirds and informs life and scholarship requires that man

be free from any transcendental norms, laws, principles, and
restraints. The idea that laws handed down by God to Moses
centuries ago should control property ("'Thou shalt not steal")
and fix money to the weight of a precious metal is unthinkable.
Man cannot be bound to any plan of God's making.
Increasingly, the hostility is also directed against any
preestablished plan, by God· or man. As against the earlier
socialist idea of a planned society, the American pragmatists
advanced the idea of "'a planning economy" rather than "'a
planned' economy." Because a planned economy still involved
some kind of fixity of economic law or theory, the pragmatists
rebelled against it in favor of an experimental approach. A
planned economy was seen as law-bound and past-bound,
whereas a planning economy was held to be creative and makes
its own conditions and laws. 12
The revolt, thus, in the name of the freedom of man has
been against the constraint of any law of God certainly, and also
the laws of men. The disturbances of the second half of the
twentieth century should therefore be no surprise to us. When
the philosophers and educators of our era have required so
radical a break with established law the consequences are sure
to be drastic and/or revolutionary. That men's ideas of money
should be affected is a natural consequence. It was very com-
mon during the 1930s in the United States to hear progressive
educators ridicule the idea of a gold standard. Anything could
be money, it was said: hay, wheat, land, or goods could provide
a backing for a currency, but what better backing could a paper
currency have, if one were needed, then the credit,
productivity, and taxing power of the United States?
Endless variations of this theme can be cited. Basic to all
these "'funny money" concepts were two essentially religious
premises. First, man was seen as a creator, replacing God.
Man's declaration of independence from God means the sup-
planting of God by man. This is how the Bible presents original
sin, the desire of every man to be his own god, "'Knowing" or
determining good and evil in terms of himself (Genesis 3: 5).

Just as God created heaven and earth out of nothing, so man
creates values out of nothing. ][n Christian theology, values are
what God declares them to be. In humanism, values are what
man declares them to be. If mlan or the state declares that fiat
money has value, it therefore has value. The application of the
word fiat to money is theologically significant. It is Latin for
"Let it be done." The concept eci~()es Genesis 1: 3, etc., "And
God said, Let there be light: and there was light." The fiat
power of God has been transferred to man and applied to
money. Man is now' the creative force in the world, and it is
man's word and will that governs reality, in fact makes reality,
and establishes values. The position of Hegel, "The rational is
the real," means that what man's autonomous reason
establishes is thus the new reality, or the reality in process of
becoming. For Marx, this meant that man now recreates the
world in terms of his rationality, because no other reality has
any meaning. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx declared,
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various
ways; the point, however, is to change it." Jerry Rubin applied
the idea to the student revolutionary scene of the 1960s, de-
claring, "We create reality wherever we go by living our
fantasies. "13 If the rational is the real, then the intellectual elite
of statism can create fiat money in the assurance that their
ideas must work if implemented with the full force of rational
planning. It is thus a natural consequence of modern religious
humanism that man should, as his own ultimate and god, issue
fiat money, values, and laws. The logic of humanism requires
it.
Second, the logical corollary of this is that man, as his own
lawmaker now, is freed froll} past laws. As the new god of
being, modern statist man is no longer bound by the word of
the old God of Scripture. Perhaps it is unfair or unkind to
remind anyone that, a decade ago, when the hoarding of silver
coins began, there were those who insisted that Gresham's law
was no longer operative. That it did operate, some hold, was
because too many men were still governed by reactionary

concepts. Given sufficient re-education away from the
ostensible myths of hard money, man, it is held, will no longer
operate as though classical economics were true, or as though
God ordained hard money in His law. Re-educated man, it is
maintained, will be free from past laws and will be able to
prosper under fiat money. The presupposition of this position
is that there is no reality beyond the mind of man. It
presupposes an economic Christian Science: the only reality is
Mind, and what the elite planning Mind decrees is ipso facto
reality. However, no more than a universal belief in Christian
Science would eliminate toothaches and broken bones will a
belief in a Christian Science Economics eliminate the conse-
quences of fiat money.
As against the rigid framework of biblical law (money as
weight, a hard money policy), the modern socialistic view of
money is notable for its freedom from any standard, its lack of
association with weight and with an established value. This
does not mean that rigidity or fixity is absent from the new
economics. It has simply been transferred from money to man.
Biblical law, by controlling the definition of money and limit-
ing it to weights 'of gold and silver, thereby freed man for the
free exercise of productivity and change. Modern economics,
by "freeing" money from an objective norm and weight, has
transferred rigidity and controls to man. The closer we get to
purely fiat money, the more rigid and pervasive the controls.
Moreover, fiat money is simply political money. It is a
creature of the state and a captive of the state. Since the
life-blood of economics is money, to make money political is to
surrender economics and man's wealth and properties into the
hands of the state. The freedom of the new economics becomes
slavery. Very simply, managed money means managed men.
As Rist observed, "We shall have sound money; or we shall
cease to be free. "14 The alternative then is hard money or a hard
dictatorship. 15
The history of the American colonies is very instructive as to
the goals of paper money. Central to its purpose was economic

warfare. The mercantilist economics of England placed the
colonies in a very difficult position. Their role was to provide
both raw materials for England and a market for English goods.
There was legislation against the development of man-
ufacturing in the colonies, as vvell as restrictions on trade with
other countries. Thus, the Yankee ships in trading with
countries who could sell more cheaply to them were usually
guilty of smuggling. The earliest issue, in Massachusetts Bay
Colony in 1690, was to pay for military expenditures in King
William's War (1690-1697), and a 5 percent premium was
granted to those who might use them for tax payments as an
incentive to acceptance. This and other early emissions were
called ccbills of credit" rather than money. However, these
emissions were soon put to a very aggressive use.
The necessity of trading with the mother country penalized
the colonies. The colonies, however loyal to the mother
country, resented the economlic penalties. English governors
of American colonies were instructed to deny approval to any
American law passed without a governor's consent, and to all
legislation involving paper money except in a military
emergency. The crown also retained the right of veto over all
measures passed with a governor's consent. This veto,
however, only became effective when the measure in question
was reported to London and the veto relayed to the colony.
Obviously, this meant the passage of more than a little time in
those days. The colonies, New England in particular, took
advantage of this fact. By passing paper emissions, they were
able to use them until such time as the royal veto returned from
London. UntH then, all English merchants, with their
resented privileges, could be paid off, despite their protests,
with paper money. "English merchants constantly pressured
the Crown to stiffen control 01f paper money, and the colonists
constantly urged that they should be permitted to handle their
own monetary affairs. "16
It is beyond our purpose here to trace the subsequent
history of paper issues. Between 1740 and 1750, in New En-

gland the issues went out of control, and Parliament passed an
act, effective September 29, 1751, providing strict control over
all future issues. What is relevant to our purpose is the fact
that, first, the paper emission, after its early emergency
military use, became an instrument of economic reprisals and
warfare against a mercantilist economy and the restrictions it
imposed on the colonies. This was particularly true of New
England. Because they had been penalized by· mercantilism,
they were determined to penalize the English merchants in
return. Paper emissions were an ideal instrument for economic
warfare. Second, the utility of such paper money caught on in
other areas. Debtors at once realized that they could payoff
their own debts with this cheap money, and they quickly took
advantage of the fact. Paper emissions gained a rapid populari-
ty among the debtor classes of the colonies. With them also it
was a form of economic warfare. Thus, what began as an action
against English merchants became a popular action against
American merchants and creditors. It was this background,
together with the desire to cleanse the country ofthe economic
warfare created by paper money, that led to the hard money
requirement of the U. S. Constitution.
The same considerations are still pertinent today. Paper
money does provide an ideal instrument for economic warfare
and a means of furthering a conflict of interests. The debtor
classes today include most of all the major corporations, as well
as all peoples of all classes who are consumption-oriented and
in debt. Most of all, however, the state is able to wage
economic warfare against all classes, against capital and labor,
because it is the creator of fiat money and always controls the
freshest and cheapest supply of money. It thereby has an
instrument of confiscation of capital and values and is the
strongest contender in the economic war. The term warfare
state, coined a few years ago and applied to the so-called
military-industrial complex, applies better to the paper money
state. By its emissions of paper money, or fractional reserve

currencies, a state declares war on its people and promotes
economic warfare between debtors and creditors. Economic
progress is hindered by paper money and is progressively
crippled.
On the other hand, few appreciate sufficiently the rule of
gold and silver in the extension of trade and commerce
throughout Europe after the fall of Rome, and in the
develO,pment of cities. The studies of Agus have shown the key
role of Jewish merchants in the development of urban civiliza-
tion in pre-Crusade Europe, especially during the tenth and
eleventh centuries. These men were "very conservative and
punctilious in their religious observances." As the merchants
of Europe, they gained privileges because their role was so
important to society.
These few Jews forced the prelates of the Church to

become their protectors, and the rulers and nobles to
become their benefactors. In the midst of almost univer-
sal personal subjugation, the Jews alone were politically
free; in the midst of turbulence and war, they alone could
travel in comparative safety and could carry valuable
merchandise over long distances. When practically every
man owed to his superior services and dues that con-
stituted a sacrifice of from fifteen to fifty per cent of his
income-producing time, the Jews paid as taxes but a tiny
fraction of their income. They organized self-governing
communities, developed supra communal institutions,
enacted ordinances on a national scale, and employed a
most efficient and most remarkable form of group
organization and group government, one that afforded
every individual effective help and protection even when
he was hundreds of miles away from home. They in-
stituted practices and procedures that gave them great
power and resilience, enabled them to deal with the
princes of Church and state from a position of strength,

and created for them opportunities for powerful economic
growth and great physical expansion. 17
These Jewish merchants were the bourgeoisie of Europe and

constituted a privileged class precisely because of the service
they rendered. Modern nationalism has obscured the
primitivism of the European peoples after the fall of Rome,
and especially such facts as human sacrifice. Charlemagne
found it necessary to resort to strong measures to stamp it out
in one area of his realm. The readiness of these peoples, in this
earlier era, to recognize the value of merchants was important
to their growth and development. According to Agus, "The
taxes the Jews of the period paid to their overlords, usually
amounted to about two or three percent of their active capi-
tal. "18 The Jewish merchants governed their affairs by
reference to the Torah and followed the biblical requirement
of hard money. The European coinage of the period was of
silver. However, Moslem gold coins and Byzantine gold coins
circulated to a degree in Europe. 19 The various coins were
differently valued, and thus required exchange standards in
terms of their actual weight of gold and silver. Not infrequent-
ly, coins were reduced to weight and used as weights of gold
and silver, both for trade and for storage. Wills paid to heirs
sums of these pounds of hard money, and we find from them
that "A pound of gold consisted of twelve pounds of silver. "20
At a later date, the Code of Maimonodes reveals the careful
attention given to hard money, and the existence of a silver
standard because of the comparative scarcity of silver. Thus,
we are told that "gold denars have the status of a commodity
vis-a-vis silver coins, and likewise, copper rna'ah have the
status of a commodity vis-a-vis silver coins. "21
Byzantium, however, was the central area of wealth and
commerce for centuries, and it was essentially a commercial
civilization whose traders reached the far outposts of the
known world. The money of Byzantium was exclusively gold
and copper. Byzantium had a doubly important heritage: the

biblical emphasis on money as weight and the Greek demand
for hard money during most of ancient Hellenic history. As
Groseclose observed, of Byzantium and its monetary standard:
During the long period of Byzantine history, foreign trade

was an important source oJf social income ... Though
Byzantine gold moved out to the most distant corners of
the earth and served as the measure of value to
feudatories in England and to Persian merchants in India,
there was no apparent dirninution of supplies at Con-
stantinople, no scarcity of lmetal that would provoke an
alteration of the standard.
The fact is that Byzantium did not concern itself with
"mercantilism." In both the early and later Greek
civilization an economic structure was built upon money,
but money was kept as a means rather than as an object of
commercial activity. Property arose from the growth of
natural rather than monetary wealth, and financial activity
was concerned with the acquisition and movement of
physical rather than monetary values. 22
Byzantium regarded two things as essential to its existence:

orthodoxy, or sound ChristianitY:1 and gold coinage, or sound
money. In fact, Cosmas, the Sailor of the Indies, held that
these two elements accountedl for the prosperity of Byzantine
commerce. Modern scholars are apt to smile at this association,
but there was a biblical premise for sound coinage which
governed Byzantine thinking. For over six centuries, from
Constantine I (d. 337 A.D.) to Nicephorus III, Botaniates
(1076-1081), who reduced the amount of gold in the coin, the
Byzantine coinage retained its value unimpaired. Defeat at the
hands of the Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, was the
excuse for tampering with the coinage. The world lost its "one
reliable medium of exchange. Constantinople was no longer
the financial centre of the world. "23 The steady collapse
thereafter of the Byzantine coinage brought international

financial chaos. As Runciman observed,
Indeed, the days of the Palaeologi are a sad last chapter to

the Empire. The coinage that the King of Ceylon liked
above all others was now dishonoured even in Pera. The
merchandise that paid rich tolls at the wharves of Con-
stantinople was carried past her walls now by the Genoese
without calling or travelled by a far-away route by Syria
and ships of Venice. Her situation was valueless now, and
her monetary pride humbled and discarded. The tragedy
of the long death of Byzantium is above all a financial
tragedy. 24
The sad fact is that the same tragedy is being reenacted today.
The issues are essentially the same, and the same is true of the
principles at stake.
NOTES
IGeorge Bush, Notes, Critical and Practical, on the Book of
Leviticus (New York: Ivison & Phinney, 1857), p. 214.
2A. R. S. Kennedy, "Money," in James Hastings, ed., A Dictionary
of the Bible (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1919), III, 419.
3For much valuable data on U.S. coinage, see R. S. Yeoman, A
Guide Book of United States Coins, published annually by Western
Publishing Company. The 1971 edition (p. 3), in citing the rise of the
price of coins (as well as their decline at times, and the reasons why),
listed first the fact that "The trend of our economy is inflationary."
4For more on biblical law, see R. J. Rushdoony, Institutes of
Biblical Law (Nutley, N.J.: The Presbyterian & Reformed Publish-
ing Company, 1972).
'';See Gary K. North, Introduction to Christian Economics (Nutley,
N. J.: Craig Press, 1973).
6Cited in Charles T. Fritsch, "Proverbs," in The Interpreter's Bible
(New York: Abingdon Press, 1955), IV, 874.
7See R. J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law.

IiMartin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1954),. Mueller translation, p. 37.
9Matthew Henry, A Comment6~ry on the Holy Bible (New York:
Funk & Wagnalls, n.d.), I, 306.
IOCited by Franklyn Hobbes, ()old, the Real Ruler of the World
(Chicago: The Business Foundation Publishers, 1943), p. 177 f.
IIBaba Mezi'a, Ch. IV, in The Babylonian .Talmud, Seder Nezikin
(London: The Soncino Press, 193.5), I, 263.
12See Harold Ordway Rugg, .The Great Technology, Social Chaos
and the Public Mind (New York: John Day, 1933), especially Ch. IX.
13Jerry Rubin, Do It! (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), p.
143.
14Charles Rist, .The Triumph of Gold, Philip Cortney, translator
(New York: Philosophical Library, 1961), p. 2.
15See R. J. Rushdoony, Politic~~ of Guilt and Pity (Nutley, N. J. :
Craig Press, 1970), p. 209.
If'Eric P. Newman, The Early Paper Money of America (Racine,
Wis.: Whitman Publishing Company, 1967), p. 11.
17Irving A. Agus, Urban-Civilization in Pre-Crusade Europe (N ew
York: Yeshiva University Press, 1968), I, 16 f.
lIiIbid., I, 17.
19Ibid., I, 96, 146, 264, 278.
2°Ibid., II, 719 f.
21Isaac Kelin, translator, The Code of Maimonodes, Book Twelve,
The Book ofAcquisitions (New Ha.ven: Yale University Press [1951],
1955), p. 24.
22EIgin Groseclose, Money: .The Human Conflict (Norman, Okla.:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1H34), p. 151.
2·'lSteven Runciman, Byzantine (7ivilisation (London: Edward
Arnold [1933], 1936), p. 53.
24Ibid., p. 178.
9
Is the Gold Standard
Gone Forever?
ARTHUR KEMP
Claremont Men's College
To attempt an answer to such a question, involving as it must

both prescription and prediction, requires some under-
standing of what the term gold standard really means. The
same label has been applied to very different kinds of
arrangements, some of which could be established or re-
established rather easily while others would be most difficult,
if not impossible. Some advocates of what is called a gold
standard, for example, consider a 100 percent private gold
money as the only true gold standard; others are willing to
settle for the use of gold in its international functions alone;
still others insist on applying the term only to a system permit-
ting and fostering redemption in terms of gold bullion or gold
coin both domestically and internationally. Whichever type of
gold standard one chooses, an understanding requires a close
176
Is the Gold Standard Gone ]4"orever? 177
study of the essential circumstances which led to gold becom-

ing the most important monetary metal in the history of the
world.
It should be emphasized at the beginning that gold has had
widespread usage both in its artistic and monetary functions
since very ancient times. Whether or not we can pinpoint the
b~ginning, it seems clear that it has been in widespread use
since at least 5000-3000 B. C., and very possibly even before
that. Early civilizations, widely separated from each other both
in space and in time, admiredl gold and used it not only in the
arts but also as a measure of 'lVealth and as a medium of
exchange. I shall not argue purely from the historical evidence.
That gold has played a very important role in the past is not
sufficient justification for its continued use in the present. But,
even if one accepts the argument (which I do not) that the
monetary use of gold is the result of nothing more than
superstition, ignorance, myth, and illusion, the historical
significance of gold in monetary affairs cannot be disregarded.
Myths have played some very important parts in the de-
velopment of human affairs.
The history of the evolutionary development of gold as a
monetary metal suggests that it originated in voluntary acts of
individuals pursuing their private, mercantile ends. They dis-
covered that measuring by gold weight facilitated commercial
exchanges, preserved purchasing power over time, and aided
in the formation of capital. Moreover, it seems clear that such
usage preceded the device oJf coinage and was developed in-
dependently of governmental authority. In short, gold
standards were not invented, but: discovered. No other metal,
commodity, system, or mechanism up to the present time has
had the widespread acceptance as has gold, nor has any other
device survived for so long the attempts to ridicule it, to
confiscate it, to outlaw it. ".As good as gold!" "The Golden
Rule!" "Speech is silver; silence is gold!" Every modern
language is filled with such pi1cturesque phrases, most of them
complimentary.
178 ARTHUR KEMP
True, rulers, emperors, governments did not take long to

recognize the advantages and disadvantages of gold to their
own objectives and ambitions. The discovery of coining had
political and religious overtones as well as very practical
economic applications. To have a well-turned likeness of the
ruler on coins, or the appropriate symbols sacred to the gods,
must have had considerable public relations effects. It also
served as a sort of certification of weight and fineness and as
such has continued to the present day. With the development
of more complex and sophisticated legal systems, such legal
certification became the specification of the basic legal means
for settling disputes involving debt, damages in the case of
contracts impossible to fulfill, actions involving trespass, libel,
slander, and so on. This improved the ability of government to
serve as arbiter of private disputes.
Probably very early in the development, governments
refused to be content with a purely secondary, passive role in
monetary affairs. Perhaps it would have been better had gov-
ernment been denied any role whatever in monetary affairs.
But the question seems to me academic at best. Virtually every
country in the world, whether democratic or autocratic,
assigns to government a high degree of responsibility for
providing a monetary framework-and some of the decisions
of the highest courts have asserted that it is an inherent and
inseparable part of sovereignty. Whether one agrees or not, it
is clear that governments have demonstrated again and again a
remarkable ability to utilize the monetary system for the
purpose of increasing their control over the real resources of
the citizenry. The number and variety of socially desirable
projects that governments can devise seem infinite. Allrequire
financing; lack of money is always and everywhere a
hindrance. Put more properly, to carry out the projects re-
quires government to obtain control of the necessary real
resources, and one method for doing so has been control of
monetary sources. Whether by the rather primitive device of
Is the Gold Stand(lrd Gone F'orever? 179
debasing the coinage through clipping, sweating, or recalling

and reminting, or by issuing unsecured paper money, or by the
more sophisticated modern 1techniques of deficit financing
through the central bank, the result has been to provide gov-
ernments with that control. Not by coincidence, the only
period of movement in the direction of some degree of
decentralization of control over the monetary mechanisms
took place during the liberal movement toward limited gov-
ernment during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The
only device to stem the movement toward centralization was
the gold standard, and from the point of view of our century
even this appears to have been temporary.
The preeminence of gold as a monetary metal was reached in
the nineteenth century. Silver, prior to that time, might be
considered to have been a serious rival but, for reasons that
need not be discussed here, dating perhaps from the Gold
Standard Act of 1816 by England, gold ascended to undisputed
first place, although the champions of silver continued to drag
their heels throughout the century. The gold standards, as
adopted by various countries, had two aspects, one domestic,
the other international. The international aspect derived from
the domestic. There were also some widely different legal,
institutional, and economic arrangements. But in the generic
sense, these gold standards were based upon a similar legal
status: (1) the monetary unit ojf each gold standard country was
defined in terms of that unit's weight and fineness (a coinage
definition); and (2) there was designated an agency, not
necessarily governmental, whJich was instructed to buy and sell
gold for money, and money for gold. Using the United States
as an example, from 1834 on the pure gold content of the dollar
was 23.22 grains, resulting in a. mint price (480/23.22) of $20.67
an ounce. l
All the major moneys of the world today are, or were at one
time, defined in terms of metallic weight, and the vast majority
were in terms of gold and presupposed coining gold. Domes-
180 ARTHUR KEMP
tically, a gold coin standard provides for redemption of

standard monetary units in gold, with the minimum amount
equal to the minimum authorized coin. The device of a so-
called gold bullion standard increases the size of the minimal
transaction by defining the weight of a gold bar; this practice, it
appears, was adopted in the hope of confining most uses of gold
to the settlement of international balances. I regard the gold
coin standard as the only true gold standard-the gold
standard, so to speak-and all other variations, restrictions,
modifications, and alterations as departures, both in theory
and practice, from a true gold standard. All the variations, such
as the gold bullion standard and the gold exchange standard,
have untoward side effects restricting the functioning of the
gold coin standard as it evolved historically.
The important function of gold internationally evolved from
the various domestic gold coin standards in an unconscious,
spontaneous, and gradual manner. It was not the result of
governmental appointees meeting together in order to
establish an international gold standard by political agreement.
It also seems likely that the domestic success of the gold
standard in providing a relatively high degree of stability of the
general price level in various countries contributed to its in-
ternational function as well.
It should be emphasized that, although the evidence, logic,
and measurable experience indicate that the gold coin
standards of the two centuries prior to 1914 were accompanied
by a much greater price stability than has occurred since that
time, this does not mean that no inflationary periods were
present. Relatively stable price levels do not mean absolutely
unchanging general price levels. But in those two centuries,
the periods of extensive inflation were mainly associated with
wars. In many countries, as measured by w;holesale prices, the
average annual variation in prices was close to 5 percent and
the maximum variation was rarely above 20 percent.
Moreover, in countries whose devotion to a gold coin standard
Is the Gold Standard Gone F'orever? 181
was reasonably steady over the period, the price levels at the
end of the period were not far different than at the beginning.
To say that this is in contrast to experience since 1914, or even
in the last three decades, is gross understatement.
.T here seems to be little dispute about the facts. In a speech
delivered at 'loronto, Canada, in December 1972, Arthur
Burns, the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System, recognized it as follows:
The current inflationary problem has no close parallel

in economic history. In the past, inflation in the United
States was associated with ulilitary outlays during wars or
with investment booms in peacetime. Once these
episodes passed, the price level typically declined, and
many years often elapsed before prices returned to their
previous peak. . . .
Over the past quarter century, a rather different
pattern of wage and price behavior has emerged.... The
average level of prices, however, hardly ever declines....
Almost the entire world is at present suffering from
inflation, and in many countries-for example Canada,
France, the United Kingdom, West Germany, and the
Netherlands-the pace of inflation is more serious than in
the United States. 2
In these comments there is not one word of recognition that

there is a tendency under a gold standard to check and reverse
strong price movements in either direction. Nor is there even a
recognition that this tendency operates through the restraints
imposed on the total money stock. A gold coin standard, it
seems, imposes too. great a restriction on the discretionary
powers of central bankers. Price-level stability, it is argued
over and over again, is only one of several goals of monetary
policy-an argument few would deny. But then it is argued
that discretion and flexibility in these powers are essential to
182 ARTHUR KEMP
wise choices made by wise men, accompanied by direct price

and wage controls. The evidence supporting the second asser-
tion is nonexistent.
Under gold coin standards, gold functioned as a reserve
against paper promises to pay, both domestically and interna-
tionally, in clearing arrangements both domestic and interna-
tional, and in storing value over time. Gold resists restraints
placed upon it; it is hoarded; it escapes to places government
officials cannot reach; it resists manipulation by governments
or central banks, even when the penalties for its possession and
use are about as severe as man's ingenuity can devise.
During much of the nineteenth century, as more and more
nations adopted gold standards domestically, gold performed a
very significant role in relating currencies, prices, and interest
rates of different countries one to another. This was the
predominant mechanism prior to 1914. Of course, among the
different countries there existed many variations in legal in-
stitutions, administrative devices, redemption techniques,
conversion practices, and so on. But these were small marginal
differences which did not prevent what was, in effect, a viable
international monetary mechanism binding together a large
part of the world. Somewhat surprisingly, in hindsight, gov-
ernments interfered directly only occasionally. Money tended
to move freely from one market to another, thus tending to
equalize interest rates. Domestic pr~ce levels in the moderate-
ly long run were fairly stable. Movements of labor were less
restricted than they are at present. Exchange rates, although
not absolutely fixed, varied within a relatively narrow band of
fluctuations essentially determined by twice the total cost of
shipping gold: the gold export and gold import points of the
classical gold standard. Few policing costs were involved; the
system was self-supporting. Even the actual shipment of gold
to settle international balances was remarkably small com-
pared to the importance of gold in domestic usage as coin or
indirectly as monetary reserves against other domestic
moneys.
Is the Gold Standard Gone F'orever? 183
Although: nations employed different names for their

moneys, such as pounds, marks, dollars, or francs, there really
existed a common monetary Inedium through the conversion
of the different moneys into gold, thus promoting the in-
terrelationships of the various economies and the consequent
expansion of the division of labor. Such a single money system,
tied to a commodity (gold) which itself changed in quantity
only slowly, provided a de facto restriction of the total
monetary stock of the world. True, some new discoveries of
gold fields, or new technical processes such as the cyanide
process, at times introduced some sudden expansions. But the
overall importance of new current production declined in-
exorably relative to stocks, as i.t continues to do to this day. The
instability introduced by these discoveries and inventions
seems modest indeed compared to that currently being
experienced through the use of independent national
currencies as reserves, the invention of Special Drawing
Rights, and the universal pra(~tice of deficit financing-to say
nothing of the myriad of discretionary devices and direct con-
trols being practiced by practically all nations, either separate-
ly or collectively.
As a result of the adoption of gold coin standards by various
countries, there came into being a relatively automatic in-
ternational balance-of-payments mechanism. Governments
(central banks) were not only not necessary or required; by the
so-called rules of the games they were undesirable and anti-
thetical. The variation in domestic money stocks was held in
check by international gold movements, not by the dis-
cretionary actions of national central banks subject to the push
and pull of domestic political pressures. The mechanism was
not perfect (for what is perfect in human affairs?), but it
provided a symmetrical adjustment system functioning in-
ternationally with a minimum of conscious guidance, reducing
monetary reserves in a country selling gold from its stocks and
raising reserves in a country acquiring it; raising short-term
interest rates in a country selling its gold stock and lowering
184 ARTHUR KEMP
them in a country acquiring gold; reducing monetary stocks in

a country selling gold and increasing monetary stocks in a
country acquiring it; and, ultimately, if it went far enough,
lowering price levels in countries selling gold and raising them
in countries acquiring it. .rhis, quite clearly, is an equilibrium
mechanism. No one should deny it, although it could be
argued by some (and has been) that the side effects were· too
costly by compelling a country to accept a politically un-
acceptable level of unemployment or some other disciplinary
measure.
Obviously, the international gold standard as described
above is no more. It was not abandoned all at once, or sudden-
ly, nor did all who abandoned it do so voluntarily or for the
same reasons. Perhaps the beginning, the camel's nose under
the tent, was the recognition that under a gold coin standard,
holders of gold are able to impose some restraint on the dis-
cretionary powers governments wish to possess in order to
pursue their various political or economic objectives, e.g.,
export promotion, full employment, faster economic growth,
arbitrarily low interest rates, agricultural or. other subsidies,
forced and rapid industrialization, and so on ad infinitum. In
terms of American experience (although it applies in general to
other countries as well), the deterioration of the gold standard
probably began when moneys other than gold were made full
legal tender, when ownership of gold was restricted, and when
restraints were put upon the export and import of the metal as
well as upon. contractual arrangements based upon gold. The
crucial year in the American experience is 1933-1934. Space
does not permit the detailing of the actions taken at that time.
Except for gold coins minted before 1934, ownership of the
metal in private hands was prohibited; it became a government
monopoly. All moneys were declared full legal tender· and
completely interchangeable one with another; gold contracts
were rendered unenforceable. Interestingly enough, the
domestic purpose seems to have been inflationary and the
Is the Gold Standard Gone Forever? 185
assertion by the President of the United States that it Hseeks

the kind of dollar which a generation hence will have the same
purchasing power as the dollar we hope to attain in the near
future" sounds like a line from a comic opera.
.The United States retained the pretense of redemption in
coin at some unspecified future date. The Gold Reserve Act of
1934 devalued the dollar from its previous weight to H15
5/21sts grains of gold, 9/10 fine, 1I, thus reducing the pure gold
content to 13.714+ and establishing $35 per ounce (480/
13.714) as the official gold price in terms of dollars. Other
countries either led or followed suit, some sooner, some later.
-Thus, the deterioration of the international gold standard con-
tinued and, the evidence suggests, at an increasing rate.
Although the United States retained its ties to gold internation-
ally by a sort of administratively discretionary gold bullion
standard, the severing of the ties to gold continued both in the
United States and abroad. From that time on, recurring in-
ternational monetary crises ,vere probably unavoidable.
In 1944 the Bretton Woods Conference, inspired by and
executed by representatives of governments and dominated by
the United States and Great Britain, formulated an interna-
tional gold-dollar exchange standard, having most of the dis-
advantages of a gold standard and few, if any, of its virtues. In
essence, nations other than the United States agreed to
maintain a relatively fixed rate between their monetary units
and the dollar, with the latter redeemable to governments at
$35 per ounce. The intent seems to have been to permit more
frequent readjustments of the relatively fixed rates than did, in
fact, take place. But intentions, however worthy, are well
known for their applications in certain road-paving projects.
The system thus established functioned for some years . .The
very large reserves of gold held by the United States,
themselves as much the result of political circumstances (such
as the gold outflow from Europe to the United States between
Munich in September 1938 and the fall of France in June 1940)
186 ARTHUR KEMP
as economic, permitted the IMF system to function for many

years. Perhaps the reserves, if smaller, would have forced the
system to be abandoned much earlier.
In domestic monetary affairs, the Congress proceeded to
remove or destroy all the vestigial ties to gold. In 1946 the gold
certificate reserve requirement for Federal Reserve Banks was
reduced from 40 percent against Federal Reserve notes and 35
percent against Federal Reserve deposits (the basic reserve
against deposit liabilities of American member banks) to a
single 25 percent against both. In 1960 the prohibition on
holding gold domestically by American citizens was expanded
to prohibit them from holding gold internationally as well.
.They were accused of being a part of those ubiquitous
speculators who, invariably, are devilishly bent upon causing
international monetary crises. The money stock of the United
States continued to increase, but not at a constant rate. .The
gold stock continued to decline, and at what appears to be an
increasing rate. Step by step, in the 1960s, the ties were cut.
Cash, not gold, of course, was permitted to be counted as
member bank reserves for the first time since 1913. Even the
minor vestigial remains of silver in the monetary system were
abandoned. First, the gold certificate requirement of 25
percent against Federal Reserve deposits was removed, and
then the gold certificate reserve against Federal Reserve
notes. The present ratio of monetary gold stock to Federal
Reserve deposit and note issue liabilities is close to 10 percent,
less than one-half the previously .lowered ratio specified by
law. Had the requirement been maintained, unquestionably
that increase in the total money stock of the United States
could not have reached its present level. The check-rein had
been thrown away.
The international gold-dollar exchange standard agreed
upon at Bretton Woods· was inhibited for many years by the
hangover of blocked accounts and exchange controls remaining
from the war. By 1958, however, the various monetary reforms
in Europe induced what amounted to full interconvertibility of
currencies among the major nations of the Western world.

Now the gold-dollar exchange standard was in full swing; it
soon demonstrated some of the difficulties that many had
previously recognized..There was no adjustment mechanism.
Under the more traditional gold standard with national
currencies defined in gold and reserves maintained therein,
countries could not acquire new reserves except by acquiring
gold. Now,however, a country with a surplus in its balance of
payments could create new mloney against its foreign balances
(that is, dollars for the most part). Dollar balances in American
banks became monetary reserves. Nor was there any pressure
on the United States to adjust or terminate the deficit in its
balance of payments as there would have been under a true
gold standard. Adjustments could have been made through the
utilization of appropriate central bank techniques, especially
open market operations. But it would be particularly naive to
expect it. Moreover, it is clear that this did not happen.
Of course, gold was still in the picture, internationally.
Foreign central banks could still demand gold at the official
dollar price of $35 per ounce. There was even a "free" gold
market or two, the one in London being most important. In
October 1961 the London prilce for gold spurted above $40 per
ounce, and in reaction against the usual wicked speculators, a
gold pool was formed by the nlajor nations. For some years that
pool furnished enough gold to the "free" market to prevent the
price from rising very far above the $35 level. Maintaining an
effective price ceiling is always a difficult matter; the gold price
did not prove to be an exceptllon. In 1968 a major international
monetary crisis, sometimes :mislabeled a dollar crisis, led to
abandoning the gold pool. France had left the sinking ship
earlier. In its stead the nations formed a so-called two-tier gold
price, one the official $35 per ounce, and the other a price to be
determined in the "free" market without intervention from
central banks' reserves to influence the price. The next major
crisis occurred in August 1!~71 and resulted in the United
States' discontinuing the sale of gold to foreign central banks at
188 ARTHUR KEMP
the official price, thus casting aside the second generic re-
quirement for a gold standard: the agency prepared to buy and
sell gold for money, and money for gold.
The "closing of the gold window" in August 1971 placed the
United States and the USSR in a very similar position. Both
countries have monetary units defined in terms of gold;
neither country has an effective agency prepared to buy and
sell at the monetary price. There is no convertibility of the
ruble into gold, either domestically or internationally, nor is
there any convertibility of the dollar into gold, either domes-
tically or internationally. Both currencies are, in effect,
irredeemable paper money, although, to be sure, the dollar is
bought, sold, and loaned on the world's markets fairly freely,
while the amount of paper rubles or coins bought, sold, or
loaned is negligible and such exchanges as do exist are either
black market or in the nature of commodity purchase and sale
rather than money.
A few months ago, just after the latest crisis in the interna-
tional money markets, the Wall Street Journal, in a thoughtful
editorial entitled "Rethinking the Dollar Problem" (March 2,
1973), suggested that the appropriate action called for a
tightening of credit by the U. S. Federal Reserve System, thus
increasing interest rateshere, and for a loosening of credit in
Germany, thus lowering interest rates there..This is precisely
the mechanics of the first line of adjustment under the gold
standard. The adjustment mechanism is virtually automatic
instead of requiring the wise decisions of central bankers who
have the courage to forego short-run domestic political
advantages for the sake of international harmony and well-
being.What happens is almost precisely the reverse, as is
indicated by the recent attempts of the Reserve authorities to
"jawbone" down higher interest rates in the United States-to
mention only one inconsistency in American monetary policy.
The international monetary system is still suffering from
belief in a mythology stemming, it would appear, from an
emotional rather than logical hangover from the depression
years of the 1930s when the United States experienced a

period of deflation and, concomitantly, a high degree of unem-
ployment. It was the great contri.bution-or tragedy-of John
Maynard Keynes and the K:eynesians to have provided an
acceptable and plausible theory which seemed to permit
nations to proceed their individual ways with their own
particular political and ideological programs without regard to
their effects on relations among individuals in an increasingly
interdependent world. International motives and objectives
are always to be subordinate to the important objectives of the
domestic scene. The solution to unemployment and other
structural maladjustments domestically under the Keynesian
prescription was to ensure that vvage rates in monetary terms
were rigid in a downward direction, while engaging in domes-
tic monetary policies designed to inflate the economy
sufficiently to bring about a downward movefuent in real wage
rates. If such a prescription is valid for domestic structural
imbalances, then, similarly, the imbalances of the internation-
al scene can be remedied by international inflation, or to use
the appropriate phrase, by the necessary increases in interna-
tional liquidity.
Perhaps this explanation is an oversimplification, but the
essence of it remains valid. f80upled with the use of national
currencies as international reserves, particularly the dollar
under the gold-dollar exchange standard, it gave rise to the
rather schizoid position thalt continuous American deficits
were essential lest international liquidity be threatened.
However, the continuation of deficits in the American balance
of payments would lead, alnlost inexorably, to a lack of con-
fidence in the dollar as a stable currency, and to the willingness
and ability of the United States to maintain even the interna-
tional convertibility of the dollar into gold at a fixed price.
This gave rise to the long pressure for some mechanism or
solution which would continually increase international li-
quidity-the creation of paper gold. The most vigorous and
active proponent of this solution among academic economists
190 ARTHUR KEMP
was Professor Robert Triffin. In justice to 'Triffin's approach,

he seemed less concerned about the overall shortage of in-
ternational liquidity than what he regarded as the irrational,
haphazard, absurd nature of the sources of that liquidity in the
balance-of-payments deficits of key currency countries. The
intellectual debt of this position to Keynes' arguments is well
known. In 1943 Keynes argued for creation of international
currency "capable of deliberate expansion and contraction to
offset deflationary and inflationary tendencies in effective
world demand [italics added]."
There is no demonstrable relation between the volume of
world trade and international reserves or, for that matter,
between the volume of domestic trade and the volume of
domestic reserves or money stock. But, with the exception of a
few economists whose voices were raised against the ac-
ceptance of the liquidity shortage mythology, much of the
subsequent argument was not over the basic question, but
rather over the 'method of creating the international liquidity. 3
Thus we find this sort of statement, or its equivalent, in book
after book, treatise after treatise:
SDRs, therefore, are likely to provide, in the long run, the

most lasting and constructive form of help within the
international monetary system. . . . They are likely to
provide a lasting addition to the world's supply of interna-
tional money. . . . But by increasing the overall level of
international reserves, it should give countries in
difficulties a little more elbow-room to solve their prob-
lems, whether by financing a balance of payments deficit
until domestic measures have time to work, or just by
fending off a speculative attack with a larger pile of
reserves. 4
The point here is less a criticism of the authors than an

attempt to show how the acceptance of the liquidity problem
focused attention on the shadow rather than the substance.
Is the Gold Standard Gone J~orever? 191
The substance is the question of the nature of the adjustment

mechanism; even accepting the Keynesian statement cited
above, what are the rules to be followed for the "deliberate"
(by whom?) expansions and contractions? And what incentives
and disincentives can be devised to be sure that the exercise of
such "deliberate" expansions: and contractions will not, even
with the best intentions, contract when they should expand, or
expand when they should contract? Indeed, liquidity was not
the problem; or, if it was, the problem was too much liquidity
rather than too little. Even the much heralded SDRs have
simply added to the problem. Countries receiving allocations
of SDRs can, if they wish, monetize these domestically. If the
United States chose to do so, the effects of the SDRs could be
made precisely the same as if there had been an inflow of gold.
Nor is this problem confined to the United States. Hence, if
the SDRs have any effect, it is likely to be in the direction of
foreign central banks substituting SDRs for dollars in their
international reserves portfolio. At worst, SDRs will con-
tribute to the severity of the ensuing crises; at best the effect
will be negligible.
One must point out that the devaluation of the dollar, in
accordance with the Smithsonian Agreement of December
1971, also increases liquidity. So does the devaluation of
February 1973. If the United States proposed to monetize the
increases in the price of gold from $35 to $38 to $42.22, it
would have the same effect as if there had been an inflow of
gold. This is an adjustment mlechanism? On the contrary, it is a
maladjustment mechanism, a thermometer that registers
lower when it is hot and higher when it is cold. If this argument
is correct, we are proposing solutions to the problem by
advocating larger doses of the drug that caused the problem in
the first place.
International monetary crises are recurring at shorter and
shorter intervals and are becoming increasingly severe.
Generally, Western nations have done little, if anything, to
liberalize overall trade policies and, instead, have turned in-
192 ARTHUR KEMP
creasingly to direct controls on trade, capital investment, and

even monetary movements. If anything resembling the
present system is to survive, it will have to be accompanied by
elimination of such controls, not by their imposition. If nation-
al objectives are always to have higher priority than interna-
tional balance and worldwide integration, the present system
cannot survive. Nor, indeed, is there the likelihood of con-
scious adoption of a true gold standard viable over an extended
period of time, no matter how much some of us might like to
see it.
I have long been a vigorous proponent of a full gold coin
standard, although I am quite prepared to admit that it is not
perfect, not a panacea. Nor indeed is any of the other proposals
thus far. Over a decade ago I expressed the following hope:
The gold standard is not a perfectly marvelous solution to

all our problems. But it is a step in the right direction and
even retaining the present [1962] more or less weak links
to gold may someday allow us to take further steps. When
the severe run on gold took place in 1960, when the next
run on gold takes place, as it is quite likely to do, these will
still serve as a signal and, if the signal flashes long enough
and bright enough, perhaps the United States
-government and electorate alike-will come to rec-
ognize its meaning and to consider seriously a solution.
People are not best served in a free society by granting
special powers to administrative agents, whether in
monetary or other affairs. Discretion in monetary affairs
ought to be reduced, ought to be freed from political
influences both domestic and foreign, ought to be
minimized and ultimately eliminated. A gold coin
standard will, if properly augmented, go far toward
achieving that objective. 5
I am far more pessimistic now. The signals have flashed

again and again without, regrettably, any serious decision
Is the Gold Standard Gone J?orever? 193
having been reached. The present monetary system of the

Western world is a system of perpetual inflation. All the ties to
gold on which a reasonable gold standard solution might have
been reached have been cut. Even if we took the simple route
of so increasing the official price of gold that the price could
absorb all the monetary overhang, and then reinstating an
international gold standard, this could only be brought about
by conscious planning by various governments, with all the
maneuvering for advantages, domestic pressures, and in-
ternational prestige that this would entail. The gold standard
was a discovery, an evolutionary happening, not a conscious
innovation. If a gold standard or its equivalent, perhaps in a
form as yet unknown, could again become a reality, it could
occur only after a prolonged period of time in which the freely
operating market forces could establish stable market prices
for gold and indicate the proper mint pars for different national
monetary units, tied once again by conversion into gold. It
would certainly require terminating most of the present
prohibitions on the ownership of gold and of foreign currencies
or accounts-and 'perhaps the abolition of government
stockpiles of gold as well. At: least two preliminary steps to a
true gold standard would appear to be: (1) to remove all gov-
ernmental restraints on the possession, purchase, sale, export,
or import of gold in any forIn, and all restrictions on private
contracts involving a quantitaltive gold payment; (2) to allow for
a period of time during which the exchange rates among the
major nations of the world w'ould be permitted to seek stable
equilibrium levels without dirty floats, devaluations, or gov-
ernmental support or hindra.nce of any kind.
Some friends and colleagues may jump to the conclusion
that, after years of steadfastly advocating a gold standard, I
have become a positive proponent of freely flexible exchange
rates. Not so. I remain unconvinced that the three-legged stool
of freely flexible exchange rates, locked-in rates of change in
the domestic money supply, and the elimination of dis-
cretionary monetary authority domestically is either inherent-
194 ARTHUR KEMP
ly a better system than a gold standard or more likely to prevail

over a long period. Rather, I should hope that these two
preliminary steps would result in the adoption of a true gold
coin standard, if only in one country. Perhaps its success would
encourage others to do the same until there would result a
renewal of progress toward a free international society, with a
greater stability and a greater degree of international division
of labor, a greater prosperity, and a greater stimulus to the
individual human spirit than the world has yet seen.
To prescribe the essential preliminary steps is less foolhardy
than to predict that they will be taken, although stranger things
have happened. In the long run, considering the upward prog-
ress man has made compared to his simian ancestors, I am
reasonably optimistic, although the process may take a century
or two. In the shorter run lam realistically pessimistic. Is the
gold standard gone forever? I don't know for sure. Forever is a
very long time.
NOTES
IThis was the result of the statute of 1834 which. provided for a
10-percent alloy instead of the prior 1/12ths, and of the codification
of 1873, repeated again in the Gold Standard Act of 1900. I omit
references to the bimetallic standard.
2Houghton-Mifflin Economics/Business News, Spring 1973, p. 8.
3See, for example, the discussion in Triffin, Our International
Monetary System: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (New York:
Random House, College Division, 1968), pp. 119-124.
4William M. Clarke and George Pulay, :The World's Money (New
York: Praeger, 1971), p. 70.
'''The Role of Gold (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise
Association, Public Policy Studies, 1963), p. 79.
Epilogue
It is not money, as is sometimes said, but the destruction of
money through inflation that is the root of many evils. Since
these chapters were written, in the spring of 1973, the global
inflation has accelerated its monetary destruction and thereby
evoked more ominous economic, social, political, and moral
consequences. In most parts of the world the annual deprecia-
tion rates of the national monetary units now exceed 10 percent
and are rising steadily. Even in the United States the overall
cost of living data as issued by the federal government is rising
breathlessly at two-digit rates. Inflation of such force is
corrosive to the social fabric of society; it becomes the great
destroyer of the social order.
And yet, there is no foreseeable end to the monetary
destruction as the ideological and political forces that are giv-
ing rise to such destructive policies continue to gain strength
and support. Most people and their elected representatives
and officials in high government offices do not understand the
inflation dilemma. They are searching in vain for solutions in
political courage and integrity and more government control.
But in the fog of confusion and ignorance even the most
determined statesman, if he ~,ere to emerge, could not find his
way to safety. Nothing can stop inflation until the
redistributive society learns to exert discipline and moderation
and the economic gospel of ](eynesianism that is dominating
public education is forever discredited.
In the darkness of economic ignorance inflation ravages the
195
196 EPILOGUE
middle class and destroys the social order. Gold, which has
been man's money throughout the ages, is an important ba-
rometer of this destruction. As gold investors we may rejoice
about the soaring gold price, but as members of a highly
productive society we are fearful of the ominous consequences
of the paper money depreciation, which the rising gold price so
distinctly reveals. Rampant inflation not only impedes social
cooperation and division of labor, but also breeds massive
unemployment and deep depression. The .economic disrup-
tion it causes, together with its radical redistribution of wealth
and income, lead to social upheaval, lawlessness, and depriva-
tion. Ugly strikes may paralyze economic life, bloody riots may
cripple the cities and disrupt the distribution of essential
goods. As it becomes impoverished and embittered by infla-
tion, the· middle class may clamor for law and order, food and
jobs, and return to normalcy by force, if necessary. It may
welcome "strong leaders" with emergency powers over prices,
wages, rents, and many other aspects of economic life in order
to restore economic and social order. But unfortunately, strong
governments can only suppress certain disorders; they cannot
restore the marvelous market order that can only spring from
individual freedom.
In spite of their great popularity, governmental controls
over prices do not alleviate the inflation dilemma. On the
contrary, they seriously hamper economic production, create
shortages of vital goods and services, breed black markets, and
above all, create confusion and disorder whenever and
wherever they are applied. They merely constitute attempts at
elevating political might over economic law; and their in-
evitable failures again and again offer cogent proof of the
futility of such attempts.
The lowly u.s. penny offers an example of this failure. It is
about to become worth more as a piece of copper than as aU. S.
coin. Like all silver coins before it, the penny, too, will soon
disappear from circulation, hiding from inflation. Therefore,
in blindness and desperation the men of the u.s. Treasury
Epilogue 197
have imposed a ban on melting and exporting copper pennies,

under penalty of $10,000 fine and five years imprisonment. No
one could possibly offer a rnore befitting testimony of the
intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the fiat money order.
While the international monetary system is disintegrating
thousands of barter arrangelnents throughout the world are
taking the place of monetary exchanges. Universal lack of
confidence in paper currency is hampering foreign trade and
precipitating a worldwide depression. For the first time in its
twenty-eight-year history the United Nations' opening ses-
sion, in April 1974, dealt with monetary and economic prob-
lems. The Secretary-General d.eclared a global emergency
caused by the breakdown of the world monetary system.
And yet, in these dark hours of monetary night the early
light of a new day is clearly visible. In order to avoid further
economic disintegration and retreat into barter, some central
banks can be expected to resume gold payments among each
other. They may return to a quasi gold-exchange standard that
facilitates international exchanges through payment of gold.
Certainly no return to fixed parities between gold and national
currencies can be expected at this time; all we can expect is a
parallel standard that utilizes both gold and paper currencies at
market exchange rates. But such a system would be a modest
beginning of a new order that: would again afford central banks
a choice between gold and fiat Dloney. We are confident that
gold will once again emerge as the most favored medium of
exchange, the money of the world.
In America the early light of a new day became visible when
on August 15, 1974, President Ford signed a bill that on
January 1, 1975 restored the individual freedom to trade and
hold gold. This freedom to own the precious metal does not,
however, encompass the individual freedom to use gold in
economic exchanges. The U.S. Treasury now claims that the
Gold Clause Joint Resolution (31 U.S.C. 463), which Congress
passed on June 5, 1933, denies Americans the right to make
payment in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency. Only
198 EPILOGUE
government paper issued by the Federal Reserve System or

the U. S. Treasury is the current legal tender.
The authors deplore this denial of monetary freedom and,
therefore, hope that all legal tender laws that afford paper
money a monopolistic position in all payments, public and
private, will be repealed, or at least amended to permit "gold
contracts" and "gold clauses." Once again, the American peo-
ple must be free to make contracts in terms of gold. But we
seriously doubt that the American people will soon regain this
right to gold as money. After all, the redistributive society
cannot tolerate monetary freedom. Its mon~tary tools are
central banks and fiat money, legal tender legislation and
currency regulation, inflation and price controls. Its destina-
tion is hyperinflation and chaos.
HFS
Grove City College, Pa.
January 1, 1975
Index
Agus, IrvingA., 171, 172 Civil War, 124-156
Art objects, 17 Classical gold standard, 30, 39
Coins, 81, 123-126, 134, 160,
Balance of payments, 4, 10, 172
20n, 25,35,65 Constitution, 80, 86, 89, 90,
Ballve, Faustino, 98 95,125, 140, 170
Bank holiday, 92, 113 Consumer culture, 8
Bank of the United States, Contract Society, 78-85
126 Coogan, Gertrude, 147
Beveridge, Sir William, 14
Biblical law, 157-175 Demand for money, 50,51,
Bimetallic standard, 106 57
Blum, John Morton, 22n Devaluation, ix, 38, 94, 115,
Bretton Woods Agreement, 191
vli, 3, 26, 37, 63, 116, 185 Diamonds, 17
Buffett, Howard, 117, 118 Dillon, Douglas, 20n
Bureaucracy, 6 Disequilibrium, 4
Burns, Arthur, 181 Dollar crisis, 11
Bush, George, 158 Dollar shortage, 25
Business cycle, 45, 59 Donlon, William, 134
Byzantium, 172, 173 [)ue process clauses, 85
Dunne, Gerald, 125
Capital, 5
Capital formation, 9 Economic growth, 76
Cassel, Gustav, 112 Eisenhower, D.D., 18
Chicago School, 25-40 Emergency Banking Act, 92
~~01
202 INDEX
Energy crisis, 5 Groseclose, Elgin, 173

Eurodollar market, 13 Gross National Product, 9,
Exchange controls, 37 21n
Exchange rates, 15, 20, 30,
35, 182 Hamilton, Alexander, 45
Exports, 7 Hammond, Bray, 128, 129,
139,144,145
Federal Deposit Insurance Hazlitt, Henry, 61-76
Corporation, 91 Heilperin, Michael A., 36
Federalist, 82 Hoover, Herbert, 117
Federal Reserve notes, 19, Hume, David, 22n
65,94
Federal Reserve System, 72, Inflation, 12,35,55,62,64,
75,90,91 69,70,72,76,117,193,195
Feudalism, 78 Interest Equalization Tax,
Fiat exchange rates, 24 21n
Fiat standard, 95 Interest rates, 16,59, 188
Fine, Sidney, 130, 131 International Monetary
Fite, Emerson, 136 Fund,20n, 70, 73, 116
Flight into real goods, 16 International stability, 13
Ford, Gerald, 197
Founding Fathers, 125
Jackson, Andrew, 125-130
Franklin, Benjamin, 44
Friedman, Milton, 25, 135
Full employment, 10, 11, 45, Kemmerer, Donald L.,
76 104-121
Full Employment Act, 116 Kemp, Arthur, 176-194
Kennedy, J.F., 18
Gold clauses, 95 Kennedy half-dollars, 124
Gold exchange standard, 62 Keynes, J.M., 8, 21n, 45,50,
Gold Reserve Act, 94, 185 63,189,190,195
Gold reserves, 12, 17, 18, 19 Kitchin, Joseph, 112
Gold standard, 18, 176-194
Gouge, William, 126 Labor unions, 45
Greenbacks, 133 Law, John, 44, 50
Gresham's Law, 133, 167 Law of costs, 47-50
Index 203
Legal tender, 84, 87-90, 95, Omni Press, 147

126 Overconsumption, 4-7, 9,16
Lincoln, Abraham, 147-149
London gold pool, 12, 19 Palyi, Melchior, 110
Luther, Martin, 163 Panic of 1819, 126
Pendleton, George, 139, 140
Magna Carta, 27 Phillips curve, 16
Maine, Sir Henry, 77 Plato, 13, 15
Malinvestment, 55, 58, 59 Presiden t' s Council of
Martin, William McChesney, Economic Advisers, 66-69
22n Prices, 117
Mercantilism, 97, 98,169 Productivity, 6
Middle Ages, 78 Profit motive, 49, 50
Middle class, 7, 8, 17 Proxmire, William, 16
Military expenditures, 3
Mill, John Stuart, 33, 34 Quantity of money, 46, 58, 59
Mises, Ludwig von, 52, 82, 83 Quantity theory, 57
Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 133,
135,136 Real estate, 16
Monetary needs of business, Redemption, 25, 74
42,54,56 Restitution, 162
Money in circulation, 53 Resulting powers doctrine, 88
Mundell, Robert A. , 33 Ricardo, David, 43, 52, 71
Mussatti, James, 85 Rockoff, Hugh, 128
:Rogge, Benjamin A., 98
National Banking Act, 133 Roosevelt, F.D., 14,93,94
Nationalization, 55 :Rothbard, Murray N. , 24-40,
Newcomb, Simon, 122, 138, 126
141,142,143 Reuff, Jacques, 38, 63, 116
New Deal, 18 Rushdoony, Rousas John,
New York Times, 70, 139 157-175
Nisbet, Robert, 124
Nixon, R. M., 19, 24,62, 95, Samuelson, Paul, 117
119 Sennholz, Hans F., 41-60, 98
North, Gary, 122-156 Shinplasters, 133
Nugent, WalterT.K., 132 Shultz, George, vii, 15, 23n
204 INDEX
Smith, Adam, 52, 129 Unger, Irvin, 132

Smithsonian Agreement, 24,
191 Van Deusen, Glyndon, 129,
Sovereignty, 15, 123-147 130
Sparks, JohnA., 77-103 Van Sickle, John V., 98
Special Drawing Rights, viii, Velocity, 52
65-70,190,191 Vietnam conflict, 4
Speculation, 4, 52, 138 Volume of trade, 53
Standard of living, 8, 16
Status society, 78, 79 Wages, 136
Stauffer, Ethelbert, 123 Wall StreetJournal, 15, 22n,
Supreme Court, 86, 87, 89, 188
97,165 Warfare state, 170, 171
Suspension, 127 Waste, 6
Webster, Daniel, 126
Taxation, 6,55 White, Harry Dexter, 63
Theophany, 123 Wiegand, G.C., 3-23
Tobacco standard, 105 Work ethics, 7
Trading with the Enemy Act, World central bank, 70
92 World War I, 17, III
Triffin, Robert, 190 World War II, 8, 116
Two-tier system, 22n, 38, 65,
119 Yeager, Leland B., 32, 33

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GOLD I~; :MONEY

American Financing of World War I

The Depression of the Nineties: An Economic History

Paternalism and Protest: Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Organized

Business Depressions and Financial Panics: Essays in American Business

Towards an Integrated Society: Reflections on Planning, Social Policy and

The Age of Giant Corporations: A Microeconomic History of American

Samuel Gompers and the Origins of the American Federation of Labor,

Statistical View of the Trusts: A Manual of Large American Industrial and

State and Regional Patterns in American Manufacturing, 1860-1900

Westport, Connecticut- Lc)ndon, England

(Contributions in economics and economic history; no. 12)

Copyright © 1975 by Hans F. Sennholz

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-15161

First published in 1975

Greenwood Press, a division of Williamhouse-Regency Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 The Plight of the Dollar 3

2 Gold vs. Fluctuating Fiat Exchange Rates 23

4 To Restore World Monetary Order 61

5 The Legal Standing of (;old:

6 The Role of Gold in the Past Century 104

7 Greenback Dollars and Federal

8 Hard Money and Society in the Bible 157

9 Is the Gold Standard Gone Forever? 176

in the foreign exchange markets, have lifted the dollar anchor

industrial countries and nine from less developed areas. But

rates involving some occasional official intervention, or

full or partial devaluations of national currencies since the end

This book summarily rejects this statist orthodoxy. Its nine

"The dollar is as good as gold," announced the Bretton

other explanation, the plight of the dollar is the result of

tially politically dangerous economic reforms necessary to

OVERSPENDINC; AND OVERCONSUMPTION

The progressive weakening of the dollar, resulting in the

the available timber; the growing inability of large segments of

the inflation-fed consumption exceeds the production of goods

THE CHA.NCaNG MOOD IN AMERICA

Man's actions are determined. by the ideas which he holds

opposite direction. The great majority of the American people

excess reserves had declined by 40 percent, and ever since

less obviously other countries, began to outproduce the United

ployment, ~~ that the federal government can and must provide

permeated every aspect of the economy. While the disposable

ion. Confronted with increasi.ng restrictions in New York, the

How was it possible that }Lmerica, the most powerful and

through wise planning and by compelling those who disagreed

productivity, consumption exceeds production, and savings

art objects, platinum, diamonds, anything which promises

SOFT MOl\rEY VERSUS HARD MONEY

The nineteenth-century gold standard provided an interna-

unable to solve. For ideological and political reasons, the

REMOVING THE CONTROLS

Step for step, the American government has "unshackled"