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Gold: The Final Standard
by Nathan Lewis
Copyright 2017 by Nathan Lewis. All rights reserved. No part of this book
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Third Edition: July 2019

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money,
for money is men’s protection and the base of moral existence. Destroyers
seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all
objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an
arbitrary setter of values.
Ayn Rand
Although gold and silver are not by nature money, money is by nature gold
and silver.
Karl Marx
Table of Contents
Introduction by George Gilder i

Preface v
Chapter 1: The Study of Currency History 1
Chapter 2: The Ancient World, 3500 B.C.-400 A.D. 13
Chapter 3: The Medieval Era, 400-1500 38
Chapter 4: The Bimetallic Era, 1500-1850 56
Chapter 5: The Classical Gold Standard, 1850-1914 91
Chapter 6: The Interwar Period, 1914-1944 138
Chapter 7: The Bretton Woods Period, 1944-1971 177
Chapter 8: The Floating Currency Era, 1971- 202
Chapter 9: Conclusions 230
Notes 247
Bibliography 264
Index 274
Introduction by George Gilder
The anthropologist Margaret Mead used to tell of the story of “bold
mariners” in Polynesian Island tribes who crafted elaborate canoes for
traversing large distances at sea and catching hauls of fish, but then over
the decades allowed these skills to slip away. Their descendants ended up
isolated on small islands, close to starvation, and headed for extinction. She
describes the men gazing fecklessly at the sea as if it were an alien realm
irrelevant to their shortage of food or possibilities of travel. She asks: “If
simple men on islands forgot how to build canoes, might more complex
people also forget something equally essential to their lives?”
In the compelling historical and anthropological narrative of this book,
Nathan Lewis tells how very complex human societies, led by sophisticated
politicians and economists, lost their crucial ability to provide stable money
as a tool for trade and economic growth. They thus are jeopardizing the
future of capitalist economies and the world trade that sustains them. As
altogether blindly as those starving Polynesian warriors gazing at the sea,
the world’s monetary experts look out on the turbulent oceans of chaotic
currency trading that replaced the gold standard and show no awareness
that anything is awry.
According to 2016 data from the Bank of International Settlements, this
sea of currency trading now churns away at a rate of $5.1 trillion per day, as
much as 73 times all trade in goods and services, 25 times all global GDP.
Yet this frothy process arrives at no reliable values to guide entrepreneurs
and producers of real goods and services as they make their investment
decisions across borders.
With foreign exchange a hugely obese and parasitic tail wagging the
dog of real economic activity, free trade becomes politically embattled
around the world. Currency gyrations, such as an 87 percent drop in the
Mexican peso after NAFTA or the drastic ups and downs of the Japanese
yen, confound the price signals that convey real comparative advantage or
purchasing power parities in international trade. Thus the bloating of
currency markets has accompanied a decline in economic performance and
a slump in trade.
With all prices always in play, the arbitrageurs and speculators rule the
world economy and shrink its time horizons. During the height of the
catastrophic financial failure of the “Great Recession,” economists
indifferently contemplated the relentless financialization of the economy,
with incomes in the financial sector nearly tripling as a share of all
corporate income since 1971. Yet as Lewis shows, “Their old [banking]
ii Gold: The Final Standard
roles had actually become even less profitable…eroded by competition and

advances in information technology…[and] should have become a smaller,
cheaper, and less obtrusive part of the economy.”
Instead financial profits have risen to 30 percent of all corporate
profits. “In the floating fiat world,” banks find “new profit centers” in “in-
house speculation…in derivatives, foreign exchange, and financial
engineering,” while as Paul Volcker puts it the only real innovation in
finance in fifty years is the ATM machine. While actual world trade
stagnates, economists have no idea of how or whether to restore a real
monetary measuring stick to the world.
Mention gold, and nearly all professional economists declare that it is
irrelevant to the economic doldrums since Richard Nixon took the US off
the gold standard in 1971. They talk of “secular stagnation” or
“technological exhaustion” or “deindustrialization,” or “shortages of money
and aggregate demand.” They invent complex “trilemmas,” “Midas
paradoxes,” “monetary enigmas,” “liquidity traps,” and other exotic alibis.
Ritualistically quoted is John Maynard Keynes’ passing reference to
gold as a “barbarous relic” or Warren Buffett’s derision of gold as an absurd
fetish: “We dig it out of the ground…melt it down…dig another hole…and
bury it again and then pay people to stand around guarding it. Anyone
watching from Mars would be scratching their head.” Buffett says nothing of
what his putative Martians might make of the more immense absurdity of
devoting much of world capitalism to the otiose shuffling of currencies back
and forth over trading desks.
Contriving hugely complex but still inadequate models and intricate
statistical clouds of mythopoeic aggregates—giving each other Nobel prizes
and other awards—economists laboriously try to explain what in Lewis’
gripping history of the last six thousand years emerges as just another
episode of monetary manipulation and debauchery. “The primary
innovation of the last century,” he observes, “has been to sprinkle spurious
math upon these age old claims.”
Why gold is the monetary element remains controversial (I develop my
own theories in The Scandal of Money). But Lewis shows that of the 118
elements in the periodic table only five precious metals offer any monetary
feasibility and of these, only two—silver and gold—combine compactness
and malleability in a way that allows efficient coinage. Since silver is more
reactive, more common, and tarnishes, gold remains in the chemical “sweet
spot.” For five thousand years, humans have repeatedly gravitated to gold
as money. But the spot remains sweet only when the gold is pure and
accurately measured and thus stable in value.
As Lewis shows, contrary to many analyses, a monetary element should
not be useful or valuable beyond its monetary role. Thus all the proposals
for commodity baskets and other alternatives to gold fail in the most vital
criterion for a metric of value. Commodities are useful and marketable and
Introduction iii
part of the economy which money has to measure. A measuring stick should
not be part of what it measures.
The use of gold as jewelry does not violate this principle. Many
advocates of gold think that people chose it as money because it is beautiful
and shiny as a bauble, and has some very limited uses in electronics—
because “it conducts electricity and love.” But as Richard Vigilante has put
it, “Money is not valuable because it is really jewelry; jewelry is valuable
because it is really money.”
All such theoretical observations, as interesting as they are, give way in
Lewis’s narrative to a long sweep of history in which the gold standard
accompanies humanity’s greatest industrial and economic
accomplishments. The climax is the worldwide spread of gold as a measure
of value that fostered the 18th and 19th century triumphs of the industrial
revolution and the British empire. Enabled were 200 years of
unprecedented growth and progress and centuries of perpetual
government bonds and “consols” in many nations bearing interest rates
under 4 percent.
In the eyes of the conventional wisdom, though, all the thousands of
years of gold serving as a felicitous measuring stick for commerce are
countervailed by the notion that the gold standard caused the Great
Depression. As Lewis shows, the arguments are all incoherent. The
Keynesian-monetarists believe the Great Depression was caused by a
collapse of the money supply—deflation—while the Austrians and
“austerians” contend that the crash was an inevitable effect of runaway
money creation—inflation.
Scores of books have been written to expound both arguments, their
fugues, fusions, and variations. On all sides, the accounts are so complex
and enigmatic and the retrospective policy advice so intricate that it makes
monetary policy essentially impossible to follow in the midst of economic
crises. In the view of the academic analysts, monetary policy in practice
turns out always to be wrong or inadequate or mistimed despite its conduct
by the leading monetary experts.
The canonical monetarist Milton Friedman epitomized the baffling
contradictions and elusive signals in 1998, when he wrote that “low interest
rates are generally a sign that money has been tight, as in Japan; high
interest rates, that money has been easy…After inflation and rising interest
rates in the 1970s, and disinflation and falling rates in the 1980s, I thought
the fallacy…was dead. Apparently old fallacies never die.” But low interest
rates can also signal easy money and high rates tight money. If it takes a
genius to fathom all the paradoxical or even tautological truths in real time,
perhaps monetarism is too enigmatic to be followed. The price of gold
remains a more readable and reliable guide because it is not a part of the
economy it measures.
By contrast, in his historical narrative, Lewis enlists in what might be
called the information theory of economics, which focuses less on the direct
iv Gold: The Final Standard
impact of monetary policy actions than on their informational content.

“Only money that is stable in value can prevent the distortion of prices,
interest rates, profit margins and returns on capital, and all the other
myriad effects…of money that either rises or falls in value.” The gold
standard through history has validated the price signals of the economy.
Thus it has conveyed accurate information that entrepreneurs can use as
guidance for their investments.
The mistake of gold standard critics who see it as a cause of the Great
Depression is to treat vast historical events and tragedies (the rise of a new
world war following the horrors of World War I) as episodes in the
volatility of aggregate demand and shifts in the gold reserve ratio. World
War II and its preparations were not simply maneuvers toward a “liquidity
trap.” The hoarding of gold was not merely an effect of irrational panic. All
that hoarding of gold (after all, many Jews, and French, would soon wish
they had hoarded more!) was a portent of an ongoing breakdown of
civilization and global turn against free markets.
Even at the time, gold provided a better guide for entrepreneurs than
econo-mystic politicians who believed that capitalism could thrive under
price controls, confiscatory taxes, tariff gouges, communist and fascist labor
movements, and abrupt currency manipulations. Gold also outperformed
financial experts who seemed to believe that some expansion of the money
supply or gold reserve ratio or interest rate manipulation would bring
Hitler to the table with trumpets, and induce recumbent lions and lambs to
gather amiably in Alsace.
In retrospect, even during the Great Depression, the gold signal was
right. The critics, as Lewis shows, merely want to shoot the messenger.
George Gilder
Tyringham, Massachusetts
27 April 2017
Preface
This is a wonky book. People new to the topic of money and monetary
history would be better served by my two previous books, Gold: The Once
and Future Money (2007), and Gold: The Monetary Polaris (2013). In the
future, I would like to do a book that is shorter and more accessible to the
newcomer than those. But: first things first.
Many people noticed that the theory and narrative of those first two
books did not coincide with today’s conventional wisdom. Indeed they did
not; there would hardly have been a reason to write them if they did. This
book aims to provide a clean narrative of monetary history, from ancient
times to the present day. Along the way, a great many counterclaims are
examined, in a manner that is necessarily brief, but, I hope, adequate to
address the issues in an effective way.
I assume that the reader has already read those previous books and
absorbed their contents. Topics discussed in depth in those books will get
light treatment here, probably too light to serve as anything but a vague
hint to those who are not already familiar with the subject. This book has
some overlap with the others, particularly in the use of graphs also found in
Gold: The Monetary Polaris. Readers of that book should also find much new
material, for each of the periods represented.
It is often claimed that people have been using gold and silver as money
“for five thousand years.” This is true; but few people know anything about
that long heritage. Typically, it is summarized by a few brief anecdotes
about Greeks and Romans, followed by a leap to the sixteenth or
seventeenth centuries. Yet, on closer investigation, the amazing thing is
how common and widespread gold and silver were throughout the world,
among any civilizations complex enough to mine metals and engage in
monetary exchange. Gold and silver, in bullion form, were the premier high-
quality money for two thousand years before the first coins were minted in
the seventh century B.C. After the fall of western Rome, the history of
money in the West was dominated by the success of the Byzantine solidus, a
gold coin that retained its original standard for over seven centuries. It
spawned many imitators, including the Arab dinar, the Italian florin and
ducat, and second-generation copies including Spanish escudos and Dutch
gulden. In the East, the Chinese began a four-century experience with paper
currency.
The Bank of England’s history of currency reliability during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries eventually served as the role model for
all currency-issuing banks, and later central banks. New data from the Bank
vi Gold: The Final Standard
of England shows the evolution of the Bank’s balance sheet over the
entirety of its history. This should help dispel the erroneous legend and lore
that has accumulated regarding the times before 1914. The United States
rejected the monopoly central bank model, exemplified by the Bank of
England, three times before it was finally introduced via the Federal
Reserve in 1913. Even then, the Federal Reserve did not have an effective
monopoly until the end of the 1930s. The United States’ experience with
“free banking” can also serve as a model for the future.
The Classical Gold Standard era of the latter nineteenth century is often
referred to, in admiring or sometimes critical terms, but little is known
about it. Although many books have been written on the topic, readers of
these books are often left even more confused than when they began, this
confusion worsened by a mistaken confidence. In fact it was a simple
system, and easy to understand, although this simplicity was clouded by the
complex variety of operating techniques common to central banks of the
time. If the Classical Gold Standard era is to be a model for future imitation,
or perhaps a cautionary example in some particulars, we had better know
something about it.
The Interwar Period, 1914-1944, has inspired a cacophony of wildly
contradictory “interpretations.” I sort through the major claims, and
evaluate their merits. None of the major interpretations are satisfactory in
themselves, but they point the way to a conclusion that is straightforward,
the most common view of those living at the time, and also a dominant view
since then.
The Bretton Woods era, 1944-1971, presents a strange combination of
stellar success – it was the most prosperous period since 1914 – and also
puzzling failure. The reasons for this failure are actually well known and
recognized, but economists today are still hesitant to admit just how
confused their profession had become in those days. They would rather
repeat the old nonsense for decade after decade than admit the
inadequacies of their predecessors.
Our floating fiat currency environment today emerged from the
collapse of Bretton Woods. It was wholly undesired and unintentional. The
record of our time has been one of stagnation and erosion, punctuated by
episodes of real crisis. The less-developed world has often had it even
worse, with many cases of currency crisis or outright hyperinflation.
Technological development has continued nevertheless. But, unlike past
eras, this has not been accompanied by soaring prosperity in general.
Academics today swear up and down that today’s floating fiat
environment is somehow the best of all possible worlds. And yet, if that
were true, there should have been some evidence of it over the past forty-
five years, and there is not. Central banks do not create any useful goods or
services. The floating currencies that arise from central bank foolishness
merely create difficulties for those that do.
Preface vii
At some point, the time may come to construct a new monetary order.
Many governments, including those of China and Russia, have been actively
preparing. This effort will need to be informed by correct understanding, if
we are to avoid the kind of failures built into Bretton Woods in 1944.
Without the confidence that comes from clear vision, people may be too
insecure even to begin.
Nathan Lewis
March 2017
viii Gold: The Final Standard
Chapter 1:
The Study of Currency History
History is complicated. Many people did a great many things. There is
this factor and that factor, and differing interpretations. Any historian has
to distill down this great mass of happenings into some representation of
what was important, and what was not.
Histories involving money and finance tend to be even more
complicated. The first complication is the inclusion of “finance”; this
includes equity and debt finance. Debt finance means, basically, borrowing
and lending. We will make our first simplification by deliberately omitting
discussion of finance.
The world of debt finance not only includes thousands of loan-making
banks, in over 150 countries, plus the usual bonds, but also all manner of
further complications including such things as money-market funds,
structured investment vehicles, and securitized debt instruments including
mortgage-backed securities, collateralized loan obligations, collateralized
debt obligations, and other such acronymic confections which are
continuously invented by financial technicians whenever it seems
advantageous to do so. On top of this is a further layer of derivatives
obligations. It would take a rather large book just to describe, in a
taxonomic sort of way, the various financial instruments in regular use
today and their basic characteristics, without even taking up the question of
their history.
And yet we can see that, in the United States to take one example, all of
this financial complication takes place with one uniform currency, the
dollar. In Europe, it takes place with the euro. The currency itself stands
apart from the entire process of finance. Central banks, which are now the
sole issuers of this currency, today are mostly not involved in commercial
bank activity at all. There were times of boom and bust, in the U.S. during
the 1834 to 1914 period, or Britain from 1700 to 1914, and a great many
thrilling tales could be told of the details of those times. But, the monetary
story is much simpler: the U.S. dollar, or British pound, was linked to gold,
with a few well-documented lapses. In the U.S. case, the parity ratio was
$20.67 per ounce of gold. In Britain, it was £3.89 per ounce. The history of
the dollar or pound could be summarized simply as: it was linked to gold.
All of the expansions and revulsions of finance, or more broadly, business
and the economy, can be safely segregated into a separate topic.
2 Gold: The Final Standard
What is “money”? It is the thing generally accepted in payment. Today,

this is known as “base money,” which consists of paper banknotes and
token coins, and also “bank reserve” deposit balances recorded at the
currency issuer, which today is a central bank. All monetary transactions
are performed using one of these two forms of payment. They are the only
“legal tender,” which is to say: that which is legally recognized as
constituting a payment. Every sort of money-like thing, such as bank
deposits, checks, credit or debit cards, wire transfers, and other various
electronic means of payment, ultimately result in one bank paying another
with its “bank reserves” at the central bank. A Bank deposits, money-market
funds and so forth are actually debt instruments, and can be segregated into
the world of “finance,” with no particular ill effects.
A currency is a simple thing. It has virtually one single characteristic: its
value. A modern “paper” currency hardly has any physicality or meaning at
all except as some generic counter of value. Even talking about a “paper”
currency is becoming somewhat old-fashioned. Most monetary transactions
of any size today take place via the transfer of bank reserve balances at the
central bank, which is wholly nonphysical.
A currency has a supply and a demand. The intersection of these
produces its value. In this way, a currency is no different than any other
thing that one might buy or sell. The demand for a currency, among all the
peoples of the world, is variable and unpredictable. Today, the supply of
currency (the base money supply) is also somewhat variable and
unpredictable, according to the daily operations of central banks. Not
surprisingly, the resulting value of today’s floating fiat currencies is also
variable and unpredictable.
However, for most of the past 500 years, until 1971, the values of
currencies were not variable and unpredictable. Rather, they were linked to
gold (or silver, which had long served as an adjunct to gold), at some stable
ratio. When the system was managed correctly, this was ultimately
achieved by some sort of adjustment in supply to accommodate daily
changes in demand, to produce the desired value. You could call this a
“fixed-value” system. The policy goal is to maintain the value of the
currency at a definite “parity” with some benchmark. If the benchmark, or
“standard of value,” is gold, then the fixed-value system is called a “gold
standard” system. The technique by which the policy goal was
accomplished was some sort of system that adjusted the quantity of base
money, with the intent of thus managing value.
Fixed-value systems are in fact very common today, and, when
managed correctly, they operate in almost the same manner as a gold
standard system. Many currencies are linked to the dollar or euro.
Presently, twenty-seven countries use currencies linked to the euro, most
effectively via some sort of currency-board arrangement. A “gold standard”
A See Gold: The Monetary Polaris, Chapter 2, for an extended discussion of this topic.
The Study of Currency History 3
system is, at a fundamental level, very much like today’s “euro standard”
systems, except for the choice of the standard. Ideally, a gold standard
system would be operated much like today’s euro-linked currency boards,
and in practice, before 1914, they usually were.
In a fixed-value system, the supply of currency (the base money supply)
is a residual. The correct supply is the supply that produces the desired
outcome, of a stable value relationship (a fixed exchange rate) with the
standard of value. If the supply is insufficient, causing the currency to rise in
value above its benchmark, the supply is increased. If the supply is in
excess, causing a decline in currency value compared to the benchmark,
supply is reduced. Although currency managers with a fixed-value policy
have quite a few tools to achieve their goals, and typically do not express
their operating mechanisms in these terms, nevertheless that is the
ultimate result. B
The demand for a currency might increase by some large amount, for
some reason. Often, this coincides with economic growth, and perceived
currency reliability. To maintain the fixed-value system, the supply of the
currency must also expand by the equivalent amount. In 1775, the total
base money supply in the American Colonies has been estimated at $12
million, consisting primarily of gold and silver coins of foreign manufacture.
In 1900, the base money supply was $1,954 million, mostly in the form of
paper banknotes, an increase of 163 times. During this period (ignoring a
minor adjustment in 1834), the value of the dollar was the same:
$20.67/ounce of gold.
The fact that base money in the U.S. expanded by 163 times during this
125-year period is not, in itself, terribly relevant. The quantitative
expansion was a residual outcome of the fixed-value system. If the figure
was, instead, 12 times or 52 times or 275 times, our conclusion would be
the same: that such a figure was the appropriate increase in supply to meet
the increasing demand for money, thus producing the stable parity value.
We know it was not “too much” or “too little” because the dollar did indeed
maintain its gold parity value. Thus, it was “just right.” During the same
1775-1900 period, the Bank of England’s base money supply increased by
7.5 times, a figure that was, for Britain, also “just right.”
The dismal record of central bank failure to maintain fixed parity
values, especially since 1944, shows that even monetary specialists with
responsibility for these matters do not have an adequate understanding of
the proper operating mechanisms of an automatic fixed-value system. The
simplest version is a currency board; in terms of gold, it would be a “100%
reserve” or “warehouse receipt” system. Let’s assume that Country A’s
central bank (or other independent currency issuer) maintains the value of
a currency at A$1 per euro. We will assume for now that the central bank
B See Gold: The Monetary Polaris, for a discussion of the daily operations of fixed-
value systems, including gold standard systems.
has no capital, and that it does not actually hold any euro base money, in the
form of euro banknotes and coins, or a deposit with the ECB. Rather, its
assets consist of euro deposits in foreign commercial banks (such as a large
German bank), and foreign euro-denominated government bonds. Initially,
its balance sheet looks like this:
Assets (millions) Liabilities (millions)

bank deposits €1.0 banknotes and coins A$5.0
government bonds €9.0 deposits A$5.0
total assets €10.0 total liabilities A$10.0
For purposes of demonstration, we will assume that the central bank

has a small trading band around its A$1:€1 parity. Thus, it will buy euros
(sell A$) at A$0.99/euro, and sell euros (buy A$) at A$1.01/euro. Let’s say
that the market value of the A$ is rising, such that it only takes A$0.99 to
buy a euro. The central bank will then buy euros/sell A$ in unlimited size at
A$0.99/euro. This increases the monetary base, and increases the euro-
denominated assets at the central banks. The central bank makes no
decision on when to sell A$, or in what amount. It simply offers to sell in
unlimited quantity at that price. The transaction is entirely determined by
independent market participants willing to transact with the central bank
at that price. These independent market participants decide to purchase
A$1.0 million from the central bank, giving euros in trade. Thus, A$ base
money (banknotes and deposits) increases by A$1.0 million (actually
A$0.99 million, but we will round up for simplicity), and euro-denominated
assets also increase by €1.0 million. It looks something like this:

bank deposits €2.0 Banknotes and coins A$5.0
government bonds €9.0 Deposits A$6.0
The opposite occurs if the value of the A$ is sagging versus the euro,
such that the market value is around A$1.01 per euro. The central bank
offers to buy A$/sell euros in unlimited size. Again, the central bank takes
no discretionary action. The size and timing of transactions is entirely
determined by independent market participants willing to transact with the
central bank. Because the value of the A$ is sagging vs. the euro,
independent market participants sell A$1.0 million to the central bank, and
take €1.0 million in return. Total base money falls from A$11.0 million back
to A$10.0 million:

bank deposits €2.0 Banknotes and coins A$5.0
government bonds €8.0 Deposits A$5.0
In the extreme case, independent market participants, as a whole,

decide that they do not want to hold any A$ whatsoever. They take all the
A$ in existence, and trade them with the central bank for euros. The result
is this:

bank deposits none Banknotes and coins none
government bonds none Deposits none
total assets none total liabilities none
Nevertheless, the central bank was able, even to the very end, to
exchange euros and A$ at the 1:1 parity.
Although a “100% reserve” or “warehouse receipt” gold standard
system has been rather rare in history, the basic principles are essentially
identical. Let’s assume a parity value of A$100 per ounce of gold. The bank’s
balance sheet looks like this:
Assets Liabilities
gold bullion 1,000,000 oz. Banknotes and coins A$50m
government bonds none Deposits A$50m
total assets A$100m total liabilities A$100m
The basic operation is the same. Any private market participant may
take A$100 to the central bank and get an ounce of gold in return; or take
an ounce of gold to the central bank and get A$100 in return. In practice,
when the value of the A$ is sagging vs. its gold parity such that the market
price is A$101 per oz., then the central bank becomes the cheapest seller of
gold (at A$100/oz.) and gold outflows ensue. When the value of the A$ is
rising vs. its gold parity such that the market price is A$99/oz., the central
bank becomes the highest bidder for gold (at A$100/oz.), and gold inflows
ensue. An inflow of 1 oz. of gold results in an increase in the monetary base
by A$100, necessary to finance the purchase. An outflow of 1 oz. of gold
results in the receipt of A$100 in payment, and a reduction in the monetary
base by that amount.
Just as is the case with the euro-based currency board, the central bank
takes no discretionary action. The system is entirely “automatic”: its activity
(changes in assets and liabilities) is determined by the actions of
independent market participants and the market value of the A$ compared
to its euro or gold parity. The monetary base is entirely a residual of this
process, and thus is also generated “automatically.”
In the example of the euro currency board, the central bank does not
actually hold any euro base money (banknotes or deposits at the ECB) as
assets. Government bonds can be easily sold for euros, and commercial
bank deposits serve as an alternative to direct deposits at the ECB. Much
the same is commonly true of gold standard systems, where a large portion
of assets might be held in the form of interest-bearing government bonds,
which can be sold for bullion if the need arose. (In this example, the A$-
denominated bonds are linked to gold, because the A$ itself is linked to
gold.)
Assets Liabilities
gold bullion 500,000 oz. Banknotes and coins A$50m
government bonds A$50m Deposits A$50m
total assets A$100m total liabilities A$100m
In practice, the actual operations of central banks can be considerably

more complicated than this. However, the basic principles are the same: the
monetary base expands when the currency is rising above its value parity
(gold or another currency), and contracts when the currency is sagging
beneath its value parity. Thus, the overall effect is much the same as a
simple currency board or “100% reserve” gold standard system. Central
banks take no discretionary actions, apart from some of the particulars of
this process. The system is “automatic,” and the quantity of base money is a
residual of the process.
At its most complicated, a central bank operating a gold standard
system could have a variety of asset types, and a variety of operating
procedures. These could include: gold bullion, discounting and lending
(itself related to the bank’s “discount rate”), open-market operations in
domestic bonds, and foreign exchange operations with other gold-linked
currencies, which in turn produce assets denominated in foreign currencies
(“foreign reserves”). A central bank could be active in all of these assets
simultaneously. However, the overall effect would be the same: the
monetary base would expand when the currency’s value is above its parity
(expressed as a “low price of gold”), and contract when it was below (a
“high price of gold”), in an automatic fashion similar to a simple currency
board. The provision of gold convertibility, in the end, ensured that this
would happen. 1
Giulio Gallarotti, in The Anatomy of an International Monetary Regime:
The Classical Gold Standard, 1880-1914 (1995), explained:
The practice of gold monometallism is partly what has been

known in monetary economics as a rule for regulating domestic
money supplies. ... Under a gold standard, authorities maintain a
stable value of the currency ... by defending the value of gold vis-à-vis
the currency itself. When gold goes to a premium vis-à-vis notes (rises
above the par value), it means the money supply is too large ... and
therefore must be held in check. When the value of gold drops below
par, it means that the money supply needs to be increased. 2
Thus, a “gold standard” system is a subset of fixed-value systems, which

can include fixed-value systems linked to major international floating fiat
currencies (such as the euro or dollar), currency baskets, or potentially
some other thing. The primary difference is the use of gold as the “standard
of value,” instead of a floating euro, dollar, or some other standard. From
this, we can see that a great many factors commonly associated with gold
standard systems – mining production, a “price-specie flow mechanism,”
the “balance of payments,” imports or exports of gold bullion, price
differentials, interest rate differentials, gold reserve ratios, or dozens of
other factors that economists like to confuse themselves with – actually do
not matter, just as they do not matter for euro-linked and dollar-linked
currency boards today. The only thing that does matter is the value of the
currency in relation to its standard of value. All else flows from this, in the
automatic fashion described.
It is all too common to ascribe all manner of consequences to changes
in money supply figures (the monetary base is the only one of importance),
with the vague implication that such changes were responsible for this or
that economic outcome. However, when such changes in money supply
figures comes about as a result of the normal automatic operations of a
fixed-value system, then these changes in supply have essentially no
important economic consequences at all. The only thing of real importance
was: that the currency maintained its parity with its standard of value. The
163-times increase in U.S. dollar base money supply in 1775-1900 did not
cause any change in monetary conditions. The value of the dollar was
essentially unchanged, compared to its gold parity. Likewise, contractions
in base money – for example, the 17% contraction in base money at the
Bank of England between 1853 and 1855, or the 28% contraction between
1836 and 1841 – also have no effect, if they are the result of the
mechanisms that maintain the value of the currency at its gold parity. The
British pound was soundly linked to gold during both of these periods.
Economic effects are felt when there is a change in currency value.
Between February 1931 and February 1932, the Bank of England’s
monetary base increased only 1.0%. However, the value of the pound
departed from its gold standard parity and fell by 29% during that time
period, following the devaluation of September 1931, and remained a
floating currency until World War II. Despite the near-inaction of the
monetary base, the monetary consequences were dramatic. (In this case, it
was the inaction itself – the refusal to support the value of the pound with a
monetary base contraction, which would have happened automatically with
a proper fixed-value operating mechanism – that caused the devaluation.)
Once again, the story of currencies, and their economic effects, are
described by changes in value, not changes in supply.
Many times, especially after 1950, countries might have had a fixed-
value policy, but the management and operation of the system was
incorrect in some way. This is typically easy to identify. We know that a
system was being managed correctly because it worked. It was successful in
maintaining the market value of the currency at the policy benchmark,
precisely, quietly, without difficulties, and without reliance on trade and
capital controls. Currency boards today have this characteristic. We know
that a system was not managed correctly because it fails: there was a
“currency crisis” in which the value of the currency deviates, often suddenly
and by a large amount, from its standard of value.
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
-20%
-30%
-40%
1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900
Britain: Bank of England, Change in Base Money From Previous Year,

1720-1913 3
At times – especially in the 1950s and 1960s, and also among “dollar-
pegged” emerging market currencies in the 1980s and 1990s – a currency is
not being managed correctly. The operating mechanism is not an automatic
system like a currency board, with no discretionary input. Rather, a fixed-
value policy is combined with some form of discretionary “domestic”
currency management, typically within the framework of an “interest rate
target” or perhaps some kind of quantitative target. Thus, the base money
supply is no longer an automatic residual of the fixed-value mechanism, but
becomes independent. With no mechanism (base money adjustment) to
maintain the value of the currency at its value parity, the currency thus
becomes intrinsically floating, but through various forms of coercion, the

fixed-value benchmark is maintained. This coercion can take many forms,
but is typically in some form of “foreign exchange intervention” by official
bodies, capital controls, or some kind of market management and collusion,
as was the case with the London Gold Pool in the 1960s, by which nominally
free markets come under heavy official influence.
These capital controls, foreign exchange interventions, and other such
efforts at coercion are normally quite obvious. Also, these efforts normally
coincide with a heated discussion about the basic problem of a currency
that threatens to deviate from its fixed-value parity. Typically, this
discussion centers around the “balance of payments,” which actually has
nothing to do with currency management. As we will see, this endless talk
about the “balance of payments” is itself evidence that people do not
understand how to manage a currency correctly; and it is this ignorance of
basic operating procedures that is behind their failure to do so. Maintaining
the parity becomes labored, difficult, problematic. It is not too hard to tell
when a currency is not being managed properly to maintain a fixed-value
parity, as such problems will be blossoming everywhere, even if, as a result
of these coercive efforts, the value of the currency has not yet deviated from
the parity standard.
In practice, even when a currency is not being managed correctly,
threatens to deviate from a fixed-value parity, and capital controls are
applied, the broader economic conditions will mostly reflect currency
stability until there is an actual change in currency value. For example,
although the management of the U.S. dollar was problematic throughout the
1950s and 1960s, and various forms of capital controls were common,
nevertheless the broader picture of that time period reflected the dollar’s
stability vs. gold at $35/oz., not so much differently than if the dollar had
been correctly managed. It was not until the effective break of that gold
parity, in August 1971, that the accumulated errors of the previous two
decades exploded into a whirlwind of consequences. The same has been
true of other, similar situations such as the Mexican peso in 1995 or the
Thai baht in 1997. Mistakes in monetary operations don’t translate into
dramatic broader effects until the currency experiences a change in value.
During the last two hundred years, the eras of capital controls were
during wartime, the 1930s (after British devaluation of 1931) leading into
World War II, and during the Bretton Woods era from the end of World War
II to 1971. Outside of these periods, trade, capital and finance were
relatively free. From this alone, we can conclude that fixed-value gold
standard currencies during these free-trade eras were being managed
correctly.
These conclusions are expressed in a concept commonly accepted
among academic economists today, known as the “currency trilemma.” This
“trilemma” is expressed as the idea that a currency can only have three
basic states:
Currency Option One: A fixed-value policy, free trade and no

capital controls, and an automatic currency-board-like system with
no discretionary domestic monetary policy.
Currency Option Two: A floating fiat currency, free trade and no

capital controls, and a discretionary domestic monetary policy.
Currency Option Three: A fixed-value policy, trade and capital

controls, and a discretionary domestic monetary policy. This is
sometimes called a “pegged” currency.
In practice, Currency Option Three, though unfortunately popular in

history, is inherently unstable. Discretionary domestic monetary policy
cannot vary too much from that implied by the fixed-value policy, lest the
inherent contradictions overwhelm even the capital controls in place. This
frustrates everyone: the domestic currency managers want more leeway to
“manage the economy,” the fixed-value advocates complain that the system
is always on the brink of self-destruction, and businessmen and investors
everywhere complain about trade and capital controls. Before too long, one
or another consideration takes priority, and the system resolves into one of
the first two options.
In a 2001 interview, economists Milton Friedman and Robert Mundell,
both Nobel Prize winners with a monetary specialty, described the
differences between Currency Option One and Currency Option Three:
Freidman: Discussion of this issue requires replacing the

dichotomy fixed or flexible by a trichotomy:
1. hard fixed (e.g., members of Euro, Panama, Argentine currency

board);
2. pegged by a national central bank (e.g., Bretton Woods, China
currently);
3. flexible (e.g., US, Canada, Britain, Japan, Euro currency union).
By now, there is widespread agreement that a global move to

pegged rate regimes would be a bad idea. Every currency crisis has
been connected with pegged rates. That was true most recently for
the Mexican and East Asian crisis, before that for the 1992 and 1993
common market crises. By contrast, no country with a flexible rate has
ever experienced a foreign exchange crisis, though there may well be
an internal crisis as in Japan. The reasons why a pegged exchange rate
is a ticking bomb are well known. A central bank controlling a currency
that comes under downward pressure does not have to alter domestic
monetary policy. ...
Mundell: The distinction between fixed and pegged rates that I

find useful refers to the adjustment mechanism. Under a fixed rate
system, the adjustment mechanism is allowed to work and is
perceived by the market to be allowed to work. Whereas under
“pegged” rates or “adjustable peg” arrangements, the central bank
pegs the exchange rate but does not give any priority to maintaining
equilibrium in the balance of payments. C There is no real commitment
of policy to maintaining the parity and it makes the currency a sitting
duck for speculators.
Some countries that have pegged rates engage in sterilization
operations. The Bank of England, for example, automatically buys
government bonds whenever it sells foreign exchange to prevent the
latter transaction from reducing the reserves of the banking system,
and, conversely, it sells government bonds when it buys foreign
exchange. This practice might have made sense when it began in 1931,
after Britain went off gold and set up its exchange equalization fund to
manage its new floating arrangements, but the Bank of England kept
the system even after Britain had returned to a fixed—or more
correctly, pegged—system. As a consequence, Britain faced periodic
balance-of-payments crises over most of the post-war period. I do not
count “pegged but adjustable” rates among the category of fixed
rates. But when economists attack fixed rates they nearly always focus
their attention on “pegged rates.” I have never nor ever would
advocate a general system of “pegged” rates. Pegged rate systems
always break down. 4
The term “trilemma” suggests an insoluble problem. Economists want

to have their cake and eat it too: they want to have all the advantages of
fixed and stable exchange rates, freedom of trade and capital, and also all
the perceived advantages of domestic monetary manipulation. But, there is
no actual problem. Rather, there is a choice between options. Although
Currency Option Three has been unfortunately quite common since 1944,
its continued failure resolves the practical choice down to two: Fixed or
Floating, which in turn implies: Automatic or Discretionary.
In practice, floating fiat currencies have only become common with the
advent of paper money, which did not become dominant worldwide until
after 1850. Coinage has been endlessly debased (the metal content of the
coinage reduced) by governments throughout history. In practice, this
resulted in a decline in the market value of the coinage to reflect its lower
metal content. However, the value of the coinage didn’t float up and down
C“Maintaining equilibrium in the balance of payments” means, in this case,

managing the monetary base to keep the currency at its parity.
unpredictably: it still reflected its metal content afterwards, even if perhaps

at a lower level.
The “Classical gold standard” period of the latter half of the nineteenth
century, roughly 1870-1914, was a type of Currency Option One system, in
which currency issuers (private banks at first, and then, increasingly,
central banks) maintained the gold parity values of their currencies in a
simple, automatic fashion similar to currency boards. The outbreak of
World War I in 1914 resulted in a burst of floating currencies worldwide
(Currency Option Two). This was quickly remedied after the war, and
during the 1920s, the world gold standard was reconstructed in a fashion
similar to the pre-1914 arrangement (Currency Option One). The
difficulties of the Great Depression caused governments everywhere to
grasp at currency devaluation as a remedy, which resulted in another burst
of floating fiat currencies worldwide (Currency Option Two), especially
after the British devaluation of 1931.
Once again, the world gold standard was reconstructed after World
War II, in the form of the Bretton Woods system. However, this time, many
central banks and governments wished to continue “macroeconomic
management” of their economies via currency distortion. This implied a
discretionary domestic “monetary policy,” which, combined with an official
gold or dollar parity value, created the inherently unstable Currency Option
Three. This collapsed in 1971 in the midst of peace and prosperity. The
accidental and unplanned outcome of that failure was the floating fiat
system (Currency Option Two) that has continued to the present day.
The history of money thus becomes even simpler: for roughly 5000
years, 3000 B.C. to 1971, the high-quality money and unit of account in the
centers of civilization was gold and silver. After 1971, for the first time in
history, currencies around the world floated for an extended period of time.
The floating fiat era has been characterized by endless monetary chaos, and
a great many crises, including widespread hyperinflation. At its best, in the
developed countries, it has produced periods of mediocre growth
interspersed with stagnation and decline. At some point, humanity may find
a way to escape the predicament that they have created; but, probably not
until they understand what it is, and how to fix it.
Chapter 2:
The Ancient World, 3500 B.C.–400 A.D.
“Money” emerges naturally, when one item becomes accepted in trade
not because of its inherent utility to the receiver, but because it has become
a commonly accepted medium of exchange. It can be reliably traded again,
for something useful. In the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher
Aristotle recognized that uniformity, durability, divisibility, and a high value
are desirable characteristics in a medium of exchange. The precious metals
were popular from the earliest expressions of money. Over time,
agricultural products were eventually abandoned. Even among agricultural
products, the most durable, divisible and uniform, such as wheat, are a
better form of money than lettuce or tomatoes.
To maximize uniformity, people naturally gravitate towards using one
item, and one item only, as their medium of exchange and standard of value.
However, this goal comes into immediate conflict with the desire to have
various denominations of money, from very small values for small personal
purchases, up to very large values for things such as annual payment of
tribute from a vassal state to the capital of the empire. Part of the problem
of denomination is the problem of transport: it is very difficult to transport
large payments in the form of small denomination money, particularly in
the days of oxcarts and dirt paths. Another problem of denomination is that
it simply takes a colossal quantity of small-denomination coinage to make
any large payment. If we think about how many copper pennies A it would
take to purchase a house, and how many pennies must then be minted and
how much copper mined, we can understand some of the problems that the
Chinese had for centuries with their copper-coin-based systems. An item of
very high value is also much easier to store.
A look at the periodic table of elements suggests why gold and silver
became the basis of money from earliest times. After eliminating gases,
radioactive elements, and elements that are so reactive that they ignite
when exposed to air, the 118 elements reduce to only 30. Further
eliminating elements of a value too low to be useful, five precious metals
remain: rhodium, palladium, silver, platinum, and gold. Rhodium and
A Or nickels; in 2015, the U.S. nickel was 75% copper, while the penny was 97.5%
zinc. At a price of $3.00/lb., it would take fifty tons of copper to purchase a $300,000
house. At a price of $1,300/oz. of gold, it would take 230 ounces of gold (about
seven kilograms, in a volume of about 0.362 liters) to purchase the same house.
palladium were not discovered until the eighteenth century. Platinum’s

melting point, over 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, makes it unworkable without
advanced technology. This leaves silver and gold. Silver, however, tarnishes
and corrodes – this reactivity also makes silver useful for a variety of
industrial purposes – while gold does not. Sanat Kumar, a chemical
engineer at Columbia University, concluded: “For the earth, with every
parameter we have, gold is the sweet spot ... It would come out no other
way.” 1
The most important characteristic of money, however, is its stability of
value. To be useful as a unit of account, the measuring-rod by which the
value of other things are compared and expressed, to perform as a store of
value and basis of long-term contracts, the item used as money must be as
stable in value as possible. In any contract or exchange, fluctuations in the
value of money naturally produce a winner and a loser. Since each party
wants to avoid being the loser, they will naturally tend to conduct their
business in the most reliable, definite, unchanging and stable terms
possible. John Stuart Mill, in Principles of Political Economy (1848),
explained:
[G]old and silver have been generally preferred by nations which

were able to obtain them, either by industry, commerce, or conquest.
To the qualities which originally recommended them, another came to
be added, the importance of which only unfolded itself by degrees. Of
all commodities they are among the least influenced by any of the
causes which produce fluctuations of value. ... [N]o commodities are
so little exposed to causes of variation. They fluctuate less than almost
any other things in their cost of production. And from their durability,
the total quantity in existence is at all times so great in proportion to
the annual supply, that the effect on value even of a change in the
cost of production is not sudden: a very long time being required to
diminish materially the quantity in existence, and even to increase it
very greatly not being a rapid process. Gold and silver, therefore, are
more fit than any other commodity to be the subject of engagements
for receiving or paying a given quantity at some distant period. 2
The concept of “money” is a human invention, devised to facilitate trade

between other humans. Gold and silver become “money” because they most
closely fit what humans desire “money” to be. Stability of value is inherent
in this concept of “money”; without it, “money” doesn’t work.
Somewhat non-intuitively perhaps, this also requires that the item used
as money have little utility value. An item whose utility value was high
would naturally face competition from practical uses, and consumption
(and thus disappearance) due to those practical uses. At various times in
China’s history, the copper coinage was melted down to make tools. In
The Ancient World, 3500 B.C.–400 A.D. 15
2015, 66% of silver mine production was used in industrial applications. 3

For any useful item, such as a foodstuff or a base metal, consumption for
food or industry could cause a shortage, and thus a soaring market value.
The best money is “useless” – modern banknotes are a perfect expression of
the principle. Gold and silver could be made into jewelry or housewares,
but they were rarely consumed or destroyed. The result was that the total
supply of aboveground gold and silver steadily grew, such that any vagaries
in mining production had little effect on the total aboveground supply
available. This too contributed to their stability of value.
Historical monetary systems often used a variety of commodities. Gold
was typically the high-denomination money, perhaps rarely seen among the
common folk, thus making it appear to have a marginal role except in rare
large transactions. Silver coinage was the basis for many daily transactions.
However, even silver is of too high a value for many small transactions. A
coin containing 2.25 grams of silver, such as the U.S. silver dime before
1960, was equivalent in value (using the 16:1 silver to gold ratio used in the
U.S. before 1900) to 0.141 grams of gold. At the $1,200/oz. gold prices
common in 2015, this would be worth about $5.25 in 2015 dollars – still
quite a high value for the smallest silver coin in circulation. This was
especially true in the preindustrial era, when the value of labor was low
compared to silver. Thus, smaller forms of money were put into use,
including copper, bronze (88% copper, 12% tin) and nickel coins, plus a
variety of other small-value commodities such as standardized rings of shell
among the Sumerians, cocoa beans among the Mesoamericans, and small
candies in 1970s Italy. Cigarettes have long been popular among prisoners,
along with canned fish. Even today in the United States, Tide laundry
detergent is a popular medium of exchange among some groups.
Because we are not accustomed to this sort of commodity-money
menagerie today, there is a tendency to see it as a primitive profusion of
bizarre and exotic curiosities, rather than as a functional monetary system
that was as unified as could be practically achieved during that era. The
Sumerians used shell rings as money, but they also used silver, in much the
same way as Americans used silver coins in 1840, along with coins made of
gold, nickel and copper.
Mesopotamia
The use of gold, silver and other monetary metals, potentially as money,
predates the use of writing; thus, it is hard to say when their use as money
began. The first known examples of writing date from the thirty-fifth to
thirty-second centuries B.C. in Sumer, the first known civilization in
Mesopotamia. The population of the Sumerian city of Uruk, in 3400 B.C., has
been estimated at 20,000. These early forms of writing are sometimes
termed “proto-literate,” and consist of lists and accounting. Sumerian
writing proper – a symbolic representation of the spoken language – began
in the thirty-first century B.C. Copper smelting dates from about 5500 B.C.
Since gold is often found mixed with copper, it is not surprising that the first
gold artifacts, at Nahal Kana in today’s Israel, come from the early fifth
millennium B.C. 4 Gold artifacts at Varna in today’s Bulgaria have been dated
to 4600-4200 B.C. Silver is somewhat more difficult to extract than gold and
copper. The earliest known evidence of silver extraction dates from the late
fourth millennium B.C., in Turkey.
In ancient Sumerian times, barley, lead, copper or bronze, tin, silver and
gold – in ascending order of value – served as money. 5 Of this list, only
barley is not a metallic element, and served as the smallest small change.
The mina was an early unit of weight. When standardized in 2150 B.C.
during the Akkadian Empire under the reign of Naram-Sin, the mina was
about 504 grams – similar to the modern pound of 454 grams. The shekel
was one-sixtieth of a mina, around 8.40 grams.
Sumerians had a currency of standardized shell rings beginning from
around 3500 B.C. By the late fourth and early third millennium B.C., this had
evolved to a well-organized system of exchange based primarily on copper.
The actual transaction was often in the form of barter, but the values of the
bartered goods were expressed in terms of a common benchmark of value.
Thus, lumber worth one mina of copper could be traded for hides worth
one mina of copper. Later in the third millennium B.C., silver and barley
became the main media of exchange. 6 At its height around 2900 B.C., the
city of Uruk had an estimated 50,000-80,000 residents, the largest in the
world. For some time during the twenty-seventh century B.C., the city was
ruled by the legendary king Gilgamesh.
Between 2800 B.C. and 2500 B.C., silver began to be cast into rings or
coils of standard weights between 1 and 60 shekels, used primarily for
large-scale purchases. The “rings” were essentially short coils; neither could
be worn, but could be easily cut and subdivided, if desired. Small ingots
likely served as a larger form of money. Most texts indicate that the silver
was weighed, but some texts indicate the use of rings with a uniform
weight. 7
Beginning about 2700 B.C., Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets show
deeds of sale, including sales of fields, houses and slaves. Texts recording
loan agreements begin from around 2400 B.C. 8 More detailed descriptions
of monetary and commercial transactions are found in documents dating
from the Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III), circa 2112 B.C. to 2004 B.C. Ur was
likely the largest city in the world at that time, with a population estimated
at 65,000.
The historian J. N. Postgate described early Sumerian accounting:
One of the most striking features of the Ur III balance sheets is

their use of silver as a unit of accounting. All the incoming goods are
assigned a value in silver, thus enabling the total value of a merchant’s
expenditure to be deducted in a single sum from his capital, and the
remaining balance, negative or positive, to be expressed in silver,

which is then ready to be carried forward to the next accounting
period. 9
Other monetary items, such as copper or gold, could be accepted in

payment, but most likely at the going market rate, rather than at a fixed
official rate, as was common in later bimetallic coinage systems.
During this era, the Temple at Ur operated as a lending bank, both
taking “deposits” of gold and silver, and making loans. However, the
majority of recorded loans of this time were between private citizens. The
standard interest rate on a loan of barley was 33% per annum, and on a
loan of silver 20%. 10 By the end of the third millennium B.C., banking
services included deposit banking, giro, “foreign exchange,” and secured
and unsecured lending both internal and external. 11
Some observers concluded that certificates of deposit, in the form of
cuneiform clay tablets, also likely traded among third parties as a form of
representative money. Bills of exchange and loan agreements may have also
have traded among third parties. The use of cylinder seals, invented around
3500 B.C., was ubiquitous in commercial transactions in Mesopotamia, Iran,
India and Crete, as a form of signature indicating claims on or titles to
goods, or as an indication of payment. 12
The invention of a commodities forward contract actually predates
writing. The Sumerians used an elaborate system of clay cubes baked inside
a vessel, indicating an agreement to deliver indicated commodities at a
certain time. After the invention of writing, these agreements were
recorded in clay tablets.
One advantage of representative monies, payable on demand to the
issuer, is that they can trade at their face value, without having to be
weighed. They are also very easy to transport. Representative monies thus
have several advantages to coinage, which is why banknotes largely
replaced coinage in payment during the nineteenth century. A society with
a strong system of representative money would thus find little need for
coinage. The difficulty is that the issuers of representative monies must be
perceived to be reliable, and easy to access, limiting their effective use to
the local region of the issuer. Representative monies appear to date from
nearly the beginnings of banking, and at least 1,500 years before coinage. 13
They also appear more than three thousand years before the first widely-
used “paper money” systems of China, in the eleventh century A.D.
Ultimately, the use of paper for representative money, rather than clay
tablets, wood tally sticks, leather or other, earlier solutions, was largely a
matter of new materials being used for ancient purposes. Whatever they
were made of, they represented, from the earliest days, quantities of gold or
silver.
A list of prices of the time is found in the Laws of Eshnunna (circa 1930
B.C.): 14
1 gur [300 liters] of barley 1 shekel of silver

3 liters best oil 1 shekel of silver
1.2 liters vegetable oil 1 shekel of silver
1.5 liters pig’s fat 1 shekel of silver
40 liters bitumen 1 shekel of silver
2 gur salt 1 shekel of silver
1 gur potash 1 shekel of silver
3 minas copper 1 shekel of silver
2 minas worked copper 1 shekel of silver
During the Ur III period, it was recorded that one shekel of gold cost ten
shekels of silver. 15 Beginning in the early second millennium B.C., gold was
mentioned sporadically, in large-scale transactions such as capital for
business ventures. 16
Besides inventing writing, the Sumerians also introduced the first
known examples of bicameral legislature, schools (they taught writing), the
library, and the wheel.
The founding of Babylon, about 250 kilometers upstream of Ur on the
Euphrates river, dates from roughly the twenty-third century B.C. Sumer, as
an independent state, was absorbed by Babylon around 1700 B.C. Babylon
was in turn dominated by nearby Assyria beginning in 911 B.C. These were
independent states with a shared Mesopotamian culture. After a brief spell
of independence beginning in 604 B.C. (the Chaldean Dynasty), Babylon was
conquered and absorbed by Persia in 539 B.C.
From 1770 to 1670 B.C., the city of Babylon was likely the largest in the
world, with a population estimated around 65,000. Silver and gold
continued to serve as money, by measured weight in transactions and as a
standard of account. Banking, in particular, became more sophisticated as it
evolved from its Sumerian foundations. Temples and royal houses became
major centers for banking, taking deposits in grain and precious metals,
making payment via deposits, and making loans. The Code of Hammurabi
(1754 B.C.) contained an extensive body of law concerning lending and
debt. 17
Private banking houses established themselves, gradually gaining a
greater share of business from the temples. The names of these early
banking houses are not known, but by the seventh century B.C. the
‘Grandsons of Egibi’ gained prominence in the Babylonian banking industry.
The ‘Sons of Marashcu,’ operating out of Nippur, not only engaged in
banking operations and lending, but also involved themselves in renting
and leasing, tax-farming and the management of large estates, constructed
irrigation canals and charged fees for their use, and had a partial monopoly
on beer. 18
By the fourteenth century B.C., gold commonly served not only in
transactions, but also as the unit of account, primary to silver rather than
subsidiary. This may have reflected trade with nearby Egypt, which mined
large amounts of gold but had few silver resources. 19
Egypt and the Indus Valley Civilization
Money, of any sort, was somewhat uncommon in Egypt. This reflected

the nature of the Egyptian economy, which, as was also the case in China for
many centuries, and also the Andean civilizations, consisted largely of an
agricultural peasantry under central command, and a nobility, with little in
the way of market exchange or mercantile ventures. However, Egypt did
have a standardized gold ring money, which bore a stamp indicating its
weight, dating from around 2700 B.C. During the Eighteenth Dynasty
(1543-1292 B.C.), a “flat, round piece of metal ... possibly with an inscription
to indicate weight or name of the issuing authority” was apparently in
common use as a unit of account and denominator of prices. 20
Egypt was the ancient world’s biggest gold producer. Egypt’s great gold
fields were in the lands of Nubia, between the Nile and the Red Sea.
Archaeologists have found 130 ancient mining sites in Nubia, some as old as
3100 B.C. 21 A symbol of the pharaoh Djet (circa 2980 B.C.) was carved in a
rock near the gold mines off the Wadi Barramiyed, suggesting a claim to
ownership. Nub was the Egyptian word for gold; thus Nubia means “the
land of gold.” From the beginning, these gold mines formed a basis of
Egyptian state control. Paul Johnson, in The Civilization of Ancient Egypt
(1999), suggested that the gold mines of the south were an important
resource that allowed the southern kings to overcome those of the north
and unify Egypt around 3100 B.C. 22 The pharaoh that unified Egypt, Menes,
left a series of standardized 14-gram gold bars stamped with his name. 23
The gold mining industry in Egypt was owned and controlled by the
pharaohs. They provided the resources for exploration and mining, and
claimed all of the production. Archaeologists are somewhat surprised that
little of this seemed to be used “as money,” within the Egyptians’ command
economy. As early as the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 B.C.), an accounting unit
was used known as the shat. It was equivalent to 7.5 grams of gold. In the
Sumerian manner, payment could be made in a variety of commodities,
their value indicated in terms of shat. 24 Later texts focused on the deben,
worth twelve shat. But much of the gold was used in trade with the states
on Egypt’s borders. Egypt was engaged in vigorous external trade, and in
the early third millennium B.C., gold bars were used in some of the earliest
known commercial transactions. By 2500 B.C., extensive trade using gold
and silver bars was undertaken at Ebla in modern Syria. Standardized gold
and silver ingots, for use in trade and bearing a state guarantee of weight
and purity, were created in Cappadocia (eastern Turkey) as early as 2250-
2150 B.C
The pharaohs needed gold not only for peaceful external trade, but also
to fund their various military efforts, make allies, and where they failed to
achieve victory, to pay off neighboring hostile kingdoms. Despite some very
impressive burial artifacts, the pharaohs were constantly in need of gold to
maintain state control. The gold of Egypt did not remain in their hands. The
famous gold coffin of Tutankhamen (1332-1323 B.C.) contains an awesome
110 kilograms of gold, the largest single gold artifact found in Egypt. But the
mines of Egypt are thought to have produced at least 1,000 kilograms per
year at their peak around 1450 B.C., and perhaps multiples of that. 25
Historian Paul Johnson described:
The Egyptians were at no stage a colonizing or conquering people.

Their empire was based not on satrapies but on buffer-states and
client-princes, trade and gold. ... Egypt was the greatest gold-mining
and gold-exporting power: in fact it was gold rather than military
success which sustained her ‘empire’ and which made her the
principal world power throughout the third quarter of the second
millennium B.C. ...
The failure of the southern gold mines was one potent factor in
the decline of Egypt as a great power.
So long as the mines were productive, however, it was possible
for Egypt to pursue an expansionist policy in Asia. 26
As the mines ran out, or were lost to foreign control, the New Kingdom
fell in the twelfth century B.C. 27
With gold production monopolized by the pharaohs to pay for their
external campaigns, internal trade in Egypt was conducted largely upon the
basis of grain. The problem of denomination (it is difficult to make large
payments in physical grain) was solved by the extensive use of grain-based
banking. Farmers deposited their harvest in large grain banks. These
deposits were then used in payment of taxes, and also in many forms of
private payments. Just as with banks today, “the payments were effected by
the transfer from one account to another without money passing,“
according to historian Michael Rostovtzeff. 28 These grain banking and
deposit payment systems grew into systems that extended nationwide,
achieving a level of efficiency and sophistication “as to be almost beyond
the credence of modern man, who too readily assumes that the use of grain
as money must necessarily imply a primitive economic system.” 29 One
reason for the popularity of banking transactions was that a record was
kept of payment, which could be useful in legal disputes.
Egyptian grain banking continued even after the widespread use of
silver coinage after 600 B.C. among Egypt’s trading partners, and even after
Egypt fell under Greek rule beginning in 332 B.C., with the Greek-speaking
Ptolemaic pharaohs established at the new capital of Alexandria. Although
the new Greek kings introduced the Greek silver coinage system, they also
developed Egyptian grain banking still further by bringing all state banks
into a network controlled by what amounted to a central bank stationed in
Alexandria. Banks that previously operated on a local basis were tied

together, allowing bank payments throughout the realm. Historians have
compared the sophistication and extent of this Egyptian banking system,
and its integration into economic life, to the English banks of the nineteenth
century. 30
Civilization in the Indus Valley (now Pakistan) dates from around 3300
B.C. Early writing dates from 3500 B.C., but unfortunately the Indus script
has not been deciphered. At its peak, around 1900 B.C., the civilization may
have included as many as five million people, in large and complex cities
(Mohenjo Daro and Harappa) with extensive engineering accomplishments
including flush toilets linked to common sewers, public baths, large
hydraulic and irrigation networks with reservoirs, and docks and canals for
seaborne trade. The economy relied on extensive trade networks over both
land and sea, with links to Sumerian civilization perhaps as early as 2600
B.C., 31 and possible links to Egypt and Crete. Sargon of Akkad (2340-2284
B.C.) boasted that the “ships of Meluhha” [Indus Valley] docked at the
Sumerian capital. 32 Seals were often used to indicate ownership or
contractual agreements, similar to the Sumerian cylinder seals though of a
different design. The extensive and precise system of Indus weights and
measures continues to be used today in some parts of Pakistan. Gold is
available from the sands of the upper Indus river, and continues to be
mined there today. An Indus colony on the banks of the Oxus river at
Shortughai served as an additional source of gold, which was often formed
into simple gold bangles or flat headbands. Archaeologists hesitate to
identify an Indus monetary system, although they admit that the trade-
based economy must have had considerable market exchange. It is hard to
believe that any mercantile culture, in regular contact with Mesopotamia,
with sophisticated weights and measures, and likely extensive use of
contracts demanding “signatures” in the form of seals, would have failed to
develop some common unit of account. The existence of this unit of account
is revealed by Egyptian and Sumerian writing, rather than archaeological
remains. Unfortunately, even if the Indus script was deciphered, the
civilization did not leave much writing capable of lasting millennia, in the
form of inscribed stone or clay tablets.
Coinage in Lydia, Greece and Persia
For over two thousand years before the widespread use of coinage,
monetary exchange and sophisticated banking systems had existed in the
earliest known civilizations. Even from the earliest days, silver, gold and, in
a subsidiary role, copper and its alloys, were the preferred form of money,
along with certain grains. This limited range of monetary commodities
resolved down still further. Although payment could be made in a number
of forms, the unit of account was either silver or gold, in essence no
different than Europe of the nineteenth century and, extended still further,
the Bretton Woods period of the mid-twentieth century. Even the exception
– Egypt – proved the rule. Egypt used grain internally not because gold and
silver were not considered money, but because they were necessary
payment in foreign trade.
Despite numerous intriguing precedents, in Mesopotamia and the
ancient Mediterranean region, China and India, historians today generally
recognize the first use of coinage to have occurred in Lydia, now western
Turkey, in the seventh century B.C. Before then, in the same region for over
two thousand years, gold, silver and other metals, in any form, had been
used as money based on commodity weight.
In Mesopotamia, for centuries, a shekel of silver was a measure of
actual weight. It was never “devalued.” Arguably, it could not be. The
purpose of the first coins was not to produce standardized weights of
metals, but rather, to attempt to pass a lesser amount of gold or silver as if it
contained the represented weight, by stamping it with the name of the
represented weight, and adding a government decree that it should be
treated as such. The first Lydian coins were stamped with a symbol that
showed that they were to trade “at face value,” or ad talum rather than by
weight of contained metals. The earliest Lydian coins do not contain the
metals indicated by their face value. 33 The first coin was also the first
example of coinage debasement. The Lydian coinage also began the pattern
of government monopolization of coin production, which included
government oversight of mining, all elements needed to cause coins to
trade ad talum rather than by weight.
Even in later years (after 500 B.C.) when coinage became popular in the
Mediterranean region, records in Mesopotamia indicate that foreign-origin
coins were often used in payment, but only according to their actual weight
of contained metal. When one is making payment by metal weight, the form
of the metal is not important. A gold necklace, ring or armband could serve
as easily as an ingot or coin. Even at the level of the state, larger quantities
of gold and silver could be formed into public monuments and decoration, a
sort of grand public jewelry. If necessary, these also could be used as
money. The Athena Parthenos was a statue of the Greek goddess Athena,
created around 447 B.C. The statue contained 44 talents of gold, equivalent
to about 1,100 kilograms. The gold was removed in 296 B.C. to pay for the
defense of Athens against invasion by Macedon.
Although gold and silver jewelry commonly sells for much more than
its contained metal value in U.S. jewelry stores today – it has a high jewelry
fabrication premium – that is more of an exception than the rule.
Throughout India, Thailand and elsewhere in Asia, the cost of gold jewelry
is today only about 2% higher than the value of contained precious metals.
This was likely the pattern also throughout preindustrial human history. A
2% jewelry fabrication premium is actually not much different than the
retail fabrication costs of standardized one-ounce gold coins, such as the
popular Krugerrands or American Eagles. Plus, unlike a coin, it makes good
jewelry. When monetary metals trade by weight, jewelry does not have to
be melted into ingots or stamped into coins to make payment, but can be
used in payment in its present state.
Nevertheless, coinage had an advantage, in that it did not need to be
constantly weighed, at least for domestic trade. Each coin could be treated
as equivalent to all the others. The government demanded that one do so –
the first “legal tender” laws. As long as the value of the coin did not deviate
too much from its indicated value – either because the contained metal was
close to the value indicated, or because the supply was controlled such that
the coins traded above their metal weight at the indicated value, much as
gold-linked paper currencies would in later centuries – it was an effective
advance.
A real king Midas ruled Lydia in the late eighth century B.C. The natural
deposits of electrum (a mixture of gold and silver) found in the Patroclus
river near Sardia were said to be due to his golden touch. The first Lydian
coins were made of electrum, and date from perhaps 640-620 B.C. They
were made from an artificial electrum with a higher silver content than the
natural electrum of the Patroclus. Given the potential for abuse inherent in
electrum coins, it is no surprise that, soon after, Lydian coinage was
separated into pure gold and silver coins, during the reign of Croesus (560-
547 B.C.). The implied gold:silver ratio was 1:13.5. 34
The Lydian coinage was imitated throughout the Hellenic realm.
Coinage had already been in common use long enough to undergo a coinage
reform by Solon of Athens, beginning around 594 B.C. 35 The drachma’s
value was lowered from 70 per mina (about 6.1 grams) to 100 (4.3 grams).
It was apparently intended as a means to reduce the rate of interest on
loans, and to reduce burdens on a broad swath of poor debtors. With the
beginning of coinage came the beginning of coinage debasement; and the
beginnings of the idea of using this debasement not only as a means of state
funding, but as a device for “economic management” on many levels.
Solon also forgave debts, and eliminated debtor enslavement. He
insisted that the coinage would thereafter remain of unchanging value and
metal content. This began a long period in which the Greek silver coinage
became one of the most reliable in the region. Copper coins, known as
chalkoi, also circulated. In the Athenian system, eight chalkoi were
equivalent to one obol, a small silver coin, and six obol were equivalent to a
silver drachma, which contained about 4.3 grams of silver. Larger two, four
and ten drachma coins were also minted. Gold was not minted into coins at
first, but traded in bullion form as a grander sort of money. The Greek
affinity for silver coinage reflected the abundance of silver mines under
Athenian control. When access to these mines was cut off in 407 B.C. by
Sparta, Athens minted a series of 84,000 gold coins, with the gold coming
from a statue of the goddess Nike adorning the Acropolis. In the midst of
those long years of war, in 406 B.C., the Athenian government attempted to
pass a series of copper coins with a thin plating of silver, with predictable
consequences. Aristophanes, in The Frogs (405 B.C.), said: 36
You know what I often think:

We treat our best men
The way we treat our mint
The silver and the golden
We were proud to invent
These unalloyed
Genuine coins, no less,
Ringing true and tested
Both abroad and [in] Greece
And now they're not employed
As if we were disgusted
And want to use instead
These shoddy coppers minted
Only yesterday
Or the day before
(as if that matters).
To Athens’ credit, these base metal coins were “demonetized” in 393

B.C. – no longer recognized at face value. The Athenian silver “owl” coins, in
sizes of one, two and (most commonly) four drachma, and occasionally in
eight, ten and twelve-drachma sizes, became a common coinage throughout
the Mediterranean world until the exhaustion of Greek silver mines after 25
B.C. These “owls” remained of high quality, and roughly unchanged silver
content, throughout that time.
Despite this success, creative minds were already turning over the idea
of a fiat currency that could be controlled by the government. The
philosopher Plato (427-347 B.C.), in The Laws, stated:
Further, the law enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to

possess gold and silver, but only coin for daily use ... a coin passing
current among themselves, but not accepted among the rest of
mankind; ... If a private person is ever obliged to go abroad, let him
have the consent of the magistrates and go; and if when he returns he
has any foreign money remaining, let him give the surplus back to the
treasury, and receive a corresponding sum in the local currency. 37
As early as 600 B.C., Lycurgus banned gold and silver from Sparta, and –
as this was more than seven centuries before the invention of paper in
China – replaced it with a coinage made of iron.
From their beginnings in Lydia, throughout the ancient world,
governments monopolized the minting of coins, in a vertically-integrated
process that included government-owned precious metals mines in the

area, plus whatever could be obtained in conquest or trade. Governments
used these coins to pay their bills. This was normally a profitable process,
as the output of mines and minting was greater than the coinage paid to the
miners and minters. Bullion obtained in conquest was formed into coins to
pay the conquering armies, a sort of “mining” by a different process. From
time to time, a government would get the idea of putting less silver into the
standardized silver coin. By reducing the silver content from (for example)
eight grams to four, a greater profit could be made from each coin.
Conceivably, a government could have issued token coins, as we have today,
whose controlled and limited supply allows them to trade well above the
value of their metal content. But, in practice, a government that halved the
metal content of a coin would issue as many as they could, ensuring that the
coins’ value would drop to their commodity value.
The Persian realm had fallen under the domination of the Assyrian
Empire from the tenth to seventh centuries B.C., and commercial
transactions in Persia were thus influenced by the Mesopotamian example.
After the collapse of the Assyrian Empire in 605 B.C., a unified Median state
was formed, which was one of the four major powers of the ancient Near
East along with Babylon, Lydia and Egypt. Cyrus the Great (550-530 B.C.),
overthrew the Median Empire in 550 B.C. and established the Achaemenid
Empire, also known as the First Persian Empire. Around 547 B.C., Cyrus
conquered Lydia and, in 539 B.C., Babylon. Inspired by the Lydian example,
sometime after 546 B.C. the first Persian coins were produced by Cyrus.
Darius I (521-486 B.C.) introduced a large gold coin of 8.4 grams (one
shekel weight), the daric. This was combined with a silver coin, the siglos, of
5.4-5.6 grams. Gold darics were commonly used in Greece as well,
supplementing the local silver coinage.
Banking in the world of ancient Greece built upon two thousand years
of prior development in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Although this was the
dawn of what we would call coinage, banks had already been around for a
length of time similar to that which separates us from the ancient Greeks
today. Pythius, a Lydian, operated throughout Asia Minor. In the Histories
(440 B.C.), 38 Herodotus reported that Xerxes I of Persia encountered
Pythius on his way to invade Greece in 480 B.C. (Later on this campaign,
Xerxes met King Leonidas of Sparta at the Battle of Thermopylae.) Pythius
offered to finance Xerxes’ war. Xerxes declined, but offered Pythius 7,000
gold darics so that Pythius’ fortune would come to an even 4,000,000 darics
– equivalent to 32,256 kilograms of pure gold, and worth about $1.2 billion
in 2015.
Greece’s first banker of note was Philostephanus, who was in business
in the first half of the fifth century B.C. Themistocles, an Athenian politician
and general (he defeated Xerxes’ navy at Artemisium and Salamis in 480
B.C.), himself deposited 70 talents of silver (equivalent to 151.7 kilograms
of gold) in Philostephanus’ bank. But the most famous of the Greek bankers
was Pasion, who began as a slave to the bankers Antisthenes and

Archestratus. Mastering the business, he was granted freedom in 394 B.C.
and went on to become one of the wealthiest men in Greece at his
retirement in 371 B.C.
The profusion of coinage, from many different issuers, and whose
contained metal weight may differ from face value either intentionally by
governments, via intentional “clipping” by private parties, or due to normal
coin wear, plus various bimetallic standards with an official ratio of gold
and silver which inevitably varied from market ratios, gave rise to the
business of “foreign exchange” or “money-changing,” a major focus for
Greek bankers. The Persians soon settled on an official gold:silver ratio of
13 1/3:1 (or 40:3), while in Greece, a 12:1 market ratio was more common.
Philip II of Macedon (360-336 B.C.), located between Greece and Asia,
issued gold and silver coins in a 10:1 ratio.
Alexander and India
The Vedas of India (2000-1440 B.C.) mention the concept of usury,

suggesting the practice of lending in India as early as the eighteenth century
B.C. – no surprise, given the interaction between the Indus Valley
civilization and Sumer. The Jakatas (600-400 B.C.) condemn usury, and also
mention the existence of loan deeds. India adopted silver coinage around
the same time as Greece, between 700 B.C. and 500 B.C. Some have debated
whether this Indian coinage emerged independently, or whether it was due
to the influence of nearby Persia. 39
By the time of Philip’s son Alexander III (“Alexander the Great,” 336-
323 B.C.), gold and silver coinage was already in use from Greece to India.
Alexander conquered Persia in 330 B.C., and then today’s Afghanistan,
Pakistan and parts of Northern India in 327 B.C., in the process unifying the
coinage throughout on a standard Greek basis. This was helped by the flood
of newly-minted Greek silver drachma coins with which Alexander paid his
armies. Metal for these coins was gained by the looting of the treasuries of
conquered states. The varied bimetallic systems of conquered states, and
the variety of coinage, were resolved into a unified bimetallic coinage
system at a 10:1 ratio. Gold and silver bullion traded freely within
Alexander’s realm, thus equalizing their values everywhere. China,
however, still remained largely independent of monetary developments in
the west.
Alexander’s unified rule disintegrated immediately after his death in
323 B.C., as his generals fought for dominance. However, the Greek legacy
that Alexander introduced lasted centuries. The Greco-Bactrian kingdom
stretched over the north of present-day Afghanistan. Early in the second
century B.C., the Greco-Bactrian kings pushed over the Himalayas to enter
the Indus valley, establishing the Indo-Greek kingdom that ruled until 10
A.D. The Indo-Greeks’ religion consisted of a mixture of Greek deities and
indigenous Buddhism and Hinduism. They continued to make silver coins

based on the drachma throughout the period, inscribed in Greek on one
side and Pali (a local language) on the back. Both the Greco-Bactrian and
Indo-Greek Kingdoms had regular contact with Chinese. In 180-170 B.C.,
they issued cupro-nickel coins with metal likely sourced from China, the
only source of cupro-nickel at this time. During the first century B.C., this
Greek-inspired coinage began to be imitated by other states throughout
India. The Kushan Empire (30-375 A.D.) originated among nomadic tribes
in the Tarim Basin (now the western Chinese province of Xinjiang), and
later spread into Bactria and throughout northern India. Greek and Bactrian
were the official languages of the Kushan Empire, which maintained
diplomatic contacts with Rome, Persia, and Han China. The Kushan Empire
issued India’s first high-quality gold coins, in the model of the Roman
denarius auri. These were combined with base metal coins, but silver coins
were rarely used.
Egypt’s silver coinage was heavily devalued around 53 B.C. In 30 B.C.,
the Roman emperor Octavian deposed the final pharaoh of the Ptolemaic
dynasty, Cleopatra, and made Egypt part of the Roman Empire. This opened
the Red Sea to Roman sea trade with India. During the first century A.D.,
extensive maritime trade between Rome and India developed, with up to
120 ships each year leaving for India via the Red Sea port of Myos Hormos.
Roman gold coins were used in trade for luxuries from India and China,
resulting in extensive use of Roman-made gold coins in southern India.
Pliny the Elder (23-79) complained that one hundred million sesterces per
year were being paid to India, China and the Arabian peninsula for trade in
perfumes and other luxury goods. 40 Roman traders reached Siam
(Thailand) in the second century. Chinese records indicate a visit from
representatives of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in 161.
Rome
Rome was founded, according to legend and tradition, in 753 B.C. It

began as a relatively minor entity on the fringes of Greek or Persian
dominance. Silver and gold deposits were scarce in the early Roman region.
Before coinage, unstandardized pieces of bronze served as money by
measured weight. Large uniform ingots of bronze were used in payment
from 450 B.C. The introduction of bronze coinage is traditionally ascribed to
payment for the army during the siege of Veii in 406 B.C. (Government
currency production and military finance have apparently been linked from
the earliest days.) The Gauls mounted an attack on Rome in 390 B.C. The
cackling of geese prevented a surprise attack, saving them from defeat. A
temple to Moneta, the goddess of warning, was built. Early Roman bronze
coinage was thereafter made at the temple, and thus Moneta also formed
the base of the word “money.” Soldiers were paid in this bronze coinage
until the mid-second century B.C.
The first bronze as coins weighed one Roman pound, or libra, which
also gives us the cursive £ later used to identify the British pound. (The
Roman libra was about 325 grams, and the Tower pound upon which the
British currency was based was about 350 grams.) The libra was divided
into twelve unciae (ounces) – similar to the troy ounces used for precious
metals today, twelve of which make a troy pound of 373 grams. Early as
coins weighed 12 unciae, as indicated by their face value, but their
contained metal was later reduced to 10 unciae around 270 B.C., to 5 unciae
at the start of the Second Punic War in 218 B.C., and then to 1.5-1.0 unciae
around 211 B.C. Silver coinage began to be produced in Rome around 269
B.C. During the Second Punic War, its silver content was reduced to as little
as 30%.
The denarius, which became the main silver coin of Rome for more than
four centuries, was introduced in 211 B.C. A small number of gold coins
were also introduced. The denarius was slowly debased; its 211 B.C. weight
of 4.5 grams of silver fell to 3.7 grams by 170 B.C. It is possible that minting
standards of new coins were adjusted to match the contained metal of older
coins as they wore down. This became an issue in British history, as we will
see, at the end of the seventeenth century.
Although the coinage of the Roman Republic was generally of bronze
and silver, gold served as a high-level form of money, especially for the
government. At the beginning of the Second Punic War in 218 B.C., the
historian Livy (64 B.C.–17 A.D.) noted that the Roman state treasury
contained about 41,800 troy oz. of gold. The war proved a huge success for
the Treasury, producing a net gain of 105,000 ounces. Livy estimated that
another 396,000 ounces of gold were obtained by 157 B.C., mostly from
wars in Spain and Macedonia. In that year, the Treasury held 181,326
ounces of gold and 363,000 ounces of silver, clearly showing a favoring of
gold in terms of total value. Sulla removed 93,750 oz. of gold in 88 B.C. to
finance expeditions against Mithradates, and returned with 156,250 oz. of
gold booty, plus another 1.2 million ounces of silver. Caesar took roughly
31,000 oz. of gold from the Treasury to finance his campaigns in Gaul, and
another 43,000 oz. (in the form of ingots) after 49 B.C. to seize control of
Rome. All of this happened before Rome had any significant gold coinage.
Caesar struck the first large-scale issuance of gold coinage in Rome’s
history. These followed the model of the aureus, a gold coin of about 8.1
grams based on the Persian daric. After a major coinage reform around 23
B.C. by Octavian (27 B.C–14 A.D.), the Roman coinage was officially
bimetallic. The value of the eight-gram aureus was indicated as equivalent
to 25 silver denarii of 3.86 grams, implying a silver:gold ratio of 12:1. The
tradition of bronze coinage continued with the sestertius, worth one quarter
of a denarius. The coin, with a weight of 25-28 grams (about one unciae) of
brass, had a nominal value of four as.
Banking is generally thought to have been less important to the Roman
economy than in the Babylonian and Egyptian examples. Payment in
coinage took precedence over payment in bank deposit transfers.

Nevertheless, the large fortunes of Rome made use of banks on a daily basis.
Some of the wealthiest men of Rome were reportedly worth on the order of
400 million sesterces, 41 equivalent to 4 million aurei of about 8 grams each,
or about 32,000 kilograms of gold. (This was worth about $1.2 billion in
2015.)
Nero (54-68) was the first to devalue the coinage from the standards
introduced by Octavian, reducing the silver content of the denarius to 90%.
By 250, the denarius had been reduced to about 40% silver – a pace of
decline, over two centuries, that was irrelevant for most purposes. But by
270, only twenty years later, the silver content of the denarius was down to
4%, a 10:1 devaluation in only twenty years. Aurelian (270-275) attempted
a coinage reform, but the primary outcome was to put higher face values on
coins, thus overcoming the difficulty of reducing their silver content still
further. The door to endless further devaluation was opened. He was
murdered a year later. This innovation was imitated by succeeding
emperors for over a century afterwards. The result of galloping devaluation
from 250 was the collapse of the monetary economy throughout Rome, and
a breakdown of the Roman state itself. In forty years between 244 and 284,
Rome had fifty-seven emperors.
Diocletian (284-305) stabilized the Empire, ruling for twenty-one years
and retiring peacefully afterwards. He also attempted a reform of the
coinage, with his main efforts taking place in 295. He struck five new coins:
a full-weight, pure gold solidus (“solid gold”), a pure silver argentus at 96 to
the Roman pound – the same value as the denarius under Nero, and almost
the same as Augustus (84 to the pound) – and three minor copper coins.
Diocletian’s solidus weighed 5.5 grams. However, the new coins were given
a face value far less than the market value of their metal content, and
quickly disappeared from use.
After Diocletian’s failure in 295, he issued his infamous Edict of Prices
in 301 to attempt to contain the raging inflation. This was accompanied by
the establishment of what amounted to a centrally-planned statist economy
to attempt to maintain military strength and public order. Diocletian
abdicated in 305. Under Octavian, a pound of gold was worth 1,050 denarii.
In the Edict, Diocletian declared that a pound of gold would be worth
50,000 denarii. By 307, a pound of gold was worth 100,000 denarii, and by
324 it was worth 300,000. By the mid-fourth century, Egyptian records
indicate that a pound of gold was worth 2.120 billion denarii. 42
In the midst of the monetary chaos of the denarius, gold was most
commonly used by measured weight. Heavy gold bracelets became popular
among the wealthy. They were used in transactions according to weight,
and valued equally with coinage on that basis.
Constantine (306-337) observed Diocletian’s error, and again
attempted a currency reform. His gold solidus began to be issued in 312 A.D.
at a weight of 72 to the pound (about 4.5 grams) of pure gold. It had no
official denomination or relation to the various junk coinage then in use

collectively known as pecunia, the tattered remnants of the denarius. The
floating exchange rate between pecunia and the gold solidus was quoted
daily by bankers, thus removing the problem of denomination that
undermined Diocletian’s efforts. When it was first issued, the market value
of the solidus was around 275,000 denarii. The solidus was maintained at a
full weight, it became the unit of account though not necessarily a medium
of exchange for smaller transactions, and the government demanded its use
in payment of taxes. Thus, it became widely used in circulation. Commoners
initially had to make do with existing junk coinage. Nevertheless, the
presence of a high-quality coinage, used as a unit of account, allowed
greater monetary exchange and the relaxation of much of Diocletian’s
statist framework.
Diocletian had partitioned the Empire into Eastern and Western halves
in 285, with independent administration. In 324, Constantine moved the
capital of the Eastern Empire from Rome to the Greek city of Byzantium,
renamed Constantinople. High quality gold coinage continued to be issued
from Byzantium, while coinage in Western Rome was devalued into
uselessness. The end of the Western Roman Empire was initially marked by
the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. The German barbarians knew
what kind of money they preferred: in 422, Rome had to pay them 3,633 oz.
of gold per annum as tribute. The amount later rose to 5,208 ounces per
year. 43 In 476, the barbarian Odoacer deposed the final Roman emperor,
Romulus.
However, the Eastern Roman empire, marked by the establishment of
Constantinople and now known as the Byzantine Empire (although it was
called the Roman Empire by its inhabitants), continued another thousand
years to 1453. Its gold solidus coin was maintained, unchanged, until the
eleventh century. Constantine demanded that gold coin received in tax
payment be melted down and restruck into new coins, thus maintaining the
coins’ high quality. The solidus was the basis of the monetary system. In the
fifth century, the Byzantine monetary system consisted of full-weight gold
coins and masses of low-quality bronze coins called nummi, typically with a
weight of about 0.56 grams, and which continued to be used according to
their daily exchange rate with the solidus. The copper coinage was
reformed by Anastasius I in 498, who introduced a large, high quality
bronze coin, the follis, with a value of 40 nummi. Despite a few experiments,
there was little interest in silver coins.
Constantine also ended persecution of Christianity in Rome, beginning
with the Edict of Milan in 313. Around this time he declared himself a
Christian. As ruler, he supported the Christian church financially, and built a
large number of basilicas. In 325, Constantine formed the Council of Nicaea,
which organized the Christian church and reached consensus on official
doctrine on many matters, thus preparing the church to be used as an
official state church and, consequently, a tool of state control. Constantine at
first allowed religious tolerance, but by the end of his reign he suppressed
other religions, and tore down the Roman temples.
The Council of Nicaea forbade lending at interest (“usury”) among the
clergy. By the fifth century, this was spread to the laity. During the Middle
Ages, usury became more broadly suppressed, reaching a peak perhaps in
1311 when Pope Clement V made the ban on usury absolute and declared
all secular legislation in its favor null and void. The monetary violence of
the latter years of Rome made banking near-impossible, and the imposition
of usury laws largely prevented its return in Europe on a widespread basis.
Lending still existed in Europe, practiced mostly by Jews not subject to
Christian dictates. However, large public institutions such as banks were
not allowed.
China
Evidence of proto-writing in China dates from as early as 7000 B.C.,

leading to speculation that writing in China is very old. Unfortunately, the
scarce evidence has not provided confirmation of these notions. Historians
generally date writing in China to around 1200 B.C. Cowrie shells served as
small-denomination money in China, possibly as early as the eighteenth
century B.C. Bronze casting in China dates from about 1900 B.C., and bronze
ingots apparently in the shape of cowrie shells, likely a form of money,
appeared around 900 B.C. Early gold was used mostly in the form of foil
coverings of decorative objects. Royalty preferred jewelry of jade. By the
sixteenth century B.C., small gold jewelry was being made. A little evidence
exists of gold being used as money in these early times. One inscription
from the early Zhou Dynasty, the tenth or eleventh century B.C., indicated
that a king presented a prince with “one hundred lieh of gold.”
The development of coinage in China was, for the most part,
independent of the West. For smaller denominations, practical bronze tools
were typically stylized into a form no longer useful for utilitarian purposes,
and used as a sort of standardized unit that served the function of coinage
despite its odd shape. The oldest types of “spade money” might date from as
early as 1200 B.C. “Knife money” circulated from around 600 to 200 B.C.
Silver “spade” coins have been found dating from before 500 B.C. In the fifth
or sixth centuries B.C., a gold coinage emerged, in the form of standardized
gold sheets or blocks of 3-5mm thick. By the third century B.C., large
standardized gold and silver ingots known as sycees (or “catties”) were used
in trade, by contained metal weight and market value, and were used
continuously in much the same way into the twentieth century. The silver
sycee was officially demonetized in 1933.
The Guanzi, a book of economic doctrines that attained a status
comparable to the writings of Plato or Aristotle in the West, is thought to
have been written around the fourth or third centuries B.C. “The five grains
are the Sovereigns of Destiny to the people. Gold and knife-shaped specie
serve as their common currency,” it said. “Gold is the standard of

expenditures. The prince who discerns the fundamental laws of gold will
understand the dangers of parsimony and prodigality. Knowing this, he will
exercise moderation in his expenditures.” 44
The first Chinese cast bronze coins, in the flat, round shape with the
characteristic square hole that typified Chinese bronze coinage until the
twentieth century, arose around 350 B.C. The “banliang” was the first
unified coinage of China, following political unification by emperor Qin Shi
Huang around 210 B.C. and the establishment of the Qin Dynasty. It too was
cast bronze with a square hole. These round, square-hole, copper-based
Chinese coins are collectively known as “cash” in English, a crude rendering
of qian, the common Chinese word for the coins. These coins traded beside
silver and gold ingots for larger transactions, based on metallic weights.
The Chinese invention of paper is traditionally ascribed to Han dynasty
court official Cai Lun, in 105 A.D. The first mention of a representative
money made from paper (a “paper currency”) dates from 140 A.D.
However, the idea of representative money in China emerged centuries
before the widespread adoption of paper. Chinese contracts indicating
payment of coins to the bearer on demand, written on sheets of leather,
existed from at least as early as 118 B.C. and are sometimes considered to
be an early “banknote.”
In the Celtic lands of Britain and France, then the barbarian frontiers
beyond the borders of Rome, gold "ring money" dates from at least 1200
B.C. Later, coinage was locally produced based on the Roman model. The
earliest coins were a gold stater, imitating the stater of Philip II of Macedon,
and date from about 125 B.C. However, as late as 58 B.C., Julius Caesar,
upon conquering Gaul (with an invasion of Britain in 55 and 54 B.C.),
remarked on the primitive bronze “sword monies” in use there. The Chinese
pattern of early gold coins or ingots, combined with a bronze tool money,
was independently replicated in Britain and France before being replaced
by the Roman coinage after conquest.
Although Chinese coins were typically of copper alloys, gold and silver
traded by weight, and were generally not made into coins. Given that
Chinese people used silver as money, by weight, into the twentieth century,
we might postulate that, for large transactions, the additional labor of
weighing was a minor inconvenience considering the large sums involved;
while the standardized bronze coinage relieved the need for weighing in
minor transactions. Although only feudal lords, military chiefs and nobility
regularly used gold in transactions, during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220
A.D.), “it does seem clear that money of the Han period was on a gold
standard, the gold unit [weight] remaining constant,” concluded one
historian. 45 This mirrored the Byzantine system, with a menagerie of
bronze coins of varying quality used in small-scale commerce, anchored by
a highly reliable gold solidus rarely used by commoners. The Han emperor
enjoyed an annual “gift” (in practice, a tax) from each of the nobles of four
taels of gold for every one thousand fiefs of a noble’s domains. 46 Gold was
then paid out by the emperor to nobles in return for military engagements
and other duties on behalf of the emperor. In 124-123 B.C., the general Wei
Ch’ing was paid 1.6 million oz. of gold as a prize for a successful attack on
Hsiung-nu in northern China. 47 Gold also served as a unit of account during
the Han era. Salaries of senior government ministers were often designated
in gold, although they could be paid in copper coins or grain.
In 10 A.D., the Han emperor Wang Mang undertook a rather
bewildering currency reform which included tortoise shell, cowries, gold
and silver (both by weight, with no coins issued; the implied gold:silver
ratio was 1:5), six different copper coins, and spade money in ten
denominations. Wang Mang’s innovations included a bronze knife money
inlaid with gold lettering, which said “one knife worth five thousand,” and
another that said “inscribed knife five hundred,” apparently introducing the
idea of high-value token currencies. The experiment was not repeated,
perhaps because it was too easy to counterfeit. Although coinage in China
continued to focus on small-denomination copper/bronze coins, Wang
Mang’s treasury held roughly five million ounces (155 metric tons) of gold
bullion, a high point for the Chinese state that was not matched until
modern times, and the largest single gold concentration in the world at the
time. 48 The industrious Wang also introduced China’s first income tax, at a
rate of 10% of profits. After only four years, the overly-complicated bronze
coinage system was simplified to two basic coins, a round coin with a
denomination of one, and a large spade (by this time a sort of vaguely
spade-shaped ingot) with a denomination of 25. This arrangement
continued without major changes until the end of the Han Dynasty in 220.
In 220-280, apparent large-denomination bronze coins appear again,
marked with values of one hundred to five thousand. Given the constant
warfare of this period between three large kingdoms, perhaps these were a
form of military finance via currency devaluation, much as Aurelian and his
successors were conducting at the same time in Rome, by marking coins
with higher and higher denominations. After the reunification of China in
280, multiple denominations disappeared, and the bronze coins (their
shape and weight still largely unchanged) returned to an implicit value of
one.
Money in the Ancient World
Throughout the world, money and writing developed roughly

simultaneously. Indeed, they are related, since the increasing economic
trade and sophistication that naturally inspired a standardized commodity
of exchange, which we now call “money,” also prompted record-keeping of
the sort that produced the original forms of writing. In any case, it is hard to
tell, without a written record, whether such things as gold or silver
adornments found by archaeologists may have traded readily in a monetary
fashion based on the weight of contained metals, as we know they often did
later, and still do so today.
We also know, from written records, that effective barter was often
carried out within the framework of a monetary standard of value, such as
silver. A cow worth fifty silver shekels would trade for fifty shekels of figs.
Tax payment of twenty shekels would be paid in hides. This seems a bit
alien to us today, but it was always a common part of agrarian human life,
whether in Sumer in the fourth millennium B.C., or for an American farmer
in 1850. Did this also happen commonly before it began to be recorded in
writing? Obviously, we do not know, but there is no particular reason why
not.
What we do know is that, throughout the world, people used the
monetary metals – gold, silver and copper alloys – if they were at all
available. For a state of any meaningful size and sophistication, trade or
possibly conquest by a foreign power eventually made them available. The
commonality of use did not necessarily indicate which metals were most
preferred. Most transactions in the early Byzantine Empire would have
been carried out with low-quality bronze coins, but gold was the basis of
their system, just as gold was the basis of the monetary system in the
United States in 1960, although paper banknotes were the means of
transactions and the use of gold coins was actually outlawed for U.S.
citizens. Even after token silver coins were removed from circulation, it still
remained, for a few years longer, a gold standard system.
In a narrowly restricted locale, silver mines may be productive but gold
nearly nonexistent, or vice versa; and this could be reflected in the
monetary arrangements of that place. But to the extent that trade barriers
– caused by the practical difficulties of transport, or human-imposed trade
restrictions – could be overcome, gold and silver would tend to equalize and
thus be the same value everywhere, and of equal availability everywhere.
This was even more the case since gold and silver were generally the things
that everyone would accept in trade, and therefore commonly traded in
large quantity, the universal money from Britain to India, and ultimately to
China and beyond. Soldiers were paid regularly in gold and silver coins,
often newly-minted from bullion captured from the royal treasuries of
conquered lands. Armies thus naturally became conduits of supply of
newly-minted coinage, spreading the indigenous monetary systems of the
conquering states, before all other institutions. The greater portability of
gold made it easier to transport over long distances than silver, which
would naturally make gold a favorite means of payment for the longest
trading expeditions, and would also tend to more fully equalize the value of
gold everywhere no matter what the productivity of local mines happened
to be. This is perhaps one reason why gold was ultimately viewed as a more
universal and more stable standard of value than silver, even if most
domestic commerce happened to be conducted in silver or bronze coins due
to their usefulness in smaller-denomination transactions.
Money – and more specifically the use of gold, silver and copper alloys
as money – predated coinage by thousands of years. This fact is easily
overlooked. Numismatists, or coinage enthusiasts, tend to assume that
money did not exist before coinage. At least, a coin is clearly a form of
money, and used for no other purpose, while the various gold, silver or
bronze objects, in the form of outright jewelry or standardized proto-
jewelry, are not so obviously a form of money, although they were used as
such. Even the standardized ingots of the ancient world, including the ox-
hide-shaped bronze ingots that traded among the eastern Mediterranean
kingdoms during the 1600-1100 B.C. period, or the Chinese sycees of gold
and silver, do not seem to be fully regarded as money today, although they
were certainly used for that purpose and no other. Representative monies
have been made of clay tablets, leather, and later wood tally sticks, or even
token coins, but people have had a tendency to ignore these often widely-
used innovations because they were not made of familiar paper.
Coinage was not, in all ways, an improvement upon money. The
Mesopotamian practice of using actual metal weights was uncorrupted for
roughly three thousand years. The Chinese shared the same affinity for
precious metals traded by weight, limiting their coinage only to the
smallest-denomination bronze coins even into the twentieth century.
Coinage, from its introduction in Lydia, began as a means by which metals
could be traded at “face value” rather than their weights. This relieved the
need for constant weighing, but introduced endless examples of currency
corruption. After many such experiments, governments found that their
coins worked best when their metals contents were unchanged, and very
close to their face value, except perhaps for a small minting premium.
If we see beyond the variety of local custom, we find that gold or silver
became the basis of money nearly everywhere. Sometimes the focus was on
gold, as in ancient Persia. Sometimes it was on silver, as in ancient Greece.
Macedonia and Lydia adopted a formal bimetallism. Historians tend to
emphasize the differences rather than the similarities, in part because it
gives them something to talk about. In practice, gold and silver were
effectively much the same thing. They tended to trade in a close ratio,
reliable and unchanging enough from year-to-year that formal bimetallism
could be adopted. The foreshortening effect of history tends to emphasize
the changes, between the 10:1 silver:gold ratio of Alexander and the 12:1
ratio of Augustus – but 325 years separated them. In practical terms, for the
purposes of real business (typically with a timeframe of less than twenty
years, and often much less than that), the silver:gold ratio – either their
floating market values or an official bimetallic arrangement – would have
been predictably stable, and in practice probably resembled the market
silver:gold ratio of 1650-1870, for which we have detailed records. Thus,
silver and gold were, for practical purposes, two versions of the same thing,
like a one-dollar bill and a ten-dollar bill. Indeed, the original U.S. one-dollar
coins were made of silver, and the ten-dollar coins were made of gold. This
official bimetallic arrangement, which reflected real market values, was not
much different than the system of Philip II of Macedon, in the fourth century
B.C.
Thus, in practical terms, a “silver-based” system, a “gold-based” system,
or a “bimetallic” system were virtually the same thing – a gold/silver
complex which functioned much the same way no matter what the specific
local preferences for one metal or the other may have been. Recognizing
this, we find a continuity in human monetary affairs, back to the very
beginnings of history, and around the world, up to the end of gold-based
money in 1971. Despite all the uncountable episodes of currency
debauchery over millennia, and endless fascinating local particulars that
entertain numismatists, humans have used gold, silver and copper as
money, in some kind of unified system, and with copper typically in a
subordinate role. Eventually, without really changing its basic character,
this became, toward the end of the nineteenth century, a focus on gold
alone. Even this nineteenth century monometallic gold consensus was not
something new, and not particularly different than the gold-centric policy of
ancient Persia or the Byzantine Empire. It was just more widely accepted,
reflecting the greater ease of trade over long distances, the greater
interconnectedness of economic activity, and thus the desire to further
homogenize monetary affairs.
The gold/silver complex – rhetorically abbreviated as “gold” because it
did finally become a global gold-centric system – has always been the basis
of money, the ultimate measure of value. “Ultimate,” meaning the best; and
also, the final. If there were something better, we would have found it by
now. If there were a burning need to find something better, we would have
looked. No doubt the entire academic profession today would argue that
our floating paper fiat currencies are superior. B The notion of overissuing
and thus devaluing a currency (often obscured as “lowering interest rates”
or “increasing the money supply”) as a remedy for some sort of economic
difficulty must be nearly as old as devaluation itself, which is as old as
coinage itself. No demonstrable track record of success has ever been
achieved. No empire ever rose above its neighbors and expanded its realm
through the mastery of currency devaluation, or some sort of artful floating
fiat currency management, or any other form of currency manipulation.
History is all the other way: the states that maintained the highest
currency quality, whose coins contained the same quantities of gold or
silver over generations and centuries, were the most successful.
Governments that debased their coinage soon found that their borders
BIn a 2012 survey of economic experts made by the University of Chicago’s business
school, 43 percent of those surveyed “disagreed” with the gold standard, and 57
percent “strongly disagreed.” Shea, Christopher. “Survey: No Support for Gold
Standard Among Top Economists.” WSJ Blog (Jan. 23, 2012)
were retreating under the pressure of foreign invaders, while the domestic
economy languished and civil unrest grew more strident. To meet these
challenges, they debased the currency still further, and got the same results
with greater intensity. As is the case for any official government policy that
seems to be working, a chorus of courtiers can be found to sing its praises,
and no doubt such a chorus existed then too. Monetary decline tends to
coincide with the decline of governments and dynasties. Those who claim
“this time is different” simply have no idea how much it is the same.
Chapter 3:
The Medieval Era, 400-1500
Rome left Britain to its fate in 410. By 435, Britain abandoned coinage,
and did not use it again for two hundred years. It is perhaps more accurate
to say that coinage had abandoned Britain: the Roman coins by then were
hardly coinage at all, but rather bits of junk metal, devalued continuously
for 180 years, and which could not serve any meaningful purpose as a
standardized monetary system. By then, the economic system in Britain and
throughout western Europe did not require very much monetary commerce
in any case, having adapted, over a long period, to monetary degradation
and political instability by focusing on local self-sufficiency. Manorial
serfdom formed the basis of the economy. Small states proliferated, and
trade and travel became difficult beyond the immediate locality.
Britain’s abandonment of coinage was among the more extreme
examples within post-Roman Western Europe. Coinage continued to be
used on the continent, loosely based on the Byzantine model, although
there too economic arrangements had become drastically simplified. In
600-630, the British began to adopt coinage from Merovingian France (the
tremissis, one-third of a gold solidus) and Byzantium for local use. Around
630, a new gold coin of high quality began to be produced in Britain.
Beginning around 675, this coin was repeatedly debased by the inclusion of
increasing amounts of silver, a pattern that was also happening in France at
the same time. The outcome of this was that British coinage, around the
beginning of the eighth century, had become a silver coinage, which also
had the advantage of being of a small denomination more useful for many
forms of commerce. These silver coins were also debased for a century
afterwards with the inclusion of base metals, among many of the minor
kings of disunited Britain.
In France, the Merovingian dynasty declined along with the gold
content of its coinage. In 751, the Merovingians were replaced by the
Carolingian dynasty, which, like Britain, adopted a silver basis for its
coinage. Around 755, a new coinage system was introduced by Pepin the
Short. His son Charlemagne (800-814) later united large parts of Europe
and became the first Holy Roman Emperor, in the process also unifying the
coinage of his realm. In the new system, the livre was established as a
pound of silver (inspired by the Roman libra), subdivided into 20 sous each
of 12 deniers (inspired by the Roman denarius). Only deniers were originally
minted; the rest were units of account. Besides being copied in Britain, the
The Medieval Era, 400-1500 39
system was also used in Italy and Portugal through the end of the Middle
Ages. Gold coinage continued to be used, primarily of Byzantine origin, and
was preferred by many merchants. France began producing gold coins
again in 1266, and continued to issue both gold and silver coins into the
twentieth century.
Around 765, a new level of political unification was achieved in Britain.
This led to monetary reform, with the introduction of the silver penny by
King Offa of Mercia (757-796) in the early 790s. In Offa’s imitation of the
Carolingian system, 240 silver pennies, each containing 22.5 troy grains of
silver (32 Tower grains or about 1.5 grams), made up a Tower pound of
about 350 grams. The Roman/Frankish origins today remain reflected in
the use of £ and “lb.” (from the Roman libra) for pound, and “d.” (Roman
denarius and French deniers) for penny. Offa’s penny was made of fine
silver, 99.9% pure. It was produced in high quality and large quantities, and
was often more popular in Europe than locally-produced coins. It remained
the only minted English coin for five centuries, until gold coins and other
denominations were introduced in the thirteenth century.
6000
5000
troy grains of pure silver
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1000
1100
1200
1300
1400
1500
1600
1700
1800
1900
2000
700
800
900
Britain: Value of British Pound in Silver, 790-1931 1
The English silver penny was one of the better-quality coinages of the
region, and became a model imitated elsewhere in Europe. Bolesław I
Chrobry (992-1025) was crowned the first king of Poland, and also
introduced a new coinage. He imitated the English penny so devotedly that

his coins showed the head of Aethelred I, the king of England. Local versions
of the English penny were also produced in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the
Low Countries and lower Germany.
In 1158, a new coinage introduced by Henry II was minted of 92.5%
silver alloyed with copper, which increased hardness and durability. This
92.5% alloy became known as “sterling silver” and remained the standard
fineness for British silver coinage thereafter. It was, nevertheless, a
debasement. Edward III reduced the weight to 20 grains in 1346, and 18
grains in 1353. During the reign of Henry IV (1399-1413), the penny was
reduced in weight to 15 grains (0.97 grams) of silver, and reduced again to
12 grains in 1464 under Edward IV. Thus the pound became a “British
pound,” divorced from its history as a simple measure of weight.
A series of debasements took place during the reigns of Henry VIII
(1509-1547) and Edward VI (1547-1553). In 1546, the coinage was only
33.3% silver. In 1552, coins were again produced in sterling silver, but with
a weight of eight grains. Another small debasement followed in 1601, to 7
23/31 grains, or about 0.50 grams. As the penny coin became impractically
small (the 90% silver U.S. Roosevelt dime, minted until 1964, weighed 2.5
grams), the silver shilling coin, worth twelve pence (6.0 grams), grew in
prominence as the fundamental silver coinage of Britain. It was almost
identical to the original Greek drachma of the seventh century B.C., a silver
coin also of roughly six grams. The shilling’s standard after 1601 was 62 per
troy pound, an official value which, later translated into its gold equivalent,
it maintained until 1931. After a thousand years, the value of the “penny”
and the “pound” had been reduced to about a third of their original value
under King Offa – not bad, all considered.
The Decline of Byzantium, the Solidus, and the Hyperpyron
In Byzantium, the gold solidus remained largely unchanged from

Constantine’s original design (and contained metal weight) until the reign
of Michael IV (1034-41) – over 700 years of stable currency value. In 1025,
at the death of Basil II, the Byzantine Empire was at a high point, with
control of Anatolia, Greece, the Balkans, and southern Italy. Basil did not
leave an heir, resulting in a confusion of succession and a series of weak
leaders. Conflict with the Catholic Church in Rome erupted into a schism in
1054, while Norman invaders began to occupy portions of Byzantine Italy. A
stronghold at Apulia was taken in 1071. But a larger disaster took place in
Armenia, where the Seljuk Turks made their first incursions into Byzantine
lands in 1065. Military failure in 1071 led to the loss of much of the
Anatolian plateau, until, in 1081, the Seljuk capital at Nicaea was just 90
kilometers from Constantinople.
Constantine VIII, who succeeded Basil II, originally married his
daughter Zoe to Otto III, the Holy Roman Emperor. As Zoe (then 23) was
traveling to Italy to her wedding, Otto died. In 1028, she was married (at
age 50) to Romanos Argyros, a scion of an aristocratic family who had made
a career as a judge and was the urban prefect (mayor) of Constantinople.
Three days after the wedding, Constantine VIII died, and Romanos became
emperor Romanos III. Unable to conceive an heir with Zoe, Romanos later
refused to share a bed with her. Zoe openly took Michael, an uneducated
courtier from a family of commoners, as one of her several lovers. After
Romanos was found dead in his bath, Zoe married Michael the next day,
thus putting Michael on the throne of the empire. Michael IV was a money-
changer by profession; some suspected him of forging false coins. He
immediately reduced the solidus’ gold content from 100% pure to 90%.
Successive emperors reduced the gold content still further, until, by the
accession of Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118), it was 10.6% gold. Another
decade of debasement followed, and the gold content dropped toward zero.
Alexius reformed the coinage in 1092, producing a new, high-quality
gold coin, the hyperpyron (“super-refined”) of 20.5 carats, or about 85%
purity, and 4.45 grams – the same weight as the solidus, but somewhat
lower purity. The coin was also known as the nomisma (“unit”). It remained
unchanged for over a century, but was then subject to gradual debasement.
Constantinople was sacked by Christian crusaders (in alliance with
Venetian merchants) in 1204, resulting in a division of the empire into
three successor states. During the Empire of Nicaea (1204-1261), the
hyperpyron fell to 18 karats; under Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259-1282) to
15 karats; and under Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282-1328) to 12 karats,
or 50% purity. The last gold hyperpyron were made around 1350, but the
name remained as a unit of account thereafter. From 1367, the largest coin
produced was the silver stavraton of 8.5 grams, which was soon lowered to
7.4 grams. The coin remained of relatively good quality until the conquest
of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
Italian Gold Coinage and the Rise of Italian Banks
As the Byzantine state weakened, and the hyperpyron began to be

debased after 1204, a variety of Italian replacement coinages appeared in
the Byzantine model. New gold coins were issued at Messina and Brindisi in
1232, Florence in 1252, and Genoa in 1253. The Florentine issue was
known as the florin, and in turn provided a model for gold coin issuance
throughout Europe. At 3.5 grams of pure gold, its gold content was
equivalent to the hyperpyron of the same time. The coin was manufactured
in Florence, unchanged, until 1533. Despite the Christian prohibitions on
usury, and proximity to Rome, more public forms of banking re-emerged in
Italy in the twelfth century. In 1327, the city of Avignon, in southeastern
France, had 43 branches of Italian banking houses.
Florence, in the early fourteenth century, was the banking capital of
Europe, taking that title from neighboring Siena after the bankruptcy of a
leading banking family there in 1298. Branches of Florentine banks spread

across the continent, in turn spreading the use of the gold florin. But
Florence’s major banking families went bankrupt in 1340, due to a
downturn in the economy of Europe in general, and the default of England’s
Edward III in particular. The spread of the Black Death, beginning in 1347,
also hit Florence hard. In the 1380s, the political situation settled down and
another era of prosperity began, which formed the foundation of the Italian
Renaissance. The most famous of the Florentine banks, the Medici Bank,
was founded in 1397. It grew to become Europe’s largest bank. The same
year, the Medicis encouraged Jewish moneylenders to settle in Florence.
The Medici family effectively ruled Florence from 1434, a period which was
the height of the Renaissance in Florence.
The Republic of Genoa began its expansion in the late eleventh century.
Destruction of the Arab fleet gave Genoa control of the western
Mediterranean in 1087. Participation in the First Crusade, 1096-1099,
resulted in the establishment of many trade colonies throughout the
eastern Mediterranean. By the end of the thirteenth century, Genoa’s trade
routes stretched as far as the Black Sea, and Genoa held the southern coast
of the Crimean peninsula. Other trade outposts stretched to Egypt, across
the coast of North Africa, to Barcelona, Seville, and even to Bruges, on the
North Atlantic coast of Flanders. A long series of wars with Venice, 1256-
1381, over control of trade in the eastern Mediterranean culminated in a
naval defeat in 1380 that began Genoa’s decline as a maritime power.
However, it enjoyed another prosperous era as one of Europe’s major
banking centers, in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. The Bank of
St. George in Genoa was founded in 1407, and later became a major lender
to the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella (1474-1504). Charles V (1500-
1558) was heavily in debt to the bank. His son Philip II of Spain defaulted in
1557, 1560, 1575 and 1596, now considered the first modern “sovereign
defaults.” Genoese banks provided about two-thirds of the lending. 2
Beginning around 1000, the traders of Venice established control over
seaways and trade routes of the eastern Mediterranean. At first expanding
down the coasts of the Adriatic, they later forged a trade monopoly with
Byzantium and also the Christian-held Holy Lands. Like other maritime
trading empires, including the Dutch and British empires that came later,
and also the Genoese with whom they competed, the Stato da Mar consisted
of a series of small holdings with strategic control of trade and shipping
lanes. The small Venetian empire included, at times, parts of Greece and
coastal states along the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, the islands of
Crete and Cyprus, and Adrianopolis (now Ederne), just west of
Constantinople. By this means, the Venetians controlled trade between East
and West, including the commerce of the Silk Road, particularly after they
emerged victorious from their competition with Genoa. The Bank of Venice,
established in 1157, was the first national bank in Europe since the Roman
era.
The Venetians used the Byzantine solidus and its successor, the
hyperpyron, as the basis of trade and accounting. By the mid-thirteenth
century, with the debasement of the hyperpyron, and also the weakening of
the Arab empire and its gold dinar, the Venetians found that they were
without a reliable monetary standard. Thus, in 1285, they created the ducat,
of 3.56 grams of gold at 0.995 fineness, as a copy of the florin. It became a
major international coinage and basis of trade throughout the region, and
continued to be used – without debasement – until 1797, when the Republic
of Venice fell to the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. A burst of gold coinage
production emerged throughout Europe in the early fourteenth century,
causing gold coinage to eclipse silver not only in Italy but also France,
Germany, and Flanders. 3 Gold “ducats” were also produced in the
Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, and elsewhere.
In 1257, England’s Henry III introduced a “gold penny,” the first gold
coin produced in England since the eighth century. It was valued at an
implied 1:10 gold:silver ratio, well below market values at that time, and
was thus unpopular. (The market value of the contained gold was well
above the face value of twenty silver pence.) Edward III issued a new gold
coin, called the “florin,” in 1343. Again, the face value was not well
calibrated to the market values of gold and silver, so a gold “noble” coin was
issued in Britain in 1346, whose face value accurately reflected market
values, and which gained broader acceptance.
Representative Money in the Medieval Era
The split tally stick was a liquid credit device that took on some of the
characteristics of representative money in medieval Europe, although it did
not quite attain the status of a currency. They represented either debt or a
deposit (also a form of debt), and traded regularly among third parties.
They were near-impossible to counterfeit, and were used well after the
advent of paper currencies and more advanced banking services. Tally
sticks were accepted as legal proof in the Napoleonic Code (1804), were
used in England until 1826, and were used into the twentieth century in
some parts of rural Switzerland and Germany.
King Henry I formalized the use of the split tally stick in England
around 1100, and brought it to perhaps its most sophisticated expression as
a credit and monetary instrument, beyond its origins as an accounting
receipt. Tax assessments owed to the king were recorded in a tally stick.
These tallies were then used by the king in payment to others. The receiver
of the tally could receive payment in coinage from the original tax debtor,
trade it again, or return it to the king as a later tax payment. Soon, the king
began to pay suppliers with tallies (tallia dividenda) that did not arise from
tax debts, but were created for the purpose and essentially represented a
government debt. These tallia dividenda were redeemable at the Exchequer
for coinage. Complicated markets in tallies arose, in which their market
prices were determined by such factors as the perceived collectability of

debts, travel distances, and timing of government tax receipts allowing
redemption of government tallies at the Exchequer. This discounting
process often contained an implied payment of interest, which was officially
outlawed under usury laws and considered a sin by the Christian church.
Some see these medieval markets in discounted tally sticks as a precursor
to the later “money market” in London, which was also a market in
discounted bills and short-term debts. The increasing use of tallies by the
English government to make payments, which amounted to a primitive sort
of government debt, led to the elimination of usury laws and a more formal
market in government debt in later centuries.
The Knights Templar, a religious order, established a system of “letters
of credit” throughout Christian Europe beginning in 1150. It was primarily a
payment device, originally intended to allow pilgrims to finance a long
journey without carrying large quantities of coinage, which would make
them a target of thieves. A deposit could be made in one Templar office, and
retrieved at another far distant. The device soon became used for all
manner of business dealings, and as a storehouse for wealth, greatly
simplifying long-distance commerce in Europe during that era. The
Templars’ wealth became a target for King Philip IV of France, who was
deeply in debt to the Templars from his war with the English. With threats
of military action, he pushed Pope Clement to order the arrest of the
Templars in 1307. This followed the expulsion and asset seizure of Jews and
Lombard bankers in 1306, to which he also owed large sums.
The basic idea of the “letter of credit” – little different from the grain
banking of ancient Egypt – was picked up in particular by Italian bankers in
the thirteenth century, and developed further in the fourteenth. 4 At first
they were personally registered, but they later became payable to the
bearer and easily traded – a precursor to the modern banknote.
Paper Money in China
After the collapse of the Han Dynasty in 220, a long period of political
disunification and instability followed in China, mirrored in various
debasements and issuances of low-quality coins. Despite the Han
government’s giant gold holdings and abundant use of gold in payment,
gold was little seen after the Han era. Some have hypothesized that the
large gold holdings of that time were hidden and often buried during the
chaos of the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Gold continued to be used among
the nobility of the Six Dynasties era (265-589), for payments among
themselves or as a store of value, but bolts of silk were a more common
medium for large transactions. This reflected the economy of the time,
based largely on peasantry tied to the land with little monetary exchange,
and a land-owning nobility. A large trading and mercantile class, which
might have a need for large monetary payments, did not exist then as it did
in the Mediterranean region. Also, during the Six Dynasties era, the
influence of Buddhism spread from Tibet and caused a surge in the creation
of gold statues in the Buddha’s image, among other religious ornaments in
gold and silver. In 490, the emperor issued edicts curbing the use of gold
and silver for religious artifacts.
The establishment of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) brought a period of
greater political unification and stability. A new, high-quality bronze coin –
regulations specified 83% copper, 15% lead and 2% tin – began to be
minted, and production continued for nearly 300 years. Gold and silver, in
the form of ingots, again rose to prominence as a high-value money, trading
by weight. Production of silver during the Tang era was low, which seems to
have limited its widespread use in commerce. Large numbers of foreign
silver coins dating from the Tang era have been found, mostly from Persia
and Arabia. The most common coins were silver drachmas from the
Sassanid Empire (224-651) of Persia.
The Tang era also saw the emergence of an early form of paper money,
the “flying cash,” in the seventh century. These enabled merchants to make
payments over long distances, by depositing coinage in one bank office and
receiving payment in another, upon the presentation of a voucher of
deposit. This system was particularly popular with tea merchants, who
wished to move revenue from the sales of tea in the north to the tea-
producing regions in the south. The vouchers did not generally circulate
among third parties, however.
An early, and short-lived, experiment in floating fiat paper money was
undertaken during the reign of Hien Tsung (a.k.a. Xianzong, 806-821), who
made payments in sheets of paper rather than bronze coins. Hien Tsung
proved to be the last great Tang emperor; after a period of increasing
instability, the dynasty ended in rebellion in 907, followed by a period of
turmoil known as the “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.” Another
experimental government issue took place in 910, and then more
commonly after 960 during the wars in which the Song Dynasty (960-1279)
reunified China. By 1020, the notes were collapsing in a spiral of
overissuance. 5
A private paper currency was introduced in the Sichuan region under
the Song Dynasty at the beginning of the eleventh century. Coins were
deposited in banks, deposit receipts were received in turn, and these
receipts circulated widely among third parties. The government recognized
sixteen merchants and granted them a monopoly on the issuance of deposit
promissory notes. The merchants did not always honor their depository
receipts with prompt payment in coinage, however, which resulted in
protests and many legal cases. In 1032, the government established a
monopoly on paper monies. The reserve coverage of these notes, in the
form of coinage, was twenty-nine percent. 6 At first, the note issue was
maintained at a fixed level. However, in 1072, the issue was doubled, and
this practice was repeated in later years such that, by 1107, the note issue
had increased by 21 times its original amount and the notes’ market value
declined substantially. By the end of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-
1127), issuance had roughly tripled again. In 1127, the Song lost control of
the northern part of China to the Jin Dynasty, ruled by the Jurchen peoples
of Manchuria.
The Song retreated to the south, marking the beginning of the Southern
Song Dynasty (1127-1279). In 1128, a currency reform took place and new
issue of paper money was undertaken by the Song government in the
Sichuan region. The system began with a limitation on issuance, but by the
early thirteenth century, issuance had expanded by about twenty-six times,
again with a substantial decline in the notes’ market value. 7
In the mid-twelfth century, private money-issuers began to issue paper
monies in the Hangzhou area. In 1160, the government monopolized money
issuance in Hangzhou, with a limitation on total circulation. Beginning
around 1176, governments again relied on paper money issuance as a
means of military finance. By 1195, the total circulation had expanded by
three times. By 1232, the circulation had expanded to thirty-three times its
original amount. The market value of the notes was stable until about 1208,
but then began to decline rapidly. By the end of the Song Dynasty in 1279,
the notes had been devalued to worthlessness.
The Song’s conquerors in the north, the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234),
issued their own paper currencies in the Song model beginning in 1153,
immediately after moving their capital to Beijing. The currency was well
maintained until the end of the twelfth century, when it began to depreciate
in value. The government undertook a series of reforms in 1206-1207,
including a reduction in circulation of large-denomination notes. Small-
denomination notes were made convertible to coin, but only in very small
amounts. However, in 1210, to pay military expenses just before a major
defeat by the Mongols, eighty-four cartloads of bills were distributed among
Jin troops. The bills’ value declined to worthlessness, and in 1214, a new
issue of notes was undertaken by the Jin government. Circulation of copper
coins was prohibited. Price controls were attempted, but failed after only
two months. In 1216, the new notes’ market value had depreciated to less
than a hundredth of their issue value only two years earlier. Yet another
new note was issued in 1217, with a value of one thousand of the notes
issued in 1214. By 1221, these notes’ value had depreciated by a factor of
200:1. Another new note was issued in 1222, with each worth 400 of the
notes issued in 1217. By this time, silver bullion had become the
predominant currency. The Jin government attempted to limit transactions
in silver, but this was soon abandoned as merchants refused to open their
shops. 8 The Jin Dynasty ended in 1234, after twenty-three years of war with
the Mongols at first led by Genghis Khan, in which many Jin officials and
military units defected to the Mongol side.
Around 1227, a Mongol military commander issued a paper currency
based on silk in the Shantung region, a major silk-producing district. Prior
to 1260, a number of local Mongol authorities issued paper notes for their
immediate jurisdiction, mostly based on silver. In 1236 and 1253, the
central government made some small issuances of silver-based paper
money based on the Jin model. With the ascension of Kublai Khan, grandson
of Genghis Khan, to the throne of Great Khan in 1260, a new note was
issued that would eventually unify the currency system of the empire. The
reserve consisted of gold and silver. Kublai Khan declared the beginning of
the Yuan Dynasty in China in 1271. With the defeat of the Southern Song in
1279, all of China was again unified, this time under Mongol rule. Chinese
paper money reached its zenith during the Yuan Dynasty, modeled after the
Jin and Song examples. By 1280, the note had become the universal paper
currency not only of China but of the Mongol Empire, which, in the single
year of 1274, conducted invasions of both Bulgaria and Japan. The Empire
reached the peak of its extent around 1280-1300, with invasions of Egypt
and Japan in 1281, Vietnam in 1284, Poland and Burma in 1287, Java
(Indonesia) in 1293, and Egypt again in 1299. Kublai Khan died in 1294.
Mongol records list 20,166 public schools established during his reign.
Already by 1262, the Mongol government forbade the use of gold and
silver as a medium of exchange, and required the use of paper currency.
Nevertheless, discipline over the currency’s issuance remained tight until
the late 1270s, when issuance stepped up considerably. Writing in 1286,
the historian Liu Xian recalled:
Before 1277-1278, there was little fluctuation in the value of the

notes. Afterwards, when Ahmad A dominated the government, he
issued notes in excessive quantities ... heedless of the consequences
for state or society. In addition, the gold and silver reserves in the
circuit exchange bureaus were all appropriated and dispatched to
Dadu [Beijing] ... The paper money in circulation lacked any backing,
causing prices to rise sharply, reaching a level ten times greater than in
the past. 9
Copper coinage was abolished in 1280, leading to a monetary system

that, in principle, was based on paper notes alone. Notes still remained
convertible into gold or silver to be manufactured into utensils or
ornaments, but regulations on the use of precious metals in trade remained.
From that time until 1350, the value of the Mongol paper currency steadily
declined, but did not have a period of dramatic collapse. Gold and silver
A Ahmad Fanākatī, a Persian Muslim who was finance minister of the Yuan
government beginning in 1262. After early success in tax administration, he later
became known for corruption, and was assassinated in 1282. After hearing
testimonies of Ahmad’s corruption, Kublai Khan ordered his body to be taken from
its tomb and eaten by dogs, and then chariot wheels used to smash the bones to
pieces.
were intermittently banned in private trade, but later allowed again. In

1287, a new paper currency was issued, and an exchange rate of 1:5
established between the new notes and the old. 10 After 1311, the ban on
trading in gold and silver was permanently lifted. In 1350, another new
note was issued, at an effective 1:10 ratio to the notes of 1287, and copper
coinage was again permitted. After 1350, the Mongol paper currency
entered a period of collapse. Rebellions spread over the empire, and only
metal coins and bullion were accepted in commerce. By 1356, the Mongol
paper currency was worthless.
In 1352, in the midst of currency collapse and economic implosion, the
peasant and Buddhist monk Zhu Yuanzhang joined a rebel group, the Red
Turbans. In 1356, Zhu led his rebel force to capture Nanjing. In 1363, Zhu
defeated his primary rival among the rebel groups at the Battle of Lake
Poyang, perhaps the largest naval battle in history with over 800,000
combatants. In 1368, Zhu attacked the Mongol capital at Beijing, overthrew
the Mongol rule, and declared the start of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu, thereafter known as the Hongwu Emperor (1368-1398), at first
issued a reformed series of copper coins, but the demand for enormous
quantities of the low-value coins (which commonly traded on “strings” of
1000 in transactions of any meaningful size) soon proved problematic, as it
had throughout Chinese history. During the centuries of paper money, large
quantities of silver and copper had been exported for trade goods, and little
remained within China. Despite its initial disfavor of paper currencies, the
Ming government, searching for a solution, revived paper money beginning
in 1375. Trading in gold and silver was again forbidden, although copper
coins continued to circulate. Observers of the time such as Ye Ziqi blamed
the failure of the Yuan paper currency on inadequate bullion reserves and
inconvertibility of the notes; the new Ming note was never convertible. 11
The notes’ exchange value dropped quickly, and in 1393 the government
briefly forbade the use of copper coins. Although some attempts at reform
were undertaken, by the end of the fourteenth century the notes’ value
compared to silver fell by a factor of 35:1 from their original value. In the
first quarter of the fifteenth century, their value had fallen to 80:1, and by
the mid-fifteenth century to 1000:1. 12 By then, silver bullion had become
the major medium of exchange. In 1436, the Ming government, conceding to
economic reality, began to pay military officers in silver.
China had used paper money for four hundred years. During most of
that time, the bills were marginally redeemable for coinage or bullion, or
not redeemable at all. Gold, silver and even copper coins were
intermittently banned. The bills’ value floated, and often had years or even
decades of relative stability or modest depreciation. They also repeatedly
crashed into oblivion, and then governments would try again with a new
issue. But no more. For the next six hundred years, effectively into the
twentieth century, Chinese did their business in silver bars, imported silver
coins, and domestic copper coins. This naturally required enormous
amounts of silver and copper, which China would eventually acquire from
Japan and the New World.
Despite extensive use of paper currency in China, banking and credit
never attained the state of development that it did in Mesopotamia, Greece
or Rome. Pawnshops date from the Six Dynasties period (222-589), and
constituted the primary form of credit institution in China until the
nineteenth century. Quantities were small, rates were high, and the primary
purpose was for small-scale individual use. Informal mutual financing
associations also provided funds for weddings, funerals, or productive
purposes. Direct lending in China existed from ancient times, before the
fourth century B.C. The Han government (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) set a limit on
interest rates around 100 per cent per year. Wang Mang (9-23 A.D.)
introduced government loans to needy people at a rate of 3 per cent per
month, apparently charitable by the standards of the time. By the early
Tang era (618-907), the ceiling rate was 6 per cent per month for private
loans and 7 per cent per month for loans from the government. During the
Yuan, Ming and Qing eras (1271-1912), the official maximum rate was three
per cent per month. 13
The Arab Dinar
The prophet Muhammad was born around 570 A.D. in the Arabian city
of Mecca. Islamic tradition holds that in 610, the angel Gabriel appeared to
him and began to recite verses that were later included in the Quran.
Muhammad died in 632, soon after politically unifying Arabia. Immediately
after his death, a small army of Muslims burst forth from Arabia and, within
a couple decades, conquered the eastern Byzantine empire including Egypt
and Syria, and the Sassanid dynasty in Persia and Mesopotamia. By 661, the
Rashidun Caliphs controlled an area stretching from modern Tunisia to the
banks of the southern Indus, in Pakistan. By 700 the Umayyad Caliphate had
expanded across North Africa, and further east to control most of the Indus
valley. In 711, the Umayyad armies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and
invaded the Iberian peninsula. Muslim caliphates eventually controlled
about 90% of Iberia’s land area at their peak around 1000, declining
afterwards until finally driven from Spain in 1492.
At first, the existing Byzantine and Persian gold coinage was used in the
new Arab empire. In 696-697, the gold dinar was created, at 4.25 grams and
0.970 fineness. The name derives from the Byzantine denarius auri, and it
was basically a copy of the solidus, with similar weight and fineness. A
silver dirham coin of 2.8-2.9 grams was added two years later, its name
derived from the Greek drachma. From their position the Arab caliphates
commanded the gold mines of Africa, and received tribute from states along
their borders. In 1046, Byzantine emperor Constantine IX sent 216,000
solidus and 300,000 dinars (2,250 kg total) of gold to Baghdad to mark the
signing of a peace treaty. The Tulunids and Fatimids of Egypt sent annual
tribute of around 300,000 dinars (1,275 kg). Muslim governments spread

the gold dinar standard throughout Spain and Portugal. Even Britain’s King
Offa minted a few gold dinars in the 770s, copying the coins of the Abbasid
Caliphate. The dinar gained additional prestige as the Byzantine solidus was
debased in the eleventh century. Islam generally prohibited usury (in
practice, lending at interest), as did Christianity during the same period.
After a period of decline, the capital at Baghdad was taken by the Mongols
in 1258. Although a series of low-quality coins was struck after 1160 by the
Baghdad-based Abbasid Caliphate, the dinar generally maintained a high
standard of unchanging quality, including issues by the Egypt-based
Fatimid and Spain-based Umayyad Caliphates.
India
The Gupta Empire commanded most of the subcontinent of India from

320 A.D. to 480 A.D. The Gupta kings produced a variety of high-quality
coins, beginning with a series of gold coins and later adding coins of copper
and silver. In the following centuries, gold, silver and copper coinage of high
quality was produced by dozens of Indian states, with many of the gold
coins inspired by the Byzantine denarius auri (solidus) or Muslim dinar into
the twelfth century. 14 The Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms of northern and
western India came under repeated attack from Muslim armies beginning
around 962. From the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526), much of India was
ruled by Muslim governments. In 1526, Babur, a descendant of Genghis
Khan from the Fergana Valley (today’s Uzbekistan), crossed the Khyber
Pass and established the Mughal Empire (1526-1857), which unified
hundreds of small states in India at that time. During the Mughal reign,
Indian gold, silver and copper coinage achieved its finest expression. The
history of the rupee dates back to the original silver coins of ancient India in
the sixth century B.C. However, its more modern history dates from the
early Mughal ruler Sher Shah Suri (1540-1545), who produced a new silver
coin called the rupiya. The rupiya became the standard coin of the Mughal
Empire, supplemented by gold and copper coins.
The British were given permission to trade with India in 1617. In 1764,
as the Mughal empire’s power waned, the British East India Company was
given permission to administer the region of Bengal, and from this base
expanded its influence in India. From the mid-eighteenth century, the
Company took over responsibility for minting rupee coins in India. The last
Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was deposed by the British East India
Company in 1858, completing British rule of India. The first paper rupee
banknotes were issued by the Bank of Hindustan in 1770, but their refusal
by the East India Company limited their usefulness. Widespread rupee
banknote issuance had to wait until 1868, with the printing of the note done
by the Bank of England.
East Asia Outside of China
Bronze knife currencies, in the Chinese style, were produced in Korea

as early as the third century B.C. However, most monetary exchange was
done with rice and, following the Chinese example, silk cloth. Numerous
experiments in Chinese-inspired coinage emerged, beginning with a series
of iron and bronze coins in 996 A.D., but they saw little adoption and tended
to die out. Another series of coins was introduced in 1097-1107, which
included a rather novel “coin” that consisted of a silver vase in the shape of
the Korean peninsula, and which contained about 600 grams of silver. They
were popular as large-denomination money among aristocrats. In 1331, a
silver/copper alloy coin in the shape of a bottle was issued, and a few
decades later, another attempt at introducing a standardized silver coin. A
paper currency was introduced in 1401. However, most commerce in Korea
continued to be done on the basis of commodity monies, particularly rice
and cloth. Bronze coinage was not widely adopted until a large issuance
beginning in 1633, in the model of Chinese bronze coins. Coinage of this
type continued to be used until the late nineteenth century.
Vietnam became a province of China in 225 B.C., and shared its copper
coinage system. In 940, a rebellion established independence for Vietnam,
but it remained largely a vassal state afterwards. Copper coins were minted
domestically, in the Chinese style, from the Dinh dynasty (968-981). The
Vietnamese kings were able to fight off the Mongol invasions, but the
Mongol paper money entered use in Vietnam nevertheless. In 1397, General
Ho Qui-Li introduced a domestic paper currency, and forbade the use of
copper coins. However, their value soon collapsed, and General Ho then
ordered that casting of copper coins be resumed. Silver and gold, in the
form of bars and coins, were also used in Vietnam. 15
Roman copper coins were found in the region of today’s Thailand from
as early as 270 B.C. Locally-produced coinage in Thailand began, some
historians postulate, when Rome cut off exports of precious metals to India
in the first century A.D. In search of silver and gold, Indian states began to
build trade and exploration settlements in today’s southern Indochina,
including the Mekong delta region. These settlements grew into the first
kingdoms of the Funan era, which also issued the region’s first silver coins,
following the Indian model. The realm of Funan is thought by some to be
the same as the land known as Suvarnabhumi in ancient Indian texts, in
Sanskrit literally “the Land of Gold.” 16 The Yi Yuan, a mid-fifth-century
Chinese text, noted that: “In Funan, they always use gold in their
transactions.” 17 Funan had the only maritime links with India in the region,
via its port at Oc Eo on the Mekong Delta. The Sriviajya Kingdom of the
eighth through thirteenth centuries used silver and gold coinage. Various
forms of primarily silver coinage continued to be used in Thailand and
Cambodia into the twentieth century.
Bali (in eastern Indonesia) was influenced by the Hindu culture of Java
(western Indonesia). The earliest writing in Bali dates from 882 A.D., in
Sanskrit. Already by this time, gold was the preferred standard of payment
in Bali. Silver coins and stamped gold ingots were produced in Java from the
late eighth century, and their use spread to Bali by the late ninth century. 18
Silver and gold also served as the unit of account.
Before the introduction of coinage in Japan, arrowheads, rice, and gold
powder traded as money. In 708 A.D., the Empress Gemmei ordered the
creation of the first coinage system, based on the Chinese model. At first it
consisted of high quality copper and silver coins, in the familiar Chinese
style with a square hole, but they were quickly debased and devalued. In
760, a currency reform was undertaken in which new copper, silver and
gold coins were introduced.
By the middle of the ninth century, these coins too had been heavily
debased and devalued, with their market value compared to rice falling to
1/150th of their original issue value. The last issue of coinage took place in
958, of very low quality coins. By the end of the tenth century, coinage had
been abandoned, and the basis of monetary commerce returned to rice and
precious metals, trading by weight.
In the twelfth century, Chinese coins began to be imported for use as
money. This was enabled by the Chinese use of paper money, extending
even to intermittent bans on the use of coinage, which reduced the
domestic demand for coinage and thus freed it for use in export trade.
Chinese coinage continued to be used in Japan up to the early seventeenth
century, supplemented with some issuance of locally-produced coinage
generally of mediocre quality, reflecting the centuries of warring minor
states before the political reunification of Japan in 1600.
Gold and Silver Money in the Pre-Columbian Americas
Agriculture began in Mesoamerica as early as 7000 B.C., with the

domestication of maize, beans, squash, chili, the turkey and the dog.
Metallurgy began around 600 A.D., in copper, silver and gold. Some have
suggested that metallurgical techniques in the Mesoamerican region were
introduced via traders from the Andean regions of Peru and Ecuador. 19
The Mesoamerican civilization of central Mexico, then under Aztec rule,
upon its discovery by Spanish explorers in 1519 had an extensive system of
markets, the largest of which was at the capital city of Tenochtitlan. Spanish
accounts described up to sixty thousand people transacting at this market
every day. Smaller towns had weekly markets. Barter was a typical mode of
exchange, often via a common unit of monetary account. The basic small-
scale unit was the cacao bean, used for chocolate. (Spanish writers noted
with wonder that, in the Aztec lands, money really did grow on trees.)
Chocolate was prepared by Mesoamerican peoples from around 1750 B.C.,
and possibly as early as 1900 B.C. For larger transactions, standardized
lengths of cotton cloth, turkey quills filled with gold dust, and standardized
gold figurines were used in payment.
Gold and silver had long been used in the Andean realm. Gold artifacts
in the Andean region have been dated to 2155-1936 B.C. The Chavin
culture, from 800-200 B.C., began a long history of gold artifacts of
exemplary craftsmanship. Writing never developed in the Andean region
before the conquest by the Spanish, so we cannot tell the extent to which
these objects had a monetary function, whether gold and silver in bullion
form was used as money, or whether gold, silver or some other object may
have been used as a unit of account in transactions. However, some of the
states that were eventually absorbed into the Inca Empire in the fifteenth
century did have what amounted to simple monetary systems. One common
currency was a standardized “axe-head” money made of copper, a simple
flat ingot with a vaguely axe-like shape, found among coastal cultures from
Peru to western Mexico that were engaged in maritime trade.
The Inca Dynasty of the Andes established their capital at Cuzco, Peru
in 1438. It was, at first, a small city-state. From there it conquered the
various states of the Andes, assembling them into an amalgamated empire
with multiple languages, peoples and cultures that was largely complete by
the death of its greatest expansionist, Huayna Capac, in 1527. At its peak,
the Inca empire was likely the largest in the world at that time. Spanish
conquistadores first arrived in Inca territory briefly in 1526, and returned
in 1532. Outbreaks of smallpox and other European diseases had already
decimated the Inca Empire’s population, and its political system, before any
battles with the Spanish soldiers themselves. Some have estimated that the
population had already fallen by 60% or more before Spanish contact,
accompanied by breakdowns in all existing social order and government
authority. 20 Civil war ravaged the empire from 1529 to 1532. The Inca
Empire fell to the Spanish in 1533, not even a hundred years after its
founding.
Like the Egypt under the Pharaohs, the empire of the Inca had a high
degree of central planning, and virtually no market-based exchange. “Axe-
head” currencies had a role in trade in some areas, but gold, silver and
copper were not used in the monetary fashion that had been common
throughout Europe and Asia for centuries, or as they were used in the
Mesoamerican regions to the north. However, ritualized exchange,
bestowing favors upon elites and lower-level managers, took on a money-
like quality. In addition to adornments of gold and silver, cloth became a
standardized commodity of quasi-payment, as had also taken place in Asia.
Gold and silver were also popular with the Chimor lords and their
traders, obtained by trading prestige goods with the highland regions (the
Incas). 21 The Chimor lords aimed to monopolize the production and
circulation of gold and silver, used to create artisanal works that in turn
served as trade goods and prestige items among elites. “[For the elites,] the
rewards included superb ceramics, lavish libation vessels, woodwork,
lapidary arts, and splendid metalwork. Thus fine arts critical to wealth
finance [compensating elite service to the Inca state] were the end returns
of an elite investment strategy that used mit’a labor to gain agricultural
lands,” wrote historian Michael Mosley. The Chimor state presented the last
major challenge to Inca power, and was defeated with great struggle.
Mosley described: “[W]hen Tahuantinsuyu [the Inca Empire] subjugated
Chimor, tens of thousands of craftsmen at Chan Chan [the Chimor capital]
were moved to the environs of Cuzco to serve the new rulers. To the degree
that fine arts constituted the coin of the realm, Chan Chan was thus stripped
of the mint it needed to finance revolt.” 22
The Inca emperors – like the Egyptian pharaohs – directed the mining
of enormous amounts of gold and silver, devoting huge resources of labor to
the task. This gold and silver was concentrated at Cuzco, the capital city.
Cieza de León, in his Chronicles of Peru (1553), described the House of the
Sun at Cuzco as being more than 400 paces in circumference. “Round the
wall, halfway up, there was a band of gold, two palms wide and four dedos
[fingers] in thickness. The doorways and doors were covered with plates of
the same metal ... within were four houses ... with walls ... covered with
plates of gold, within and without. In one of these houses, which was the
richest, there was a figure of the sun, very large and made of gold, very
ingeniously worked.” 23
It is hard to believe that the gigantic amount of labor required to mine
the gold contained in a band of the size described (approximately three
inches by seven inches by 1200 feet) would be undertaken simply as a sort
of adornment – or that, once acquiring this colossal quantity of bullion at
enormous expense of labor and force of arms, the Inca emperors, drawing
on over three thousand years of sophisticated jewelry design in the Andean
region, could think of no better adornment than to make it into what
amounted to a very large ingot. Rather, the gold was, in effect, something
like money – not coinage for everyday use, but a standardized trading unit
potentially used between kings, lords and generals, to buy allegiances with
neighboring states, trade with foreigners, grant rewards for service, or pay
tribute; as a fundamental tool of statecraft. In a command economy, it is not
necessary to motivate people by payment of money – for example, by
paying soldiers in coinage. One simply issues commands. However, those
with some free agency, such as generals and leaders of foreign states,
cannot be motivated by simple command. They have to be compensated
somehow. This is how the Egyptian pharaohs used gold, even as they
banned commoners from owning any. So too did the Chinese emperors of
the Han era who, in 7 A.D., when their royal treasuries held perhaps the
largest accumulation of gold in the world of the time, outlawed the
ownership of gold by commoners.
The history of the expansion of the Inca Empire, as it has been
reconstructed, indicates many instances where gold, silver and other
precious items, were taken as booty from conquered states. 24 Diplomacy
was the first avenue of state expansion, with allegiance purchased with
gifts. 25 The fifth Inca ruler Topa Inca Yupanqui reportedly secured vows of
allegiance from the Chincha state with gifts of fine cloth and gold beads. 26
Another Inca military expedition to today’s Bolivia resulted in the payment
of great quantities of gold in tribute from the citizens of Chuquiabo (La
Paz). 27 After a successful expedition, rewards were given to officers and
also common soldiers who had served with exceptional valor, consisting of
elaborate textiles and decorative plates of gold and silver worn as battle
decorations. Nobles received larger distributions of cloth, gold, silver, and
other precious items. 28 These patterns are much the same as one might find
in Egyptian or Roman history.
The United States also outlawed gold ownership in 1933, even as the
U.S. Federal government itself became the world’s largest gold owner, at
one point during the 1940s holding over 40% of all the estimated
aboveground gold in the world. Although gold coins no longer circulated in
the United States, gold was still used as a unit of account and a high-level
form of payment between governments in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly
between central banks. The government of the Soviet Union, whose
command economy was similar to that of the Incas or Egyptians, outlawed
the ownership of gold among citizens. Nevertheless, the Soviet government
devoted large amounts of manpower and resources to gold mining.
Between the end of World War II and the end of the Soviet era in 1991, the
Soviet Union was the world’s second largest gold producer. The Western
industrialized countries did not have much interest in Soviet manufactured
goods, so sales of gold (and energy commodities) were a major avenue by
which the Soviet government obtained Western currencies, which were
then used to buy goods from the West. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union
became a major importer of Western foodstuffs and capital goods. Aid in
the form of Western currencies was also used to cement the alliance of
other communist states such as Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam.
The Inca gold and silver was ultimately used as payment of tribute
between kings, generals, and foreign powers; specifically, to pay ransom to
the Spanish conquistadores for the return of the captured Inca emperor
Atahualpa. How convenient that the lords and generals of the Andean
realm, and those of Spain, paid and accepted tribute in the same medium of
exchange.
Chapter 4:
The Bimetallic Era, 1500-1850
As the Christian Byzantine Empire weakened, and finally fell to the
Ottoman Turks in 1453, European overland trade with Asia was blocked by
unfriendly Muslim states. Spanish and Portuguese explorers, taking
advantage of their position on the Atlantic, began to search for new routes
to Asia by sea. Exploration of the African coast by Portuguese navigators,
enabled by improved ships, began in 1418. (Around the same time, in 1405-
1421, far larger Chinese fleets explored the eastern shores of Africa.) In
1488, the Indian Ocean was reached for the first time by Portuguese sailors
rounding the southern tip of Africa. Christopher Columbus 1 attempted to
sail west to Asia in 1492, and accidentally discovered the Americas. In 1511,
Portuguese sailors reached the “spice islands” of Molucca (Indonesia), and
reached China a year later. The Isthmus of Panama was first crossed in
1513. A circumnavigation of the world was accomplished in 1522. The
Aztec Empire of Mexico was conquered by Spanish adventurers in 1521.
The Inca Empire fell in 1533. A Portuguese expedition had already touched
the edge of the Inca Empire from the eastern side in 1524-25, after
traveling overland through southern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.
Portuguese sailors accidentally reached Japan in 1543, and trade soon
began. In 1557, the Chinese government allowed a Portuguese trading
colony at Macau. The capital of the Spanish East Indies was established at
Manila, Philippines, in 1571. In 1580, after a crisis of succession, Portugal
was unified with Spain, also welding together a globe-spanning empire of
maritime trade and conquest.
The Thaler and the Spanish Silver Dollar
The conquest of the Americas by Spanish adventurers brought with it

the European monetary system. Around the same time, coinage was being
standardized in Europe. In the mid-fifteenth century, the quality of Europe’s
coinage was rather poor due to a series of debasements related to the
continuous warfare of that time. Beginning around 1472, governments
began to replace their low-quality coinage with higher-quality issues, using
a number of different weights and standards. In 1518, the first silver
“thaler” coins were minted in Bohemia, at a standard weight of 451 troy
grains of pure silver (29.2 grams). The coin was known as the
Joachimsthaler, named for Joachimsthal, or the “Joachim Valley” in German.
The Bimetallic Era, 1500-1850 57
Similar coins from different valleys, with different names all bearing the “-
thaler” suffix, soon became popular. These local efforts were standardized
when, in 1566, the Reichsthaler set the unit of account for the Holy Roman
Empire at 401 grains of contained silver. This particular coin was popular,
and was soon imitated in Burgundy and France. The Netherlands, in revolt
against Spain, began minting its own version of the thaler, the silver “daler,”
beginning in 1575; it was specifically to facilitate export trade. Spreading
from the Dutch colonies along the Hudson River including Albany and New
Amsterdam (later New York; both founded 1614), it began to be used in the
English colonies in North America as well. Swedes, Danes and Norwegians
later followed with their own identical “daler” coins. Much of Europe was
thus on a “thaler standard,” using a number of “thaler” coins from different
producers but all of similar size and weight, alongside a variety of gold
coins originally derived from the Byzantine hyperpyron and its later Italian
replacements.
After the initial looting of Inca and Aztec gold and silver, around 1520-
1560, the Spanish turned to mining in the Americas. Silver mines in the
Zacatecas region in Mexico and the awesome Potosí in Bolivia began
operations, causing the silver output of the Spanish colonies to triple during
the 1560s. Between 1500 and 1600, world silver production is estimated to
have increased by nine times, while gold production increased by only
50%. 2 This flood of new silver caused the gold:silver ratio in Europe to
decline from around 1:10.7 in 1500 to 1:12 by the 1570s. In 1700, the
gold:silver ratio was 1:16 in Spain, 1:14.7 in London, 1:14.2 in India, and 1:9
in China. In 1800, the gold:silver ratio was 1:16 in London.
In 1573, the first Spanish galleon, carrying Spanish silver, departed
from Acapulco, on the Pacific side of Mexico, and landed at Manila in the
Philippines, to trade with the merchants of Ming China. The Chinese had
been using silver bullion and copper coins exclusively, after abandoning
paper money in the 1430s. At first, the Chinese obtained this silver from
mines in Japan, which enjoyed an enormous silver mining boom beginning
around 1530. This commerce between Japan and China was facilitated in
part by Portuguese stationed at Macau, and established the principle of
obtaining silver via maritime trade. More silver was obtained from Europe
via the overland trade route, but this was difficult. By this point, the gold
and silver of Europe was coming from Spain’s American conquests. The
trade link over the Pacific brought gold and silver directly from Spain’s
mines in the Americas to China. Chinese demand for Spanish silver was
immense; as was Spanish demand for Chinese luxury items, especially silks.
It has been estimated that between 30 percent and 50 percent of all the
mining output of Spain in the Americas went directly to China over the
Pacific. 3 More ended up in China after traveling through Europe and then
east, via India or the Silk Road. 4
Spain enacted a monetary reform in 1497 that led to the first eight-real
coin, similar in size to thaler coins that came soon after. In 1536, the first
eight-real coins, also known as pesos (“weight”), were minted in the New
World at Mexico City. These “pieces of eight” were soon the target of
Caribbean pirates preying on the Spanish treasure galleons. The gold
doubloon began to be minted in 1537. Its value of two escudos was also
equivalent to two ducats. In 1598, Spain adopted the continental thaler
standard for the eight-real coin. Since Spanish mines in the Americas were
the world’s primary producers of silver, most of the silver coins of the time
were minted by Spain. These coins were eventually used throughout the
American colonies, including in the English, Dutch and French colonies of
North America, and also throughout Asia via the trade with China. Produced
for export trade, they were among the most reliable and best quality coins
of the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, even as domestic
coinages used within Spain itself (vellon coins diluted with copper) began to
undergo debasements beginning in 1599.
Chinese at first treated the Spanish coins as something like ingots, to be
weighed, assayed, possibly melted and recast, and exchanged based on their
actual silver content – just as the Chinese had been doing with their own
domestic silver since the collapse of paper money in the 1430s. Before long,
they confirmed that the coins were reliably standardized. The Spanish
silver dollar thus became the regular silver coinage of China,
complementing the locally-produced copper coinage and also silver bullion
in the form of the sycee ingot, and remained so into the twentieth century. It
wasn’t until 1890 that a Chinese government first produced a silver coin; it
was an imitation of the Spanish silver dollar.
During the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) the Spanish silver dollar was
identified with the Chinese character 圓 (yuan, “round object”) alongside
the domestic copper coinage which had long been indicated with the
character 文 (wen). The 文 (wen) character was also used for Chinese-
inspired copper coinage in Japan (mon), Korea (mun) and Vietnam (van). As
the Spanish silver dollar became commonly used throughout East Asia
following the Chinese example, so too did the Chinese character
representing it. The traditional 圓 (yuan) character was later simplified to
元 in China. In Japan, the same character was simplified to 円 and
pronounced yen. In Korean, the original Chinese character was retained,
and pronounced won. The Spanish silver dollar also became the eventual
basis of the Philippine peso, the Mexican peso and other peso coins used
throughout Central and South America, the Singapore and Hong Kong
dollars, and the U.S. dollar.
In the Coinage Act of 1792, the U.S. silver dollar coin was defined with a
weight of 371.25 grains of pure contained silver, the average weight of
worn Spanish silver dollars then in circulation in the American colonies.
(The weight of a newly-minted Spanish silver dollar was about 377 grains
at that time.) Spanish silver dollars/Mexican pesos remained legal tender in
the U.S. until 1857. The U.S. dollar of 1792 was thus 92.6% of the weight of
the Reichsthaler of 1566, over two centuries earlier – an excellent record of
reliability for this particular coinage standard. The U.S. dollar’s value (later
translated into its gold equivalent) remained stable until its first permanent
devaluation in 1933.
The Netherlands
The rise of the Netherlands, the premier empire of trade and finance of
the seventeenth century, began with revolt against its Spanish rulers in
1568. The northern Netherlands declared independence in 1581. Inspired
by John Calvin (1509-1564), by the 1560s Calvinist Protestants already
formed a significant minority in the Netherlands. Calvinism also allowed
lending at interest, breaking from Catholic tradition on that topic. The
independent Dutch provinces, centered on Amsterdam, were thus
Protestant, which had been forbidden under Spanish rule. The Dutch also
sought escape from the oppressive taxes and currency debasements of the
troubled Spanish Empire, whose overseas successes were matched with
domestic difficulties. The new state drew the attention of Jews as a potential
new refuge, particularly the Jews of Spain and Portugal who had been
driven out by the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, or went underground as
apparent converted Christians. The Dutch revolution was led by William I,
of the House of Orange. Although he was assassinated in 1584, the House of
Orange remained a protector and supporter of Jewish migration to
Amsterdam. Many of the first wave of Spanish and Portuguese Jews,
arriving in Amsterdam beginning around 1593, had considerable
experience in trade throughout the Spanish Empire. Jews had already been
the primary lenders and, when permitted, bankers in Europe since the
imposition of Christian usury laws in the fourth century. In 1688, William
III of Orange became King of England.
At first, a menagerie of foreign coins was used in the newly
independent Dutch provinces, alongside domestically-minted coins. One
sixteenth-century record listed 48 different kinds of gold coins in common
circulation in Europe. Early Dutch gold coins, first minted in 1586, were
called ducats, and imitated the ducat standard of Spain during the rule of
Ferdinand and Isabella. Other coins imitated the ducat standard of Hungary.
Around 1680, the Dutch guilder was introduced as a new standard for gold
and silver coinage.
The Dutch Empire gradually took over much of the trade of the
declining Spanish Empire. The Dutch East India Company was founded in
1602, to trade throughout Asia. It has been considered the first
multinational corporation, and the first to issue stock; trading in the stock
formed the first modern stock exchange. Between 1602 and 1796, the
Dutch East India Company alone accounted for roughly half of all European
trade with Asia. By 1669, the Company was the richest private company in
the world, with a fleet of 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000
employees, and a private army of 10,000 soldiers. The Dutch West India
Company was founded in 1621 to trade across the Atlantic, between Africa
and the Americas, with ports stretching from Brazil to the Dutch settlement
at New Amsterdam, now New York. New financial innovations flourished,
including an insurance industry, foreign exchange trading, and
sophisticated commodity markets that included futures and option
contracts. The stock exchange eventually embraced buying of stock on
margin, and nascent stock-index investing. An active market in public debt
emerged; during the second half of the seventeenth century, yields on long-
term government bonds were reliably in the 3.0%-4.0% range. Holland also
enjoyed a dominant role in trade within Europe. Domestic industries
including shipbuilding and textiles expanded dramatically. Holland became
the wealthiest country in the world, and ran the world’s biggest empire.
Although the beginning of the Industrial Revolution was still a century
away, Holland of the seventeenth century is considered by some to be the
first modern capitalist economy.
The Bank of Amsterdam was founded in 1609 as a private entity. It was
initially conceived as a “100% reserve” deposit bank, which did not engage
in any lending, and which held coins and bullion equivalent to all deposit
liabilities. Although it did not issue banknotes on a large scale, the Bank is
considered a precursor to, or possibly the first example of, the modern
central bank.
The Bank received foreign and local coins at their actual weight and
fineness, or gold and silver bullion, and credited the depositor according to
mint standards. Depositors could then make payments to each other via
deposit transfers, common especially for larger transactions. Thus, Bank
deposits were inherently standardized, and also free from wear, clipping or
counterfeiting; fire, robbery or other accidents; and, in payment, did not
have to be weighed, counted or transported. Deposit receipts were not
payable on demand, but had a six-month maturity. They were freely traded
but did not attain the nature of a paper currency. They were instead more
like short-term bills, for which a ready market was available. As it was not
conceived at first as a lending bank, the Bank sustained itself by charging
various fees for deposit and transfer.
In actual fact, the Bank’s “100% reserve” era was very short. By the end
of its first decade of existence, the Bank had begun to make loans to the
government-sponsored Dutch East India Company. The Bank also made
loans to the City of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Lending Bank, and certain
individuals such as mint-masters. At the end of its second decade, the Bank
had outstanding loans of 2.1 million guilders, and bullion reserves of 1.6
million guilders. 5 This was done in secret; officially, the Bank operated as
originally conceived, as a 100% reserve bank of deposit. However, this
initial experimentation with lending was soon reversed. After 1640, the
Bank’s loans outstanding, though they remained as part of its balance sheet
throughout its history, became minor. Aggressive lending did not return
until the Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784), as the government pressured the
bank to lend out most of its bullion holdings to the Dutch East India
Company, then struggling against British blockade. This was not made
public until 1790, when the Bank declared itself insolvent. However, the
currency was never devalued, nor the coinage debased. The Bank was taken
over by the City of Amsterdam in 1791, and enjoyed a brief resurgence of
popularity as a refuge during the French Revolution. The Netherlands were
invaded by France in 1795, and became largely a puppet state until the
French retreated in 1813. An independent Kingdom of the Netherlands was
established in 1815. The Bank of the Netherlands was established in 1814,
superseding the Bank of Amsterdam, which closed in 1819.
Another representative of the “100% reserve” model was the Bank of
Hamburg, founded in 1619. Unlike the Bank of Amsterdam, the Bank of
Hamburg apparently did keep coinage and bullion in reserve against all
claims. When Napoleon took possession of the bank in 1813, he found
bullion and coinage slightly in excess of all liabilities. 6 The Bank of Hamburg
also institutionalized the use of the mark, an accounting unit of weight used
by the bank to standardize the values of the multitudes of coinage that then
passed through Europe. The mark as a unit of weight dates at least as far
back as the mid-ninth century. One-mark coins were struck in the sixteenth
century, although thalers and gulden (Dutch/German versions of the
florin/ducat gold coins of Italy) remained predominant. The modern mark
did not appear until after the reunification of Germany in 1871.
Japan During the Tokugawa Era
Partial reunification of Japan by Toyotomi Hideyoshi led to issuance of

high-quality gold and silver coins beginning in 1588, the first after a long
era of civil war and low-quality coinage. In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu fully
unified Japan, and immediately reunified its coinage system. A new series of
high-quality gold, silver and copper coins were issued. Although they had
official denominations, in practice the coins traded based on their market
value, and exchange rates were quoted daily. Also beginning in 1600, a
medley of paper currencies began to be issued for widespread use within
feudal domains. These paper currencies were mostly redeemable for silver,
but gold, copper and rice-based notes were also issued.
The Dojima Rice Exchange was founded in Osaka in 1697, formalizing a
network of existing rice brokers and moneychangers. By 1710, trading in
rice futures (standardized contracts for delivery of forthcoming rice
harvests) was well established. Paper contracts for future delivery of rice
also served as a sort of paper money.
The Tokugawa currency system was based on the koban, a gold coin
containing one ryo of gold. The ryo was originally based on the Chinese tael,
and came into use during the Kamakura period (1185-1333). The first
koban issued after the monetary reform of 1601 contained approximately
17.9 grams of gold at 84%-87% fineness. In 1695, the coin was debased to
57% fineness. In 1706, a new coin returned to the original fineness, but at a
reduced size, lowering its gold content still further. In 1736, the coin was
again debased, as part of an attempt by emperor Tokugawa Yoshimune to
stimulate the economy and raise prices. The gold coinage was slightly
debased again in 1818 and 1832.
After 1772, silver coins were given a denomination relative to the gold
coins, and had significantly less silver than their face value. In effect, they
became token coins, and the coinage moved to a gold monometallic
standard, much as was the case in Britain after 1816. Token coins, by their
nature, are managed using techniques similar to those of paper banknotes.
Japan’s use of banknotes during that time probably aided the innovation of
token coinage, just as was the case in Britain.
After various abuses, the Tokugawa government banned the use of
paper currencies in 1707. In 1730, they were allowed again, with a time
limit for redemption of typically 15 or 25 years. By one count, there were
1,694 paper currencies in circulation in Japan in the 1850s. The reopening
of trade with the West in 1854 effectively undermined the existing currency
system, as the gold:silver ratio was at that time 1:5 in Japan and 1:16 in the
United States, producing enormous arbitrage opportunities. Foreign silver
flushed into Japan, and gold flushed out. For a time beginning in 1859,
Mexican silver dollars were declared official currency, as they already were
in China. Between 1859 and 1869, local governments issued various types
of their own currency, leading to many episodes of rampant devaluation
that reflected Japan’s own political unrest leading to the overthrow of the
medieval Tokugawa regime in the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
In 1871, the modern Meiji government introduced a new, uniform
currency, the yen, originally worth 24.26 grams of pure silver, in line with
the Spanish, Mexican and U.S. silver dollar coins then in use.
The British Pound
After centuries of primarily silver coinage in Britain, a new gold coin

was introduced in 1663, a guinea with a nominal value of twenty shillings
or £1.00. In practice it traded at a variable market value compared with
silver coinage, which remained the unit of account. It was one of the first
machine-struck coins, of much higher quality than the hand-hammered
coins of the past, and included milled edges to prevent clipping. Its standard
weight of 1/44.5th of a troy pound (8.4 grams) was, coincidentally perhaps,
equivalent to one shekel weight and the same as the original Persian daric.
The name referred to the Guinea region of West Africa, from where much of
the gold for early coins was sourced.
The excellent historical record (conveniently in English) regarding the
British experience with silver and gold coinage illustrates several problems
arising from the use of coins, and which tend to appear wherever coins are
used.
The advantage of coinage, instead of using raw bullion by weight and

fineness, is its standardization. This allows coins to be used “at face value,”
which in the first instance amounts to an assumed weight and fineness,
without constant weighing and assaying. All coins of the same face value are
treated the same. Most of the problems of coinage are related to the
divergence of “face value” from the reality of weight and fineness.
The simplest example of this is coin debasement, practiced endlessly by
governments throughout history. The new coins contain less metal than the
old, which thus allows a government to make more of them from the same
amount of gold or silver. Tax payment of 100 coins can be reminted into
200 coins of half the contained metal. If exchange was based on contained
metals alone, this would be irrelevant, as payment of “100 grams of gold,”
for example, would be expected no matter what form this may take, in
terms of coins, ingots, jewelry, or other artifacts made of bullion. The
common practice of using coins at “face value” allowed governments to
discharge their obligations using debased coins. Governments would
demand that the debased coins be treated the same as the older, heavier
coins, commonly incentivizing their acceptance by allowing them to be used
in payment of taxes. The coins become “legal tender,” which means: that
which is legally recognized as payment of debts or other contractual
obligations.
During the 1690s, the exceedingly poor quality of the British silver
coinage sparked a debate regarding its reform – a debate that illustrates
another basic problem with using bullion coinage. Coins undergo a natural
“debasement” in the form of coin wear. After some years, a coin might
contain 3%, 5%, or even 20% less metal than when it was originally minted.
Coins of various states of wear circulate side-by-side. Intentional “clipping”
of coins produces much the same result. Should the lightweight coin then
trade at face value, or should it be accepted in trade at its actual contained
metal weight, and thus at a discount to full-weight coins? The second means
going back to weights and fineness, with the result that every coin becomes
different and the advantages of standardization are lost.
However, the first option also has problems: before long, people want
to discharge their obligations such as taxes, debts or rents with the lowest
value, most-worn coins they can get away with. Higher-quality coins, such
as newly-minted coins, disappear from circulation and are hoarded. Prices
reflect trade in heavily-worn coins, and become excessive when paid in full-
weight coins. Minting of new coins can come to a halt, as the minter thus
faces a loss from producing full-weight coins that trade at the same face
value as worn, underweight coins. The cost of the silver exceeds the value of
the coins produced. When heavier-weight coins are hoarded (and used as
payments for imports, thus removing them from the country altogether)
and minting comes to a halt, while worn coins become even more worn as
they become the sole basis for commerce, a society can experience a
shortage of coinage even when bullion is plentiful.
One solution to this is to lower the coinage standard, with a new issue
of coins containing the average contained metal as the older, worn coins.
This means a debasement from the previous coinage standard, with the
effect that, over time, official mint policy follows the natural debasement of
coin wear. This was the case for the U.S. dollar, initially based on the
average weights of worn Spanish dollars actually in circulation in the
Colonies, rather than the weights of newly-minted Spanish dollars. Another
solution is the constant reminting of coins, such as those received in tax
payments, before coin wear reaches the point at which people would be
motivated to treat worn coins and newly-minted coins differently. Besides
the cost of reminting itself, the government takes 100 worn coins in tax
payment and produces perhaps 90 new coins from them, in effect paying
the price of ten coins. The Byzantine government used this method during
the long era of unchanging value for the solidus, but governments can easily
lose the discipline to continue such a policy.
In the 1690s, British silver coinage in common circulation (the most-
worn, lightest-weight coins) were dramatically lighter than the standard for
newly-minted coins. The value of the bullion contained in new coins was
thus substantially higher than worn coins with the same face value.
Consequently, although roughly £3 million of silver coins were minted after
the introduction of high-quality, machine-pressed, milled-edge coins in
1663 (replacing the old hand-hammered coins), virtually none of these
remained in Britain, but were exported mainly to France. Gold coins,
however, tended to have little wear and were already preferred by bankers
as the standard for banknotes. A lively debate ensued on whether to lower
the official contained silver standard of new coinage to match the worn
existing coinage (in effect, a substantial official debasement). The proposal
of William Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury, was to lower the standard
by twenty percent. The alternative was to keep the existing coinage
standard. Both sides had merit. In the end, the argument was won by the
philosopher John Locke, who insisted that the official coinage standard of
the British pound should not be reduced, but rather the coinage improved
to the official standard. This decision had a significance beyond the practical
matter at hand: it established the principle of long-term currency stability
over the exigencies of current conditions, and formed a basis of British
monetary thinking thereafter. In the first six months of the recoinage effort,
the Exchequer collected silver coins with a face value of £4.7 million. They
were found to have a total weight of £2.5 million in new coins.
The Mercantilist obsession with the “balance of trade” and a “shortage
of money” was perhaps related to the worn nature of English coins, as early
as 1600. Higher-quality coins were exported, and the mints fell silent.
Debates of the early seventeenth century focused on the below-par value of
British coinage on foreign exchange markets. In parliamentary proceedings
in 1621, King James I made an opening speech which said:
For the scarcite of coine, it is strange that my Mint for silver hath
not gone this nyne or ten years. Yes, so long it hath stood out of use
that I and my council cannot think to see silver coined there againe in
our time. How this may be redressed it concerneth you to consider
now in Parliament and let your King have your best advice about it. 7
The recoinage of 1696-1700 was overseen by Sir Isaac Newton, who

became Warden of the Mint in 1696, and Master of the Mint, subordinate to
the Warden but with greater involvement in practical affairs, in 1699. He
retained the post until his death in 1727. (During the debate on recoinage,
Newton sided with Lowndes.) In 1717, Newton imposed an official
bimetallic system in which the gold guinea coin was valued at 21 silver
shillings (£1.05), approximating the market gold:silver ratios of the time.
The market value of the gold guinea was somewhat less than this, which
made gold the cheapest to deliver within the bimetallic system. In common
terminology, it was “overvalued.” The outcome was that a “pound” in gold
terms was defined as 20/21 of a gold guinea; this was later represented as
three pounds, seventeen shillings and ten-and-a-half pence (£3 17s 10.5d)
per troy ounce of the 91.6% gold of which the guinea was minted,
corresponding to a ratio of £4 4s 11.5d (£4.278) per ounce of fine gold. (The
concurrent silver shilling standard, of 1/62nd of a troy pound, was also, by
coincidence, expressed as 3 ounces, 17 pennyweight, and 10 grains per
pound.) The implied exchange rate with the U.S. dollar, at $20.67/oz., was
$4.866/£1. Although this gold standard for the pound took on totemic
significance in the two centuries that followed, in 1717 British still thought
of silver coinage as the basis of the pound.
The result of Newton’s decree was that gold coins became preferred,
while silver coinage became unpopular. During the entirety of the
eighteenth century, £1,254,000 of silver was coined, and £17,000,000 of
gold. In 1730, John Conduit, Master of the Mint, said that “nine parts in ten,
or more, of all payments in England, are now made in gold.” 8 During the
second half of the century, no silver coins were minted for twenty-five
years. At the same time, imports were often paid for with silver (especially
imports from China and elsewhere in Asia), while exporters demanded
payment in gold. The East India Company alone exported £5.7 million of
silver between 1700 and 1717. The increasing use of banknotes, and the
preference of bankers to base these notes upon gold rather than silver and
to hold gold coins as the reserve, resulted in a greater focus upon gold
coinage rather than silver, and the adoption of gold as the effective unit of
account. The result was the dominance of gold coinage in Britain, and the
effective introduction of a gold-centric monetary system instead of the
silver-centric one that prevailed before 1717, although the system
remained officially bimetallic.
The 1717 reforms thus illustrate a third common problem with metal
coinage. In a silver-centric system such as Britain’s, gold coins (or gold in
bullion form) are often used in payment, especially for larger transactions
where silver’s lower value presents problems of transport and also the
sheer number of coins that must be minted. However, the value of these
gold coins, or bullion, vary on a daily basis when their market prices are
expressed in silver. The deviation was not particularly large, as it is today –
historical market prices show that deviation in gold:silver ratios remained
within a few percentage points for decades. Nevertheless, it introduced a
constant element of variability, thus undermining all of the advantages that
come from standardization and uniformity.
Thus, in an effort to standardize the entire monetary system, a formal
bimetallic system is imposed, where gold and silver are expected to trade at
an official, fixed ratio. Over time, this system comes into conflict due to the
natural variation in market gold:silver values. In a more primitive economy,
where prices are imprecise, where debt agreements and other long-term
contracts more scarce, and where foreign trade is difficult or restricted,
small differences (on the order of 3%, the difference between a gold:silver
ratio of 1:15.5 and 1:16) between the official values and market values of
gold and silver can perhaps be ignored. However, with increasing financial
sophistication, easier communication, and greater ease of domestic
transport and foreign trade, as was taking place in the seventeenth,
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these small anomalies could be more
easily identified and exploited. People would thus rush to trade exclusively
in either gold or silver, according to which had a small momentary
advantage (cheaper to deliver) within the bimetallic framework. Coinage
and bullion could even be exported and leave the country, according to
some small variance in official bimetallic bullion values and values on
foreign markets. This could lead to the disappearance of small-
denomination silver coinage, and other similar outcomes, even when there
was no practical shortage of silver bullion or lack of minting capacity. By the
late eighteenth century, private producers were introducing token coins in
small denominations, to relieve the shortage of silver coinage in Britain. 9
The recoinage of 1696-1700, and then the introduction of informal
token coinage in the late eighteenth century, finally resolved the “shortage
of money” issues in Britain. This time period also coincided with the rise of
the Classical economic conception over the Mercantilist, including a focus
on free trade.
Isaac Newton’s new bimetallic ratio pushed Britain – originally under
silver-centric bimetallism via Roman influence, then gold-centric in the
Byzantine model, then again silver-centric since the eighth century – back
toward a gold basis, not only in terms of coinage but perhaps more
importantly, as a unit of account and basis for paper banknotes. In practice,
states throughout the world had drifted to-and-fro within the context of the
gold/silver complex, from one pole (the silver-centric arrangement of China
at that time) to the other (the gold/copper system of Byzantium or the Han
Dynasty), and all the various intermediate stages in between. The
importance of this particular event, among many similar events throughout

history, is that it led to Britain’s eventual embrace of a gold monometallic
standard, combined with Britain’s rising leadership in banking and
banknote issuance, to provide the model to emulate worldwide during the
nineteenth century.
In 1816, Britain officially adopted a monometallic, gold-only basis for
the British pound. A recoinage in 1817 provided a new, modern gold coin,
the £1 gold sovereign, as its physical representation, replacing the guinea
worth £1.05. Silver shilling coins were still minted and used widely,
although their contained silver was intentionally reduced slightly from their
face value, thus rendering them an effective token coin. The ability to use
token coins was in turn enabled by the prior development of machine-
pressed coins with milled edges, which could not be easily counterfeited.
British Paper Money and the Bank of England
Prior to 1640, it was common for wealthy merchants to deposit their

bullion at the King’s Mint at the Tower of London. However, in 1638,
needing funds, Charles I confiscated the huge sum of £200,000 of gold
stored at the mint, declaring it a “loan” from depositors. English goldsmiths,
as was necessary for their trade, had protected facilities for storing bullion.
The outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642 drove many people to place
their coinage and bullion in the protection of goldsmiths. At the same time,
the demand for artisanal wares in gold and silver practically disappeared.
Goldsmiths were thus thrust into the storage business. During the Civil War,
Charles I was beheaded (in 1649), and Britain was ruled by Oliver Cromwell
in an effective military dictatorship. Cromwell wanted to attract the Jews of
Amsterdam to England, bringing with them their trade interests with
Spanish-held regions surrounding the Caribbean. In 1656, Jews were
readmitted into Britain after being banned in 1290 under Edward I.
Cromwell died in 1658, and the monarchy restored under Charles II in
1660.
Before too long, the goldsmiths began to make loans, and, after 1660, to
pay interest on time deposits. Goldsmiths’ deposit receipts became
tradeable banknotes, and checks could be written in payment against
deposits. Discounting of merchants’ bills of exchange became a logical next
step. London goldsmiths gradually took some of this business away from
Antwerp and Amsterdam, where money markets in bills had thousands of
members. The earliest existing goldsmiths’ deposit receipt is from 1633,
although it was not at first used for payment between third parties. The
earliest record of a payment being made with the use of a banknote is from
1668. The earliest known check from an English goldsmith is dated 1659.
During the 1660s, goldsmiths began to make loans against their gold
reserves in the form of banknotes. These banknotes were a new
development for Britain, but represented a long evolution of similar
practices from the Italian banks since the late twelfth century. Despite their
rising popularity, the use of banknotes in payment fell into a sort of legal
limbo, which was not officially resolved until the Promissory Notes Act of
1704.
The mid-seventeenth century was the peak of the era of tally sticks in
Britain. They were often issued by the government in anticipation of future
revenue, and were payable upon an assigned maturity. Thus, they were a
form of short-term government debt. They became quite money-like,
although they had a specific maturity and paid interest. In 1665, parliament
granted Charles II the revenue of a tax expected to raise £1.5 million in
revenue. Tallies were immediately issued against this expected future
revenue, and the revenue was directly allocated to the holders of the tallies.
In addition, paper contracts called Exchequer Orders to Pay were issued,
functionally much like the tallies but in the form of paper. The tallies and
paper orders could be traded among third parties. Between 1667 and 1671,
paper orders began to be issued not against specific revenue streams, but
against the revenue in general. Consequently, there was no implied limit on
orders issued. The system began to take the shape of a government-issued
paper currency. When a default on the payment of tallies and orders was
made in 1672 (the “Stop of the Exchequer”), 97.5% of the £1,314,940 in
tallies outstanding were held by goldsmith-bankers. 10 The six largest
holders of the tallies all failed. The nascent system of liquid government
bills and goldsmith-issued paper currency collapsed.
Although banknotes and bills in paper or ledger form displaced tallies
during the eighteenth century, tallies were not fully abolished until the late
date of 1826. The tallies were later stored in rooms in the Parliament
building. In 1834, it was decided that, to free up the space and also provide
heat, the tallies would be burned. The blaze of tally sticks got out of hand,
and burned the Parliament building to the ground.
A separate introduction of paper money in the West was made by Johan
Palmstruch, through a new institution, the private Bank of Stockholm, in
1661. The bank quickly overissued banknotes. When, in 1663, they
returned en masse to the bank to be exchanged for coinage, the bank
defaulted and ceased operations. Nevertheless, the experiment set a
precedent for Sweden. In 1668, the Riksens Ständers Bank was founded by
the Swedish government. Later renamed the Sveriges Riksbank, it remains
the central bank of Sweden to the present. It did not issue banknotes until
1701, when permission was granted to issue “credit notes.” These became
widely used by the 1740s, but ceased their convertibility in 1745 after the
Bank printed them to finance Sweden’s wars with Russia. Several cycles of
currency reform and re-establishment of convertibility continued through
the eighteenth century.
The Dutch prince William III of Orange was the son of a Dutch
nobleman, William II, and his wife Mary, the daughter of England’s King
Charles I. William III married his first cousin Mary, daughter of King James
II of England. In June of 1688, James II’s second wife bore a son, who
displaced his daughter Mary as heir to the throne. James II’s conversion to
Catholicism, his increasing ties with Catholic France then ruled by the
aggressively expansionist Louis XIV, and the new prospect of a lineage of
Catholic kings in England fond of French-style absolute monarchy and
obeisant to Rome, caused great concern within Parliament. Both England
and France had been at war with Holland, during the latter Anglo-Dutch
Wars and the Nine Years’ War. A coalition in Britain’s parliament invited
William and Mary to usurp James II, and claim the throne of England. At
first, they asked that Mary alone be queen, but she refused. The result was
joint rule, and a new alliance between England and Holland against France.
At the time, Amsterdam was the world’s financial center. Its active
market in government bonds allowed the government to fund itself at
yields between three and four percent. William needed money – a lot of it –
to finance his wars against France. At the time, the English government had
used only the system of tallies and orders as an informal sort of short-term
credit, plus direct loans from the goldsmith bankers. All were in disarray
after the Stop of the Exchequer in 1672, which also rendered unreliable the
goldsmith-bankers paper banknote issuance. William’s first attempts to
borrow money were done in small size and rates in excess of 20%. In 1692-
93, £1.0 million was raised through the issuance of government bonds, at an
effective rate of 14 percent. Another £300,000 was raised in 1694.
The Bank of England was conceived, foremost, as a coalition of private
lenders to provide government finance, specifically a loan of £1.2 million at
a rate of eight percent. In addition, the Bank aggregated the existing lenders
and bondholders to the government, whose contributed capital consisted of
a transfer of their loans and bonds to the Bank. The Bank, established in
1694, was also permitted to issue banknotes. The Bank’s original location
was atop the ruins of a Roman temple to Mithras, the God of Contracts.
In 1696, the Bank’s balance sheet looked like this: 11
Assets Liabilities and Capital

Government debt 1,200,000 Notes in circulation 2,011,032
Other gov. securities 1,566,262 Deposits 409,873
Other securities 157,358
Coins and bullion 258,358 Shareholder’s equity 761,073
Total £3,181,978 Total £3,181,978
Thus began the extraordinarily profitable business of large-scale

banknote issuance in the West, and the model of the monopoly “central
bank” that was eventually installed everywhere. A total of £2,420,905 of
banknotes and deposits had been set forth into the world, more than
covering the entirety of the £1,200,000 loan that inspired the Bank’s
creation; against this was coins and bullion of £258,358, a bullion coverage
ratio of 10.7%. The £2.421 million was essentially seignorage profit; assets
acquired via the creation of banknotes and deposits. In 1698, coinage in
circulation included silver coin of an estimated £5.6 million and gold coin
£6.0 million. 12 At a rate of 8%, an additional £193,600 of profit was
generated annually, a rather smart 25.4% return on equity. Also, by holding
such a large portion of the government’s debt, and since the government
was also reliant upon the Bank for further financing, the Bank could
exercise considerable influence upon the government, if it wished. Of the
initial capital subscription of £720,000, only 25% was immediately payable;
some investors borrowed even this sum. 13
30
Total Assets
Government Debt
25 Other government securities
Other securities
Coins and bullion
20
millions of pounds
15
10
0
1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790
U.K.: Bank of England Balance Sheet, Assets, 1696-1790 14
Was the British government swindled? From the perspective of the

government, the outcome was not much different than if banknotes did not
exist, and all transactions were done in coinage. The government raised
funds via the issuance of debt; the debt had to be repaid. The advantage was
all on the side of the private bankers, who acquired a valuable asset
(government debt) in trade for costless banknotes and deposits. Could the
British government have simply set up an institution to issue the banknotes
directly, with all the seignorage profit of banknote issuance thus enjoyed by
the government? Certainly this was possible. This was the model in the
American Colonies, in France, and also in China, but in all cases, quick
overissuance and devaluation was the chronic result. Certainly the gold
confiscation of 1638, and the Stop of the Exchequer in 1672, made everyone
in Britain wary of government promises, particularly during wartime.
30
Total
Base Money
25 Notes in Circulation
Capital
Deposits
7 day and other bills
20
millions of pounds
15
10
0
1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790
Britain: Bank of England Balance Sheet, Liabilities, 1696-1790 15
In 1697, the Bank was allowed to increase its capital, which could be
paid up to 80% in the form of tallies, and the remainder in banknotes. The
result was that tallies were further concentrated at the Bank, which made
their administration and eventual replacement far simpler. The Bank was
also allowed to issue more banknotes. The Act of 1697 also forbade the
establishment of any other company “in the nature of a bank” while the
Bank of England existed. In practice, this referred to the issuance of
banknotes, rendering an effective near-monopoly that was reinforced by
Acts of Parliament in 1708 and 1709 that prohibited companies of more
than six people to set up banks and issue banknotes. Nevertheless, in 1844
there were 280 private banks issuing banknotes in Britain, with a banknote
issuance of £8.6 million out of a total of £31 million. 16 In that year a formal
monopoly on banknotes was granted to the Bank of England.
Scotland took a somewhat different path than Britain, despite becoming
part of the United Kingdom in 1707. The Bank of Scotland was set up along
the model of the Bank of England in 1695. However, while England tended
toward a monopoly on banknote issuance held by the Bank of England,

Scotland tended toward a formal system of “free banking” in which a
multitude of banks would be allowed to issue banknotes. This was
formalized in the Banking Act of 1756, which allowed all banks to issue
banknotes. This libertarian environment for banking was suppressed after
1845, but even today, Scotland has three private banks – Bank of Scotland,
Clydesdale Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland – issuing their own
banknotes, linked to the British pound. A similar system exists today in the
former British territory of Hong Kong, where U.S. dollar-linked notes are
issued by the private Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the
Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited, and the Standard Chartered Bank.
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1690
1700
1710
1720
1730
1740
1750
1760
1770
1780
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
Britain: Bank of England, Ratio of Gold Bullion Reserves to Banknote

and Deposit Liabilities, 1694-1914
The problems of war finance that resulted in the formation of the Bank
of England also led to the emergence of a formal market in government
bonds in England, as had been the case earlier in Holland. Between 1685
and 1700, the expenses of wartime, and the new tools of finance, pushed the
British government’s total net debt from £0.8 million to £13.8 million. 17
Much of this debt was then freely traded, thus establishing the London
government bond market and money market. This in turn formed a
foundation for a wide variety of financial activities in London.
Over the next two decades, the effective yield on the British
government’s debt fell to levels typical of high-quality government debt
denominated in a reliable gold-linked currency. By 1727, the yield on
British government perpetual debt had fallen to 4%. In addition, the British
government had been successful in reducing its total debt outstanding,
which, in 1739, had fallen to a low of £4 million before the outbreak of war
that year. In 1751, all of the government’s outstanding debt was
consolidated into a single issue of perpetual Consol bonds, yielding 3.0%.
Such was the perceived reliability of the British government, both in terms
of creditworthiness and the quality of its gold-based currency, that these
bonds traded above par for several years thereafter.
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1700 1800 1900 2000
Britain: Average Annual Yield on Consol Bond, 1703-2015 18
The Bank of England thus formed the nucleus of the later popularity of
gold-linked banknotes in commerce, alongside and eventually in preference
to coinage. Banknotes grew to be the dominant form of money in Britain in
the nineteenth century, eclipsing coinage in the total amount outstanding.
For the first time in Western history, money was being made primarily by
private banking institutions rather than a government mint.
The American Colonies and the United States
The British experience with paper money reliably linked to gold was
extraordinary in the eighteenth century. Other countries experimented with
the widespread use of banknotes in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries – notably Sweden, France, Japan, and Britain’s colonies in America
– but they shared a history of unreliability, overissuance and collapse.
Despite Britain’s gold-centric (though still officially bimetallic) pattern
after 1717, the British colonies in North America retained a silver-centric
basis, due to the common use of the Spanish silver dollar (among many
foreign coins) throughout the colonies, many of them obtained in defiance
of restrictions on trade with unfriendly foreign powers. The use of foreign
coins came about in part from the requirement that taxes and debts be paid
only in British coins. Combined with various Mercantilist restrictions
including an outright ban on local minting of coins, and also various bans on
privately-issued paper monies, British coins were thus constantly in
shortage in the Colonies and often sent to Britain to pay taxes and debts.
Britain also tried to limit the use of foreign coins in its colonies, including
restrictions on the external trade that served as the source of the coinage.
This pushed the colonists to devise still more alternatives, such that, in
1775, seventeen commodities were recognized as legal tender in North
Carolina, some of which, notably tobacco, sprouted subsidiary warehouse
receipt currencies of their own. Even at the time, this was regarded as a
crude and primitive stopgap, by the mostly British colonists accustomed to
centuries of silver coinage, especially when the mines of nearby Mexico
were churning out silver then shipped to Europe and China. However, this
multitude of recognized means of payment was unified by a single unit of
account, the British pounds, shillings and pence.
When reading historical accounts, it must be remembered that
practically any conceivable problem of business, economics or statecraft
can be described as “a shortage of money.” However, it appears that various
restrictions on trade and coinage did produce problems of payment in the
Colonies. Free trade in silver (including with foreigners), and free coinage
of that silver into British coins (or acceptance of silver in any form in
payment), would have resolved any such issues. These “shortages” of
coinage in the Colonies could have only come about via various human-
imposed restrictions. The population of Europe was 203 million in 1800,
while the population of the United States was 5.3 million in 1800 and only
1.6 million in 1760. There was certainly enough silver in existence to fulfill
the monetary needs of the Colonists.
In part pushed by these artificial scarcities of coinage, the American
colonies became a great experiment in the direct issue of paper currencies
by colonial governments during the eighteenth century. The Massachusetts
Bay colony made the first such issuance in 1690, to pay soldiers. The notes
(known then as “bills of credit”) were accepted as legal tender in payment
of taxes. This worked well enough, so further issuances were made. By

1712, the notes traded at a discount of 30% to coin. In 1726, they traded at
a 4.35:1 ratio against silver coin. By 1750, the notes’ value had fallen to 11:1
versus silver coinage. A similar pattern was followed throughout the
colonies, with depreciation of 9:1 in Connecticut and 10:1 in the Carolinas.
The most egregious depreciation was in Rhode Island, where paper notes
had fallen to 23:1 versus their face value in 1750, before descending to
worthlessness by 1770. Britain banned the issuance of these “bills of credit”
in the New England colonies in 1752, extending the ban to all of the colonies
in 1764.
However, this respite from paper banknote debauchery turned out to
be short-lived. The American Revolution in 1776, only twelve years later,
was financed in the manner that had by then become common among state
governments for much of the preceding century: the issuance of what
amounted to fiat banknotes, the Continental dollar. The Continental
Congress eventually issued $241 million of these notes, compared to a total
coinage estimated at $12 million throughout the Colonies in 1775. State
governments issued another $210 million. The value of the Continental
dollar fell to a hundredth of its face value by 1781, and then declined
further to worthlessness.
This harrowing experience of hyperinflation in the Colonies, adding to
many similar experiences in the century previous, led the founders of the
United States to declare in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution of 1789
that “No State shall ... coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but
gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts ...”
The Coinage Act of 1792 established the standards for domestic
minting of coins. The implicit gold:silver ratio in the Coinage Act of 1792
was 1:15, while market rates were closer to 1:15.5. France and other
European countries used an official 1:15.5 ratio, and Britain went to a gold
monometallic standard in 1816. The result was that silver was the cheapest
to deliver (“overvalued”) within the bimetallic system. After 1792, very
little gold was presented at the U.S. Mint for coinage; new coinage was
almost exclusively in silver. In 1834, the gold value of the U.S. dollar was
reduced from 24.75 grains of pure gold ($19.37 per troy oz.) to 23.2 grains,
which was thereafter more commonly represented as $20.67 per troy oz.
The standard for the silver dollar was left unchanged at 371.25 grains,
resulting in an effective bimetallic ratio of 1:16. Much as was the case for
Britain after 1717, gold thus became the focus of the officially bimetallic
arrangement. The $20.67/oz. gold standard for the dollar remained until
1933, when a devaluation reduced the dollar to 1/35th of a troy oz.
($35/oz.) The $35/oz. standard continued until 1971.
By its wording, the Constitution appears to forbid all banknotes,
implying a return to a wholly coinage-based system. This solution was not
particularly severe for its day, but more in the spirit of prudence. Coinage
remained dominant throughout Europe, and paper money had been banned
in the Colonies by the British government itself in 1764. (The French

experience with the assignats was then just beginning.) However, after a
century of experience with paper banknotes in the Anglophone world, in
Britain, Scotland and in the American Colonies, the paper money genie
would not be put back in the bottle so easily. In the 1780s the Industrial
Revolution was just getting underway, bringing with it also a degree of
financialization that made the nineteenth century so unlike the eighteenth,
and all the centuries previous.
Attempts to set up a note-issuing “central bank” in the model of the
Bank of England predated even the Constitution, led by the industrious
Alexander Hamilton. On October 19, 1781, the British commander
Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively bringing the
Revolutionary War to an end in North America. As finance via issuance of
Continental dollars had exhausted its potential, the Continental Congress
had issued public debt. A total of $600 million of loan certificates had been
issued by the end of the war. By 1779, their market value had already
declined by 24:1 versus specie. 19 They could have depreciated into oblivion,
along with the Continental dollar. However, wealthy speculators had
bought up large quantities of the debt, at depressed prices. In 1781, at
Hamilton’s urging, the Congress of the Confederation (1781-1789) allowed
the establishment of the Bank of North America, to consolidate government
debt and finances and also serve as a monopoly issuer of banknotes, along
the lines of the Bank of England, as a private joint-stock entity. The
Congress of the Confederation’s first Superintendent of Finance and Marine
(in effect, Treasury Secretary) was Robert Morris. Three days after
becoming Superintendent, Morris proposed to establish the National Bank.
In a bit of financial derring-do, Morris, acting as Superintendent of Finance,
appropriated some specie loaned to the United States by France, and
deposited it in the Bank of North America, thus providing most of the legally
required specie capital for the inception of the new bank. Morris and the
Bank’s influence soon waned, however. The U.S. government’s debt to the
bank never exceeded $170,000 on a net basis. 20 By the end of 1783, all of
the government’s debt to the Bank had been repaid, and all of its stock in
the bank, amounting to 5/8ths of its capital, had been remitted. 21
The Bank of North America was rechartered in 1787 under more
restrictive terms, limiting its operations as a central bank, and rechartered
again in 1793, when it was renamed the Bank of Pennsylvania. After a long
series of mergers, the bank ultimately became part of Wells Fargo, which, in
2012, operated a branch office at the Bank of North America’s original
Philadelphia location. 22
After the Constitution of 1789, the first president of the new United
States, George Washington, wanted to appoint Morris to the office of
Secretary of the Treasury. Morris declined and suggested Alexander
Hamilton, who accepted. Via Hamilton, the idea of a central bank, along the
lines of the Bank of England, was introduced again with his proposal for the
First Bank of the United States. It would be privately owned, with the
government at first holding a 20% share. Seventy-five percent of the
privately-held shares would be purchased with government debt, thus
consolidating the debt within the bank.
Washington assembled his cabinet to discuss the issue. Attorney
General Edmund Randolph felt the bill was unconstitutional. Thomas
Jefferson, then Secretary of State, decided the proposal was against both the
spirit and letter of the Constitution. James Madison (the primary author of
the Constitution) believed that Congress had not received the power, under
the Constitution, to incorporate a bank. Nevertheless, Hamilton, as Treasury
Secretary, was able to convince Washington of its merits and legality. It was
chartered in 1791, with a twenty-year charter. It was the only Federally-
chartered bank, which allowed it to operate throughout the United States.
(State-chartered banks were only allowed to operate intrastate.) The Bank’s
banknotes could be used in tax payment, and were legally redeemable for
specie on demand. At first, the bank was capitalized at $10 million, with
25% of this payable in specie. However, when it began operations, it had
only $675,000 in coin and bullion. 23 The first president of the Bank was
Thomas Willing, partner of Robert Morris, and who previously served as the
president of the Bank of North America. The U.S. government’s stake in the
bank was later sold, and the Bank of the United States thus became a wholly
private bank. 24 In January, 1798, foreigners owned an estimated 13,000 of
the 25,000 shares. By March, 1809, foreigners’ estimated holdings had
increased to 18,000 shares. 25
By the end of 1795, the U.S. government had borrowed $6.2 million
from the Bank, but these debts were later paid off. During the 1803-6
period, the government’s average deposits at the Bank amounted to $4.0-
$5.5 million. 26 At the end of the Bank’s charter in 1811, total banknote
issuance in circulation by the Bank amounted to $5,037,125. 27 The Bank’s
banknotes were highly reliable, and maintained their face value versus
specie. 28
A debate ensued whether to recharter the Bank after its original
charter expired in 1811. “A private central bank issuing the public currency
is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army,”
argued Thomas Jefferson, recently retired after two terms as President. 29
The recharter bill failed to pass Congress by one vote in the House, and one
vote in the Senate, when Vice President George Clinton voted to break a tie.
The United States’ second central bank thus passed away.
The First Bank’s demise was followed, almost immediately, by the
outbreak of hostilities with the British, in the War of 1812. Washington D.C.
was invaded by British forces in 1814, and the White House burned. The
Federal government itself got back into the money-printing business with
the issuance of Treasury Notes beginning in 1812. Treasury Note issuance
continued intermittently up until 1861, when it was superseded by issuance
of the Federal government’s United States Note (known as “greenbacks”) to

fund the Civil War.
In 1816, in part to return the currency system to reliability after the
effective suspension of gold conversion and consequent inflation during
wartime, the Second Bank of the United States was given a twenty-year
charter. In the pattern of the Bank of England and also the First Bank of the
United States, the institution was founded in part to amalgamate the
wartime debts of the government. The Bank also acted as the agent for all
government receipts and expenditures, and provided a uniform national
currency, as opposed to the state-chartered banks which operated in a
localized area. Figures for 1834 give a measure of the Bank’s dominance of
the monetary system. In that year, 506 banks (including both state banks
and the Second Bank) had total deposits of $102 million and banknotes in
circulation of $95 million. The Second Bank alone had deposits of $11
million (down from $23 million in 1832) and banknotes in circulation of
$19.2 million. 30 Thus, at its peak, the Second Bank accounted for about 20%
of total banknote circulation. In 1832, 20% of the Bank’s outstanding equity
was owned by the U.S. government, 24% by foreigners, and the remaining
56% by U.S. entities. 31 It had $6.80 million of specie against $59.17 million
of banknotes and deposits. 32
The dominance of the Second Bank in monetary and financial affairs,
and the degree of foreign ownership and influence in the Bank, invited the
enmity of president Andrew Jackson. In 1832, Jackson vetoed a bill to
extend the Bank’s charter after its expiration in 1836. In his veto message,
Jackson made clear that he thought that effective foreign influence in the
Bank far exceeded the ratio of nominally foreign-owned shares.
Of the course which would be pursued by a bank almost wholly

owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed by those
whose interests, if not affections, would run in the same direction
there can be no doubt ... Controlling our currency, receiving our public
monies, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would
be more formidable and dangerous than a naval and military power of
the enemy. 33
Four more years of political battles ensued, and Jackson won in the end.
The Bank’s charter expired in 1836, ending the third attempt to set up a
privately-owned “central bank” and dominant currency issuer, in the model
of the Bank of England, within the United States. In its wake, small issuers of
currency continued to proliferate, in the most libertarian era of the “free
banking” model in U.S. history. In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, 1,562
banks were in operation and issuing their own banknotes, linked to gold at
the dollar parity of 23.2 troy grains per dollar. 34 These banks had issued a
total of $207 million of banknotes, which circulated alongside $207 million
of gold coin and $21 million of silver coin. 35
France, Germany and Russia
The French livre tournois descended from the livre (“pound”) of

Charlemagne. The original livre of 780 had roughly 430 grams of silver.
After Philip II of France seized the Touraine region, and its capital Tours, in
1203, the tournois standards of weights and measures superseded the livre
parisis. (The livre tournois was 20% lighter.) A monetary reform by Louis IX
in 1266 established the livre tournois equivalent to 80 grams of pure silver.
Between 1360 and 1641, gold coins worth one livre tournois were minted,
known as francs. However, the primary use of the livre tournois, from its
early days, was as an accounting standard. Payment could be made in any of
the multitude coins circulating in continental Europe at the time, including:
the French écu, Louis, teston d’argent, and denier; the Spanish doubloon,
pistole, real; the Italian florin and ducat; the German thaler, Dutch gulden,
and many others. By 1507, the value of the livre tournois in silver had been
reduced to 20 grams. 36 After 1725, the livre tournois was worth about 4.5
grams of silver, roughly one-hundredth of the original value of the livre
under Charlemagne.
The first experiment with paper banknotes in France was undertaken
by a Scotsman, John Law. His private note-issuing bank began operations in
1716. The bank was such a success that the government absorbed it into a
newly-chartered bank, the Banque Royal, in 1718. In a short time, the
industrious Law had swirled this bank into another undertaking to tap the
wealth of the French colonies in North America. In 1719 it was also given a
monopoly of trade with the East Indies and China, merging with the French
East India Company founded in 1664. The temptation to overissue notes
was irresistible, and in 1720 the entire operation collapsed in what has
become known as the Mississippi Bubble.
France thus returned to coinage. In 1726 a new, formalized bimetallic
system was put in place, with values of various common gold and silver
coins expressed in livre tournois. However, still no one-livre coin existed. A
government bank was again established in 1776, the Caisse d’Escompte,
which issued short-term bills that traded in a liquid market. In 1789, the
National Assembly introduced the assignats, a paper currency that was
overissued and lapsed into hyperinflation before abandonment in 1796, in
the chaos of the French Revolution.
In July 1796, the National Assembly decreed that people could conduct
business using whatever money they chose, and that existing government
paper money would be accepted at its market value. This began a brief but
successful episode in “free banking,” in which multiple small banks issued
gold-linked paper currencies. 37
In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte, a general in the French army, returned to
France from a military expedition in Egypt and staged a coup d’etat,
replacing the ineffective, bankrupt and unpopular Republic. Backed by
foreign bankers, 38 in 1800 he allowed the establishment of the Bank of

France, and with it a standard for the franc as equivalent to 290.32
milligrams of fine gold (107.14 per troy ounce), or 4.5 grams of silver, an
official bimetallic system with a gold:silver ratio of 1:15.5. At first, the Bank
of France had to compete against existing note-issuing banks. In 1803, the
Bank of France was given a monopoly on banknote issuance in Paris, which
effectively brought to an end the “free banking” episode in France. 39 The
monopoly spread to all of France by 1848. The franc’s official value in terms
of gold remained unchanged until World War I, although there were
suspensions of gold convertibility, including a period during the Franco-
Prussian War (1870-1871).
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796
France: Value of 100 Assignats in Gold Livres, 1791-1796 40
The Royal Prussian Seehandlung was one of the first Germanic banks to
issue banknotes, beginning in the 1770s. The Leyhaus Bank of Brunswick,
founded in 1765, also issued banknotes. In 1846 it became known as the
Bank of Prussia, and in 1875 as the Reichsbank. In 1800, greater Germany
was still a patchwork of 314 minor states, riven by around 1,800 customs
barriers, including 67 local tariffs within Prussia alone. 41 The banking and
monetary systems showed similar decentralization, with competing
regional coinages, currencies, and units of account. The post-Napoleonic
settlement of 1815 reduced the number of states to 39. A customs union

was reached in 1834, and a coinage union in 1857. Further developments
awaited political unification in 1871.
Catherine II (“Catherine the Great”) of Russia oversaw the creation of
the Assignation Bank in 1769, which issued banknotes known as
Assignation rubles. During the 1830s, the value of the Assignation ruble fell
considerably. In 1839, a silver ruble coin was introduced, at a value of 3.5
Assignation rubles. In 1843, the Assignation Bank was replaced by the State
Bank, and new banknotes were issued based on the silver ruble. These too
proved unreliable, and were reformed again in 1860.
The first mention of the use of the manilla currency in West Africa is
from the Nigerian coastal kingdom of Calabar, in 1505. In that year, a slave
could be bought in Calabar for 8-10 manillas. The manilla was a
standardized artifact typically of copper or bronze (occasionally gold),
thought to be a stylized bracelet. The name possibly derives from the
Spanish manella, or bracelet. Previously, Portuguese traders in the 1490s
found that, in West Africa, women commonly wore copper bracelets and
legbands to display their husband’s wealth, and these were exchanged as a
nonstandardized form of copper money. During the early sixteenth century,
manillas were manufactured by Portuguese, and later Dutch, British, and
French, and traded for slaves in Africa. During the nineteenth century,
Birmingham, England became a major site for manilla manufacturing.
Nigeria outlawed manillas in 1902, in part because they were considered an
artifact of the slave trade, but they continued to be used into the 1940s.
Classical and Mercantilist Thought
The first known work devoted to monetary affairs was the Chinese
Chhuan Chih or Treatise on Coinage, written by Hung Tsun in 1149. In the
West, the first work was the De Moneta (“The Mint”) of Nicholas Oresme, an
advisor to Charles V of France. It was written around 1365. By this time,
governments had been debasing coinage for roughly two thousand years. In
the first words of this first book on money, Oresme neatly delineated the
two sides of a discussion that continues to the present day – those who
would keep money as unchanged as possible, a stable measure of value and
constant of commerce, and those who would manipulate it as a means to
resolve various problems of economic health and public finance.
Citing the debasement of the Roman denarius during the decline of the
Roman Empire, Oresme concluded that governments should keep their
money as stable as possible. To allow alterations of the coinage, Oresme
argued, would change the kingdom to a tyranny, and consequently expose
the kingdom to ruin and foreign takeover.
Nicholas Copernicus, in the Treatise on Money (1526), agreed with
Oresme that money should remain stable and unchanging. Copernicus’
arguments were influential in a Prussian coinage reform that came after a

long period of chronic coinage debasement.
Oresme focused primarily upon coinage debasement as a means of
government funding. But alert observers had always noted that devaluation
and debasement have many consequences, some of which can even seem
beneficial—that coinage manipulation was not only a means of finance, but
also a method to alter and direct the course of the economy as a whole.
Copernicus described the counterarguments of his time:
Hence [arises] that widespread and incessant complaint: gold,

silver, food, household wages, workmen’s labor, and whatever is
customary in human consumption soar in price. But, being inattentive,
we do not realize that the dearness of everything is produced by the
debasement of the coinage. ...
But maybe someone will argue that cheap money is more
convenient for human needs, forsooth, by alleviating the poverty of
the people, lowering the price of food, and facilitating the supply of all
the other necessities of life, whereas sound money makes everything
dearer, while burdening tenants and payers of an annual rental more
heavily than usual. This point of view will be applauded by those who
were heretofore granted the right to coin money and would be
deprived of the hope of gain. Nor will it perhaps be rejected by
merchants and artisans, who lose nothing on that account since they
sell their goods and products in terms of gold, and the cheaper the
money is, the greater the number of coins they receive in exchange.
But if they will have regard for the common good, they will surely
be unable to deny that sound money benefits not only the state but
also themselves and every class of people, whereas debased coinage is
harmful. Although this is quite clear for many reasons, we learn that it
is so also through experience, the teacher of objective truth. For we
see that those countries flourish the most which have sound money,
whereas those which use inferior coinage decline and fall. 42
“Alleviating the poverty of the people,” “facilitating the supply of all the
necessities of life,” and increasing the profits of merchants and artisans
(“trade competitiveness” via devaluation), remain familiar arguments
today, “applauded by those who were heretofore granted the right to coin
money,” which today are central banks.
Mercantilism, the pattern of British economic thought common in
1600-1750, was a reflection of the royal absolutism of the time. Murray
Rothbard described: “As the economic aspect of state absolutism,
mercantilism was of necessity a system of state-building, of Big
Government, of heavy royal expenditure, of high taxes, of (especially after
the late seventeenth century) inflation and deficit finance, of war,
imperialism, and the aggrandizing of the nation-state.” 43 Economic policy

centered on cartelism, protectionism and trade restrictions, and
government spending as a means of promoting domestic economic activity
and consumption, with high taxes to pay for it.
In this intellectual climate, it is no surprise that the idea of managing
the economy via manipulation of the money and interest rates also became
popular among the Mercantilist thinkers. This did not have much practical
effect on the coinage itself, which remained relatively unmolested in both
England and France. It did lead, however, to a variety of restrictions on
export of coinage and bullion, and on import trade in general, with the idea
that “more money” kept at home would make money plentiful, and lead to
lower interest rates, greater economic activity and increased employment.
The wealthiest and most prosperous country of the seventeenth century,
Holland, focused on free trade and unchanging currency value; as a result,
Amsterdam always had plenty of money, and also the lowest interest rates
in Europe.
The English Mercantilists correctly concluded that Holland’s low
interest rates, derived wholly from market forces, were a cornerstone of its
success. They initially tried to lower interest rates in England by legalistic
means. Sir Thomas Culpepper, in the Tract Against The High Rate of Usury
(1621), cited Holland’s example in arguments that eventually led
Parliament to lower the maximum rate of interest to 8% from 10%, and
then later to 6%. Culpepper’s son, also Sir Thomas Culpepper, continued in
1668 with A Discourse showing the many Advantages which will accrue to
this Kingdom by the Abatement of Usury together with the Absolute Necessity
of Reducing Interest of Money to the lowest Rate it bears in other Countreys.
Josiah Child, a member of the king’s council of trade, added his Brief
Observations Concerning Trade, and Interest of Money in 1668, as part of an
effort to lower the maximum legal rate to 4%. Due in part to the arguments
of John Locke, the consequent bill was killed by the House of Lords in 1669.
The idea of lowering interest rates – and managing the economy as a
whole – via money creation dates at least as far back as William Potter’s The
Key to Wealth (1650). Potter’s paper money scheme (“backed by land,” a
useful fiction to justify continuous fiat emission) would also supposedly
allow credit expansion, reduce unemployment, increase economic activity
in general, and produce greater tax revenue. The rise of the Bank of
England, and its widespread banknote issuance, probably emboldened John
Law, who wrote Money and Trade Considered, with a Proposal for Supplying
the Nation with Money (1705). By expanding and managing the paper
money supply, Law would reduce the rate of interest, increase employment,
create additional production and economic activity, and also achieve
“stability of value,” by which he meant not the exchange rate of his fiat
paper with gold or silver, but something like the stabilization of the
business cycle and its effects on wages and commodity prices.
Richard Cantillon was Law’s business partner during the Mississippi

Bubble in France. Correctly predicting how it would end, he sold all of his
shares in the enterprise at enormous profit, and moved to Italy to await the
collapse. Around 1730, he wrote what is considered the first work in the
modern Classical tradition of economics, the Essay on the Nature of
Commerce in General. By this time, Cantillon shared none of Law’s previous
enthusiasm for managing the economy by manipulating its money. Rather,
like Oresme, he favored an unchanging unit of account.
Many Emperors subsequently debased or increased the nominal

value of their coins. The kings of France at different times have done
likewise. This is why the livre tournois, which was once worth one
pound of silver, has sunk to so little value. These proceedings have
never failed to cause disorder in states. 44
The collapse of Law’s paper money scheme in France, and also the
decline of British long-term government bond yields to around the 3.0%
range by 1725 – accomplishing by free-market means what decades of
legalistic restrictions had failed to do – cemented the victory of Britain’s
hard-money intellectuals, most notably Locke. The Dutch strategy, of a
reliable and unchanging money, free of government manipulation, proved
ascendant. The Mercantilists continued to refine their money-manipulation
schemes, however. Bishop George Berkeley revived many of Law’s
arguments in The Querist (1735-37), where he advocated a central bank
that would lower interest rates and expand employment and economic
activity via an expansion of money and credit.
Mercantilist thought regarding money reached a pinnacle of
sophistication with James Denham Steuart. In An Inquiry into the Principles
of Political Economy (1767), he advocated a “statesman” who would artfully
manage money, interest and credit, and thus the economy as a whole, in a
manner almost indistinguishable from today’s fiat-currency central banker.
Steuart’s paper money scheme, like William Potter’s, would be based on
mortgages on land – a premise put into action with the French assignats
two decades later, with the result that they depreciated into
hyperinflationary oblivion.
[The statesman] ought at all times to maintain a just proportion

between the produce of industry, and the quantity of circulating
equivalent, in the hands of his subjects, for the purchase of it; that, by
a steady and judicious administration, he may have it in his power at
all times, either to check prodigality and hurtful luxury, or to extend
industry and domestic consumption, according as the circumstances of
his people shall require the one or the other corrective ...
For this purpose, he must examine the situation of his country,
relatively to three objects, viz. the propensity of the rich to consume;
the disposition of the poor to be industrious; and the proportion of

circulating money, with respect to the one and the other.
If the quantity of money in circulation is below the proportion of
the two first, industry will never be able to exert itself; because the
equivalent in the hands of the consumers, is then below the
proportion of their desires to consume, and of those of the industrious
to produce. 45
With the publication of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1776, Mercantilist thought was largely
swept away in favor of the Classical conception of free trade, open
competition, unobtrusive government, low taxes and unchanging money.
Nevertheless, when British pound convertibility was suspended in 1797 at
the onset of the Napoleonic Wars, rendering the pound a floating currency,
some argued that this wartime expedient could be made into a permanent
fixture, a new tool of macroeconomic management. The most fervent claims
came soon after the end of the war at Waterloo in 1815. With wartime
expenditures ceasing and calls for a return to the gold standard gaining
support in Parliament, some concluded that a new program of government
spending, directly funded by the printing press, was necessary to maintain
economic activity. Spurred by the arguments of Thomas and Matthias
Attwood, the British government did exactly that in 1817. The pound again
sank vs. gold and foreign currencies.
Aided by the hard-money arguments of David Ricardo, a retired bond
speculator who became a Minister of Parliament in 1818, Britain returned
the pound to gold in 1821. Much of the work of building political consensus
for a resumption of gold convertibility was done by the young
parliamentarian Robert Peel, who exemplified the post-Adam Smith
classical liberalism that characterized the nineteenth century. Peel thus
rejected the Mercantilist-tinged High Tory statism of his father, Sir Robert
Peel, also a parliamentarian, who opposed the resumption of bullion
convertibility (in effect, maintaining a floating fiat pound), and was the
author (in 1780) of a pamphlet called National Debt Productive of National
Prosperity. The elder Peel had purchased his son’s seat in Parliament when
the youth was twenty-one. 46
As taxes came down – the wartime income tax was eliminated
completely in 1816 – and the British pound was reliably linked to gold,
Britain enjoyed an extraordinary century of success in which it would
become the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the world’s center of
finance, the core of a global empire, and the model to emulate everywhere.
Mercantilist thought, and with it the idea of economic management via
currency and interest-rate manipulation, nevertheless re-emerged in the
late nineteenth century, before blooming in the twentieth to become again
dominant worldwide.
The Silver Mining Boom of the Sixteenth Century
Did the influx of Spanish silver and gold from the New World, during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, produce a major change in the
values of gold and silver in Europe? Some have claimed a “price revolution”
from 1500 to 1650, in which “prices” rose as much as six times. But, “prices”
can mean a lot of things, including the price of land or wages, which would
be expected to rise due to any increase in real incomes. A sixfold increase
over 150 years averages 1.20% per year. A rise in real incomes, due to
increasing productivity, could easily account for such a rate of increase,
with no need to resort to monetary factors for explanation. A more accurate
picture is provided by commodity prices.
1000
900
800
700
600
metric tons
500
400
300
200
100
0
1500 1600 1700 1800
Estimated World Mining Production of Silver, 1500-1850 47
Spanish looting of the Aztec and Inca realms created an influx of gold
and silver to Europe around 1520-1550. 48 After this initial burst, further
inflows came from mining production. Silver mines in Bolivia and Mexico
led to an estimated nine-fold increase in total world silver production
during this period, from 47 tons annually in 1493-1520 to 420 tons in
1580-1615. However, there was no such increase for gold, whose estimated
production increased by only about 50% (5.8 tons to 8.8 tons) over the
same time period. 49
The value of silver, compared to gold, certainly declined, but it did not
decline very much. From 1:10.7 in 1500, the gold:silver ratio declined to
around 1:12 in 1600 and 1:15 (depending on location) in 1700. This is not a
very large move over such a long period of time, similar to today’s
dollar/euro rate progressing smoothly from $1.07/euro to $1.50/euro over
the course of two centuries. Such a history would be a better record of
stability than any two currencies over the past two hundred years.
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000
Value of 1000 oz. of silver in gold oz., 1500-2011 50
English commodity prices in terms of gold showed little variance

during this time period, particularly in metals. During the initial burst of
Spanish looting during 1520-1550, commodity prices in terms of gold did
not move at all. In 1550-1560 there was an isolated rise – whether it was
related to Spanish inflows is debatable 51 – but prices then fell back again. In
1580, despite a six-fold increase in silver mining production since 1500 by
that time, prices had returned to where they were before the Spanish gold
and silver flows began. Commodity prices in terms of silver would of course
reflect the decline in the value of silver vs. gold; but even this would be a
modest adjustment. There was a long-term rise in agricultural prices
between about 1500 and 1640, approximately doubling during that time,
but this could be related to any number of factors ranging from
demographics to climate, governance, and changes in agricultural

technique.
200 Industrial Metals

Agricultural Products
180
160
140
1570-1600=100
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1400 1500 1600
Britain: Commodity Prices in Gold oz., 1400-1640 52
The fact that prices for base metals had no such increase suggests that
the rise was nonmonetary in nature. If anything, the record is impressively
stable, and certainly not reflective of a decline in the real values of gold or
silver by a factor of six. This notion is related to the debasement of the
British coinage during the reign of Henry VIII beginning in 1527, which
coincided with the period of initial looting of the Spanish in the Americas.
After four debasements, the English penny in 1546 had only a third of the
silver it contained in 1525. The record of British commodity prices over this
period does not present much evidence of any meaningful change in gold’s
value. If there was some drift, it was gradual enough to be visible only with
the hindsight of decades.
Gold and Silver Money at the Middle of the Nineteenth Century
Even such a simple system as bullion coinage has been subject to gross
misrepresentation, continuing to the present day in college textbooks and
academic literature. This typically includes a description of a “price-specie

flow mechanism,” a fallacious notion which in turn set off centuries of
confusion about the “balance of payments” which continues, largely
unreformed, to the present day. 53 Gold and silver, and coinage made from
them, were the same value everywhere, in effect a common currency with
some minor local particulars.
250
200
150
1930=100
100
50
0
1560
1580
1600
1620
1640
1660
1680
1700
1720
1740
1760
1780
1800
1820
1840
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
Britain: Commodity Prices in Gold Oz., 1560-1970 54
By no means should it be assumed that the “money supply” (coinage

and bullion used as money) was determined by the amount of gold or silver
in a country. By one estimate, in 1850 only about 8% of all the aboveground
gold worldwide was in the form of coinage. 55 Much of the silver in Europe
and elsewhere was in the form of spoons, cups, jewelry, and other artisanal
forms. Thus, even if Britain were somehow disconnected from the rest of
the world, such that no bullion could enter or exit the country, the amount
of coinage (“money supply”) might rise or fall depending on what portion of
domestic silver people preferred to hold in the form of coins and what
portion to hold in the form of candlesticks and coffee service. This would be
determined by individual preference: whether individuals cared to bring
their forks and spoons to the mint to be coined; or whether they brought
their coins to the silversmith to be made into home furnishings.
In 1850, Britain, France, the U.S., Sweden and Japan had widespread
use of paper banknotes. Outside of these areas, however, coinage still
remained the basis of commerce, just as it had been for centuries and
indeed millennia, alongside a few small-scale and localized issuers of
banknotes. The monetary system of the 1840s was not much different than
that of the Rome under Octavian. Barter still played a major role in
commoners’ practical affairs. Even in the 1840s, an American farmer might
barter a horse for some lumber, or some wheat for wool, with others in the
local community. However, just as was the case in Sumer, this barter
typically took place within the context of a standard unit of account based
on gold/silver, in this case U.S. dollars. Ten dollars of apples for ten dollars
of beer. A great many other commodities also served a monetary role
through the centuries, but gold and silver were always dominant in the
world’s centers of civilization even as payment sometimes took place in
cacao beans, cowrie shells or cattle.
Although coinage went through various cycles of debasement, along
with all manner of regulations and restrictions regarding its use, valuation,
and export, in general coins’ effective market value was equivalent to the
value of their contained metals. Thus, silver coins, in all their variety, were
essentially variants on the fundamental “currency” of silver bullion; as gold
coins were variants on the fundamental currency of gold bullion. The
practical exchange rate between coins mostly reflected how much silver or
gold they contained. Coinage was regularly imported and exported, and
often melted and reminted into local denominations.
Silver and gold formed a unified gold/silver complex, just as had been
the case for millennia previous. Their practical market values were stable
enough that they amounted to much the same thing, as a standard of value
or a unit of account. The migration of the gold:silver ratio in Europe from
1:14.5 in 1700 to 1:15.5 in 1800 was a change of about 7%, spread over a
century, with annual variation below 2%. In the sometimes bewildering
accounts of what were in effect minor differences between states or eras, it
can be easy to lose the broader picture that gold and silver served as the
common currency everywhere.
Chapter 5:
The Classical Gold Standard, 1850-1914
The second half of the nineteenth century was the age of coal and steel,
electricity and petroleum, European empire, and world trade empowered
by railroad and steamship. With it came the spread of a different sort of
monetary system. The monopoly banknote-issuing central bank, modeled
upon the Bank of England, was replicated throughout Europe. Via European
empire, and the legal, administrative, and financial systems that
accompanied it, Europe’s monetary and banking systems were spread
around the world. Although paper money had become common in Europe
by 1850, it was often issued by a myriad of small banks for local use, and
remained, in most places, secondary to the metallic coinage that had served
as the primary money since antiquity. By 1913, paper banknotes were
dominant, and bank deposit balances had ballooned.
Political unification and reorganization, notably in Germany, Italy and
Spain, led also to monetary unification and standardization. As transport
and communication became easier, various bimetallic standards (with
different official gold:silver ratios) could not coexist, and were themselves
standardized before, due to an unprecedented collapse in the market value
of silver vs. gold in the mid-1870s, gold alone became the sole effective
standard. This was made possible in part by the widespread use of
banknotes, and also the use of token coins (on the principles of banknotes),
which, though made of silver, did not require that silver hold a reliable
value versus gold, as in bimetallic systems. Banks became more common,
reliable and interconnected, so that bank payments via deposit accounts
were a preferred means of larger-scale payment, even on an international
basis.
For millennia, people had used some combination of silver and gold, the
“gold/silver complex.” The final triumph of gold, as the near-universal
standard of monetary value after 1875, was not a great change compared to
all of the bimetallic or even pure silver standards that preceded it. The
values of currencies in bimetallic systems, including the U.S. dollar and the
franc-based Latin Monetary Union, did not change after the effective
transition to gold monometallism in the 1870s. In practical terms, the
switch was somewhat irrelevant. Gold monometallism was not a new
standard or system, but more of a refinement, homogenization and
simplification of the existing gold/silver complex, which had served as the
monetary standard for centuries previous. The greater triumph was that of
central banks, acting as monopolies or near-monopolies, and the increasing

embrace of their banknotes over coinage. This produced a uniformity,
reliability and ease of exchange that had not been seen previously, and
aided a gigantic expansion of international trade and finance.
Monopoly currency issuance also created the conditions for its own
demise, with the outbreak of war in 1914. Floating currencies appeared
everywhere. Currency monopoly allowed no alternative to the paper
currencies that floated after 1914, severed from their metallic anchors. The
urge to finance wars with the printing press affected nearly all
governments. The U.S. and Britain did not let their currencies float very far,
and were able, with some effort, to return to the prewar gold parities after
the war ended. Most of the other countries of the world, however,
experienced something more like a replay of the Chinese experience with
paper money, or that of France during the Revolution. Coinage debasement
and even hyperinflation had been around for as long as coinage existed, and
were often prompted by the needs of wartime. Paper money made this so
much easier. Many currencies ended World War I worth far less than they
began.
Operational Mechanisms of the Classical Gold Standard Period
The Classical gold standard of 1850-1914 was simply a system

whereby various currency issuers (such as central banks, and also smaller
private banks) issued banknotes whose value was linked to gold. Thus, gold
was the “standard of value.” Gold was effectively the same value
everywhere, and traded freely, so it did not particularly matter if gold
bullion was moved here or there, or if one currency issuer had a relatively
large amount of it, and another less.
The Classical gold standard was thus, in effect, a unified world
currency, issued by multiple independent entities, whether central banks or
commercial banks. Gold and silver had always been an effective world
currency, but in practice, issues related to small bimetallic discrepancies,
Mercantilist restrictions on trade and finance, and the fractured
arrangement of small banknote-issuing banks whose notes were not
accepted far from the issuer, introduced minor but irritating impediments
to commerce. Over time, these issues were resolved and minimized.
The emergence of a new, integrated world of money, finance,
communication and trade was captured in Jules Verne’s novel Around the
World in Eighty Days (1873). In it, the hero Phileas Fogg, inspired by an
article in London’s Daily Telegraph (first transatlantic cable opened 1858),
embarked on a circumnavigation of the world via the Suez Canal (opened
1869), the railways crossing the Indian subcontinent (1870), and the U.S.
transcontinental railroad (1869), before hurrying back to London by
steamship, which eclipsed sail for commercial transport in the 1870s. He
financed his trip with a carrying-case of Bank of England banknotes, these
The Classical Gold Standard, 1850-1914 93
bits of colored paper universally accepted in payment from India to Indiana.

The first circumnavigation of the world, led by Ferdinand Magellan in 1522,
took three years. Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines, in hand-to-
hand combat with spear-wielding natives. (The Mactan chief Datu Lapu-
Lapu did not want to be converted to Christianity.)
The “balance of payments,” trade considerations, relative price levels
(“purchasing power parity”), relative interest rates and so forth, were not a
part of this process except perhaps indirectly, as such factors influenced the
demand for money and thus the market value of the currency. There was no
“price-specie flow mechanism,” 1 a still-popular notion that Bank of Italy
researcher Filippo Cesarano called, in 2006, a “myth that in no way reflects
how the gold standard actually worked .” 2 Just as is the case with currency
boards today, or any other Currency Option One arrangement, the only
criterion of importance was the value of the currency vs. its gold parity.
10%
8%
6%
France
4%
Britain
2%
China
0%
U.S.
-2% Japan
-4%
-6%
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Current Account Balances As A Percentage of GDP, 1850-2013 3

five year moving average
The monopoly central banks that issued gold-linked banknotes after

1850 were operationally little different than the 1500+ banks issuing gold-
linked banknotes in the United States prior to 1860, or the many thousands
of other note-issuing banks in the European experience going back at least
to the goldsmith-bankers of mid-seventeenth century England, if not
beyond to the Italian banks of the fourteenth century. 4 No particular
cooperation was needed between central banks, just as no cooperation was
needed among the U.S.’s many minor note-issuing banks. Each was able to
maintain the value of its banknotes independent of the actions of all the
others, and adjust its assets and liabilities independently to attain this goal.
The status of most central banks as monopoly- or near-monopoly issuers
did not markedly change their natures. Monopoly did not give them
dictatorial powers, but simply greater market share.
The Bank of England led by example, not by hegemony and coercion.
The only “rule of the game” 5 was to, by one of the various operating
techniques available, adjust the base money supply appropriately to
maintain currency values at their gold parities. 6
Monetary and financial arrangements nevertheless took on a much
more international and integrated character after 1870. International
movements of capital (represented as a current account surplus or deficit)
reached a level not again seen until the 1990s. Railways and steamships
enabled the production of international trade commodities, and their
transport worldwide, to an unprecedented degree. Global merchandise
trade, as a percentage of GDP, reached a level in 1913 that was not
significantly exceeded until 1995. (On a value-added basis, it has not exceed
the 1913 level to this day.) London began to be used as a clearinghouse for
all manner of international payments, thus relieving any need to transact
with long-distance shipments of coinage or bullion.
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Britain: Foreign Trade as a Percentage of GDP, 1816-2015 7

imports and exports combined
The fundamental mechanism by which currency parities were

maintained was similar to currency boards today, which accomplish the
same task reliably and without incident, although typically with a different
“standard of value” such as the euro or dollar. If a currency issuer failed to
adjust its supply of base money properly, resulting in the same outcome as
would have been obtained with a simple currency board, then various
problems would emerge that would quickly lead to either capital controls
or a failure of the system (as discussed in Chapter 1). In practice, unlike the
relatively transparent and simple mechanism of a currency board, the
major central banks of the Classical Gold Standard era used a wide array of
techniques, and had considerable discretion as to which tool they would
choose on any given day. This has made their operations rather difficult to
decipher. Nevertheless, currency management was placid and without
difficulty.
Just as with currency boards today, the basic mechanism was to reduce
the base money supply when the currency’s value was a little below the
intended gold parity, and to increase supply when the value was a little
higher. 8 The base money supply was the outcome of this process. It was
thus a “residual”: the base money supply was whatever was necessary to
maintain the value of the currency at its gold parity. Central banks, or other
independent note-issuing banks, had four basic methods to accomplish this:
1) Gold convertibility: Anyone could bring gold to the central

bank, and receive base money (banknotes or central bank deposits)
in return, at or near the parity price. Alternately, anyone could
bring base money (banknotes or deposits) to the central bank, and
get gold bullion in return. Total base money outstanding would
expand or contract by the amount tendered. The timing and size of
the transaction would be determined by the private market.
If a currency’s value was a little low compared to its gold
parity, it would take more of the currency to buy gold. In other
words, the “market price of gold” would be a little higher than the
parity–perhaps $21.00/oz. vs. the official parity at $20.67/oz. The
central bank would be the cheapest seller in the world gold market,
and the central bank would experience gold conversion outflows.
The monetary base would contract by the amount of the outflow,
thus raising the currency value until it returned to its parity value
and outflows ceased. If the currency’s value was a little higher than
its gold parity, then it would take less currency to buy gold, and the
“market price of gold” would be a little lower than the parity
(perhaps $20.20/oz. vs. $20.67). The central bank would be the
highest bidder for gold in the world gold market, and the central
bank would experience gold conversion inflows. The monetary
base would expand by the amount of the inflow, depressing the
value of the currency until it returned to its parity and inflows

ceased.
2) Open market operations: The central bank could buy or sell

assets on the open market. Assets would be purchased with newly-
created base money, thus expanding base money by the amount of
the purchase. Sales of assets would contract base money. The most
common asset was domestic government bonds, although a central
bank could buy and sell gold bullion, or another asset, via the same
mechanism. The timing and size of the transaction would be
determined by the central bank management.
3) Foreign exchange transactions. The central bank could

purchase or sell foreign currency on the foreign exchange market,
which would typically be exchanged for the debt of a foreign
government, or held as foreign bank balances. This would end up
as “foreign reserves.” Base money would increase or decrease
accordingly, in a manner much like the process of gold conversion.
The timing and size could be discretionary, or could be automatic
(a permanent offer to buy or sell at the parity price) as in gold
conversion or an orthodox currency board. In either case, the
foreign currency would be bought (domestic currency sold) when
the domestic currency’s market value was high vs. the parity value,
and the converse when the domestic currency’s value was low.
Foreign currency parity values would be determined as the product
of their parity values vs. gold. Because the foreign exchange market
was extremely liquid, and transactions had very low cost without
any of the difficulties of shipping and storing bullion, variation in
currency values vs. parity values would often become apparent in
foreign exchange markets before gold conversion would occur.
Thus, transactions in foreign exchange became the primary
mechanism of base money adjustment for many central banks or
other currency issuers.
4) Discounting and lending: Central banks engaged in

“discounting,” which was to purchase the bills of a third party,
typically of one to three months’ duration, at a discount to face
value reflecting a short-term interest rate. This was typically done
in competition with commercial banks offering the same services.
The central bank could also make direct loans to entities, most
likely other financial institutions, in the process also changing the
monetary base. This involved the cooperation of both the central
bank and the borrower, in terms of timing and size. 9
In addition to these processes, a central bank could also manage the

asset composition of its balance sheet at will. Any central bank (or
independent issuing bank) has the choice of holding a greater or lesser
amount of gold bullion, and other assets typically consisting of interest-
bearing debt securities and direct lending. More bullion would serve as a
reserve against possible gold conversion demands. However, the
profitability of these largely-private institutions would be increased by
holding a greater amount of debt securities. Also, some inventory of debt,
lending, and foreign exchange would further enable open-market
operations, foreign exchange operations, and lending and discounting.
Thus, the mixture of each of these asset types on the balance sheet could
change as was deemed appropriate, with no particular monetary
consequences. (Swapping one asset for another, while leaving the total
assets unchanged, does not change the base money supply.)
Bank managements would often act in a fashion complementary to
bullion flows – reducing balances of securities, discounting and lending
when there were substantial gold outflows, and raising them when there
were inflows. In this way, a variety of tools could be used to produce the
reduction in base money supply that the bullion outflow indicated. In the
shorter term and smaller scale, however, changes in discounts, securities
and bullion could often move in opposite directions, as part of the day-to-
day management of the banking portfolio.
These four elements could interact with each other. Open-market
purchases of bonds could lead to gold outflows, and also a decline in short-
term interest rates, thus leading to a reduction in the volume of lending and
discounting. Open-market sales of bonds could produce the opposite effect.
An expansion of lending and discounting could lead to a sagging currency
value vs. other gold-linked currencies, and outflows of foreign exchange
reserves. Nevertheless, gold convertibility (and foreign exchange
convertibility, to the extent that it operated in a similar automatic fashion)
insured that the value of the currency would remain at its gold parity, and
that base money supply was adjusted to produce this outcome. The means
by which this total base money supply was achieved – the mix of reserve
asset types, and the various transactions in reserve asset types – could
come about by a variegated process subject to considerable day-to-day
managerial discretion.
The Bank of England maintained a substantial portion of its assets in
the form of discounting and direct lending at all times. The typical maturity
of discounted notes was forty to fifty days. Loans were commonly for seven
days to three months. 10 The rate at which the Bank of England made these
loans was the Bank’s discount rate. The Bank of England was thus in
competition with a great many other financial houses, who were willing to
make similar loans or discounts, at a market rate of interest. If the Bank of
England’s discount rate was higher than the market rate, borrowers would
naturally pay back the loans or discount (sell) their bills at a more
competitive rate, and the Bank of England’s total amount of lending would
shrink. A discount rate at or slightly below the market rate could allow (on
the discretion of both borrower and lender) an increase in lending.
The discount rate acted as a means to adjust the total volume of lending
and discounting on the central bank’s balance sheet, and thus a means to
affect total base money supply. The Bank of England, and all other central
banks operating in the same model, would have to keep their discount rate
near the market rate, if they were to maintain a stable volume of lending. As
market rates changed, so too must the Bank’s discount rate. Thus, discount
rate changes are not necessarily representative of anything in themselves,
and may merely reflect natural market movements.
base money deposits

120 notes in circulation coin and bullion
securities loans and discounts
100
80
millions of pounds
60
40
20
0
1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910
Britain: Bank of England, Assets and Liabilities, 1905-1910 11
Unfortunately, the historical discount rate tends to gain excessive

attention today, within the Keynesian model of interest rate manipulation
as a means of macroeconomic management. It was just one tool, among
many, to adjust base money supply and balance sheet composition, with the
goal of maintaining currency value at gold parities.
In practice, a raise in the discount rate might lead to an inflow of gold
bullion at the Bank of England. How would this come about? Neither the
purchase of a short-term bill, nor its eventual repayment, involved any
transactions in gold. A rise in the discount rate would render the Bank
relatively uncompetitive against other lenders. The Bank’s loan book would
shrink, along with the base money supply. This base money contraction
would tend to lead to a rise in currency value. If the currency’s value rose
above its gold parity then gold bullion would be offered to the Bank in trade
for base money. The Bank would be the highest bidder in the gold bullion
market.
Today, many interpretations of the pre-1914 era have an excessive
focus on “confidence” in central banks, and “cooperation” between central
banks. The basic reason for this is because the mechanisms by which gold
parities were maintained are not understood. 12 Without this understanding,
some reason must be invented by which currencies nevertheless
maintained unchanging gold parities for decade after decade, an experience
very different from many recent central banks whose ill-managed “currency
pegs” blow up over and over – the inherent instability of Currency Option
Three. Yet, today’s currency boards are extremely reliable, and have no
need for “confidence” or “cooperation.” These systems, like the gold
standard systems of the pre-1914 era, are automatic Currency Option One
systems.
The Composition of Major Currencies
The Bank of England served as the model for monopoly central banks
worldwide, and also illustrated typical behavior for smaller note-issuing
banks in those countries where currency monopoly had not yet been
instituted. A look at the Bank’s long-term and also short-term operation
gives a flavor of the practical application of the worldwide gold standard
during the period.
On a weekly basis, the Bank of England’s assets and liabilities showed
considerable variation. The Bank was active in bullion (gold conversion),
open-market operations in bonds, and discounting and lending on a
continuous basis. Overall base money varied considerably in the short-
term, reflecting seasonality and also a high degree of variability in public
deposits, the government’s bank account at the Bank.
Variation in gold bullion represents gold conversion. When the pound’s
value was a little below its gold parity, base money would be converted to
gold and gold outflows would ensue. This outflow would coincide with a
corresponding reduction in base money. When the pound’s value was a
little higher than its gold parity, gold inflows would occur, and base money
would expand in proportion. Continuous activity in gold shows that this
occurred on a weekly and even daily basis. Thus, any oversupply or
undersupply of base money from discounts or open-market operations of
bonds would be naturally corrected by corresponding changes in the
monetary base from gold conversion. The overall level of base money was
thus an amount appropriate to keep the value of the pound at its gold
parity. The three elements would thus often work in opposite directions: an
expansion of debt holdings (bonds and discounts) might correspond with

an outflow of gold; and a contraction of debt holdings might correspond
with an inflow of gold. This, as some observers have noted, is somewhat
contrary to expectations that bullion reserves and debt holdings would
expand or contract in tandem.
120
Total Assets
Government Debt
100 Other government securities
Other securities
Coins and bullion
80
millions of pounds
60
40
20
0
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
Britain: Bank of England, Aggregate Assets, 1790-1914 13
However, on the larger scale and longer term, the Bank maintained its
gold bullion reserve in a stable ratio with base money. It did not allow
bullion reserves to decline continuously, or to expand continuously. If
bullion had an extended outflow, debt holdings could be contracted
(perhaps via a rise in the discount rate, making the Bank relatively
uncompetitive vs. other lenders), which would support the value of the
pound and thus turn outflow to inflow. Continuous bullion inflows would
indicate that debt holdings could expand, thus increasing interest-bearing
assets and the profits of the Bank. In this larger scale, debt holdings and
bullion reserves would indeed expand or contract in tandem.
Central banks that also had substantial transactions in foreign exchange
(in practice, nearly all of them except for the U.S., Britain and France) added
yet another component of complexity to the already-complex model of the
Bank of England. However, behind this complexity lay an essential
simplicity: when the currency’s value rose against the reserve currency, the
reserve currency would be bought and the domestic currency sold on the
foreign exchange market. This would increase the monetary base and thus
depress the value of the domestic currency. The opposite would occur when
the domestic currency was weak vs. the reserve currency. The operating
mechanism was thus identical to direct bullion conversion, and identical to
currency boards today. Although the simultaneous operation of bullion
conversion, foreign exchange activity, open-market operations in bonds,
and direct lending and discounting, can seem dauntingly difficult, the basic
operation was simple: when the currency’s value was high, base money
would expand; and when the currency’s value was low, base money would
contract.
120
Total
Base Money
100
Notes in Circulation
Capital
Deposits
80
millions of pounds
60
40
20
0
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
Britain: Bank of England, Aggregate Liabilities, 1790-1914 14
The monetary stability and long-term reliability of the gold standard

produced very low and stable interest rates throughout Europe. Britain’s
everlasting Consol bonds – government bonds of infinite maturity – were
eventually replicated elsewhere. In practice, yields on government debt
worldwide traded at a spread to Consols, reflecting their lower perceived
reliability. Nevertheless, the low and stable gold standard interest rates that
Amsterdam had enjoyed in the seventeenth century, and Britain in the
eighteenth, spread to government and corporate borrowers throughout the
world by the end of the nineteenth.
Political Unification and the Spread of Central Banks
In 1850, Britain had a privately-owned note-issuing monopoly central

bank, with a history of success stretching back to 1694. This model would
later be imitated throughout the world; but, at that time, it had been
imitated primarily in France. The United States had overtly rejected the
monopoly model three times, in favor of a free-banking or multiple-issuer
system. Sweden, another early paper-currency adopter, had experienced a
long series of difficulties and stretches of unreliability, the krona’s value vs.
gold finally settling down in the 1840s. The Netherlands also had a new
monopoly central bank after 1814. The rest of Europe still used mostly
coinage, with a scattering of small local banks of issue. This situation was
not particularly chaotic, as the myriad coinages and banks of issue were
unified by the use of gold and silver as the basis of money everywhere. The
stability of the market gold:silver ratio since 1650 allowed governments to
adopt formal bimetallic systems, in the United States and in Europe.
1,200
Coin and bullion
loans, securities, notes
1,000 discounts
800
million marks
600
400
200
-
1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905
Germany: Reichsbank, Assets, 1876-1907 15

This picture of small-scale diversity mirrored a somewhat unstable and

diverse political situation, with the Napoleonic Wars unsettling
governments across the continent early in the nineteenth century. Brief rule
by France brought with it the Napoleonic Code, and also experience with
the uniform French franc. Another round of political turmoil in the 1860s
and 1870s resulted in substantially new government arrangements, often
accompanied by new monetary arrangements, typically in the direction of
central bank currency monopoly and greater use of banknotes.
2,500
Notes in circulation
Capital
Deposits and other liabilities
2,000 Notes and deposits
1,500
million marks
1,000
500
-
1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905
Germany: Reichsbank, Liabilities, 1876-1907 16
In Switzerland before 1798, about 75 entities made coinage, resulting

in about 860 different coins in circulation. France invaded in 1798, turning
Switzerland into an ally known as the Helvetic Republic. Swiss
independence was re-established in 1815. A brief civil war ensued in 1847,
leading to a new federal constitution in 1848 that established the
government that continues to the present day. The new constitution
specified that the federal government would be the only entity allowed to
make coinage in Switzerland. In 1850, the Swiss franc was introduced,
equivalent to the French franc at 4.5 grams of silver or 290.322 milligrams
of gold. The Swiss National Bank was formed in 1907 as a monopoly issuer
of banknotes. Despite its name, shares in the bank trade on the Swiss stock
exchange today.
Italy was invaded by France in 1796. By 1799, France had conquered
most of Italy. In 1809, the French army occupied Rome. After France’s reign
in Italy ended in 1814, Italy entered a long process of unification of the
various small states that occupied the peninsula. In 1861, the Kingdom of
Italy was established, and the Italian lira was introduced that same year. It
had a value again equivalent to the French franc at 4.5 grams of silver or
290.322 milligrams of gold. Small independent banknote-issuing banks had
been active since the first half of the nineteenth century, although banknote
use was still sparse. After the introduction of the lira standard, existing
banks retained their right to issue banknotes. In 1874, six competing banks
were authorized to issue currency in Italy. A financial crisis and scandal
resulted in the Bank Act of 1893, which created the Bank of Italy from the
merger of three banknote-issuing banks; three others remained. In 1926,
the Bank of Italy gained a monopoly on banknote issuance.
4500
4000 Bullion
Commercial Discounts
3500 Total Loans
3000
million francs
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905
France: Bank of France, Assets, 1875-1908 17
The Dutch Republic had been a loose confederation of largely

independent provinces. The Dutch guilder was a popular coin, among many
that circulated from throughout Europe, but the seven Dutch provinces took
a libertarian approach and did not have an official currency standard. After
invasion in 1806, Napoleon put his brother Louis Bonaparte on the throne
of the Kingdom of Holland, a French vassal state. After France’s departure,
William I established the independent United Kingdom of the Netherlands
in 1815. Even before this official recognition, however, William established
De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) in 1814, which remains the central bank of
the Netherlands today. The Dutch guilder standard was introduced at the
same time, with its parity of 605.61 milligrams of fine gold unchanged
(except for a tiny adjustment in 1875) until 1914. From its inception, the
DNB was the sole issuer of banknotes in the Netherlands, and also served as
the government’s bank, receiving and making all government payments.
Shares in the bank were owned by private investors. The new monopoly
central bank was initially greeted with mistrust, however, and coins were
generally preferred to banknotes. 18 From 1863, the bank was required to
hold bullion equivalent to 40% of circulating banknotes.
6000 Banknotes in Circulation

Private Deposits
Government Deposits
5000 Total Deposits
Banknotes and Deposits
4000
million francs
3000
2000
1000
0
1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905
France: Bank of France, Liabilities, 1875-1908 19
Belgium gained independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands in

the Belgian Revolution (1830-1831). In 1831, Leopold I became the new
King of Belgium. In 1832, the Belgian franc was introduced, also equivalent
to the French franc. In 1850, the National Bank of Belgium was created,
with 100% private capital. Today, 50% of NBB stock is freely traded on the
Belgian stock exchange, with the other 50% of shares reportedly owned by
the Belgian government.
The Latin Monetary Union was established in 1865, among France,
Belgium, Italy and Switzerland. The treaty established an official bimetallic
ratio of 15.5:1 among all participants, and standardized coinage that would
be freely exchangeable. Greece joined in 1867. Spain and Romania
considered joining, and took steps to conform their currencies to the LMU
standard. The French colonies Algeria and Tunisia became unofficial
participants in 1865; Peru adopted the franc system in 1863; Colombia and
Venezuela joined in 1871; Finland joined in 1877; Serbia in 1878; Bulgaria
in 1880; the Dutch West Indies in 1904; and Albania in 1912. Due to the
drop of silver vs. gold in the 1870s, bimetallism was provisionally
suspended in 1873, and this made permanent in 1878. The LMU bimetallic
system had migrated to gold monometallism.
5.00%
4.50%
4.00%
3.50%
3.00%
2.50%
2.00%
1.50%
1.00%
0.50%
0.00%
1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
Britain: Yield on Consol Bond, 1820-1913 20
After the French departed Spain in 1814, a long period of political

unrest followed. In 1868, a revolt led by the military deposed queen Isabella
II. The Spanish peseta was introduced in 1869. After a period of further
turmoil, Isabella’s son Alfonso became King of Spain in 1874, with the
establishment of a constitutional monarchy that lasted until 1931. The
peseta used the French franc standard of 4.5 grams of silver or 290.322
milligrams of gold, with gold monometallism prevailing after 1873. The
Bank of Spain was founded in 1782 as a privately-owned entity to provide
financing for the government. It did not issue banknotes until 1829, when it
gained a monopoly on note issuance in Madrid. In 1874, the Bank of Spain
became the monopoly issuer of banknotes in all of Spain.
Portugal’s first paper money was issued by the government in 1797. By
the 1820s, several private banks issued banknotes. The Bank of Portugal
was established in 1846, as a privately-owned banknote-issuing bank. In
1891, the Bank of Portugal became the monopoly issuer of banknotes in
Portugal.
6%
5%
Australia
Belgium
4%
Canada
Switzerland
3%
Germany
France
2% Britain
Netherlands
1% Sweden
0%
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
Government Bond Yields, 1870-1914 21
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 accelerated the process of

German unification, leading to the creation of a unified German state in
1871. Previously, Germany had 31 central banks, and each independent
state issued their own money. In 1870, a law was passed that banned the
formation of any more central banks. The German mark was introduced in
1873. In 1876, the privately-owned Reichsbank became the primary issuer
of currency in Germany, replacing most existing note-issuing banks
although four remained until 1914.
The Franco-Prussian War was a disaster for France. Napoleon III
himself surrendered to the Prussians in battle, effectively ending the Second
Empire (1852-1870). The Third Republic (1870-1940) emerged as a result.
The modern franc, established with the Bank of France in 1800, maintained
its value until 1914. The French franc did not suffer much during the war,
but conversion into bullion had been suspended. Resumption of gold
convertibility after peace resolved lingering doubts as to the reliability of
the franc.
For Russia, the biggest political event in the nineteenth century was the
freeing of the serfs in 1861, which led to a major adjustment in internal
politics. Among the reforms of that era was the establishment of the State
Bank of Russia in 1860. The bank was given the task of consolidating and
cleaning up the messes of a number of predecessor state banks, including
their unreliable banknotes. This was not fully accomplished until a reform
in 1898 established a monometallic gold standard system, with the State
Bank the sole issuer of high quality, redeemable banknotes. Unlike the
privately-owned Bank of England model, the State Bank of Russia was
under the direct control of the Ministry of Finance. 22
10%
9%
8%
7% Denmark
Spain
6%
Finland
5%
Italy
4% Japan
Norway
3%
Portugal
2%
1%
0%
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
Government Bond Yields, 1870-1914 23
The United States continued with a multi-issuer “free banking” model

until the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Nearly seven thousand
U.S. banks issued banknotes in 1910. Even after the Federal Reserve’s
creation, smaller banks issued their own banknotes until the end of the
1930s. In 1930, Federal Reserve Notes still accounted for less than half of
the currency in circulation in the United States.
However, the libertarian “free banking” model that prevailed before
1860 was substantially modified by the introduction of the National Bank
system in 1863 – a somewhat strange development considering that the
United States was embroiled in Civil War at the time, and also issuing
government currency (the “greenbacks”) to finance it. The National Bank
system homogenized the many independent currency issuers, by requiring
that all member banks take each others’ banknotes at face value.
Independent banks’ gold bullion reserves were centralized at the U.S.
Treasury. Treasury-issued silver certificates and gold certificates

themselves became the most common form of banknote, eclipsing the
combined circulation of all the National Banks by 1900.
$4,000
National Bank Notes

$3,500 United States Notes
Treasury Notes of 1890
silver certificates
$3,000
gold certificates
minor coin
subsidiary silver
$2,500
silver dollars
millions of dollars
gold coin
$2,000
$1,500
$1,000
$500
$0
1880 1890 1900 1910
U.S.: Composition of Currency in Circulation, 1880-1912 24
The Civil War, and the issuance of United States Notes (“greenbacks”)
to finance it, led to the effective devaluation and floating of the dollar. A
long process of restoration returned the dollar to its prewar gold parity in
1879. During this time, in 1873, production of silver coinage was halted,
which effectively put the dollar on a monometallic gold basis as was
occurring in Europe at the time. Thus, the United States, although it did not
have a monopoly central bank in the model of the Bank of England,
nevertheless moved considerably along the path toward a homogenized

and centralized currency system.
The Meiji Restoration of 1868 propelled Japan from medieval
isolationism into nineteenth century industrial capitalism. A confusing stew
of archaic coinage, foreign coinage, and a menagerie of unreliable
banknotes was replaced by a new unified currency, the yen, in 1871. It was
conceived on a bimetallic basis, worth 24.26 grams of pure silver (roughly
equivalent to the Spanish silver dollar coins then in use worldwide) or 1.5
grams of gold. However, the decline in the value of silver immediately
afterwards effectively put the yen on a silver basis. Prefectural
governments (the former medieval domains) still retained the right of
currency issuance, via “National Banks.” In part to finance military
expenditures related to the consolidation of the new state, in 1868-1878
paper currencies from both the National Banks and the central government
were overissued and depreciated against both silver and gold. A return to a
silver basis took place in 1879-81. The Bank of Japan was founded in 1882,
after the Belgian model, and was given a monopoly on controlling the
money supply in 1884. The Bank of Japan’s first banknotes were issued in
1885. The declining and unstable value of silver vs. gold led the Japanese
government to adopt gold monometallism in 1897, with the yen then worth
$0.50 U.S. dollars. The notes of the National Banks were phased out in 1899.
Shares in the Bank of Japan trade today on the Tokyo stock market.
The Bank of Korea was founded in 1909, with the won equivalent to one
Japanese yen.
Chinese yuan coins, of silver, were not minted domestically until 1897.
Until then, Chinese were happy to let Spain, and then Mexico, make their
silver coinage. Banknotes reappeared in the second half of the nineteenth
century, issued by independent foreign-owned banks in China. After the
Xinhai Revolution in 1911, which ended the rule of the Qing Dynasty and
established the Republic of China, the number of domestic banks issuing
banknotes multiplied. In 1935, the number of currency issuers was reduced
to four banks, while ownership of silver yuan coins, or silver bullion, was
banned. The currency was soon overissued in response to wartime finance
needs. Inflation and eventually hyperinflation resulted, during World War II
and the civil war that followed. One of the first acts of the communist
government was to establish the People’s Bank of China in 1948, which
issued a gold-based yuan, in banknote form only. All other banks in
communist China were organized as divisions of the central bank.
Gold Monometallism and the Decline of Silver
In 1870, only two countries – Britain and Portugal – had monometallic

gold standard systems. Other countries used some form of bimetallism or a
silver-centric arrangement. An international conference in 1867 sought to
resolve the problems of bimetallism, potentially by adopting a
monometallic gold standard. Also, national coinage standards would be

changed to simplify their ratios with other national coinages. However, no
agreements were formed, and nothing was done. 25 In 1870, the value of
silver compared to gold was 16:1, its historical lower bound, but it then
headed downward. The proximate cause of the decline may have been
related to the adoption of gold monometallism by Germany in 1871, which
was followed by the coinage of about 1,015 million marks (363 tons) of gold
in 1872-73 26 – a little more than the 352 tons of gold production in those
years, and about 1.61% of aboveground gold at the time. By itself it was a
minor matter, hardly significant over the previous five millennium in which
the values of gold and silver were linked. But, apparently the time had
come. As the value of silver dropped during the 1870s, beyond the lowest
values seen in centuries (perhaps ever), bimetallism became impossible
and governments quickly converted to effective monometallic gold
standard systems. This was largely a reaction to market prices.
The Latin Monetary Union effectively instituted gold monometallism
(with silver as a token coinage) by suspending free coinage of silver in
1873. This was a temporary expedient, and expectations at the time were
for a quick return to normalcy. After several years of waiting for a recovery
in silver’s value vs. gold, gold monometallism was made official in 1878.
Norway, Denmark and Sweden had a similar history, with nearly identical
dates. The United States also suspended silver coinage in 1873, as a
temporary expedient, but did not formally embrace monometallism until
1900. The unprecedented decline in silver’s value thus cannot be ascribed
to government policy, although governments’ scramble to adjust to the new
monetary realities probably helped cement the transition. Silver coins
continued in circulation, although they became token coins. Banknotes at
the time were typically in larger denominations, not the small
denominations that could easily displace silver coinage. Silver coinage in
the U.S., for example, more than tripled between 1880 and 1913. Some of
the world’s largest users of monetary silver, notably China and India along
with a broad swath of other less-developed countries in Asia and Latin
America, continued their use of silver coinage.
Another international conference was held in 1892. Unlike the 1867
conference, in which gold monometallism was proposed as an alternative to
the bimetallic policies then common, the 1892 conference was dominated
by bimetallists, as an alternative to gold monometallism that had by then
become the norm. The bimetallists were supported by those (especially
agrarian interests) who desired what amounted to a large devaluation of
currencies, due to the decline in silver’s value vs. gold. This conference also
resulted in general disagreement, and nothing was done. 27
The breakdown of silver’s market value in the 1870s, and its failure to
return to its reliable old relationship vs. gold in the decades that followed,
thus remains something of a mystery. At some fundamental level, it seems,
humanity as a whole decided that gold alone would serve as a monetary
basis of value from that point hence. Silver, which had been a mirror image
of gold for centuries, became unusable as a practical standard of value.
Central Banks as “Lenders of Last Resort”
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Britain experienced a

series of chronic “liquidity shortage crises,” typically around the harvest
season in the autumn. The need to make payments related to the harvest, or
other year-end demands of businesses, led to a rise in demand for base
money in response. Banks found that they all needed to borrow short-term
funds for this purpose, which nobody was able to lend – a system-wide
shortage of base money. The result was a rise in short-term interest rates to
anomalously high levels, and a lack of funds available to borrow at any price
even for the most creditworthy borrowers, with potentially dire
consequences. A solution was found by the Bank of England lending freely,
at a high rate of interest, to banks of high solvency or against good
collateral. This was somewhat counter-intuitive: while other banks were
eager to borrow and refused to lend, the Bank would take the opposite
action. This would increase the base money supply, relieving the systemic
shortage. When the short-term seasonal demand had passed, banks would
pay off their high-interest loans, and the base money supply would
naturally contract. The Bank thus acted as what was known as a “lender of
last resort.” The Bank would not, in any way, support insolvent and failing
banks. A final crisis of this sort took place in 1866, with the insolvency of
Overend and Gurney, London’s largest discounting house. In the ensuing
turmoil, the Bank lent freely at ten percent; Overend was permitted to fail.
The principles of this “lender of last resort” function (using the Overend and
Gurney crisis as an example) were later expressed in Walter Bagehot’s
Lombard Street (1873). The “lender of last resort” function of central banks
was in no way contrary to the principle of the gold standard; the Bank of
England exemplified both for the remainder of the century. Britain never
suffered another liquidity-shortage crisis again.
Talk of an “elastic” currency, able to accommodate seasonal or crisis-
induced changes in the need for base money, did not imply any change in
the value of money, any attempt at manipulating the broader economy via
some change in the money, or any attempt to support otherwise insolvent
banks. The Bank of England’s action to “reduce interest rates” – by lending
freely at a high penalty rate when, absent any action by the Bank, market
interest rates may have soared to higher levels – did not imply any attempt
to manage the broader economy with interest rate manipulation, in the
fashion suggested by the British Mercantilists a century earlier. Yet only
banking specialists understood the exact meanings of these terms. To the
broader public, or a politician, it seemed that central banks “solved the
crisis by printing money” and “reducing interest rates.” Virtually any
financial, fiscal or economic difficulty can be expressed as a “shortage of
money;” and for all of these problems, one simple solution presented itself.
The Mercantilists’ vision of managing the economy by manipulating the
currency began to dance again in their dreams.
A liquidity-shortage crisis in the U.S. in 1907, exacerbated by reserve
requirements that prevented banks from using the resources they had,
provided the political impetus for the introduction of the Federal Reserve in
1913. The Federal Reserve was not supposed to be a “central bank” in the
model of the Bank of England. It would not have a currency monopoly or be
a dominant issuer of banknotes. To allay fears of centralization, the Federal
Reserve system was conceived as a combination of twelve regional banks.
Nor was the Federal Reserve supposed to act as a regular commercial
discount bank, as the Bank of England did. Rather, it was supposed to stand
idly by, awaiting a crisis such as that of 1907. It might have to wait years,
even decades. In a crisis, it would make short-term loans at a penalty
interest rate; a few weeks later, these loans would be paid back, and the
Federal Reserve would return to idleness. In the meantime, it would act as a
payments clearinghouse between banks, replacing existing institutions in
that role. The 1907 crisis was the last liquidity-shortage crisis in the U.S.
The outbreak of war in 1914, and the U.S. entry into that war in 1917
just as the Federal Reserve system was becoming operational, radically
changed the Federal Reserve’s activities. During the 1920s, the Federal
Reserve was acting in much the manner of the Bank of England, active in
the discounting market on a continuous basis and experimenting with
open-market operations in government bonds. Federal Reserve banknotes
constituted roughly half of all banknotes in circulation. By the end of World
War II, the Federal Reserve had become an effective monopoly central bank.
Reserve-Currency Systems Before 1914
A “gold exchange standard” was, essentially, a currency board-like link

to an international gold standard currency, most likely the British pound.
The primary method of operation was foreign-exchange transactions with
the reserve currency.
Austria-Hungary, Russia, Japan, the Netherlands, most Scandinavian
countries, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India and the
Philippines were important examples of “gold-exchange standards” in the
pre-1914 period. “Gold exchange standards” were also used by a variety of
minor currencies, in Asia and Latin America. 28 “It may fairly be said ... “ John
Maynard Keynes wrote in 1914, “that in the last ten years the Gold-
exchange Standard has become the prevailing monetary system of Asia.” 29
The idea of the extreme form of the “gold exchange standard” – in
which there is no convertibility, gold coins do not circulate, and the central
bank’s assets are held entirely in government bonds of the reserve currency
– is attributed to A.M. Lindsay, deputy secretary and treasurer of the Bank
of Bengal, in 1876. 30 India’s silver coinage-centric system had been
problematic since the 1870s, particularly as it was under British rule. In

1898, India adopted a "gold exchange standard" based on the British pound,
a model imitated in other countries in Asia. Numerous governments in
Latin America also had systems based on silver coinage, but which had
lapsed into floating fiat paper currencies. Some of them, including Peru,
Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico, migrated to a gold basis using reserve-
currency systems. 31
300
Bullion
250 Foreign Reserves
Private-sector loans
200 Government loans and bonds
millions of kronor
150
100
50
0
1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
Sweden: Sveriges Riksbank, Assets, 1840-1913 32
In 1903, the governments of Mexico and China asked for the services of
American economists to discuss monetary options. President Theodore
Roosevelt requested the organization of a group known as the “Commission
of the Gold Exchange Standard.” The group soon focused on the Philippines,
which had become a U.S. colonial interest after being taken from Spain in
the Spanish-American War of 1898, and after the U.S. military defeated a
local independence movement in the Philippine-American War of 1899-
1902. The Philippines had a tradition of silver coinage, along with China,
which had become problematic due to the decline in the value of silver
since the 1870s. The chief architect of the Philippine gold exchange
standard was Edwin Walter Kemmerer, who later designed several gold
exchange standards for Latin American countries in the 1920s. 33
The pre-1914 pattern was largely replicated after 1920, with core
European countries on an independent gold standard system and
peripheral countries on some form of gold-exchange standard. The
increasing use of banknotes instead of bullion coins in peripheral countries
after 1920, and the further establishment of monopoly central banks
throughout the world outside of Europe, increased the general dependence
upon gold-exchange standard arrangements as decades passed.
400
Banknotes
350
Deposits
Capital
300 Banknotes + Deposits
250
millions of kronor
200
150
100
50
0
1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
Sweden: Sveriges Riksbank, Liabilities and Capital, 1840-1913 34
In practice, most central banks held “foreign reserves” (foreign

government bonds or foreign bank balances) and engaged in open-market
operations in the foreign exchange market, resulting in changes in foreign
reserve holdings – the essential elements of a currency board or “gold
exchange standard.” For example, if the Swedish krona’s value was dipping
against the British pound on the foreign exchange market, the Sveriges
Riksbank could buy krona and sell pounds, from their foreign exchange
reserves, thus reducing the krona monetary base and supporting the
krona’s value. This could be undertaken before the decline in the krona’s
value reached a point (the “bullion point”) at which krona would be
exchanged for gold with the central bank. In this way, the central bank
could avoid transactions in gold. Thus, there was an effective continuum,
from currency managers that did not use such mechanisms at all, to those
who used them 100% of the time, thus mimicking a modern currency board
completely in operations, although even in that case they might still hold
some gold bullion as a reserve asset.
In 1913, the Sveriges Riksbank had foreign currency reserve assets
(bonds, bills and bank deposits) of 122.1 million kronor, compared to gold
reserves of 102.1 million kronor. Although the central bank maintained
direct gold convertibility, over 99% of its transaction volume in
“international assets” (gold and foreign exchange) that year was via foreign
exchange, in five different currencies – Norwegian and Danish kroner,
British pounds, German marks, and French francs. 35 In this way, it was
acting much like a currency board, with five different reserve currencies
reflecting the underlying single currency of gold. The Riksbank was also
highly active in domestic lending and discounting, with holdings of 180.1
million kronor of private loans, and 3.4 million kronor of domestic
securities.
120
100
80
British pence
60
40
20
0
1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920
Brazil: Value of Brazilian Reals in British Pence, 1808-1913 36

Holdings of foreign exchange reserves increased worldwide during

1900-1913, corresponding to an increase in foreign exchange transactions
as a means of base money adjustment. Foreign exchange holdings of
eighteen official institutions increased from $246.6 million in 1899 to
$1,124.7 million in 1913, a rise of 356%. 37
120
100
80
60 Spain 1870=100
Italy 1905=100
40 Greece 1910=100
Chile 1870=100
Portugal 1870=100
20
Argentina 1882=100
0
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
Spain, Italy, Greece, Chile, Portugal and Argentina: Normalized Foreign

Exchange Rate With British Pounds, 1850-1913 38
Among the three main reserve currencies – Britain, Germany and

France – foreign exchange holdings were minor, and concentrated almost
entirely in Germany. Outside of the major currencies, foreign reserve
holdings were much higher, equivalent to 29.5% of “international assets”
and suggesting that foreign currency transactions were often a primary
means of currency management, as was the case in Sweden. 39 Of this total,
47% was held in British pounds, 30% in French francs, 17% in German
marks, and 6% in other currencies. The ratio of foreign currency reserves to
gold reserves was higher in 1924-1925 but not markedly different,
suggesting that there was not as much difference between the conditions of
1913 and the supposed “gold exchange standard” arrangements of the
1920s, as is often portrayed. 40
(1) (2) (3) total foreign

gold silver foreign (1+2+3) exchange
millions of U.S. dollars at exchange ratio
$20.67/oz. (3)/(1+3)
Four major currencies 2412.9 712.7 52.8 3,178.4 2.1%
U.K. 164.9 NA - 164.9 -
U.S. 1,290.4 523.3 - 1,813.7 -
France 678.9 123.5 3.2 805.6 0.5
Germany 278.7 65.9 49.6 394.2 15.1
Other Europe 1,667.4 279.7 543.3 2,490.4 24.6%

Austria-Hungary 251.4 50.7 17.1 319.2 6.4
Belgium 48.1 10.8 32.2 91.1 40.1
Bulgaria 10.6 4.5 2.7 17.8 20.3
Denmark 19.6 1.3 6.2 27.1 24.0
Finland 7.0 0.4 20.9 28.3 74.9
Greece 4.8 0.3 43.9 49.0 90.1
Iceland 0.1 - NA NA NA
Italy, three banks of issue 265.4 21.3 38.1 324.8 12.6
Netherlands 61.1 3.9 6.2 71.2 9.2
Norway 11.9 0.4 10.8 23.1 47.6
Portugal 8.1 9.6 NA NA NA
Romania 29.2 0.3 15.9 45.4 35.3
Russia 786.2 31.2 305.6 1,123.0 28.0
Serbia 11.2 0.7 0.8 12.7 6.7
Spain 92.4 138.8 NA NA NA
Sweden 27.4 1.3 34.3 63.0 55.6
Switzerland 32.9 4.2 8.6 45.7 20.7
Other ex-Europe 674.0 106.7 426.8 1207.5 38.8%

Argentina 256.1 NA 5.0 261.1 1.9
Bolivia 2.6 NA NA 2.6 NA
Brazil 89.6 NA NA 89.6 NA
Canada 115.4 0.2 13.2 128.8 10.2
Chile NA NA 46.6 46.6 NA
Uruguay 10.8 1.7 NA 12.5 NA
Algeria 8.2 NA NA 8.2 NA
Australia 22.0 NA 2.3 24.3 9.5
Ceylon 1.0 3.8 3.1 7.9 75.6
Egypt 10.5 0.7 8.0 19.2 43.2
India 83.0 88.4 136.3 307.7 62.2
Japan, Bank of Japan 63.8 0.2 78.3 142.3 55.1
Yokohama Specie Bank 0.6 NA 115.7 116.3 99.5
Netherlands East Indies 10.4 11.7 6.9 29.0 39.9
Philippines NA NA 11.4 11.4 NA
Bullion and Foreign Exchange Reserves, 1913

source: Lindert (1969)
The major European powers maintained their currencies’ par values

with gold with good discipline, but many others did not. Along with greater
centralization of banknote issuance came the ability to float and devalue the
currency. War with Austria in 1866 ended gold convertibility in Italy,
effectively until 1914. However, the lira did not sink more than about 10%
versus its gold parity during those years, and for much of the time was very
close to its gold parity – an example of an effective gold standard without
gold convertibility. Portugal suspended convertibility and floated from
1891-1914. Spain floated 1884-1914. In both cases, the currencies did not
decline much, reaching the outbreak of World War I without losing more
than 20% of their original gold parity values. Brazil, Argentina and Chile did
not fare as well, with periods of floating and substantial devaluation
punctuated by intermittent attempts to return to gold standard discipline. 41
By the late nineteenth century, the increasing use of banknotes instead of
coin, and increasing monopolization of banknote issuance, were already
leading to repeated instances of banknote overissuance (often in response
to wartime financing needs), depreciation, and extended episodes of
floating paper fiat currencies.
Increasing Use of Banknotes and Deposits
Britain had £20.25 million of banknotes in circulation in 1844. In 1909,

it had £29.21 million, a surprisingly modest increase over a period of more
than sixty years. 42 Deposits of joint-stock banks expanded from £235
million in 1878 to £712 million in 1909. Banking was already widely
adopted in Britain by 1880, and did not have a dramatic expansion from a
low base. However, after 1880, London expanded its role as a clearinghouse
for payments worldwide. Deposits of colonial and foreign banks (with
London offices) increased from £110 million in 1878 to £614 million in
1909. 43 A bank in Germany could settle a payment with a bank in Argentina,
via their branches or subsidiaries in London – and with the help of the
telegraph, in a few minutes’ time.
Although the Bank of England maintained an effective monopoly on
banknote issuance, as late as 1909 there remained twenty-three smaller
banks allowed to issue banknotes in Britain, grandfathered by the Banking
Act of 1844. Their issue was limited to £1,204,490, about 5% of banknotes
at the time; actual issuance in 1909 was £312,886. 44
In 1871, deposits of all banks in Sweden were equivalent to 1.6x of
banknotes in circulation. In 1913, bank deposits were 9.1x of banknotes in
circulation, illustrating the expansion of banking (and interbank payments)
as an alternative to notes and coins during that period. 45 As early as 1885,
gold coins in circulation were estimated at only 8% of banknotes, reflecting
Sweden’s over two centuries of experience with paper currency by that
time, including banknotes in small denominations. 46
In Italy, banks were so little used in 1861 that bank deposits totaled
only 13% of currency in circulation – not surprising considering the
political turmoil leading to the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy that
year. By 1885, bank deposits exceeded currency in circulation, and in 1913,
deposits were 266% of currency. 47
The unification of Germany, and the unification of its currency with the
introduction of the mark and a Reichsbank monopoly, was followed by a
giant expansion of banking. In 1880, commercial banks had 529 million
marks of deposits, compared to 945 million of banknotes in circulation and
1,275 million of gold coin. 48 In 1907, deposits had risen to 7,067 million
marks, 49 an increase of thirteen times. Acceptance credit among Berlin’s
nine largest banks grew from 8.2 million marks in 1860 to 80.3 million in
1880 and 1,392 million in 1913. 50 In 1907, the Reichsbank had 1,478
million marks of banknotes in circulation. Other note-issuing banks had a
total of 142 million marks. 51 The banknote/deposit ratio was 1:4.4 that
year.
In 1871, deposits of savings banks in France were 537 million francs. In
1908, this had expanded to 5,226 million. 52 However, this was still
relatively low compared to 2,307 million of gold coinage in circulation, and
4,310 million of banknotes, in 1903. 53
In 1880, the U.S. had currency in circulation of $973 million, consisting
of $226 million of gold coin, $69 million of silver coin, and $678 million of
banknotes. 54 Bank deposits totaled $2,082 million. The currency/deposit
ratio was 1:2.1. In 1913, currency totaled $3,419 million including $608
million of gold coin, $226 million of silver coin, and $2,530 million of
banknotes. Bank deposits totaled $17,735 million, a currency/deposit ratio
of 1:5.2. 55
Gold Mining Expansion
Two mining booms took place in the 1840-1914 period, which have
often been accused of causing changes in the value of gold during that time.
The first began in the 1840s.
By 1847, the production of gold mines had already expanded
considerably, with Russia alone contributing about 25 metric tons out of a
total of 54 metric tons that year. This was more than triple the 17 metric
tons that had been mined in 1830. However, that rise was soon
overshadowed when gold was discovered in California in January 1848.
World production reached a peak of 227 tons in 1855, over thirteen times
the 1830 level. The quantities were unimaginable: in 1848, two men with
hand tools were said to have extracted $17,000 (about 822 ounces) of gold
in seven days’ work. 56 A mania ensued. Additional discoveries in Australia
in 1851 raised global production still further.
But did this unprecedented expansion in mine output undermine gold’s
role as a stable measure of value? Did gold’s value change? Gold is generally
not consumed, but instead accumulates gradually over time, in the form of
bullion and jewelry. In 1855, an estimated 18,461 metric tons of
aboveground gold existed in the world, the product of over 4,500 years of
gold mining throughout human history. A The 227 tons mined in 1855 was
only 1.3% of this figure. For most commodities, annual production and
“supply” are nearly synonymous. However, in this case, the “supply” of gold
hardly changed. Thus, it would not be surprising to find that the value of
gold also hardly changed.
3,000
2,500
2,000
metric tons
1,500
1,000
500
0
1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Annual World Gold Mining Production, 1800-2012 57
Unfortunately, there is no ultimate measure of value against which gold

can be compared. However, commodity prices have long served as useful
A This estimate comes from Gold Fields Minerals Services, an analytical advisory
now part of Thompson/Reuters. Aboveground gold statistics are subject to
substantial debate. Production statistics after 1492 are generally agreed-upon, but
estimates of accumulated production before 1492 are wildly divergent. GFMS’s
implied estimate of 12,780 tons in 1492 is on the high end of debated figures. It is
apparently based on a study by Govett and Govett (1982). Others, including Turk
(2012), have argued for figures that are half or less than this. Cutting the pre-1492
figure in half, for example, would reduce the 1848 aboveground gold figure by 6,390
tons, or 37%. By 1920, the difference loses relevance as the GFMS aboveground gold
estimate is 40,113 tons. In 2011, it was 171,300 tons.
circumstantial evidence of changes in monetary value. Commodity prices

vary due to their own, nonmonetary supply and demand factors, but any
major change in monetary value should be evident in commodity prices.
250
200
150
metric tons
100
50
0
1820 1830 1840 1850
World Gold Production, 1820-1860 58
In the United States, the Warren Pearson index of commodity prices

generally declined from 1830 to 1843, and remained mildly depressed
during the 1840s. This was contrary to the tripling of gold production that
occurred during that time. A shorter-term rise and decline of commodity
prices in the late 1830s was not correlated with gold production at all, and
probably represents changes in the nonmonetary supply/demand
characteristics of commodities. Commodity prices did not begin to move
higher until 1851, over three years after the discovery of gold in California,
and peaked in 1855. This peak did not even exceed the peak of 1837, and
this price index ended 1859 almost exactly at the level of 1830. In the end, it
is hard to find substantial evidence of any change in gold’s monetary value
at all during this period.
A final clue is given by gold:silver ratios. The value of gold vs. silver did
decline a little after 1845, from roughly a 1:16 ratio to 1:15.5, a change of
about 3%. World silver production rose from an estimated 596 tons per
year average during the decade of the 1830s, to 905 tons in the 1856-1860
period, a rise of 52%, while gold production rose roughly ten times.
25,000
20,000
15,000
metric tons
10,000
5,000
0
1820 1830 1840 1850
Estimated World Aboveground Gold Supply, 1820-1860 59
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1820 1830 1840 1850
U.S.: Warren-Pearson Commodities Price Index, 1820-1860 60

After 1860, the Civil War makes interpretation of U.S. commodity prices
difficult. However, annual data of commodity prices in Britain indicate that
no great rise in commodity prices followed 1850. Instead, after a slightly
anomalous dip in the 1840s, prices were quite stable around a plateau that
was unchanged since roughly 1600. Thus, it appears that the extraordinary
increase in gold production in the 1850s caused no meaningful change in
gold’s value.
During the 1880s and 1890s, world commodity prices fell to unusual
lows, creating distress among a broad swath of commodity producers
including family farms. Did this “deflation” represent a monetary effect
caused by a rise in gold’s value, or was it again a matter of the
supply/demand conditions for commodities – a lower market value for
commodities, as measured in money of stable value?
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1750
1760
1770
1780
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
Warren-Pearson Index in Gold oz., 1750-1913 61
Mining supply of gold tapered gently down during this period, as the
discoveries of California and Australia were depleted. However, the levels of
production were still many multiples of anything in the pre-1840 era,
averaging about 170 tons per year, or ten times the figure for 1830.
Centuries of low mining production prior to 1840 had never caused a
meaningful rise in gold’s value.
In 1887, mining production began to rise again, due to the mammoth
Witwatersrand discovery in South Africa in 1886. In 1895, global
production hit 297 tons, a 93% increase from 1886, and an all-time high up
to that point. It later rose to 707 tons in 1912, about four times its earlier
level. South Africa provided around 280 tons, or 40% of this total. In 1893,
another discovery in Kalgoorlie, Australia led to a peak production of 119
tons in 1903, although that fell off quickly afterwards. A discovery in the
Klondike, Alaska, in 1896 spurred a dramatic migration of adventurers, but
actual production was small compared to either South Africa or Australia,
averaging only about 25 tons per year over the three years of its peak. 62 The
increase in global production was impressive, but still modest in terms of
total aboveground gold supplies, representing 2.09% of that figure at the
peak in 1909. 63
2.50%
2.00%
1.50%
1.00%
0.50%
0.00%
1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Annual Mining Production as a Percentage of World Aboveground

Gold Supply, 1800-2011 64
Gold production was not particularly low prior to 1890, nor did it
change in a fashion suggestive of a rise in gold’s value without precedent in
the previous three centuries. When commodity prices made a low in 1896,
gold production had been rising for a decade, and had nearly doubled to the
highest levels ever seen up to that point.
Arguments for a rise in gold’s monetary value in the 1880-1895 period
thus turn toward demand; in particular, demand from the world’s new
central banks for bullion reserves in the midst of dramatic economic
expansion during that time, and also demand related to the switch to gold
monometallism after 1870.
180,000
160,000
140,000
120,000
metric tons
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Estimated World Aboveground Gold Supply, 1800-2011 65
“Monetary gold,” consisting of central bank reserve holdings and

coinage, indeed rose between 1850 and 1895, in absolute terms and as a
percentage of estimated aboveground gold. This trend continued until
shortly after World War II. If anything, the period 1880-1895 represented a
slight moderation in the trend; a slackening of demand for monetary gold
worldwide. In 1895, central banks held an estimated 11% of all
aboveground gold. Accumulation of central bank reserves was offset
somewhat by a gradual turn away from gold coinage after 1900. In effect,
people deposited their coins for banknotes. Accumulation of monetary gold
continued apace into 1930, and yet, commodity prices reached relatively
high levels vs. gold during the 1920s. Again after World War II, when
monetary gold holdings (as a percentage of aboveground supply) were at
their historical peak, more than double the levels of 1895, commodity
prices were relatively high. The total accumulation of monetary gold during
1845-1900 represented about 54% of mining production during that
period. The 1870-1895 period shows little evidence of any sort of
historically aberrant demand for monetary gold, or any trend that reversed
around 1895.
800
700
600
500
metric tons
400
300
200
100
0
1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920
World Gold Production, 1870-1920 66
A look at commodity supply and demand immediately gives a more

convincing reason for low commodity prices. Before 1870, agricultural
production throughout the world was largely for local subsistence. Bulky
and perishable foodstuffs could not be transported easily via oxcarts, dirt
roads, and sail. Commodity production for sale on distant or international
markets depended on proximity to ports and navigable waterways. After
1870, the expansion of railway networks, and also steamships capable of
vastly greater tonnage, for the first time enabled huge swaths of land to be
planted with cash crops for long-distance trade. European empires
expanded to tie together whole continents into an international market,
with standardized government, financial, and legal systems. Argentina,
Brazil, Australia, southern Africa, India, China, eastern Europe, the United
States, Canada and Mexico were opened to agriculture and mine production
for international markets via railways and steamships.
Singapore became a major port for rice exports from throughout Asia.
In 1868, 20,374 metric tons of rice was exported via Singapore. In 1897,
this reached 337,054 metric tons, an increase of sixteen times. Then,
exports leveled off. In 1912, rice exports were 344,298 tons, essentially
unchanged from 1897. 67
An index of production of twelve major crops in the U.S. had a growth
rate of 3.33% per year between 1870 and 1896, rising a total of 134%
during that period. Land under cultivation expanded alongside, more than
doubling in a single human generation. Between 1896 and 1913 the growth
rate of production fell to 0.82% annually, or a 16% total increase during
that interval. In 1930, the index was only 4% higher than in 1913. 68 Exports
of U.S. wheat were 37 million bushels in 1870, the highest in U.S. history up
to that point. In 1892, wheat exports made a peak of 157 million bushels,
more than four times greater. This was the highest level reached until the
outbreak of World War I. 69
60%
50% Central banks and governments

Coinage
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1845
1850
1855
1860
1865
1870
1875
1880
1885
1890
1895
1900
1905
1910
1915
1920
1925
1930
1935
1940
1945
1950
Monetary Gold as a Percentage of Aboveground Gold, 1845-1950 70
Was the decline in commodity prices representative of a decline in the

value of commodities, compared to an unchanging measure of value, or a
change in the value of money, while commodity values were unchanged? It
is generally attributed to both factors. 71 The rough coincidence of rising
commodity prices after 1896, and increasing gold production, does suggest
such a relationship, although the gold mining boom of the 1850s produced
no such effect. The rise in commodity prices could be as well attributed to
reduced investment in commodity production. The possibility that there
was no meaningful change in gold’s value – as was apparently the case in
the 1850s – should not be dismissed.
Whatever the case may be, the economic outcome of this period was
splendid. The difficulties suffered by commodity producers, including
family farms, did not seem to be shared by economies as a whole,
suggesting that falling prices primarily reflected commodity supply rather

than monetary effects. In the U.S., it was called a “Gilded Age”; in France, a
belle epoque. Between 1879 and 1913, industrial production in the United
States expanded by 454% – more than a five-times increase, and an
annualized growth rate of a whopping 5.17%. Between 1879 and 1896, the
supposed “deflationary” years, industrial production increased by 130%, or
5.03% annualized. 72 Industrial production in Germany increased by 307%
in 1880-1913, with an 89% increase during the 1880-1896 period. 73 For
comparison, from 1970-2012, a forty-two year period, U.S. industrial
production increased by a total of 159%, or 2.30% per year. Bizarrely, some
even compare the 1890s period to the Great Depression of the 1930s, a time
when U.S. industrial production fell by over 50%.
200
180
160
140
120
1930=100
100
80
60
40
20
0
1750
1760
1770
1780
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
U.S.: Price of Commodities in Gold Oz., 1750-1970 74
Nevertheless, the strain upon commodity producers led to considerable

political pressure to devalue currencies worldwide. In the United States,
this argument took the form of “free coinage of silver,” which would allow
anyone to take silver to the Mint and receive coinage in return. This had
been the norm before 1873. Because the market value of silver had fallen by
roughly 50% vs. gold by the mid-1890s (32:1 vs. 16:1), “free coinage” would
have effectively allowed anyone to take silver with a market value of $0.50
and make a $1 coin from it. The result would have been an effective 50%
devaluation of the dollar and a consequent silver standard, which would
have floated in value against the monometallic gold systems common
throughout Europe. From a monetary standpoint, the United States would
abandon Britain, France and Germany, and join China.
600
U.S.
Germany
500
Britain producer goods
400
1880=100
300
200
100
0
1880 1885 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910
U.S., Britain and Germany: Industrial Production, 1880-1913 75
In 1890, “free coinage” advocates managed to arrange the issue of a

new series of banknotes by the U.S. Treasury, convertible into silver at the
old 16:1 ratio. The Republican administration of Benjamin Harrison
supported it. Fortunately, their issuance was limited enough that they had
little overall effect. In the 1892 elections, riding a “free coinage of silver”
platform, the U.S. Democratic party won the presidency and a majority in
both the House and Senate. A devaluation of the dollar seemed certain. A
financial crisis ensued, the Panic of 1893, in which international trade and
finance were severely disrupted. However, Democratic president Grover
Cleveland turned out to be a staunch gold-standard advocate, rejecting the
urging of his own party and indeed going farther in his pro-gold support
than many Republicans. In the 1896 election, the Democratic Party rejected
the incumbent Cleveland, and instead put forth the starkly pro-silver
William Jennings Bryan as their candidate. This led to another round of
financial turmoil, known as the Panic of 1896. The victory of pro-gold
Republican William McKinley effectively settled the “free coinage” debate.
With the threat of devaluation resolved, business boomed. The Gold
Standard Act of 1900 officially put the United States on a monometallic gold
basis. 76
Similar things were happening worldwide, expressed by the large
numbers of bimetallists (in effect, “free coinage” advocates from other
countries) at an international monetary conference in 1892. Other financial
troubles, such as the near-collapse of Britain’s Barings Bank in 1890,
marred the early part of the decade. Barings had been involved in making
loans and underwriting debt to the government of Argentina, a major
commodity producer, which threatened to default. The government also
began printing currency to meet its fiscal needs, leading to a substantial
drop in the value of banknotes. Barings was one of London’s largest banks
at the time, and the prospect of its failure threatened much of the British
financial system. The Crisis of 1890 enveloped a broad swath of financial
institutions worldwide, and emerging markets in general. It has been called
“the first-ever emerging-markets crisis of the modern era.” 77
Reviewing gold’s performance as a standard of stable monetary value
during the nineteenth century, we find that the apparent worst-case
scenario (the 1880-1895 period) was actually a time of considerable
economic expansion and wealth-creation. Nobody expects gold to be a
perfect representation of the ideal of Stable Money. However, the deviation
of gold from that perfect ideal, whatever it may have been, was small
enough not to matter very much.
Intellectual Trends Toward Monetary Manipulation Before 1914
Although governments remained committed to gold monometallism,

and the principle of stable and unchanging currency value of which the gold
standard was the best achievable approximation, the idea of currency
manipulation and devaluation as a response to economic conditions began
to take hold. The idea of a gold standard whose parity value could be
“adjusted” according to commodity prices began to emerge, at least as far
back as the 1870s.
Governments had for millennia debased coinage, and later printed
paper currency, in response to fiscal needs, particularly during wartime.
The idea of a peacetime devaluation, in response to economic conditions in
an otherwise highly prosperous era and without any great fiscal need, was a
somewhat new development, one that nevertheless became popular enough
to nearly ensnare the United States.
William Stanley Jevons wrote A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold

Ascertained, and Its Social Effects Set Forth in 1863, focused on the effects of
the increase in gold mining production since 1840 – a problem that was
largely imaginary. In Money and the Mechanism of Exchange (1875), he
proposed a “tabular standard of value” which was, in essence, a commodity
basket. Jevons cited various predecessors including Joseph Lowe, who
included a similar idea in “The Present State of England in regard to
Agriculture, Trade and Finance” in 1822. Jevons did not promote his
“tabular standard” heavily, concluding that the present gold standard was
adequate, but he did suggest that the scheme could have some advantages.
In 1891, Irving Fischer earned the first PhD in economics ever granted
by Yale University. In 1911, then a professor at Yale, he produced The
Purchasing Power of Money, Its Determination and Relation to Credit, Interest
and Crises. The book contained a proposal in which currencies’ gold parities
would be adjusted according to changes in commodity prices.
Both Fischer and Jevons tended toward the fallacy that “purchasing
power” (commodity prices) and “value” were the same. Yet, as David
Ricardo warned in 1816, price changes could come about from either
changes in the value of commodities, or the value of money.
It has indeed been said that we might judge of [a currency’s] value

by its relation, not to one, but to the mass of commodities. ...
To suppose that such a test would be of use in practice, arises
from a misconception of the difference between price and value. ...
Nothing is so easy to ascertain as a variation of price, nothing so
difficult as a variation of value; indeed, without an invariable measure
of value, and none such exists, it is impossible to ascertain it with any
certainty or precision. ...
Commodities generally, then, can never become a standard to
regulate the quantity and value of money; and although some
inconveniences attend the standard which we have adopted, namely,
gold and silver, from the variations to which they are subject as
commodities, these are trivial, indeed, compared to those which we
should have to bear, if we adopted the plan recommended. 78
In the Theory of Money and Credit (1912), Ludwig Von Mises, as if giving
a warning to the Fischers and Jevonses of his day, made much the same
point:
In investigations into the nature of changes in the value of money

it is usual to distinguish between two sorts of determinants of the
exchange ratio that connects money and other economic goods; those
that exercise their effect on the money side of the ratio and those that
exercise their effect on the commodity side. This distinction is
extremely useful; without it, in fact, all attempts at a solution would

have to be dismissed beforehand as hopeless. 79
In practice, these “commodity basket” arguments tended to be

rhetorical devices used to promote a devaluation of the currency to serve
commodity-producing interests, or as a broader mechanism of economic
support during recessions. Though couched in claims of “stability,” in
practical terms they tended toward one-way streets: in boom times, and
times of rising commodity prices, nobody would want to raise the value of
the currency. Only three years after Fischer’s book was released, World War
I began, and with it a flood of commodity demand from Europe that caused
U.S. commodity prices to soar. Did Fischer then demand that the gold value
of the dollar be raised, to render nominal prices stable? He did not. Similar
arguments (notably by George Warren and Frank Pearson of Cornell
University) served to justify the 1933 devaluation of the U.S. dollar to
$35/oz., from $20.67; but when commodity prices were again high after
World War II, the notion of returning the dollar to $20.67/oz. was nowhere
to be heard. After the devaluation of 1933, Irving Fischer himself gloated: “I
am now one of the happiest men in the world. ... I feel that this week marks
the culmination of my life’s work.” 80
In 1892, discussions took place in Austria whether to put the Austrian
schilling, at the time a floating currency that remained roughly stable
versus the British pound, on a rigorous gold standard system. Among the
opponents was Josef Neupauer, who argued that "a slow and steady
increase in the means of circulation will without doubt encourage the spirit
of enterprise, and all the more remain without influence on the price of the
Austrian money as indeed the population grows and the whole economy
develops." He proposed a steady rate of increase of four percent per year,
an idea indistinguishable from the proposals of Milton Friedman in the
1960s. 81 Ignoring Neupauer and his kind, Austria returned to the gold
standard in 1896.
The more creative side of soft-money thinking, in the pre-1914 period,
was represented by Silvio Gesell. Beginning with writings such as The
Reformation of the Monetary System as a Bridge to the Socialist State (1891),
Gesell promoted a currency that would be “spending power stable” – a
commodity basket or CPI target, much like Fischer or Jevons – and would
have a holding cost. Known as a “demurrage currency,” stamps would have
to be periodically purchased for the money to keep its value. In effect, it
would create a negative interest rate on banknotes, intended to prevent
“hoarding.” By putting an effective negative interest rate on “cash,” Gesell
argued, long-term interest rates could be lowered to near zero. In 1919,
Gesell was appointed the Minister of Finance of the short-lived Bavarian
Soviet Republic. He served for seven days; brief enough that, after a rousing
speech given in his own defense, Gesell was acquitted of charges of treason.
Gesell was considered a marginal crank in his day, but his proposals were
remarkably similar to the policies of major central banks in 2016.
The Triumph of the Classical Gold Standard
On the eve of World War I, the world gold standard was considered a
near-unanimous success. Those who had lived with it, who had directly
enjoyed all the advantages it offered and suffered any consequences, looked
back on their work with a mood of self-congratulation. Major exchange
rates were fixed worldwide. Governments whose currencies floated were
chided for their irresponsibility; mostly, these views were shared by those
governments themselves. Bond yields around the world converged on the
low and stable rates that the Britain had enjoyed for nearly two centuries.
In the midst of the troubling decline of commodity prices during the 1880s
and 1890s, and “free coinage” arguments that amounted to currency
devaluations, governments had decided to remain fixed to gold. Two
splendid decades followed. In the end, the biggest problems were caused by
the “free coinage” debates themselves – the turmoil caused by their risk of
passage clouded the early 1890s with a series of financial crises. Technical
issues regarding short-term demand for base money had been largely
resolved by the Bank of England’s “lender of last resort” function. In the
U.S., restrictions related to the National Bank System prevented individual
banks from accommodating these short-term changes, causing a crisis in
1907 that led, eventually, to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.
Triumphs of technology were quickly followed by triumphs of
capitalism, as huge sums were invested in the implementation of the new
breakthroughs. The electric light bulb was invented in 1879. In 1895, a
hydroelectric dam was built at Niagara Falls, New York, to power the new
electric utility grid. The first modern oil well, at Titusville, Pennsylvania in
1859, led to the creation of Standard Oil by John D. Rockefeller in 1870, and
its eventual breakup in 1911, when it had become so immense that the U.S.
Supreme Court declared it an illegal monopoly. Kerosene from petroleum
soon displaced whale oil for lighting, its price falling from 26 cents a gallon
in 1870 to 9.2 cents in 1911. The American whaling fleet reached its peak of
199 ships in 1858. Gasoline powered the first internal-combustion engines.
The pioneering assembly-line techniques that allowed the Ford Model T to
be introduced in 1908 at the radically low price of $850 were imitated in
many other industries. By 1925, the car’s price had fallen to $260. Between
1870 and 1890, world steel production increased by twenty times, as the
Bessemer Process reduced production costs by a factor of six. Cheap steel
poured into railways, ships, bridges, and new steel-framed buildings. In the
peak year of 1887, the United States added 12,876 miles of new rail. New
York’s Brooklyn Bridge of 1883 was followed, in 1902, by New York's first
“skyscraper,” the 22-story Flatiron Building. The Wright Brothers’ initial
success with heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 led, only a decade
later, to the aerial dogfights of World War I.
It was one of the finest eras of wealth-creation and general prosperity
since the first glimmerings of the Industrial Revolution around 1780.
Titanic fortunes were made; but the middle and working classes also
enjoyed steadily rising wages and new opportunities. Throughout Asia,
Africa and Latin America, a vast influx of European capital and expertise
helped lift the poorest out of poverty, even as it came with European
political supremacy. For the multitudes of Asian poor, the new European
despots were usually no worse than the homegrown despots and barbarian
invaders they had suffered under for centuries. New railroads and
telegraphs crisscrossed India, China and southern Africa.
At the time, money based on gold was simply conventional wisdom;
wisdom mostly unchanged for five thousand years. Perhaps only after the
catastrophes of World War I could the achievements of that era be fully
appreciated. Benjamin Anderson was Chase National Bank’s chief
economist from 1920 to 1939. He recalled:
Those who have an adult's recollection and an adult's

understanding of the world which preceded the first World War look
back upon it with a great nostalgia. There was a sense of security then
which has never since existed. Progress was generally taken for
granted. ... We had had a prolonged period in which decade after
decade had seen increasing political freedom, the progressive spread
of democratic institutions, the steady lifting of the standard of life for
the masses of men. ...
In financial matters the good faith of governments was taken for
granted. ... No country took pride in debasing its currency as a clever
financial expedient. 82
John Maynard Keynes described his memory of the time:
What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man

that age was which came to an end in August, 1914! ... [A]ny man of
capacity or character at all exceeding the average [could escape from
the working class] into the middle and upper classes, for whom life
offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble, conveniences,
comforts and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most
powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant of London could
order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various
products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and
reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at
the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the
natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world,
and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits

and advantages. ... He could secure forthwith ... cheap and
comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without
passport or other formality, could despatch his servant to the
neighboring office of a bank for such supply of the precious metals as
might seem convenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreign
quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language, or customs,
bearing coined wealth upon his person, and would consider himself
greatly aggrieved and much surprised at the least interference. But,
most important of all, he regarded this state of affairs as normal,
certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further
improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant, scandalous, and
avoidable. 83
The English financial journalist Hartley Withers summed up the

working of London’s monetary and financial system before 1914 in a single
word. The word was: “perfect.” 84
Today, the Classical gold standard era of 1870-1914 is sometimes
described as a brief interlude made possible only by peace and the
widespread embrace of the broader principles of classical liberalism.
Government taxing and spending averaged about 10% of GDP among major
countries, a low figure compared to the twentieth century, and also
compared to the oppressive monarchical regimes of the eighteenth and
earlier centuries. Persistent government deficits outside of wartime were
rare. The idea of managing economies via currency manipulation had been
around at least since the British Mercantilist writers of the seventeenth
century, but this was universally rejected.
From our perspective today, and compared to the history that followed,
the particular conditions of that time can seem unattainable. But, money
had been based on gold and silver since antiquity. Gold was the basis of
money under the small, libertarian governments of the late nineteenth
century; but it was also money during previous times of war, and during
many centuries of heavy taxation, feudal serfdom and absolute monarchy
before 1800. Silver was money in Athens; but also in Sparta. Gold was later
the basis of money in the Soviet Union and communist China, and indeed all
the world after World War II. There had never been a time, since prehistory,
when gold and silver had not been the basis of money. By 1880, silver’s long
history as a standard of value, alongside gold, was over. The “gold/silver
complex” became less complex. Gold had become the final standard of
value. Even today, nothing has appeared that could credibly replace gold in
this role. The post-1971 floating fiat-currency arrangement was, essentially,
the refusal to restrict discretionary action with any standard of value.
The world was united with a coherent monetary system based on gold.
It did not require any other form of political unification; participants in the
world gold standard system sometimes went to war with each other. Global
trade and investment blossomed, without the difficulties of unstable

exchange rates. Low and stable interest rates worldwide expressed a
degree of monetary and macroeconomic stability that hasn't been seen
since 1914.
Chapter 6:
The Interwar Period, 1914-1944
Governments had often debased their coinage in response to the
financial needs of wartime. The widespread use of paper banknotes after
1870, and the creation of monopoly central banks that could be imposed
upon by governments, made this process far more easy and direct. The
paper money finance that China discovered in the eleventh century came,
for the first time, to the Western world as a whole.
With the outbreak of World War I, the Bank of England suspended the
convertibility of its banknotes into bullion, just as it had in 1797. This
example was mirrored by many other central banks. Currencies became
floating fiat currencies, although they did not immediately decline in value.
At first, the value of the British pound actually rose above its prior gold
parity. However, now relieved of the obligation of bullion conversion,
central banks could be easily pressured into assisting the government with
its financing needs.
How does fiat money emerge? In principle, hardly anyone would want
to do business with an intrinsically worthless paper chit of uncertain future.
The currency begins as a currency convertible into gold or silver. 1 Gold
conversion is then suspended. By this time, the currency, especially if it is
issued by a monopoly central bank, has become “legal tender” in all manner
of contracts. If the fiat currency falls in value, it becomes the cheapest way
to discharge debts, and thus, following the principle of Gresham’s Law,
becomes favored over all bullion alternatives.
In the aftermath of the war, three basic outcomes appeared:
1) Currencies were raised in value and repegged to gold at their

prewar parities. This was done most prominently by Britain and
the United States, joined by Canada, Norway, the Netherlands,
Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and, belatedly, Japan.
2) Currencies were repegged to gold at a devalued rate. This was

the case for France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and
much of Latin America.
3) Currencies experienced hyperinflation after the war, and were

eventually replaced by new currencies linked to gold. This was the
case for much of Eastern Europe including Germany, Austria,
The Interwar Period, 1914-1944 139
Hungary, Poland, the Baltic states and Russia, which had by then
become the Soviet Union.
By 1930, the world’s governments had largely recreated the Classical

gold standard of the pre-1914 era. Major currencies were linked to gold,
and thus had stable exchange rates with each other. Currencies were
convertible to gold bullion (although not always gold coinage), and gold
coins circulated alongside banknotes. Capital controls were rare, and capital
flowed freely worldwide.
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
U.S.: Value of $1000 in Gold Oz., 1922-1941 2
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
Britain: Value of £1000 in Gold Oz., A 1913-1941 3
ANote: Values of currencies vs. gold reflect official exchange rates with the U.S.
dollar, which were under capital controls during wartime. The official value of the
U.S. dollar during wartime was unchanged at $20.67/oz. The U.S. dollar’s true value
vs. gold sank during the war, due to pressure on the Federal Reserve to finance war
deficits, but this deviation was masked by the wartime gold embargo. Beginning in
1919, and certainly by the end of 1922, these issues were resolved.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
140
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1916 1913
1917 1914
1918 1915
1919 1916
1920 1917
1921 1918
1922 1919
1923 1920
1921
1924
1922
1925
1923
1926
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1927
1925
1928
1926
1929
1927
1930 1928
Gold: The Final Standard
1931 1929
1932 1930
1933 1931
1934 1932
1935 1933
1936 1934
1937 1935
Brazil: Value of 1000 Milreis in Gold Oz., 1916-1941 5

France: Value of 1000 Francs in Gold Oz., 1913-1940 4
1938 1936
1939 1937
1940 1938
1941 1939
1940
30
25
20
15
10
0
1910 1920 1930 1940
Japan: Value of 1000 Yen In Gold Oz., 1910-1941 6
The Great Depression began with a decline in U.S. stock prices at the
end of 1929. Although some minor Latin American currencies depreciated
immediately after the initial stock market distress, the world gold standard
nevertheless was maintained mostly intact until Britain devalued in
September 1931. This explosive event, of what was then the world’s
premier international currency, was followed by a chain of devaluations
worldwide, and effectively pitched the world into an environment of
currency chaos. Some countries, notably the United States, devalued but
remained on a gold standard system at a devalued rate. This embrace of
gold standard discipline, even after the 1933 devaluation, was a major
reason why the U.S. dollar became the world’s dominant international
currency afterwards. A few countries did not devalue, including Germany,
Poland, Bulgaria and Turkey, but especially in the case of Germany, this
involved substantial capital controls that obscured true conditions. In most
cases including Britain and France, devaluations were followed by floating
currencies, in a worldwide stew of currency turmoil combined with
extensive capital controls, a collapse of international trade, and, eventually,
increasing military activity.
The Great Depression
In the end, the reconstructed world gold standard system existed for
only about six years, between the resumption of British pound gold
convertibility at the prewar parity in 1925, and Britain’s devaluation and
floating of the pound in 1931. Despite its brevity, or perhaps because of it,
this period has inspired an enormous amount of conjecture. Much of it

amounts to the claim that the monetary systems of the time were flawed in
some significant way.
There are really only two conceivable flaws:
First: The failure of central banks to adhere to the proper

operating mechanisms of the gold standard system. The result of
this would be a deviation of currency value from gold parities.
Central banks could deviate in a more minor fashion, with the help
of capital controls, as was the case during the Bretton Woods years.
However, even in this case, the effects of this deviation are not
particularly great until there is an actual change in currency value.
Currencies demonstrably did not vary from their gold parities.
Gold convertibility was common, gold coins circulated alongside
banknotes in major countries, capital controls were rare before
1931, and foreign exchange rates reflected official gold parities.
Second: A major change in the value of gold, leading to a change in

the value of all currencies whose value was linked to gold. The
general decline in prices in the early 1930s is suggestive of a rise in
gold’s value. However, if that was the case, why did this happen? It
had never happened in the past, in centuries of experience. A
change in prices by itself is not proof of anything. Prices would be
expected to change, in an economic downturn of the scale of the
Great Depression, with a currency of unchanging value. Commodity
prices during the Great Depression returned to levels of the 1890s,
the glut caused not by extraordinary supply, as in the 1890s, but
depressed demand.
The gold standard system seemed to receive blame for all manner of
ills, but this was based on the idea that governments should have
responded to the worsening recession with some sort of monetary action –
in essence, a devaluation. Although this idea grew in stature in the following
decades, none of the major “interpretations” of the Interwar Period – the
mainstream Keynesian, the Monetarist, the Austrian, and other minor
variants – claimed that gold, in its role as a standard of value, underwent
some violent and historically-unprecedented change in value, of world-
economy-destroying magnitude. Except for some minor particulars, the
natural evolution of institutions that had always been in constant evolution,
there was little substantial difference between the gold standard era of
1925-1931, and the 1900-1914 period.
The resumption of the world gold standard during the 1920s was
accompanied by excellent economic results, at least in those countries that
also reduced high wartime tax rates. In the United States, where tax rates
fell throughout the decade, the “Roaring Twenties” enjoyed the widespread
expansion of electricity and electronics, including the introduction of radio

and soundtracks in movie theaters. Automobiles and tractors replaced
horses everywhere. U.S. production of electric refrigerators rose from 5000
per year in 1921 to one million in 1930, while electric lighting swept away
kerosene and gas lanterns. France’s government also reduced taxes and
enjoyed a booming economy. Britain’s government went the other way,
keeping high wartime tax rates and adding additional new taxes to fund
new socialist programs. Japan also lagged during the 1920s, again related to
rising taxes during that decade and a floating yen. Countries that returned
to their prewar gold parities – notably Britain – experienced some
difficulties, but this was understood and expected, and by the end of the
decade the effects were passing. Before 1929, there was little evidence of
any problem with the world gold standard system.
35
30
25
1982=100
20
15
10
0
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
U.S.: Producer Price Index, All Commodities, 1913-1940
If there was no inherent monetary problem, then a search for initial

causes of the Great Depression must focus on nonmonetary problems – a
search that immediately uncovers a barrage of destructive policy actions by
governments worldwide. The first was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in the
United States. Over one thousand economists signed a petition in the United
States in opposition to the Tariff, arguing that it would cause recession and
international conflict. The Tariff was countered with similar retaliatory
tariffs by governments worldwide, in a global trade war. Facing retaliatory

tariffs, General Motors’ European director sent a telegram to president
Herbert Hoover that read: “Passage Bill Would Spell Economic Isolation
United States And Most Severe Depression Ever Experienced.” 7 It was
surely an exaggeration; and yet, the looming risk to global prosperity was
clear.
Although the Tariff did not pass into law until June 1930, the initial
downturn of the U.S. stock market in 1929 can be traced nearly to the day
that a majority in the U.S. Senate was formed in favor of the Tariff, making
its passage likely. 8 This political feat was accomplished by dramatically
expanding the Tariff to include articles that favored Senators’ home
constituencies. 9 By September 1929, twenty-three governments had
warned Hoover that they would impose retaliatory tariffs in response.
Some governments, including Canada, had already imposed retaliatory
tariffs, with the understanding that they would be removed with U.S.
cooperation. As the threat of a global trade war loomed, investors’
expectations of further good times evaporated. The aggressive use of stock
margin lending at the time led to forced selling and a sudden crash in stock
prices.
The stock market decline itself created a mood of caution. The
interventionist Hoover responded immediately, ramping up public
spending beginning in November 1929. In April 1930, public works
spending was at its highest in five years. Hoover also insisted that big
businesses keep wages unchanged, and avoid layoffs. Many corporations
complied; the result was an exaggerated shrinkage of profit margins, which
in turn had consequences for the stock market, investment and
employment. Already by February 1930, public demonstrations organized
by U.S. communist parties swelled with the addition of new unemployed.
News filtered out from the Soviet Union of unimagined new atrocities at the
hands of Stalin and his cohort. Europe was at greater risk of communist
agitation than the U.S. Yet before the Tariff was signed into law, and it
appeared that president Hoover might veto it, U.S. stock prices had
returned to the level at which they had begun 1929, and the economy was
still relatively healthy. The big declines came afterwards.
Roughly sixty governments retaliated with their own tariffs. 10 The
value of total international trade declined by 19% in 1930, compared to
1929. By 1932, it had declined by 61% from its levels in 1929, and
remained at this depressed level until the onset of World War II. 11 U.S. auto
sales in Spain fell from 7,415 units in 1929 to 841 in 1931. 12
As government tax receipts dwindled in the resulting recession, and
spending increased for newly-formed welfare programs, public works or
other counter-recessionary measures, deficits swelled. Governments
worldwide reached for domestic tax increases to fund their deficits. In the
U.S. in 1929, the Federal government had tax receipts of $3,862 million and
expenditures of $3,127 million. In 1932, receipts were $1,924 million and
expenditures were $4,659 million. This yawning gap inspired Hoover to

impose a gigantic increase in domestic taxes in 1932, including a battery of
excise taxes that amounted to a new Federal sales tax, an increase in all
income tax rates with the top rate rising from 25% to 63%, elimination of a
broad swath of exemptions for both individuals and corporations, a rise in
the estate tax from 20% to 45%, and an increase in the corporate tax rate. A
similar dynamic was happening at the state level, and many U.S. states
introduced sales taxes and income taxes for the first time during the
1930s. 13 Intrusive and anti-business regulations of all sorts were imposed,
documented in books such as Amity Shlaes’ The Forgotten Man: A New
History of the Great Depression (2007). Economic conventional wisdom was
much the same worldwide, and governments everywhere tended to follow
a similar path, with dramatic domestic tax increases notably in Britain and
Germany. Discussion careened between “austerity,” which meant higher
taxes and less spending, and “stimulus,” which meant higher taxes and
more spending.
The crumbling economy naturally led to an increase in commercial
bankruptcies, leading in turn to bank failures, an element of systemic
breakdown. This was accompanied by a wave of sovereign debt defaults.
The government of Ecuador defaulted in 1929, and Argentina in 1930,
followed by defaults by Hungary, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican
Republic, Peru and Turkey in 1931. In 1932, the governments of Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and El Salvador
defaulted. 14 This tally does not count short-term payments arrears by other
governments that were later remedied. A widespread default on sovereign
debts related to World War I took place in 1934. 15 Socialist and communist
parties, rising in popularity, threatened to pull down the entire system of
capitalism. A communist uprising in Spain in 1936 was defeated by the
military. More moderate governments took an anti-business tone, and
imposed a raft of new regulations. The engines of war began to move again:
the Japanese army invaded Chinese-held portions of Manchuria in 1931,
leading eventually to the capture of the Chinese capital at Nanking in 1937.
A comprehensive account of these nonmonetary factors, on a global scale,
remains to be written. 16
The British devaluation in September 1931, and the many countries
which followed before the end of that year, introduced a new element of
monetary breakdown into an already catastrophic stew. By the end of 1931,
twenty-three of the fifty-five leading countries had left the gold standard.
Only twenty-two remained. 17 Thirty countries imposed capital controls. 18
Domestically, the move had some advantages; that is one reason
devaluation has remained popular throughout the centuries. The debt
liabilities of corporations and banks were effectively reduced, which eased
the pressure of bankruptcy and bank failure. Workers’ wages were
effectively slashed, and greater employment followed. British industry
enjoyed an artificial trade advantage. Yet outside of Britain, the effects were
negative. Corporations in France experienced an artificial trade

disadvantage. Exporters were undercut, while domestic industries suffered
a new wave of cheap imports. Another round of tariffs emerged worldwide
in response. Foreign holders of British pound-denominated liabilities,
including the British government bonds widely held worldwide, suffered
alarming losses, possibly leading to their own insolvency. Owners of
domestic debt worried that their governments would devalue soon after.
Markets were in turmoil as investors scrambled for safety.
It was known as “beggar thy neighbor devaluation.” This “beggaring”
happened domestically too: the advantages enjoyed by debtors came at the
expense of creditors; the increase in employment followed an effective
reduction in the wages of the employed. Although many economists were
thrilled by the effectiveness of this monetary response to problems they did
not understand, governments sensed that the process was destructive and
impoverishing. Toward the end of the decade, they largely abandoned the
practice, and moved back toward a system of stable currency value linked
to gold, formalized in the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944.
The Failure of the Prices-Interest-Money Model
During the Great Depression itself, and also the decades that followed,
economists were largely blind to these nonmonetary factors. Although the
higher tariffs were broadly blamed for the downturn in international trade
that followed, many others considered high tariffs to be an effective
counter-recessionary measure, as it protected domestic industry. Higher
taxes to reduce government budget deficits was a canon of responsible
public policy at the time. Budget deficits themselves were considered a
major economic negative; by resolving them, higher taxes were thought to
help bring about economic recovery.
The study of economics was once known as “political economy.” The
term differentiated from household economy, or the running of the
household – the original meaning of the term “economics.” “Political” meant
the study of government in the broad sense. Thus “political economy”
meant, more or less, the study of government economic policy. This was a
wide-ranging topic that had been explored from the earliest times, and
discussed by the philosophers of ancient Greece and China. It involved
taxation, money, price controls, regulation of every sort of economic
activity, trade policy, welfare systems, public spending, education, religion
and morality, the response to war, famine, disease, or natural disaster, and
every other conceivable aspect of statecraft.
In the 1870s, as the Industrial Revolution forever changed economic
relationships using the tools of science, technology, physics and
mathematics, economists wished to advance their study from the realm of
gentlemanly speculation to something like a science. In 1874, Leon Walras
expressed the new spirit in his book Elements of Pure Economics. The title
itself suggested the new scientism: economics, like chemistry, had

“elements,” which could be “purified” from the fuzzy wisdom of past
philosophers. In the book, Walras portrayed an economy using a “theory of
general equilibrium” potentially described in a set of simultaneous
mathematical equations. The idea proved popular, and was reflected in
“general theories” and “dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models” for
over a century afterwards, and continuing to the present day.
This mathematization tended to reduce the study of political economy –
that is, government policy – to the realm of prices, interest and money.
Borrowing directly from chemistry and physics, they argued that prices
represented an “equilibrium” between supply and demand. These prices, in
turn, produced margins of profit and loss, returns on capital, which then led
to investment and disinvestment, or expansion and contraction of
production. Interest rates were essentially prices for capital, and their
equilibrium between borrowers and lenders, or savers and investors,
guided capital investment. Money was to remain neutral and unchanging –
in practical terms, linked to gold – so as to least disrupt the formation of
accurate equilibrium in these other markets, and consequentially, the
productive activity of the economy. When they criticized the central
planning ambitions of the socialists and communists, they focused on the
“problem of rational economic calculation.” Without the mechanisms of
prices and interest, activity in the complex industrial economy could not be
effectively organized.
While all of these assertions were largely correct in themselves, they
left out a vast range of economic issues. Governments themselves largely
disappeared; their role was little more than to maintain the reliability of the
currency, and the enforcement of property rights and contract law. The
system seemed self-regulating, as prices – including wages, seen as the key
price influencing employment – and interest rates adapted to changing
realities. Recessions were conceived as being mild, transient and self-
healing; extended periods of depression and decline even seemed, to some,
to be impossible. If there was a downturn, the government’s response
would be: “Do nothing.”
The ideas of Walras and his peers reflected the time in which they were
created. In the Classical Gold Standard era of 1870 to 1914, governments
generally did refrain from interference in the free formation of prices and
interest rates, and kept the money reliably linked to gold. Trade was free;
capital controls were rare; regulation was unobtrusive; taxation was
minimal; government spending was modest; religion, education, public
morality and the other foundations of society were strong; economic
progress was abundant; setbacks were brief and mild. The issues, and
government policy, that lay outside the perimeter of prices, interest and
money were generally not a problem. Many of the identifiable problems of
the 1870-1914 era were indeed monetary, such as the floating currencies
and devaluations of Spain or Argentina, or the financial crises surrounding

the “free coinage of silver” debates in the U.S. or elsewhere.
Even before 1914, the small-government libertarian ideals of the time
were already passing. Income taxes at high rates, large government
spending programs including various new welfare programs, increasing
regulation, and increasing intervention in economic affairs at all levels had
been part of socialist and communist efforts since the mid-nineteenth
century. World War I intensified all of these trends. The world that emerged
in the 1920s was different: governments were bigger and more intrusive,
and tax rates were much higher. The pressures of the 1930s further
strengthened this big-government socialist trend. But in 1930, the idea of
an economic disaster caused by nonmonetary factors, and driven by poor
government policy, had no place in economists’ formulations developed
over the previous sixty years. Prices and interest rates were still largely the
product of free market forces, although unions had introduced some
influence on wages. Money was linked to gold. Within their limited view,
there didn’t seem to be any problem at all. Any downturn – they thought –
was likely to be mild, brief, and self-adjusting. The proper response was:
“Do nothing.”
Governments were not actually “doing nothing” in the early 1930s.
They were imposing a barrage of taxes, tariffs and regulations, along with a
general anti-business sentiment and turn toward socialist ideals including
nationalized industries and central planning. But, none of these were in the
realm of prices, interest and money. While acknowledging them, and
sometimes wagging fingers, for many economists they didn’t seem to count.
This tone continues to pervade academic discussion of the Interwar Period
today: the most dramatic government actions of the time are passed over
with little more than a shrug if they fall outside the realm of prices, interest
and money; while the tiniest insignificant wiggle in some monetary statistic
is claimed to have world-shattering consequences.
Faced with a horrifying vortex of economic collapse, and the
persistence of Depression nullifying expectations of some self-adjusting
return to prosperous “equilibrium,” economists did not expand their
limited understanding to accommodate the dramatic new factors that had
emerged. Rather, two distinct responses appeared, which tended to mirror
broader political divides between big-government socialists and small-
government conservatives.
The “big government” interpretation, associated with Keynesianism,
was that capitalism was inherently unstable. Reflecting Marxist doctrine,
the downturn of the Great Depression did not need an explanation, since it
was considered a natural feature of capitalism. It was caused by an
“autonomous decline in aggregate demand,” a non-explanation which didn’t
mean much more than: “there’s a recession.” Instead, unstable capitalism
required a big-government response: more spending, and implicitly, higher
taxes to pay for it. Welfare programs, which had in some countries
(including Britain) been reduced to balance the budget exactly when they
were needed most, would be expanded. Interest rates would be
manipulated to produce desired reactions in investment and saving. Prices
might be manipulated, through regulation or restrictions on supply. The
money would become a floating fiat currency to allow interest-rate
manipulation, or could be devalued to influence nominal prices, profit and
loss, foreign exchange rates and trade relationships, or to effectively lower
wages, the key price affecting employment. The Keynesian solution,
expressed in Keynes’ 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest
and Money, took the “general equilibrium” models of the nineteenth
century, and put them to use in service of big-government socialism. A
theory of self-organizing non-intervention became a roadmap for
centralized influence and control, using prices, interest and money.
The economists allied with small-government conservatism, notably
the Austrians and, later, the Monetarists, were not satisfied with the idea
that capitalism was inherently unstable and doomed to ultimate failure.
They wanted reasons for such an unprecedented disaster. But they too
stayed within the prices, interest and money box. With little to complain
about regarding prices and interest rates, which were largely free of
government molestation, they focused on money. 19 Friedrich Hayek,
Keynes’ intellectual opponent in the 1930s, wrote books titled Monetary
Theory and the Trade Cycle (1929), Prices and Production (1931) and Profits,
Interest and Investment (1939). “The trade cycle is a purely monetary
phenomenon,” claimed economist Ralph Hawtrey in 1922. 20 It was an
absurd notion, but it didn’t seem so at the time.
The problem, they argued, was either that governments had interfered
where they should not have, in prices, interest and money (Austrian), or
that governments had failed in their job to keep the money stable
(Monetarist). By claiming some sort of monetary problem, they implicitly or
explicitly blamed the gold standard systems of the time. In this way, the
small-government free-market economists, who had always been the
primary defenders of Stable Money in principle and the gold standard in
practice, became its primary critics. A strange role-inversion took place: As
the conservatives “blamed money” in one way or another, the socialists did
not.
The conservative economists also did not focus on the many
nonmonetary errors of government policy taking place. This also had
political roots: many of the errors, including higher tariffs, higher domestic
taxes, an excessive fixation on budget deficits, and the slashing (in some
countries) of welfare program budgets exactly when they were most
needed, were undertaken by the small-government conservative politicians
of the time. Then as now, economics was highly politicized, in no small part
because economists tended to draw their livelihoods, directly or indirectly,
via some political affiliation. A small-government conservative economist
that criticized the policies of conservative governments did not have much
of a place to go in those days, and nobody wanted to lose their job in the
middle of the Great Depression.
The idea that the Great Depression had nonmonetary causes – and that
there was no particular problem with the gold standard systems of the time
– was the prevailing view until the 1960s, and continues to be a major
“interpretation” today. It always lay at the heart of the Keynesian view. But
Keynesianism did not require any identification of causes at all; and
consequently, did not find any. The idea that nonmonetary government
policy – tariffs, taxes, regulation, and all the rest – was the initial cause of
the Great Depression was not embraced until the 1970s, with the “supply
side” school of economics. In the 1970s, the idea emerged that reducing
high tax rates would produce an economic benefit. It was an ancient
concept. The Confucian philosopher Mencius (372-289 B.C.) persuaded
many princes of the benefits of the “well-field system” of taxation, which
was an effective one-ninth (11%) tax rate on agricultural production – far
more lenient than the oppressive and typically arbitrary tax practices in
China at the time. For merchants, Mencius suggested 10%. The basic
principle re-emerged as the “flat tax” proposals of the 1980s and 1990s. It
was one of the first major intellectual excursions outside the realm of
prices, interest and money since the 1870s, a century earlier.
People looked for historical examples of their low-tax principles, and
discovered the tax reforms of president Kennedy in the 1960s, Andrew
Mellon in the 1920s, those of Germany and Japan in the 1950s and 1960s,
and France in the 1920s. It naturally followed that increasing tax rates, or
other harmful nonmonetary incursions upon the workings of the private
sector, could be an economic negative; and the Great Depression offered
itself as an obvious example of the principle. With this insight, no longer
was it necessary for a small-government conservative economist to choose
between the uncomfortable idea that economies disintegrate for no good
reason; or to otherwise claim that there was some kind of catastrophic
problem with the money, even while governments adhered to the gold
standard system. Capitalism was not inherently unstable, and did not
require big-government socialism to tame it, including a floating fiat
currency that would allow price and interest rate manipulation, or some
sort of “easy money” response to problems that nobody understood.
But, it did require that governments behave themselves, and implement
constructive economic policy rather than destructive. “Political economy”
was back. Again the field opened beyond prices, interest and money to
embrace taxes, regulation, spending and welfare programs; all of
government policy in all of its details and specifics, not just as some
numerical aggregate of “government demand.” Microeconomics and
macroeconomics were again merged in a coherent continuum of
understanding. Now it could be seen why economists’ mathematical
models, which they had cultivated since the 1870s, didn’t work.
Austrian Interpretations
In America’s Great Depression (1963), Murray Rothbard blamed the

economic collapse of 1929-1932 on the crash of a credit bubble
intentionally engineered by Federal Reserve governor Benjamin Strong. 21
At the outset, this hypothesis raises a number of questions. How was
this Federal Reserve-created credit bubble achieved while the dollar was on
a gold standard system? The Keynesians accused the gold standard for
exactly the opposite reason – that these “golden fetters” prevented central
banks from “managing the economy with easy money” in any effective way.
Another question is: what did the Federal Reserve actually do?
6,000 Bills Discounted

Bills Bought
U.S. Government Securities
Others
5,000 Total Credit
Gold
4,000
$millions
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
U.S.: Federal Reserve Balance Sheet, Assets, 1917-1933 22
During the 1920s, the Federal Reserve was not a monopoly issuer of
banknotes in the United States. Roughly half of the banknotes in circulation
were U.S. Treasury gold certificates and other U.S. Treasury notes, and also
banknotes of thousands of National Banks. The Federal Reserve balance
sheet at the time aggregated the gold reserves of the Treasury and National
Banks, and also the banknote liabilities of the Treasury and National Banks,
thus providing a picture of the total monetary system.
On the asset side of the Federal Reserve balance sheet, we find gold
reserves, and also a variety of credit instruments, including “bills
discounted,” “bills bought,” “U.S. government securities,” and “other” assets.
These non-gold assets are aggregated as “total credit.”
11,000 Treasury Currency

Money in Circulation
10,000 Base Money
9,000 Total Deposits
Federal Reserve Notes
8,000
7,000
$ millions
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
U.S.: Federal Reserve Balance Sheet, Liabilities, 1917-1933 23
The liabilities side of the Federal Reserve balance sheet includes

Federal Reserve banknotes, and also banknotes of the Treasury and
National Banks, combined into “Treasury currency.” The total banknotes in
circulation, combining both Federal Reserve notes and Treasury currency,
are “money in circulation.” Deposits of the Federal Reserve include deposits
of banks, the Treasury, and nonmembers. Deposits of the Treasury and
nonmembers were quite minor, so Total Deposits consisted almost entirely
of deposits of Federal Reserve member banks, sometimes called “bank
reserves.” The combination of money in circulation and total deposits is
“base money.”
Base money underwent a dramatic expansion and contraction in the
1917-1922 period. This was related to pressure by the U.S. Treasury on the
Federal Reserve to help finance the government during World War I and
the period immediately after. The overissuance of currency led to declining
dollar value, although this was hidden by wartime capital controls. As the
wartime gold embargo was lifted in 1919, gold flowed out due to gold
convertibility, indicating that the value of the dollar was below its gold
parity of $20.67/oz. To raise the value of the dollar, base money supply was
limited and then contracted in 1921, accompanied by gold inflows. This
contributed to a sharp but brief recession in 1921, which was also
moderated by substantial reductions in the high tax rates left from the war.
By the end of 1922, this period of correction was complete, and a return to
normalcy at the prewar $20.67/oz. parity was achieved including full gold
convertibility.
After 1922, base money shows a smooth curve, with surprisingly little
expansion despite the dramatic economic advances of the period. This
curve of base money growth was essentially the residual outcome of the
gold standard policy. If the dollar’s value was below its parity, then gold
outflows would lead to a contraction in the monetary base, as was the case
in 1919. If the dollar’s value was above its parity, gold inflows would lead to
an expansion of the monetary base. Continual changes in the quantity of
gold reserves show that this convertibility process was active.
The Federal Reserve also held a variety of credit assets over which it
held some discretion, in large part replicating the manner of the Bank of
England in the pre-1914 period. The composition of these credit assets
varied considerably, but their total maintained a rather even level
throughout the decade, with a seasonal spike related to the year-end. A
minor dip can be noted in 1924, and a modest rise around 1928. These dips
and rises were countered by changes in gold reserves, producing the
smoother curve of overall base money. The changes in gold reserves came
about via the conversion process. The reduction in base money caused by
the dip in credit in 1924 led to a rising dollar value – for example, a dollar
that was worth 1/20th of an ounce of gold on the open market (a “gold price
of $20.00/oz.”), rather than the parity value of 1/20.67th (“$20.67/oz.”). If
the market price is $20.00/oz., and the Federal Reserve is willing to pay
$20.67/oz., then the Federal Reserve (or Treasury) becomes the highest
bidder, and purchases gold. Base money expands.
The contrary process took place in 1928. As base money expanded due
to an increase in credit assets, the value of the dollar sank vs. its gold parity.
For example, the open market value of the dollar could be 1/21st of an
ounce (“$21.00/oz.”) instead of 1/20.67th. The Federal Reserve becomes the
cheapest seller of gold, gold flows out, and base money contracts.
The end result was that any excessive expansion of credit assets would
be countered by gold outflows, and any excessive contraction of credit
assets would be countered by gold inflows, thus producing a total base
money supply that maintained the $20.67/oz. gold parity. The base money
supply was thus generated as an automatic consequence of the fixed-value
gold standard policy – described in Chapter 1 as a Currency Option One

system. The Federal Reserve could increase or decrease its credit assets,
but, due to gold convertibility, could not engage in any “discretionary”
adjustment of the total base money supply – the “golden fetters” that soft-
money advocates complained about.
Base money supply clearly did not expand by any meaningful amount,
or even a trivial amount, so if there was a “credit bubble” of some sort
during the decade, it could not have been caused by the Federal Reserve.
Total U.S. private sector debt was 148% of GDP at the end of 1922, and
155% at the end of 1929 – hardly suggestive of a “bubble.” During that time,
government debt declined from 41% of GDP to 29%. Total U.S. debt to GDP
was 183% in 1929, compared to 189% in 1922 and 332% at the end of
2014. (Stock margin debt, however, had a huge rise into the 1929 peak.)
Even the U.S. stock market, though it had risen dramatically, did not have a
particularly high valuation. At its peak in September 1929, the market was
valued at 20x trailing earnings and had a 3.0% dividend yield. Despite all
the difficulties toward the end of the year, profits of listed companies rose
17% in 1929, from a year earlier.
14% 3-6m Treasury Bill yield

Treasury Bond yield
Moody's AAA yield
12%
Moody's Baa yield
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
U.S.: Interest Rates, 1919-1941 24
Many have claimed that the Federal Reserve’s actions were contrary to
what they perceive to be the “rules” of a gold standard system: that changes
in base money should coincide exactly with changes in gold reserve

holdings; or, a little more broadly, that non-gold reserve assets (total credit)
should move in the same direction as gold reserves, expanding when
bullion reserves expand, and vice versa. 25 But, this supposed “breaking of
the rules” by the Federal Reserve reflects an incomplete and incorrect
understanding of how central banks operated at that time. The Bank of
England, in the pre-1914 period, did much the same thing as the Federal
Reserve in the 1920s. The tendency toward complexity – the interplay
between gold convertibility, discount policy, and open-market operations in
government debt – obscured the basic principles of operation, both before
and after 1914.
Ultimately, these details amounted to inconsequential internal affairs of
central banks. The only thing that mattered to non-central bankers was the
values of currencies, which were kept at their gold parities.
10%
4-6m commercial paper
9% 90 day bankers' acceptances
8% 90 day Stock Exchange loans
Federal Reserve discount rate
7%
6%
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
U.S.: Short-Term Interest Rates, 1919-1941 26
Rothbard focused on a meeting of the heads of central banks in New

York, in July 1927. Strong and Bank of England head Montagu Norman were
there, along with the heads of the Bank of France and the Reichsbank.
Strong seemed to have notions of “activist” macroeconomic management, in
the midst of a mild recession that the National Bureau of Economic
Research dates from October 1926 to November 1927. 27 Charles Rist,
attending as Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, claimed that, at the
meeting, Strong said his actions would deliver “a little coup de whiskey to
the stock market.” 28 In any case, a modest expansion in Total Credit,
beginning in May 1927, accompanied a small reduction in the Federal
Reserve’s official discount rate, which was reversed a few months later.
This expansion in credit was completely offset by gold conversion
outflows, and resulted in no change in base money supply, from what it
would have been without this action. The outcome was no different than if
Strong had stayed home and played dominoes. The Federal Reserve could
not have caused the effects Rothbard claimed, because the Federal Reserve
did not actually do anything at all, and couldn’t have even if it wanted to
(which, apparently, it did). But, the notion that the Federal Reserve was
somehow engaging in a meaningful “activist” policy of discretionary
management was thick in the air. 29 Strong himself seemed to believe so;
and also Adolph Miller, a member of the Federal Reserve board of
governors at the time. In Congressional testimony, he claimed that the 1927
actions were an inflationary policy that produced an “inevitable” reaction
leading to the collapse of late 1929 – a position essentially the same as
Rothbard’s. 30 Lionel Robbins, a prominent economist of the time, also took
a similar view.
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
0
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
U.S.: S&P 500 Trailing 12-Month Price/Earnings Ratio, 1870-2015 31
Rothbard colorfully called Montagu Norman, head of the Bank of

England (1920-1944), the “Mephistopheles of the inflation of the 1920s.”
Yet Norman was one of the era’s great gold standard advocates. According
to Norman, failure to restore the gold standard, in Britain and throughout
the world, would result in “violent fluctuations of the exchanges, with
probably progressive deterioration of the values of foreign currencies vis-a-
vis the [gold-linked] dollar; it would provide an incentive to all of those who
were advancing novel ideas for nostrums and expedients other than the
gold standard to sell their wares; and incentives to governments at times to
undertake various types of paper money expedients and inflation.” 32
By the end of the 1920s, modest ambitions for an activist monetary
policy had ensnared the era’s gold standard advocates, even as they held
the ramparts against a tide of more aggressive soft-money notions. The
view commonly held before 1914, that the purpose of a gold standard
system was simply to maintain the value of the currency at the gold parity,
and that great economic advantages flow from this, was fading from their
vision. The debates of the 1890s, the floating currency experience during
and after World War I, the debates surrounding the return to gold in the
1920s, the general trend toward greater socialist involvement in all spheres
of government – perhaps even the broad notion that the success of
technological innovation justified overturning existing practices in all fields
of endeavor – created a new interest in the possibilities presented by
currency manipulation. In A Tract on Monetary Reform (1924) – the British
pound was still a floating currency at the time – John Maynard Keynes
wrote:
Those who advocate a return to a gold standard do not always

appreciate along what different lines our actual practice has been
drifting ... In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic. All of
us, from the Governor of the Bank of England downwards, are now
primarily interested in preserving the stability of business, prices, and
employment, and are not likely, when the choice is forced on us,
deliberately to sacrifice these to the outworn dogma, which had its
value once, of £3:17:10½ per ounce. Advocates of the ancient
standard do not observe how remote it now is from the spirit and the
requirements of the age. 33
Keynes’ rhetoric was exaggerated. The number who saw things as he

did was still not so great; the number who saw that Britain’s – and the
world’s – adherence to gold over the previous two centuries had been
enormously successful, and had presented no obvious problems during that
time, were still greater. The Governor of the Bank of England, the British
government, and the rest of the world ignored Keynes, and reconstructed
the global gold standard system in the 1920s. But the old Stable Money
conviction was eroding.
Alongside this was a deterioration in the understanding of how gold
standard systems, and central banks, actually worked; for, without this
clouding of their vision, they would surely have noticed that nothing was
actually being achieved by their activist ambitions, and that nothing could
be achieved without departing the gold standard policy entirely and
embracing floating fiat currencies.
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
U.S.: S&P500 Dividend Yield, 1870-2015 34 2010
They inherited the traditions, habits and forms, but were forgetting the
principles behind them. Nevertheless, enough held over from the pre-1914
period that effective management of the gold standard policy did take place.
Currencies’ real market values were maintained at gold parities, and base
money adjustment was undertaken appropriately to achieve this goal. Gold
convertibility was a chief element of this. To a large extent, even central
bankers did not really understand what convertibility, the inflows and
outflows of gold bullion, represented – variations in the value of their
currencies from their gold parities. They blamed the actions of other central
banks, a “balance of payments imbalance,” or a dozen other things, in much
the manner that economists do today. All of these themes became more
entrenched under the pressures of the 1930s, and further still in the
Bretton Woods era of 1944-1971.
Monetarist Interpretations
Where Rothbard saw a great “inflation” during the 1920s, Milton

Friedman saw a great “deflation” during the early 1930s.
Both authors showed considerable confusion between monetary effects

and nonmonetary effects. The terms “inflation” and “deflation” arise from
popular speech, and reflect popular confusion. Rising currency value – for
example, a rising value versus gold, as happened in Britain 1815-1821 and
1919-1925, or the U.S. 1865-1879 – causes certain effects commonly
labeled “deflation.” Falling currency value, such as the British devaluation of
1931 or the U.S. in 1933, causes effects commonly known as “inflation.”
However, the labels “deflation” or “inflation” are also applied to a wide
variety of nonmonetary situations as well.
These changes in currency value (vs. gold), and the macroeconomic
effects that result, are not possible under a gold standard system, whose
primary purpose is to prevent such things. One could argue that the value
of gold itself changed, by some amount sufficient to create meaningful
macroeconomic effects. Some have made these arguments, but neither
Rothbard nor Friedman did. Thus, any “inflation” or “deflation” identified
by either Rothbard or Friedman, while the U.S. or any other country was on
a gold standard system, had nothing to do with these effects that arise from
changes in currency value. They were nonmonetary phenomenon.
In A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (1963), Friedman
and coauthor Anna Schwartz implied and alluded to a monetary contraction
of the sort that would cause a great rise in currency value, similar to, though
perhaps more dramatic still, than the events in the U.S. 1919-1922 or
Britain in 1919-1925. Yet, the U.S. dollar did not change value vs. gold.
In effect, Friedman took Irving Fischer’s “debt-deflation” observation –
a nonmonetary description – and looked at it from the perspective of banks’
liabilities, rather than their assets. A rhetorical trick was accomplished by
defining “money” to mean, primarily, the deposit liabilities of banks – rather
than the circulating medium (base money) managed by the Federal
Reserve. By calling the nonmonetary bank deposit contraction a “monetary
contraction,” Friedman implied, or suggested, a rise in monetary value of
the sort that might be caused by a reduction in base money supply, and that
this nonexistent “contraction” was an error by the Federal Reserve.
That the banking system (as represented by bank deposits, or “M2”)
should expand or contract generally along with the economy as a whole
(nominal GDP), should be no great surprise to anyone. By assigning
responsibility for “M2,” or comparable “monetary aggregates” to a central
bank, in effect the central bank becomes responsible – not to maintain the
value of the currency at a gold parity – but for economic outcomes as a
whole. It is a system for floating fiat currency manipulation. Friedman in
essence recommended a devaluation and floating fiat currency response to
unidentified economic problems – a conclusion identical to the Keynesians,
though couched in a different line of argument. Not surprisingly, Friedman
and his followers became floating currency advocates, largely
indistinguishable from the Keynesians although they preferred measures of
quantity rather than interest rates to justify their soft-currency ambitions.
The Federal Reserve did not “contract the money supply” in 1929-1932.
Total base money expanded. Should it have expanded more? To do so
would have caused the value of the dollar to sag vs. its gold parity, leading
to gold outflows and, if this expansion continued, the eventual failure of the
gold standard system. Should the Federal Reserve, perhaps, have had less
base money expansion? This would have created gold inflows, thus
correcting any undersupply of base money, which is exactly what was
already happening in 1929-1931. The actual base money supply of the
Federal Reserve was thus exactly what it should have been, to maintain the
value of the dollar at the gold parity. The automatic operating mechanisms
of the gold standard system insured that it would be so. The Federal
Reserve did not have the discretionary ability to take any action that would
have meaningfully affected bank deposits. That would have required a
floating currency.
The Federal Reserve’s task, in the 1920s and 1930s, was to maintain
the value of the dollar at its gold parity, and to address any genuine
liquidity-shortage crises that may arise, indicated by very high short-term
borrowing rates. The Federal Reserve did both admirably, in challenging
conditions. 35
Between 2010 and 2015, the nominal GDP of Greece declined by 25%,
as the economy buckled under relentless tax increases. This was without a
tariff war (another form of taxes), or many of the other negative factors that
were present during the 1930s. M2 in Greece, the credit measure favored
by Friedman, fell by over 40% in the 2010-2015 period. Greece was part of
the eurozone, and used the euro common currency. Many economists,
comparing the euro to the gold standard of the early 1930s, called for
Greece to leave the eurozone and devalue. But Greece’s problems were not
monetary. Other eurozone members, that did not have Greece’s
nonmonetary problems, also did not have Greece’s disastrous outcomes.
The idea of “activist” monetary policy had become widespread enough,
by the early 1930s, that the Federal Reserve came under criticism that it
was undersupplying base money. Under direct pressure from Congress, in
1932 the Federal Reserve embarked on an aggressive program of
government securities purchases, to resolve any doubts that it was being
stingy with its base money supply. The result was an immediate outflow of
gold, indicating that base money was being oversupplied, and that the
dollar’s value was sagging vs. its gold parity. The gold outflow naturally
canceled out the effects of the purchase, in this case also accompanied by a
decline in discount lending. (The decline in discount lending was related to
the reduction in short-term market rates caused by the open-market
purchases. If there was no decline in discount lending, gold outflows would
have been larger.) The purchase of $1,009 million of government securities
between March and July 1932 was offset by $431 million of gold outflows,
and a $239 million decline in other lending, resulting in a net base money
expansion of $336 million – a net expansion that still would have occurred
(via gold inflows) if there was no government securities purchase program

at all. The automatic corrective mechanisms of the gold standard system, in
particular gold conversion, again offset these attempts at an “activist”
policy. The result was that the base money supply was little different than if
nothing at all had been done, just as had been the case during Benjamin
Strong’s more modest experiments with an “activist” policy in 1927-28.
“Excess reserves” did not give a central bank a free pass to fool with its base
money supply at will.
300
250
200
billions of euros
150
100
50
0
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Greece: Nominal GDP, 2001-2014 36

trailing four-quarter sum
The Federal Reserve also came under some criticism for failing to act as
a “lender of last resort” during a wave of bank failures in the early 1930s.
During the early 1930s, overnight lending rates between solvent banks
remained low, indicating that there was no systemwide shortage 37 – a
conclusion shared by many at the time. Claims that the Federal Reserve
should have been more active as a “lender of last resort” amount to the
assertion that the Federal Reserve should have propped up failing banks, or
perhaps, that the Federal Reserve should have attempted to prop up the
economy as a whole with an expansionary policy. Use of the term “lender of
last resort” outside of its historical context and meaning, as a label for
“activist monetary policy,” amounts to semantic subterfuge. Any such action
would have led to an oversupply of currency and eventual failure of the
gold standard system.
300
250
200
billions of euros
150
100
50
0
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Greece: M2, 2001-2016 38
The Federal Reserve’s increase in its discount rate in September 1931

has been accused of being somewhat perverse, given the economic
difficulties of the time. The reason for the discount rate change was the
British pound devaluation in September 1931, which set off shock waves
throughout the world financial system. In the turmoil, market overnight
lending rates had a sharp rise. The Federal Reserve’s discount rate thus
became significantly below the market rate, leading to a dramatic rise in
discount lending, and a dramatic outflow of gold. To leave the discount rate
far below the market rate would have led to further increases in discount
lending, and further gold outflows. The British devaluation naturally raised
great fears for more devaluations worldwide, including the U.S. dollar. The
discount rate increase was largely to maintain the value of the dollar at its
gold parity, in the midst of currency turmoil. Its modest rise to a brief peak
of 3.50% had no great economic effects.
Rothbard and Friedman, between them representing the spectrum of
conservative economic thought in the middle twentieth century, both
focused on monetary explanations for the Great Depression, even while
currencies were linked to gold. Both relied heavily on fallacious “quantity
theory” to make their arguments. The result was a great contortion of
Classical economic thinking, especially regarding money. Their “new
explanations” required dynamiting their old expertise. By the 1960s, their
monetary understanding had disintegrated badly.
The left-leaning Keynesian economists had long favored floating fiat
currencies and monetary activism, as part of a broader “progressive” vision
of big-government management of the economy and society on every level.

This dated at least as far back as the “free coinage of silver” arguments of
the 1890s. After World War II, the small-government conservatives were
split between Friedmanite monetarists who were also soft-money
advocates of a different flavor, and a dwindling number of hard-money gold
standard advocates who had lost the ability to create or manage such
systems, or to correctly analyze economic events. The intellectual
foundation upon which the ideal of Stable Money was based, and the
worldwide gold standard that represented its practical implementation,
was crumbling. The eventual end of the Bretton Woods gold standard
system in 1971 was the outcome.
Blame France
The Bank of France’s dramatic accumulation of gold bullion reserves, in

1926-1932, has proven irresistible to the legions of economists still
searching for a monetary cause for the onset of the Great Depression. Yet
again, the question arises: how could this have been a problem while the
franc, and other currencies, were linked to gold? How could any kind of
monetary problem of Great Depression-causing magnitude have emerged?
The Bank of France’s gold accumulation did not change the value of the
franc, or any other currency. (The Bank of France’s contribution to overall
central bank bullion accumulation is addressed separately.) The gold
standard system would naturally correct any excess or shortage of franc
base money supply, in the process of keeping its value at the gold parity.
This was also true of all other currencies, which remained fixed to gold, and
whose adjustment mechanisms maintained this link, no matter what the
Bank of France might do.
In Gold, France and the Great Depression, 1919-1932 (1997), H. Clark
Johnson made a variety of arguments that the Bank of France’s policy was
“deflationary.” 39 Yet, the value of the franc did not rise, compared to gold or
foreign currencies. If it did, by a small amount, gold convertibility would
have led to gold inflows and an increase in the monetary base, thus
immediately resolving the issue of undersupply. Indeed, this is exactly what
happened during that period – large increases in base money were
accompanied by gold inflows.
The Bank of France returned to a gold parity in 1926, at a value about
one-fifth of the franc’s prewar gold parity. However, this was largely
accomplished via transactions in foreign exchange, in effect a currency
board-like mechanism or “gold exchange standard.” The result was a large
accumulation of foreign exchange by the Bank of France. In 1928, gold
convertibility for the franc was restored. The Bank of France then wanted to
return to its pre-1914 policy of large bullion reserve holdings, and little or
no foreign exchange. This required the sale of foreign exchange and
acquisition of bullion, which was done according to a deliberate plan. The
quantities were rather small – about 10.5 billion francs of foreign exchange
sold and bullion purchased, or about 12.4% of total assets of 85 billion
francs – and the operation was complete in early 1929.
140
gold
foreign exchange
120 advances to government
domestic bills
loans on securities
100
other assets
billions of francs
80
60
40
20
0
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
France: Bank of France, Assets, 1928-1940 40
Further sales of foreign exchange for gold bullion were done after the
British devaluation of 1931, which made all too obvious the risks of holding
the debt of foreign governments on central bank balance sheets.
This adjustment of reserve assets had no monetary effects, and was
completely compatible with gold standard operating principles. The Bank of
France had always held large bullion reserves, against its banknote and
deposit liabilities. In 1907, the reserve ratio was 66%. 41 The United States
itself had bullion coverage ratios that varied from less than 20% to over
100%, in the years 1880-1970. The Bank of England, especially before
1845, had bullion reserve ratios that varied wildly from less than 10% to
over 60%. Nor did the Bank of France’s reserve asset rebalancing have any
effects on other central banks. 42 If at any time the Federal Reserve, Bank of
England, or any other central bank felt that it held too little or too much
bullion, they could have also adjusted their reserve asset mix just as the
Bank of France did, with no monetary effects.
160
notes in circulation
deposits
140
other liabilities
base money
120
billions of francs
100
80
60
40
20
0
1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937
France: Bank of France, Liabilities, 1928-1937 43
The Bank of France’s monetary base expanded by 97% between 1926

and 1931. Certainly the mechanisms (primarily gold convertibility) for such
an expansion were active.
Keynesian Interpretations
By the publication in 1992 of Golden Fetters: the Gold Standard and the
Great Depression, 1919-1939, by Barry Eichengreen, commitment to soft-
money activism had reached such a degree, among Anglophone academics,
that they could hardly imagine any alternative. Rather than a choice,
between a hard money stable value system represented by the gold
standard, in which one does not attempt to solve nonmonetary problems
with a monetary solution, and a soft-money floating fiat system in which
one does – or, perhaps, a once-a-century disaster that might warrant
making an exception to monetary principles, as seemed to be Keynes’ view
later in life – they saw only madness and sanity. This is not a choice at all,
but simply, in their view, a mistake. Eichengreen’s book remains influential,
and describes common sentiment among many academics to the present
day.
Typical of Keynesian narratives – and also, mainstream narratives
before mainstream thought itself became predominantly “Keynesian” after
1936 – the onset of the Great Depression was conceived of as being
nonmonetary in character. The gold standard is “blamed” not because it

wasn’t functioning properly and caused some sort of problem, but because
it prevented the monetary response that Keynesians favored – in this case, a
major devaluation, which Eichengreen regarded as a success after it was
implemented in many countries after 1931. Typical of Keynesians,
Eichengreen offered a few notions regarding initial causes for the 1929-
1931 downturn, but without much enthusiasm or details:
The initial downturn in the United States enters this tale as

something of a deus ex machina ... The tightening Federal Reserve
policy of 1928-29 seems too modest ... Hence the search for other
domestic factors that might have contributed to the severity of the
downturn, such as structural imbalances in American industry, an
autonomous decline in U.S. consumption spending, and the impact of
the Wall Street crash on wealth and confidence. 44
The search was apparently not successful. Besides the fact that there
was no real “tightening” in Federal Reserve policy in 1928-29 – reductions
in total credit were offset by gold inflows – the notion of an “autonomous
decline” amounts to “it just happened.” The emphasis on “confidence”
following the stock market declines in 1929 mirrored Keynes’ “animal
spirits,” the notion that Great Depression-type events can come about
basically because people get the heebie-jeebies. 45
Prior to the publication in 1963 of Friedman and Schwartz’s Monetary
History, the conventional view was that the onset of the Great Depression
was essentially nonmonetary in nature. Central banks could do little,
because the problems lay outside their realm. This view remained popular
afterwards as well. “For at least a quarter-century after the Depression’s
nadir, the prevailing interpretation concluded that monetary factors,
specifically the actions of the Federal Reserve, were quite simply unable to
stem the decline,” concluded Frank Steindl, in a review of the intellectual
landscape. 46 Anna Schwartz, Friedman’s collaborator, explained: “In the
’30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, the prevailing explanation of 1929-1933 was essentially
modeled on Keynesian income-expenditure lines. A collapse in investment
as a result of earlier overinvestment, the stock market crash, and the
subsequent revision of expectations induced through the multiplier process
a steep decline in output and employment. ... Try as the Federal Reserve
System might, its easy money policies ... did not stabilize the economy.” 47
In Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? (1976), Peter Temin
described the common thinking of that time:
It turns out that explanations of the Depression can be classified

into two groups ... The two classes of explanations of the Depression
have different events at their cores. What I have called the "money
hypothesis" asserts that the collapse of the banking system was the
primary cause of the Depression, while the "spending hypothesis"

asserts that a fall in autonomous aggregate spending lay at the root of
the decline. 48
Although Temin, like Eichengreen and other Keynesians, supported the

idea of a monetary response – a devaluation – to the difficulties of the time,
he answered the question of his book’s title in the negative.
[T]he proposition that monetary forces caused the Depression

must be rejected. ...
This study has shown that the spending hypothesis fits the
observed data better than the money hypothesis, that is, that it is
more plausible to believe that the Depression was the result of a drop
in autonomous expenditures, particularly consumption. 49
The “golden fetters” that Eichengreen’s title refers to represents the

notion that, with a gold standard system, central banks’ hands are
essentially tied. In any Currency Option One system, there is little role for
discretionary policy. When Montagu Norman was asked by the Macmillan
Committee in 1931 what the Bank of England could have done to address
the soaring unemployment, Norman answered: “We have done nothing.
There is nothing we could do.” 50
The “Gold Exchange Standard”
The “gold exchange standard” systems of the 1920s have come under
criticism in some circles, once again identified as a monetary cause of the
Great Depression. This view is represented in the writing of Jacques Rueff,
who, as the London-based manager in charge of the Bank of France’s
foreign reserves of British pounds in the 1920s, had an intimate view of the
issue. 51 He later became deputy governor of the Bank of France.
Despite his privileged vantage point, Rueff’s views were rather
confused. A “gold exchange standard” is functionally much like a modern
currency board, which causes no particular problems today. Rueff claimed
that a flaw in the “gold exchange standard” led to dramatic and inflationary
monetary expansion in both the reserve currency and the subsidiary
currency, which then led to bust in a manner reminiscent of Rothbard’s
arguments. A currency board, or “gold exchange standard,” does no such
thing. Despite serving as the primary reserve currency for “gold exchange
standards” worldwide, the Bank of England did not have even modest
growth in base money in 1925-1930, nor any decline in currency value
indicating an excess of base money supply. As for France, Rueff was
probably witnessing, and reacting to, the consequences of the French
franc’s wartime devaluation and return to gold at roughly one-fifth of its
prewar gold parity in 1926. Nominal prices in France would rise in
response, potentially by five-fold from their prewar levels, over a period of

years. The devaluation alone created an artificial trade advantage for
France. The fact that the franc was again a reliable gold-based currency
after 1926 naturally increased the demand for francs, and to meet this
demand, the Bank of France increased their supply. France also had
substantial tax cuts in the 1920s, producing a boom there, much as was the
case in the United States as well. The result was a roaring economy, rapidly
expanding monetary base, and an upward trend in prices, in France in the
1920s – all factors that could suggest a destructive “inflationary
overheating,” although, in this case, it was entirely benign.
Some economists put an undue emphasis on the supposed difference
between the “gold exchange standard” policies of the 1920s, and the pre-
1914 Classical gold standard period. This serves a rhetorical purpose – by
claiming that the 1920s era “was not really a gold standard,” they can
deflect criticisms that the Great Depression was supposedly caused by the
gold standard. Also, it helps to reconcile the claims that a “great inflation”
(or “great deflation”) of the most destructive consequences somehow
emerged during a gold standard regime. A subtle cautionary element is
often implied: although currencies were generally convertible to gold
during the 1920s, they were more commonly convertible to large bars
rather than coinage. After 1925, the Bank of England would deliver only
400 oz. bars in exchange for banknotes, instead of the £1 gold sovereigns
common before 1914. The circulation of gold coinage dropped dramatically,
as monetary gold was concentrated in central bank vaults. In the mind of
the general public – including politicians who were not monetary specialists
– gold’s role at the center of their monetary systems was becoming an
increasingly remote abstraction.
In 1930, John Maynard Keynes described:
[Gold] no longer passes from hand to hand, and the touch of the
metal has been taken away from men’s greedy palms. The little
household gods, who dwelt in purses and stockings and tin boxes,
have been swallowed by a single golden image in each country, which
lives underground and is not seen. Gold is out of sight—gone back
again into the soil. But when gods are no longer seen in a yellow
panoply walking the earth, we begin to rationalize them; and it is not
long before there is nothing left. 52
A closer look shows that there was actually not very much difference
between the arrangements of the late 1920s, and the arrangements of
1900-1914. Outside of the four major currencies (U.S., U.K., France and
Germany), the average holding of foreign currency reserves by other central
banks in Europe in 1913 was 24.6% of “international reserves” consisting
of gold bullion and foreign currency. In the Americas, Africa, Asia and
Australia, it was 38.8%. By 1929, these ratios had risen, but the difference
was largely one of degree. The increasing number of “gold exchange

standards” among peripheral central banks after 1920 was due in large part
to the fact that there were more central banks: in the aftermath of World
War I, several new states were established in Eastern Europe, including
Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and a shrunken
Austria. In Latin America, the Kemmerer Commission established a series of
new central banks during the 1920s, replacing prior arrangements based
mostly on silver coinage and small local banks of issue.
Australia 30.2% South Africa 46.8% Peru 11.2%

Egypt 88.1% Bulgaria 45.5% Poland 42.8%
Albania 90.5% Portugal 66.3% Danzig 100.0%
India 67.4% Latvia 70.1% France 38.5%
Finland 69.3% Estonia 78.9% Switzerland 37.2%
Sweden 52.0% Colombia 40.7% Chile 85.9%
Ecuador 84.1% Romania 42.5% Italy 49.8%
Austria 79.7% Czechoslovakia 64.3% Netherlands 32.9%
Hungary 32.9% Spain 3.8% Belgium 33.0%
Norway 31.1% Lithuania 69.2%
Foreign assets as a percentage of total gold and foreign assets, 1929 53
A related criticism of the “gold exchange standard” is that it is

“pyramided” upon the bullion reserves of the central bank of the reserve
currency; in this case, the Bank of England. It seemed as if dozens of central
banks were precariously perched upon this small bullion base. 54 This
notion arises from confusion between the liabilities of the Bank of England
(banknotes and deposits of the Bank), and British pound liabilities in
general, such as government bonds and commercial bank deposits, which
are liabilities of governments and commercial banks. Currency boards (and
“gold exchange standards”) generally hold the latter. It is true that bonds or
commercial bank deposits could be liquidated for base money, and that
base money converted to gold. But, in this, central banks holding British
government bonds are no different than any private-sector holder of British
government bonds, or private-sector commercial bank depositor, all of
whom could do exactly the same thing. If anything, central banks are likely
to be rather hesitant to take any such action: first, because it might create
friction with the Bank of England; and second, because it is contrary to the
principle of the gold exchange standard itself, the central bank’s current
policy. The Bank of England needed only to maintain the value (and gold
convertibility) of its own liabilities – banknotes and deposits, or base
money. For this purpose, it held bullion reserves equivalent to about 30% of
base money, which was more than adequate, especially when combined
with a contraction of discounting and other debt assets if necessary.
Did the “gold exchange standard,” or subsidiary central banks seeking

conversion of their reserves into bullion, force the British pound off of gold
in September 1931? 55 If central banks did make such requests, it was only
because the Bank threatened to devalue the currency, as John Maynard
Keynes stridently advocated at the time. The reason the British pound was
devalued in September 1931 had nothing to do with the “gold exchange
standard,” but rather the neglect of the Bank itself to support the value of
the pound as it came under pressure. This neglect itself caused fears of
devaluation to soar – fears that, it turned out, were correct. As has been true
almost universally in these cases through the decades, central banks can
then blame external forces, when it was their own misbehavior that was to
blame – misbehavior that, in the intensifying climate of monetary activism
promoted by Keynes and many others, was not quite accidental. The
outcome was exactly what many wanted, and criticism could be deflected
elsewhere. “There are few Englishmen who do not rejoice at the breaking of
our gold fetters,” John Maynard Keynes said in 1931, once again assigning
his personal views to the population as a whole.
During the summer of 1931, gold conversion drained the reserves of
the Bank of England. This was evidence that the pound’s value was low
compared to gold, and that the proper response was to reduce the base
money supply to support the pound’s value. Gold conversion itself would
accomplish this automatically, if no other action were taken. The receipt of
British pounds in the sale of gold at the conversion price would reduce the
monetary base by the equivalent amount. Normally, in a crisis situation as
this was, credit instruments (bonds and discounts) would also be reduced,
thus reducing the monetary base still further. Discounts did decline, in
response to an increase in the discount rate. However, the volume of
discounts, as a percentage of total assets, was by this time so small that the
effect was negligible. To this should have been added substantial selling of
government bonds in open market operations.
After the initial fall in gold reserves, further gold conversions were
accommodated by borrowing gold from the Federal Reserve and the Bank
of France in July and August of 1931. The total amount of gold conversion
amounted to perhaps £200 million. 56 If these gold outflows were reflected
in equivalent reduction in the overall monetary base, as would have
occurred automatically if the Bank took no other action, the monetary base
would have contracted by roughly 40%, a gigantic figure, and far more than
would have been necessary to support the pound’s value. This did not
happen; the monetary base expanded modestly. The initial gold outflows
were offset by an expansion of government securities. Although the Bank
claimed that a £15 million increase in fiduciary note issue at the beginning
of August was only for the three weeks of the holiday season, the move
created fears in the market of a new inflationary trend for the Bank. 57 (The
increase in government securities was not reversed.)
£800 Coins and bullion

Government securities
Discounts and other securities
£700 Total
£600
millions of pounds
£500
£400
£300
£200
£100
£0
1930 1931 1932
Britain: Bank of England, Aggregate Assets, 1930-1932 58

vertical line indicates the date of devaluation
During the crisis, the Bank undertook no meaningful defense of the

pound’s value at all, and instead went in the opposite direction, with
devaluation the inevitable outcome. Observers at the time were concerned
that monetary base contraction would lead to higher interest rates, and
“deflation.” Contraction in the monetary base has no economic effect if it is
done to support the currency’s value – as opposed to a contraction that
results in a higher currency value, as was the case in Britain in 1920-
1925. 59 In effect, the contraction absorbs “excess” base money. If there were
no contraction, the value of the currency would fall. Thus, it can be
considered an “anti-inflationary” action.
This pattern, of no effective central bank response via monetary base
reduction in the midst of gold outflows and sagging currency values, and a
devaluation soon after, has been common in the decades since 1931, and
was also the proximate cause of the demise of the Bretton Woods gold
standard in 1971. 60 If the Bank had acted properly, the British pound could
have easily maintained its gold standard parity. The devaluation of the
pound set off a worldwide crisis. Fears swirled that the U.S. or France might
follow Britain’s example. Yet, the dollar and franc were not devalued. The
Federal Reserve and the Bank of France weathered the crisis with their
currencies intact. In both cases, this involved a reduction in the monetary
base.
£800
Currency in circulation
£700 total deposits
base money
£600
millions of pounds
£500
£400
£300
£200
£100
£0
1930 1931 1932
Britain: Bank of England, Aggregate Liabilities, 1930-1932 61

vertical line indicates the date of devaluation
The use of “gold exchange standards” – currencies that were linked to

gold indirectly via a link to the British pound, rather than linked to gold
directly – probably caused more countries to go off gold, in 1931 and 1932,
than might have been the case if these monetary systems were structured
in a more independent fashion. However, the “gold exchange standard“
cannot take all the blame. The concurrent devaluation of the currencies of
Egypt, India, and Singapore – parts of the British Empire – reflected broader
political and economic ties beyond monetary technicalities alone. The
devaluation of the Japanese yen in December 1931 was related to trade
competition issues. Nevertheless, just as was the case with the devaluation
of the U.S. dollar in 1971, the use of reserve-currency systems tended to tie
many countries’ currencies to the fate of the British pound.
The “Rising Value of Gold” Interpretation
The notion that gold itself underwent some radical change in value, a
rise so abrupt and so gigantic in magnitude that it blew up the world
economy, has actually been rather rare. None of the theories previously
mentioned include it in any meaningful form. No evidence of any such rise
in value appears in the history of gold over the prior 500 years. The only
arguably similar episode was during the 1880s and 1890s, which can be
perhaps better explained as a glut of commodity supply. In any case, the
1880s and 1890s were also a time of great economic expansion.
To produce anything like the effects witnessed during the Great

Depression, the value of gold would have had to perhaps double, or perhaps
rise even beyond that. There are a few examples of such a rise in currency
value, such as the rise of the Japanese yen from 260/dollar to 120/dollar
between 1985 and 1988. Even this, though it certainly created difficulties
for the Japanese economy, did not cause anything resembling the Great
Depression.
40000 60%
35000
50%
30000
40%
25000
metric tons
20000 30%
15000
20%
10000
Central bank reserves
% aboveground gold 10%
5000
0 0%
1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Gold Bullion Holdings of Central Banks and Governments, 1913-2010
One such argument was that central banks reduced their gold reserve
holdings dramatically during the floating-currency period of World War I,
and increased them dramatically afterwards, as part of their return to gold
convertibility in the 1920s. 62 This story was true for France, but not for
central banks as a whole. Ex-U.S. central bank bullion holdings increased by
31% between 1913 and 1920. Including the U.S., they increased by 47%. 63
However, the basic idea dates at least as far back as the debates of the
1890s. The dramatic rise in central bank gold reserves after 1850 suggested
a rise in gold’s value, which would create a similar rise in value for all
currencies linked to gold, with the associated monetary effects.
The economist Gustav Cassel, in particular, focused on the potential
problems arising from aggressive central bank bullion accumulation. He
was influential at a 1922 meeting of central bankers in Genoa, where it was
loosely agreed that countries returning to a gold standard after wartime
currency floating would not pursue aggressive bullion reserve policies, but
instead make use of debt assets denominated in “reserve currencies,”

especially British pounds and U.S. dollars. Although often cited as a
dramatic embrace of “gold exchange standards,” this amounted to a
continuation of common practice from before 1914.
The outcome, perhaps influenced by Cassel, was that there was no great
change in the trend of central bank reserve accumulation before, during, or
after World War I. The surprising result was that, despite the trauma of
World War I and floating currencies, the reconstruction of the world gold
standard system in the 1920s and its breakdown in the 1930s, hardly
anything remarkable happened at all.
800
Total non-major
700 Britain
France
600 U.S.
millions of ounces of gold
500
400
300
200
100
0
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
Gold Reserves of Central Banks, 1913-1938 64
From 1850 to 1950, central bank reserve holdings steadily rose, as a

percentage of aboveground gold. Their levels in the 1920s were the highest
in history up to that time. Yet, in the 1920s, commodity prices were
unusually high in terms of gold; evidence that even eighty years of
continuous central bank accumulation (1850-1930) did not have the effect
of raising the value of gold, which would have implied low commodity
prices. Central bank accumulation continued to the mid-1960s, to levels far
above those of the 1920s or 1930s. Yet, the post-WWII period was also a
time of high commodity prices, and a booming economy. When central bank
accumulation finally turned to contraction in the mid-1960s – a far more
significant shift than anything that happened around 1929-1933 – this too
had little discernible effect on commodity prices or economies during that

time.
The trend of accumulation was also surprisingly smooth, with only a
small dip around 1918. 65 Even taking the Bank of France’s bullion
accumulation into account, there was no dramatic change in central bank
behavior that could have turned the booming 1920s into the catastrophic
disaster of the 1930s – a disaster in which U.S. nominal GDP fell by over
50% in a few short years. 66 In 1929, central banks held 34.2% of world
aboveground gold, and everything was fine. In 1933, they held 37.5%, and
the world economy was a smoking ruin. In 1950, they held 45.7%, and
everything was fine again. If one it to make the argument that gold rose in
value in 1929-1933, to some catastrophic degree, then one must also accept
that gold fell in value in 1933-1950 by a similar magnitude. If such a rise in
gold’s value was caused by central bank bullion accumulation, how did even
greater bullion accumulation after 1933 result in the opposite effect?
The history of gold over centuries, as a standard of value, was that it did
not undergo any sudden change of value that could cause dramatic
economic effects. This was true during the period of central bank bullion
accumulation 1850-1965 as well. Such descriptions flounder on the lack of
evidence of any mechanism that would explain such a historically
unprecedented outcome.
Between 1910 and 1940, the increase in monetary gold (central bank
reserves plus gold coinage) represented 80% of mining production during
that time period. A few have argued that mine production was low in the
1920s, causing a rise in gold’s value. Production of 608 tons in 1929 was
indeed below the 1912 peak of 707 tons; but it was still nearly four times
higher than the 167 tons mined in 1880. Production in 1929 was 1.34% of
the estimated aboveground world gold supply of 45,269 tons. In 1932, gold
production made a new all-time high. These minor wiggles in production
are hardly the causes of Great Depressions.
A related argument could be made for private-sector demand for gold.
Wouldn’t the bank insolvencies and sovereign defaults of 1929-1932 lead to
a rush to hold gold bullion? It is a sensible argument, but again one with
little evidence to support it. Suspension of convertibility in much of the
world beginning in 1931, and even outright bans on gold ownership such as
the United States adopted in 1933, tended to dampen any rush toward gold
coinage.
In the United States, gold coinage in circulation did experience a
dramatic rise in 1932, to $166 million from $76 million in 1931. However,
the 1932 figure was still only 3.1% of the total U.S. currency in circulation,
and far below the peak of $680 million of gold coinage in circulation
reached in 1899. 67 By the end of 1933, ownership of gold coinage was
illegal in the United States. On a global basis, estimated circulation of gold
coinage was 4,699 metric tons in 1910; 1,565 tons in 1925; 984 tons in
1930; and 300 tons in 1935. 68
If there were a rise in the value of gold around 1929-1933 of

extraordinary magnitude – perhaps a doubling of value – central banks
would have had to push their currencies higher to maintain gold parities. To
cause this rise in currency value, it might have been necessary to reduce the
monetary base by a substantial amount; in any case, there should have been
some sort of change in behavior reflective of the dramatic change in
monetary conditions. But the balance sheet of the Bank of England was
extremely quiet, and showed no such drama. The Federal Reserve had a
gentle expansion of the monetary base, not a contraction. The Bank of
France also continued to expand its balance sheet. Here too, there is no
evidence supporting a claim of a dramatic rise in gold’s value.
Gold’s Stability of Value
In the end, the only question we need to answer is: Did gold fail to serve
its role as the Monetary Polaris, a stable standard of value? This claim can
now be dismissed; and with it, all related claims that the gold-based
monetary systems of the time were a primary cause of the Great
Depression.
This conclusion should not be controversial. The Keynesian view, and
the dominant view until the 1960s, was that there was no monetary
problem, and little that central banks could do while remaining with the
gold standard system. The Austrian and Monetarist views both tended to
ignore the gold standard system altogether; both assume – erroneously –
that central banks were already operating a highly discretionary floating
fiat currency. Those that blame the “gold exchange standard” mostly blame
it for the failure of gold standard systems in 1931. Those devaluations did
indeed introduce a new element of turmoil, but “gold exchange standards”
were not the primary cause of them.
By the end of the 1930s, academia had turned into a hothouse of soft-
money enthusiasm. Governments and businessmen, however, were not
convinced. Currency devaluations often brought some relief, but also a
basket of nasty consequences. It had been no lasting solution – the Great
Depression dragged on through the decade, and unemployment remained
high. By the Tripartite Agreement of 1936, governments were moving back
toward a system of stable exchange rates. In 1944, they gathered together,
this time at a hotel in New Hampshire, to once again recreate the world gold
standard system.
Chapter 7:
The Bretton Woods Period, 1944-1971
The United States and Britain invaded German-held France at
Normandy on June 6, 1944. This created a two-front war for Germany,
which was already in rapid retreat on its Eastern front. The end of the war
was in sight; and with it, a return to normalcy in commerce and finance. In
July 1944, forty-four Allied governments assembled at the Mount
Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to rebuild a world
monetary system based on gold.
The result was enormously successful. Worldwide economic growth
and prosperity during the two decades that followed, the 1950s and 1960s,
were the best of any time from 1914 to the present day. Technological
wonders flowed forth: antibiotics, vaccines, synthetic fabrics, plastics,
nuclear power, commercial jet aviation, transistors, superhighways,
skyscrapers, and a “green revolution” in agriculture that resulted in a
threefold increase in per-acre yields. The propeller planes of 1945 led to a
small satellite, Sputnik 1, in orbit around the Earth in 1957. Only twelve
years later, in 1969, a man walked upon the moon. Incomes soared: U.S. per
capita GDP was $1,611 in 1946, and $5,246 in 1970 – all measured in a
currency of unchanging value at $35/oz. of gold. The 1970 figure
represented 150 ounces of gold. It was the highest this measure ever
reached. (U.S. per capita GDP in 2015 was equivalent to 48 ounces of gold.)
Germany and Japan, reduced to rubble after the war, did even better than
the United States.
The governments that gathered at Bretton Woods understood that
something had gone terribly wrong in the 1930s. To prevent the kind of
disorganized collapse of the international monetary system that began in
September 1931, they established an International Monetary Fund. Its
purpose was to defend the new gold standard system. Changes in gold
standard parity values would have to get permission from the Fund; the
Fund, in turn, would use its resources prevent any unplanned breakdowns.
A World Bank would extend credit to governments in financing difficulties,
thus preventing the kind of sovereign defaults that blackened 1931 and
1932. An International Trade Organization would prevent another
cascading tariff war. The ITO was not constituted, and instead became the
weaker General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Capitalism may indeed be
unstable, but a downturn would not cause a structural failure of sovereign
default, currency breakdown, and trade war. A United Nations, established

independently in 1945, would prevent military conflict.
Yet despite even these precautions – which did not exist in the pre-
1914 period – and despite the fact that there never was any major economic
downturn, the Bretton Woods era of prosperity and monetary calm was
brief. The Bretton Woods era ended in 1971, when the U.S. dollar was
devalued and floated from its gold parity at $35/oz., first established in
1934. Currencies floated when Europe ignited into war in 1914. They did so
again under the incredible strains of the Great Depression. But in 1971, the
world gold standard disintegrated, to general horror, in of one of the most
prosperous eras of modern history, and at a time when the actual quantities
of gold bullion, in central bank vaults, were the highest ever.
The Bretton Woods era began with an international conference, and
widely held consensus, but it did not end with one. There was no
international conference in which it was decided that the present
arrangements were somehow unsatisfactory, and that new arrangements
should be made. The broad consensus, in 1971, was that the Bretton Woods
gold standard system should be preserved. The governments of Europe and
Japan warned the U.S. of the consequences of leaving gold. On August 15,
1971, when U.S. president Richard Nixon announced the suspension of gold
conversion that effectively rendered the dollar a floating currency, he said
that it would be a temporary measure. And indeed it was – only a few
months later, in December 1971, Nixon himself organized the Smithsonian
Agreement, which officially relinked the dollar to gold at $38/oz. Other
countries agreed to relink their currencies to the dollar, thus eliminating
floating exchange rates. Despite their good intentions, they did not know
how to accomplish their goals. By early 1973, the internal contradictions,
and general incompetence of all involved, were too great. The Smithsonian
Agreement dissolved into unplanned floating currency chaos, which
continues to the present day.
For the first time in 5000 years, going back in an unbroken line to the
Sumerians and Egyptians of the third millennium B.C., the leading money of
the world was not based on gold or silver. It was not based on anything at
all – not even the various fleeting notions of the central bankers, who
discovered, again and again, that currencies and economies did not follow
their orders or behave according to their mistaken principles.
In 1910, when the British pound was the premier international
currency and London the world’s financial center, the Bank of England held
seven million ounces of gold in its vaults – the highest level ever. The Bank
had enjoyed over two hundred years of currency reliability, and there was
no particular reason, in 1910, to suspect that it could not enjoy another two
centuries more. In 1949, as the Bretton Woods system began, the United
States reached a peak of 702 million ounces of gold in reserve – literally a
hundred times greater than Britain, only thirty-nine years earlier. Yet,
keeping the dollar at its gold parity value was chronically problematic from
The Bretton Woods Period, 1944-1971 179
the beginning. In 1971, after only 27 years, it seemed impossible. At the

end, the U.S. held 276 million ounces of gold. Another 741 million ounces
was held by other central banks, whose currencies also floated.
How did this disaster happen?
Already by the 1920s, economists and central bankers had become
rather confused about the basic principles of gold standard management.
Even as they recreated the gold standard that had been lost in 1914, they
were forgetting that the purpose of a gold standard is to approach, as
closely as possible, the ideal of a currency that was neutral and unchanging
in value, an economic constant of commerce that served much as kilograms
and liters served as measures of weight and volume. A currency of highest
possible stability and reliability would allow economic cooperation to be
most rational, effective, and productive. Corruption of the currency would
corrupt the system of prices, interest rates, and contracts that allowed the
free market system to function.
The idea was already widespread, by the 1920s, that a central bank
could combine a policy of fixed exchange rates with gold, a domestic
discretionary “monetary policy,” and free trade without capital controls.
This was not possible – as expressed later by the “currency trilemma”
described in Chapter 1. In 1944, academia had been largely won over by the
Keynesian “New Economics.” This had a substantial element of self-interest:
a government committed to centralized guidance of the economy, via a vast
statistical apparatus, needed thousands of trained specialists. The pre-1914
system needed none. Economists and governments didn’t want to be left
with little more than “do nothing” nostrums in the face of another
downturn. They were going to do something – perhaps right away, as many
feared a return to Depression-like conditions after the war. According to the
Keynesian consensus of that time, that “something” would be a combination
of government spending and “easy money.”
The Bretton Woods system, by design, attempted to reconcile these
contrary urges. Currency values would be linked to gold – a gold standard
system. However, central banks would be permitted to engage in “domestic
monetary policy,” which centered primarily on short-term interest rates.
The gold parity goal was thus divorced from an operating mechanism
capable of achieving that goal. Gold parities could be “adjusted” from time
to time, this “adjustment” inevitably in the downward direction; in other
words, a devaluation. However, following such an “adjustment,” currency
values would still be linked to gold, at a new, devalued rate – much as the
U.S. did after its devaluation in 1933.
At the 1944 conference at Bretton Woods, these contradictory urges
were expressed in a debate between the leading British representative,
John Maynard Keynes, and the leading U.S. representative, Harry Dexter
White. Keynes made a proposal in which governments could change their
currency values readily, and impose trade and capital controls, in the
process of maintaining a “domestic monetary policy” aimed at full
employment and “balanced trade.” 1 Keynes also proposed a supranational

currency, the bancor, that could be managed to address economic issues,
and managed by a supranational body similar to the International Monetary
Fund. White aimed for fixed currency values, free flow of trade and capital,
and a greater emphasis on gold as the standard of value for all currencies.
The U.S. dollar was to be the effective “supranational currency,” as it
already was in practical terms. The final compromise allowed for
“adjustable pegs,” where currency values, in terms of gold or dollars, could
change periodically, in an organized framework. The U.S. dollar was the
only currency that would be convertible to gold, at the 1934 parity of
$35/oz. Even this could be done only by foreigners – it remained illegal for
U.S. citizens to own gold, as had been the case since 1933. Other currencies
were officially convertible only for dollars, even though other central banks
held large amounts of gold reserves. Trade and capital controls were
imposed.
After the end of World War II, the global gold standard established at
Bretton Woods was expanded to include Germany and Japan. Communist
China and the Soviet Union also linked their currencies to gold (or dollars
and pounds linked to gold) thus participating in the system informally.
The Joint Statement issued at the conclusion of the Bretton Woods
meeting in 1944 stated: “the maintenance of a high level of employment and
real income ... must be a primary objective of economic policy.” 2
Keynes himself said – approvingly – of the Bretton Woods agreement:
This plan is the exact opposite of [the gold standard]. ... For
instead of maintaining the principle that the internal value of a
national currency should conform to a prescribed de jure external
value, it provides that its external value should be altered if necessary
to as to conform to whatever de facto internal value results from
domestic policies, which themselves shall be immune from criticism by
the [International Monetary] Fund. 3
Was the Bretton Woods system intentionally designed to fail? Keynes

was a Fabian Socialist – a group founded to achieve similar ends as
Marxism, by gradualist means. The Fabians’ logo was a wolf in sheep’s
clothing. Harry Dexter White – born of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants, his
real name was Weit – was later outed by Whittaker Chambers as a Soviet
agent. Another defecting Soviet agent, Elizabeth Bentley, accused White of
providing the Soviets with the U.S. Treasury’s plates for printing Allied
occupation marks in Germany. White was the head of the International
Monetary Fund in 1946-1947. When a Federal grand jury was ordered to
investigate Bentley’s claims, he resigned his IMF post and vacated his office
the same day. In 1948, in testimony before the House Un-American
Activities Committee, White denied all charges. He died of a heart attack
three days later. Soviet-era records, made public by the Russian
government in the 1990s, confirmed that White had indeed been a Soviet
agent. 4
Economist Frank Graham was also well aware of the Bretton Woods
arrangement’s inherent contradictions. He said in 1949:
It would seem that, after all this, we might have learned that we
cannot both have our cake and eat it. We should know that we must
either forgo fixed exchange rates or national sovereignty [independent
domestic monetary policy] if we are to avoid the disruption of
equilibrium in freely conducted international trade or the system of
controls and inhibitions which is the only alternative when the internal
values of independent currencies deviate ... There is ... not even the
slightest provision for the adoption, by the various participating
countries, of the congruent monetary policies without which a system
of fixed exchange rates simply does not make sense. 5
Graham added:
Uncoordinated national monetary policies, non-discriminatory,

multilateral trade on the basis of free enterprise, and exchange rates
fixed, even provisionally, cannot be made to mix. We must choose
between them. 6
This was a clear expression of the “trilemma” described in Chapter 1,

and also the recognition that – unlike the Currency Option One systems in
use before 1914 and during the 1920s – there was no coherent monetary
operating mechanism, a currency-board-like automatic adjustment of the
monetary base, to sustain fixed currency values. Rather, as Keynes
described, monetary mechanisms would be used in a discretionary manner
to manage the domestic macroeconomy.
While both Keynes and Graham seemed to have a clear sense of the
inherent contradictions in the plan, most economists were not so insightful.
For the next twenty-seven years, they puzzled over the apparent
“imbalances” that seemed always ready to undermine and upset the fixed
exchange rate systems of Bretton Woods. They had no clear idea of where
these “imbalances” came from, and consequently, could not solve them.
The degree to which these impossible dual goals – of “internal”
discretionary management and “external” fixed values – were pursued was
the choice of individual governments and central banks themselves. Britain,
in particular, actively embraced the macroeconomic management ideas
expressed by Keynes. Germany and Japan, however, were much closer to an
orthodox currency board, in which there is no discretionary element or
domestic “monetary policy,” and thus no internal conflict. The United States
government, in the Employment Act of 1946, implicitly committed itself to a
Keynesian approach, which also included monetary management by the
Federal Reserve “to promote maximum employment, production, and

purchasing power.” This trend continued until it was more formally
expressed by a change in the Federal Reserve Act in 1977, the “dual
mandate” clause, which explicitly defines “the goals of maximum
employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”
60
50
40
gold oz.
30
20
10
0
1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
U.S.: Value of $1000 in gold oz., 1930-1973
If anything, the Bretton Woods agreement, as originally conceived, was

more of a departure from the principles of the gold standard than what
actually transpired. Domestic monetary policy was expected to be more
influential, and changes in exchange rates were expected to be more
common. An initial flurry of experimentation in monetary macroeconomic
management, accompanied by a burst of currency devaluations before 1950
led by Britain, proved to be an unpleasant experience. Governments
afterward tended to moderate their domestic monetary policy ambitions,
and adhere to fixed exchange rates, in general reflecting the influence of U.S.
leadership over that of Britain.
In the U.S. as well, initial enthusiasm for soft-money experimentation
waned by the early 1950s. The dollar’s value deviated from its $35/oz.
parity target markedly in the late 1940s, the result of a wartime financing
program that had not yet been resolved. In April 1942, in order to help with
the financing of large bond issuances, the Treasury demanded the Federal
Reserve to limit the interest rate on Treasury bills to 0.375%. The limit on
long-term bonds was 2.5%. In the process of meeting these targets, the
Federal Reserve expanded its monetary issuance, and the dollar’s value
sagged against its gold parity. This arrangement continued after the end of
the war. In 1947, the Federal Reserve raised its peg on the Treasury bill
rate, but reluctantly continued to restrain yields. Disagreements between
the Treasury and the Federal Reserve continued until, in March 1951, an
accord was reached with the Treasury that eliminated the ceilings on bond
yields. This allowed the Federal Reserve to address the problem of sagging
dollar value, which began to recover soon after. The value of the dollar
returned to its $35/oz. parity in November 1953.
Confusion Over the “Balance of Payments”
Most economists did not understand the inherent contradictions that

caused endless difficulties during this time. But even if they did not
understand them, they could not ignore them. They reacted by focusing
their concern on the “balance of payments,” which reached a crescendo of
absurdity perhaps unmatched over the previous two centuries.
The idea that trade should be “balanced” – that imports and exports
should be equivalent – was tightly held by the Mercantilist economists of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and expressed in all manner of
trade restrictions and capital controls. The Classical economists of the late
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries swept all of this away, culminating in
the Classical Gold Standard era of 1870-1914, when trade and investment
flowed freely worldwide. The result was enormous “trade imbalances,”
which were simply the statistical mirror image of high levels of
international investing, and which caused no problems in themselves. The
international gold standard actually enabled these very large capital flows,
by providing a system of stable currency value worldwide.
In 1965, a reporter asked James Callaghan, Britain’s Chancellor of the
Exchequer: “Why do you have balance-of-payments problems now, when
you didn’t have them fifty years ago?”
Callaghan answered: “There were no balance-of-payments problems
fifty years ago because there were no balance-of-payments statistics.”
All trade is “balanced” by nature. Trade is the exchange of things of
equal monetary value. This is true even in the extreme case of a customer
that does not pay – the seller still has an accounts receivable, listed as an
asset on the balance sheet, technically a form of debt, and easily saleable if
the need arose. The buyer has effectively received goods, and offered a
financial liability. Even a gift is “balanced” in the sense that both giver and
receiver are satisfied with the transaction.
Without capital and financial flows, all trade would be “balanced” on
the basis of goods and services alone. Otherwise, it would not occur.
Nobody would offer goods and services, and receive nothing in return. Once
parties engage in finance, the goods and services accounts can become what
is misleadingly termed “imbalanced.” One party gives goods and services,
and receives assets, typically in the form of equity and debt. The other
receives goods and services, and offers assets. Trade is still “balanced,”
although with one side of the trade on the current account, and one side on
the financial account.
A “balance of payments” can be described between any two parties, or
any two regions, using the same currency. It is not a monetary
phenomenon. There is no “Britain” that is trading with “France.” These are
simply statistical aggregates of millions of individual economic entities –
individuals, corporations, government entities – who have been identified
(often somewhat arbitrarily) as “British” or “French.” The only trade that
actually exists is between individual economic entities. Just as individual
entities in the same country can trade with each other without creating
“imbalances,” so can individual entities that happen to reside in different
countries.
Nevertheless, for a very long time – at least as far back as the
Mercantilist writers of the seventeenth century, although one could reach
even to Rome – governments have been intensely concerned about the
“trade balance.” This often has a foundation in real issues. Government
fiscal profligacy, or the expenses of war, can easily be reflected in trade
statistics. A low savings rate, and a pattern of excessive household
indebtedness, can lead, on the aggregate level, to borrowing money from
and selling assets to foreigners. Before 1800, vagaries in the bimetallic
coinage systems commonly in use could lead to a disappearance (via trade)
of either gold or silver coinage, and resulting difficulties. Increased
international trade can lead to new competitive pressures against
established domestic industries, and what amounts indirectly to a new
supply of cheap labor to compete with domestic labor. These are all genuine
issues of concern, but they don’t have anything to do directly with the
“balance of payments,” which is simply their statistical shadow, or the
currency, which is simply the medium of exchange.
Over the centuries, so much concern has been directed at the “balance
of payments” that it has served as an all-purpose political justification for
anything and everything. Foreign competition must be blocked because of
the “balance of payments.” Government deficits must be resolved because
of the “balance of payments.” Currencies must be devalued because of the
“balance of payments.” Policymakers typically cannot make much sense of
this rhetoric. People say these things ... because people have always said
these things. They do not actually understand what the “balance of
payments” technically refers to, or what it represents. Unfortunately, most
economists do not either, and don’t particularly want to. Many of them are
employed, directly or indirectly, to provide rhetorical support for one
interest group or another. The “balance of payments” has been one of their
best tools for decades. And so it goes, up to the present day.
In the 1950s and 1960s, economic thought had turned away from the
Classical conception of the nineteenth century, and, in so many ways, back
toward the Mercantilist habits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Depression and World War had reintroduced big-government statism, and
with it, an economics that revolved around government influence and

intervention. The old Mercantilist fallacies surrounding the “balance of
payments” and the imaginary “price-specie flow mechanism” were revived
in a new form.
1.20%
1.00%
0.80%
0.60%
0.40%
0.20%
0.00%
-0.20%
-0.40%
-0.60%
-0.80%
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
U.S.: Current Account Balance as a Percentage of GDP, 1950-1970
By the 1940s, the term “balance of payments” had achieved a bizarre

new state of semantic schizophrenia. The term had two effective meanings:
one was the literal balance of payments, as expressed by official trade
statistics. The other was as an expression of the value of the currency in
relation to its gold parity, which in turn led to bullion inflows and outflows
via convertibility. (For currencies linked to the U.S. dollar or other reserve
currencies, it meant inflows and outflows of foreign exchange. 7) Thus, the
common claim of the time was that the United States suffered a “chronic
balance of payments deficit” of supposedly world-currency-system-
destroying proportions, although the U.S. government’s own statistics show
a current account surplus for every year of the 1960s, and most of the
1950s as well.
The “balance of payments deficit” that economists wrung their hands
about was simply the fact that the value of the dollar was sagging beneath
its gold parity value of $35/oz. 8 In October 1960, the private market price
of gold hit $40/oz. – in other words, the value of the dollar had fallen to
1/40th of an ounce of gold. 9 The Federal Reserve, offering to sell gold at
$35/oz., suffered chronic bullion outflows. Vaguely referencing
Mercantilist-era “price-specie flow” notions, these outflows were perceived

as a “balance of payments deficit.”
These fallacious notions had been common even in the 1920s. In 1924,
as the Federal Reserve was experiencing bullion inflows, economist Ralph
Hawtrey complained about the “delusion” that the Federal Reserve
obtained gold due to a favorable “balance of payments.” “Apparently they
have not yet learnt that they receive all this gold simply because they offer a
higher price for it,” Hawtrey complained. 10
Paraphrasing Hawtrey, one might have said in the 1960s: “Apparently
they have not yet learnt that they emit all this gold because they offer the
lowest price for it.”
120
100
80 monetary base
gold reserves at $35/oz.
$ billions
60
40
20
0
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
U.S.: Monetary Base and Gold Reserves, 1950-1973
In the late 1950s, the economist Robert Triffin described a “Triffin

Dilemma,” a supposed flaw whereby the accumulation of dollar foreign
reserves by central banks would undermine the dollar itself. It
characterized the confusion common at the time. The “dollar glut” could
have been remedied at any time by the Federal Reserve. An underlying
problem was that economists had become averse to any kind of currency-
supporting action at all, believing that it would have negative economic
consequences. Triffin’s erroneous logic, which led him to perceive the
problems of the time as insoluble and innate rather than simple and easily
remedied, led him to propose a unified world reserve currency system
similar to Keynes’ bancor proposal two decades earlier. 11
The conflict between “external” fixed values and “internal” monetary

policy was resolved by capital controls. (Most European currencies did not
even become convertible until the end of 1958.) However, the “internal”
activist management could not proceed very far, even with capital controls,
or the discrepancy between a currency’s real value and its fixed-rate parity
would become too great to ignore. Thus, activist management was typically
constrained within a fairly tight sphere. In Britain, this became known as
the “Stop-Go” policy. An “easy” monetary policy would be pursued until the
fixed exchange rate policy came under pressure. At that point, a “tight”
policy would ensue, to support the value of the currency. Much the same
principle was expressed by William McChesney Martin, the chairman of the
Federal Reserve 1951-1970, who said in 1955 that the job of the Federal
Reserve was to “take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.” 12
The situation irritated everyone. The domestic macroeconomic
managers wished they weren’t constrained by the fixed-value parities. They
didn’t want to take away the punchbowl. Defenders of the gold standard
and stable exchange rates were constantly harried by the problems
erupting from domestic monetary management. The trade and capital
controls that were laid over the mess to keep it from breaking apart
frustrated all manner of private trade and investment. This was nothing like
the open and free markets, minimal government intrusion, and quietly
reliable currencies of the pre-1914 era.
Confused by their chronic currency difficulties, economists reacted as if
their problem really was one of current account deficits – current account
deficits that did not actually exist. Beginning in 1961, the U.S. increased
commercial staffs in U.S. embassies to boost exports. Visa requirements
were simplified to increase tourist receipts. Export credit insurance
facilities of the Export-Import Bank were expanded. Federal government
expenditures abroad were curtailed. Taxes were raised on foreign earnings
of U.S. corporations. The United States imposed an Interest Equalization Tax
in 1963, to stem foreign investments. A Voluntary Foreign Credit Restraint
program followed in 1965, to limit bank lending to foreigners. A Foreign
Direct Investment program, also in 1965, requested nonfinancial
corporations to limit foreign investment. 13 Though “voluntary” at first, it
became more coercive and interventionist in time, and made mandatory in
1968. Many more minor policies of the sort were implemented during the
1960s. Other countries also facing a problem of sagging currency value
followed a similar path.
The concern about current account deficits rippled outward along lines
of loose association to include the U.S. government’s budget deficits. Unlike
the nonexistent “current account deficit,” these budget deficits did actually
exist – expenses related to the Vietnam War and Great Society welfare
projects were a proximate cause – but they were small. During the decade
of the 1960s, the average Federal government deficit was -0.8% of GDP,
with a maximum of -2.8% in 1968. The Federal gross debt/GDP level had
been falling since the end of World War II due to rising GDP, and in 1970
reached 35%. Interest rates were indeed rising in the late 1960s, which was
broadly interpreted as the precursor of a looming debt crisis. Given the
minor deficit and low overall debt levels of the time, the rise was almost
certainly due to growing concern that the U.S. dollar would be devalued.
Although the Federal Reserve was not involved in direct deficit financing at
the time, these concerns led to pressure on the Federal Reserve to continue
to expand the monetary base at an aggressive pace by purchasing Treasury
bonds.
3.00%
2.00%
1.00%
0.00%
-1.00%
-2.00%
-3.00%
-4.00%
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
U.S.: Federal Budget Deficit as a Percentage of GDP, 1950-1970
During the 1960s, it appears that the Federal Reserve loosely

appropriated a monetarist framework of operation, practically expressed as
a steady growth rate in the monetary base. In a memorandum to President
Johnson, Martin wrote in 1965:
The immediate goal of monetary policy should be to provide the

reserves needed to support a rate of growth in bank credit and money
which will foster stable economic growth. 14
This reflected the ideas of Milton Friedman as expressed in A Program

For Monetary Stability (1960). In that book, Friedman proposed an
amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in which base money would grow by
3-5% per year.
As the problem of excess dollar supply and sagging dollar value

remained unsolved, a further attempt to batter the situation into shape
appeared in the form of the London Gold Pool, an agreement between the
United States and seven major European governments to keep the price of
gold in London at the $35/oz. parity via various cooperative and coercive
means. 15 It lasted from 1962 to 1968.
140%
120%
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
U.S.: Gross Federal Debt as a Percentage of GDP, 1940-2015
Other countries struggled to varying degrees with the same

contradictions. As the internal discrepancies overwhelmed even the capital
controls in place and periodic interventions, a devaluation of the currency
was the result. Economists cited “fundamental disequilibrium,” or
“persistent imbalances,” seemingly colossal forces of history and destiny
against which economists were as helpless as King Canute against the tides,
but which did not mean anything more than: the currency’s value had
diverged from its parity value. The British pound was devalued from $4.03
in 1945 to $2.80 in 1949 and $2.40 in 1967. 16 The French franc’s value fell
from 1.19/dollar in 1945 to 3.5/dollar after a series of devaluations in 1948
and 1949, 4.2/dollar in 1957, 4.94/dollar in 1958, and 5.55/dollar in 1969.
The Spanish peseta was devalued from 60/dollar to 70/dollar in 1967. The
Danish krone was devalued from 6.91/dollar to 7.5/dollar in 1967. The
German mark was actually upvalued, from 4.2/dollar to 4.0/dollar in 1961,
and again to 3.67/dollar in 1969, reflecting the sagging dollar value vs. gold
at those times.
12%
10%
10yr Treasury bond yield
8% Federal funds rate
6%
4%
2%
0%
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
U.S.: Yield on 10yr Treasury Bond and Fed Funds Rate, 1942-1973
Currencies of smaller countries and emerging markets showed a

similar pattern, of either unchanging currency value or relatively modest
devaluations. Of 156 currencies, 72 were unchanged, or depreciated by less
than 10% vs. the dollar between 1950 and 1970. 17 Sixty-four had a decline
in value of greater than 10%, but less than 50%. Thirteen had a decline in
value of 50%-90%. Seven had a decline in value of more than 90%, with the
worst descending into hyperinflation. These centered in Latin America:
Bolivia’s currency experienced a depreciation of 198:1; Brazil 269:1; Chile
232:1. Compared to the currency difficulties of smaller countries after 1971,
including widespread hyperinflation, the Bretton Woods era was relatively
benign for emerging markets and peripheral economies. Upon this stable
monetary base, the better developing countries could soar just as the
developed countries did. Between 1960 and 1970, the value of the Mexican
peso was unchanged at 12.5 pesos/dollar. Nominal GDP in Mexico
increased by 174% during that decade, a growth rate of 10.6% per year.
Hostility Toward Stable Money Principles
While the basic principles of the gold standard were eroding badly
among even the monetary specialists, they were floating outside the
thoughts of nonspecialists altogether. It had been illegal for citizens to own
gold coinage in the U.S. since 1933. But even before then, during the 1910s
and 1920s, gold coinage had been almost completely replaced by

banknotes, and bank transactions. Despite the practical advantages, the
effect was to further distance the relationship between gold and money in
the public mind.
Even as gold remained central in the practical monetary affairs of the
U.S. and the world, prominent economists declared an enmity toward gold-
based money that drifted into propaganda. Historically, political
conservatives had been the primary champions for the gold standard
system. “Progressives” had been soft-currency advocates at least as far back
as the 1870s. This continued in the 1960s with the Keynesian focus on “full
employment,” even at the cost of some “inflation,” mathematically
expressed in 1958 by William Phillips as the “Phillips curve.” But Milton
Friedman, one of the most popular conservative-leaning economists even
into the 1980s, had been a floating currency advocate since the early 1950s.
In 1960, he wrote: “Only a cultural lag leads us still to think of gold as the
central element in our monetary system. A more accurate description of the
role of gold in U.S. policy is that it is primarily a commodity whose price is
supported, like wheat or other agricultural products, rather than the key to
our monetary system.” 18 It is hard to imagine that Friedman actually
believed this; but, apparently, he wanted others to.
The idea of fixed currency values, and a dollar at $35/oz. of gold,
remained a cornerstone of public policy. Among academics, however, a
consensus had formed both among the Keynesians and the Monetarists –
between them encompassing perhaps over 90% of all academics at the time
– that fixed exchange rates, and especially fixed exchange rates with gold,
were a leftover artifact of a primitive era. They yearned to put all of their
theories of macroeconomic manipulation into practice, in a world of
floating fiat currencies. They could make no sense of the difficulties of their
time, degenerating into a cacophony of confusion over the “balance of
payments” or “fundamental disequilibriums.”
The foundations of the Classical view had been undermined even
during the 1920s. John Chamberlain, author of The Roots of Capitalism
(1959), recalled his undergraduate education at Yale University during the
early 1920s:
We never read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. We heard

plenty about it, however. The professors treated it condescendingly;
we were told it was the fundamentalist Bible of the old dog-eat-dog
type of businessman. ... After 1933 we began to get the centralized
state and interventionist controls of industry. Actually, however, the
inner spirit of the old America had been hollowed out in the Twenties.
... We were the ignorant generation. ... The first “great book” in
economics we read was Marx’s Capital. We had nothing to put against
it. 19
Within this most recent expression of the world gold standard system,
the culmination of five thousand continuous years of gold and silver-based
money in the Western world – even as gold remained the basis of the
world’s major currencies, the official policy of governments, central banks
and the IMF – gold standard advocates themselves had become outcasts.
Two of the twentieth century’s leading economists in the Classical tradition,
Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, could not find a regular paying job
in academia. Both were supported, during their U.S. careers, by private
patrons. The president of the University of Chicago, Robert Hutchings,
asked the economics department to give Hayek a position; they refused.
Hayek later found more appreciation in Europe. He accepted a
professorship in Germany in 1962. In 1974, the Swedes gave him a Nobel
Prize. Von Mises’ position at New York University was funded by a private
businessman, Lawrence Fertig. Despite Fertig’s seat on NYU’s Board of
Trustees, Mises remained an unsalaried “visiting professor” for his twenty-
four years at the institution.
Murray Rothbard described the situation in his 1962 book The Case for
a 100% Gold Dollar:
To advocate the complete, uninhibited gold standard runs the

risk, in this day and age, of being classified with the dodo bird. When
the Roosevelt administration took us off the gold standard in 1933,
the bulk of the nation's economists opposed the move and advocated
its speedy restoration. Now gold is considered an absurd anachronism,
a relic of a tribal fetish. 20
But the gold standard advocates were often as confused as their

Keynesian and Monetarist counterparts. Rothbard, one of the most
influential gold standard advocates of the time and into the 1980s,
expressed his disdain for the ideas of Walter Spahr. Spahr recommended a
return to the situation of the 1920s, when monetary managers (mostly) did
not attempt Keynesian macroeconomic management, but only maintained
the currency’s value parity with the appropriate adjustment mechanisms,
base money was convertible to bullion among all citizens, and gold coins
remained in circulation. Spahr defended the official gold parity at $35/oz. –
not exactly a controversial position, one shared by the U.S. Treasury,
Federal Reserve and International Monetary Fund at the time, and one that
was, by all appearances, very successful. Domestic discretionary
management, though allowed within Bretton Woods, was not required.
Germany and Japan did not indulge in it, and perhaps the U.S. would not
either.
Instead, Rothbard told his many followers that “fractional reserve
banking” should be eliminated, and banknote issuers should hold 100%
bullion reserves – a situation that had not existed in the Western world
since 1700, and, arguably, not since the relaxation of Christian laws against
usury allowed banking to re-emerge in the twelfth-century Italian states.

This proposal certainly deserved to be labeled “an absurd anachronism.”
But, perhaps most bizarrely, Rothbard seemed to have little
appreciation for the idea that a currency should be stable in value – the
primary purpose of a gold standard system, and indeed any fixed-value
standard. Mocking Spahr’s attachment to the existing $35/oz. parity,
Rothbard argued:
Depending on how we define the money supply – and I would

define it very broadly as all claims to dollars at fixed par value – a rise
in the gold price sufficient to bring the gold stock to 100 percent of
total dollars would require a ten- to twentyfold increase. 21
The great “gold standard advocate” thus recommended devaluing the

dollar by 90%-95%. The currency itself would be sacrificed, in pursuit of a
quixotic war on “fractional reserve banking,” which had coexisted with
gold-based money for the past six hundred years. This did not seem to
bother Rothbard, who continued such arguments into the 1980s and
attracted many equally-confused followers.
Jacques Rueff, another prominent gold standard advocate of the time,
had gained considerable influence with Charles de Gaulle, president of
France in 1959-1969. Rueff, the critic of the “gold exchange standards” of
the 1920s, naturally blamed the “gold exchange standards” of the 1960s for
all the problems of the day – arguments largely the same as those of Robert
Triffin. Influenced by Rueff, France’s finance minister Valery Giscard
d’Estaing complained in 1965 about the “exorbitant privilege” enjoyed by
the U.S., which found something like a forced buyer for its Treasury bonds
among world central banks. But was this really so “exorbitant”? In 1969,
foreign central banks held $10.4 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds, out of a total
gross Federal debt of $367.4 billion. 22 This figure was actually unchanged
from 1960, when central banks held $10.5 billion of Treasury bonds. There
had been no net demand for Treasury bonds among central banks for a
decade. The Federal Reserve itself held over $75 billion in 1969. British
pounds actually remained a major reserve currency, with $7.6 billion-worth
held by central banks in 1960. 23 In 1969, the market yields on Treasury
bonds were rising to their highest in U.S. history up to that time, hardly
evidence of any “privilege.”
The solution, according to Rueff, was to convert foreign exchange
holdings into gold bullion – a very French solution, as this was exactly the
course that France took in 1928-1932, and was reflective of France’s
practice in the pre-1914 era. Dependence on the U.S. dollar, as the sole
direct link to gold, would be eliminated. By itself, this plan was feasible,
although it would have required a large amount of bullion. Central banks
already had a large amount of bullion: in 1969, eleven major countries had
$72.6 billion in banknotes and coins outstanding, against $33.9 billion of
gold bullion reserves – an abundant ratio, even by nineteenth-century

standards. Ex-U.S. central bank bullion holdings were roughly four times
higher than they had been in 1913. However, using logic similar to
Rothbard’s, Rueff also argued that his goals should be achieved by
devaluing the dollar to $70/oz. 24 Once again, a “gold standard advocate”
promoted a devaluation – the very action that he himself called “the
monetary sin of the West.”
Even among the dwindling number gold standard advocates, there was
little understanding of the fundamental inconsistency of the Bretton Woods
arrangement; little understanding of the proper operating principles of a
fixed-value currency system; little appreciation for gold’s role as a standard
of value; little understanding of the principle of Stable Value in the most
rudimentary form; and little ability to diagnose the problems of the time, or
propose a practical solution. Lacking technical knowledge, many of their
arguments degenerated into a faith in gold bullion itself to solve all their
problems – the problem of dwindling U.S. gold reserves was “not enough
gold,” and the solution was “more gold,” in the form of coins or in vaults. At
its worst, it descended into the “tribal fetish” that critics claimed. But gold
itself was simply an inert metal. It was gold’s very special inertness that
made it such a splendid basis for monetary exchange. The trick was to keep
currencies’ values tied to their gold parities. For that, the gold standard
advocates were little better than their counterparts in mainstream
academia, finance ministries, and central banks, which is to say: hopelessly
lost.
Many of their proposals were politically and technically unfeasible.
Many of them acted as if the world gold standard system had already
passed away, in 1933, or 1931, or 1914. While this argument had plenty of
truth to it, the impression it gave was that the battle to maintain the Bretton
Woods arrangement centered around the dollar at $35/oz. of gold – and
perhaps amend it to a properly-constituted gold standard system as Spahr
wished, without Bretton Woods’ inherent contradictions – had already been
lost, generations earlier.
The Bretton Woods Prosperity
Despite all of the self-inflicted difficulties, the broader picture was that
currencies’ values were reasonably well linked to gold. Even the dollar’s
slide to a momentary nadir of $40/oz. in 1960, though a gross deviation
from the $35/oz. peg, was not terribly important in the broader context.
Money was tolerably stable in value. Exchange rates mostly remained fixed,
which meant that other currencies tied to the dollar were also tied to gold.
Before 1971, the consequences of the inherent contradictions of Bretton
Woods were felt mostly in the form of capital and trade controls, and the
rising interest rates representing the fear of the system’s eventual rupture.
To the continuing frustration of the Keynesian and Monetarist money
manipulators, gold was still the standard of currency value. Activist

domestic monetary policy was curtailed if it endangered the gold parity.
The Federal Reserve was still taking away the punchbowl. Just as was the
case in 1880-1914, and again in the 1920s, gold-based money established
the foundation for a wonderful economic expansion. U.S. nominal GDP
increased by 372% between 1946 and 1970. With the dollar’s value fixed at
$35/oz., “nominal” was essentially the same as “real.” Germany’s nominal
GDP increased by 655%. Japan’s increased by 1,405%. 25
Was there anything at all gained by trying to stitch together a
discretionary domestic “monetary policy” with gold standard fixed parity
values? Was there any advantage from Currency Option Three? The
countries that pursued a simple fixed-value system, and largely abandoned
any “domestic monetary policy” – Germany and Japan – did the best. One
reason for this was political: if leaders did not expect “monetary policy” to
solve their problems for them, they would seek solutions via other means.
In Germany and Japan, this took the form of aggressive growth-friendly tax
reforms. Without the conflict with “domestic monetary policy,” there would
have been no need for trade and capital controls, no difficulties in
maintaining the fixed gold parity values, and no need for the devaluations of
Britain and France. Economic growth, though bountiful at the time, could
have been even better. Interest rates, instead of soaring higher in the 1960s,
would have remained low and stable indefinitely, just as had been the case
in the nineteenth century. Better growth would have meant less pressure
for government spending or new welfare programs, and greater tax
revenues, leading to budget surpluses and potentially a move toward lower
tax rates, as happened in the 1920s. A larger nominal GDP would have
reduced the government debt/GDP ratio still further. The combination
could have led the U.S. Federal government to actually pay off the entire
Federal debt within twenty years. It would have been the true modern
expression of the pre-1914 Classical Gold Standard, and could have
continued indefinitely for centuries, just as Britain had done before World
War I.
Gold itself served, by all indications, as an exemplary standard of stable
value during the time. Commodity prices were extraordinarily stable, once
they settled down after the Korean War (1950-53) and the weak dollar
resolved by the Federal Reserve/Treasury Accord of 1951.
In 1968, the U.S. had been consistently losing gold reserves even
despite the efforts of the London Gold Pool. In March 1968, gold conversion
was effectively halted. Officially, the U.S. would still allow gold conversion
for central banks; but, there was a distinct risk that, if a foreign central bank
actually asked for bullion, they would be refused. “Special Drawing Rights”
were introduced via the IMF, which supposedly served as an alternative to
gold bullion as an international reserve asset. The SDR consisted of a basket
of currencies, primarily dollars. To the British, French and Germans,
converting dollars into a basket consisting of dollars, pounds, francs and
marks did not seem like it achieved anything at all. The dissolution of the
London Gold Pool, and the effective end of gold conversion, allowed the
London gold price to reflect the true value of the dollar at the time.
250
200
150
100
50
0
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973 U.S.: CRB Commodity Index, 1947-1973
The dollar quickly fell to a nadir of $43.50/oz., a decline of 19.5% from

its parity at $35/oz. The growth rate of the U.S. monetary base had reached
new highs near 8% in 1968 – perhaps influenced by Lyndon Johnson to
help fund his “Great Society” programs, and the large budget deficit they
created that year. The Fed funds rate rose to over 9.0% in August of 1969,
from around 4.0% in mid-1967. The Federal Reserve reacted by slowing
monetary base growth to under 5% in January 1970.
Maybe this was all that was ever required – not even a contraction in
the monetary base, but simply a moderation in its growth rate. Could all of
the difficulties of the time have been resolved with such a minor step? In
practice, they were resolved: the dollar regained its $35/oz. parity value in
January 1970. The average open market value of the dollar that month was
$35.12/oz. If the dollar had risen a little farther in value, to perhaps
$34.00/oz., bullion conversion inflows may have begun for the first time
since the 1940s. The Fed funds rate was still near 9.0%, and the yield on the
ten-year Treasury bond had risen to 7.79% – both figures among the
highest in U.S. history up to that time. These would probably have come
down quickly, if the U.S.’s commitment to the $35/oz. gold parity was
assured. Nearly 8% on a reliably gold-linked U.S. government bond was a

very, very good deal. They had been at 4% just a few years earlier. William
McChesney Martin had been the Chairman of the Federal Reserve since
April 1951, a month in which the dollar traded at $42.75/oz. in London. His
first task in office was to return the value of the dollar to $35/oz., which he
achieved in 1953. At the beginning of 1970, he had done it again. His
willingness to “take the punchbowl away,” when the dollar’s value sagged,
helped keep the chronic dollar weakness of his term from erupting into
crisis.
President Richard Nixon had blamed Martin’s tight-money policy for
his narrow loss to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. 26 The
National Bureau of Economic Research dates a recession beginning in April
1960 and lasting to February 1961. Nixon didn’t want to go into the 1972
election with the highest sustained interest rates in U.S. history – interest
rates that were soon blamed for a recession dated December 1969 to
November 1970. In January 1970, as Martin’s term expired, Nixon replaced
him with his long-time economic advisor, Arthur Burns. The Fed funds rate
immediately tumbled after Burns’ installation, falling to 3.7% in March
1971. The ten-year Treasury yield fell to 5.7%. Monetary base growth
ramped up again, over 7% in March 1971 compared to a year earlier. The
dollar sank again vs. gold. In March 1971, it was at $39.20/oz. In early
August 1971, it was $43.30/oz. – exactly the point at which the Treasury
had backed off in 1951, and where Martin had pulled in the reins in 1968.
European central banks had not asked for gold conversion since 1968, but
in July 1971, Switzerland and France asked for additional bullion transfers.
On August 12, Britain asked the U.S. to “cover,” or guarantee the value of,
$750 million of U.S. dollar reserves held by Britain. (Confusion over the
message led the U.S. Treasury to interpret this as a guarantee – one step
short of actual conversion – on $3 billion held by the Bank of England. 27)
On August 15, 1971, President Nixon announced that gold
convertibility was officially suspended. Nixon called it a temporary
measure, and buried it within a long list of other policy proposals. In
practice, there hadn’t been much gold conversion since 1968. But, the
official closing of the “gold window,” combined with an aggressively
expansionist Federal Reserve under a new Chairman, indicated that the U.S.
was happy with a weaker dollar. The U.S. Congress had issued a report on
August 5 recommending a devaluation. Britain and France had devalued
only a few years earlier.
In May 1971, Germany decided that it no longer wished to be tied to the
declining dollar, and floated the mark. It immediately rose 7.5% against the
dollar. Upon Nixon’s announcement, many governments followed
Germany’s example and floated their currencies from the dollar, whose
value soon fell in the foreign exchange market. The world of floating fiat
currencies was born, and it was quickly perceived to be a disaster. In
December 1971, a new agreement was formed among major governments,
the Smithsonian Agreement, in which the dollar would again be fixed to

gold, and other currencies would again be fixed to the dollar. A devaluation
of the dollar to $38/oz. was accepted. However, there was no convertibility
into gold, and no mechanism or obligation by the Federal Reserve to act in
some way to maintain the $38/oz. parity. In 1970, the Nixon administration
calculated that, to achieve the economic growth they wanted, nominal GDP
would have to rise by 9%. Following Monetarist doctrine, this was to be
accomplished with money creation.
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
-2%
-4%
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
U.S.: Federal Reserve, Monetary Base, 1951-1973

percent change from a year earlier
The Nixon/Burns “easy money” policy worked: 1972 seemed to be a

great year, with official “real” GDP up 5.6%. Nominal GDP rose by 8.5% in
1971 and 9.8% in 1972, hitting the Nixonites’ nominal GDP targets with
impressive precision. In the November election, Nixon won in a landslide.
The dollar was trading around $43.50/oz. in December 1971. In February
1973, it was trading around $69/oz., roughly half of its Bretton Woods
value of $35/oz. That month, the U.S. declared that its new gold parity
would be $42/oz. It was a farce: the dollar had never been worth 1/38th of
an ounce of gold, or even 1/42nd, since the beginning of the Smithsonian
Agreement. In March 1973, the dollar’s value dropped to $90/oz. Central
banks around the world, seeing where this was going, again delinked their
currencies from the dollar, allowing them to rise on the foreign exchange
market. Floating fiat currencies were back.
Some economists today argue that monetary manipulation of the

macroeconomy, and floating fiat currencies, are a consequence of
democratic government. Certainly, the urge to be re-elected, exemplified by
Richard Nixon, can drive politicians to an easy-money strategy. But does the
electorate really favor monetary manipulation and floating fiat currencies?
Central bank money manipulation is a pure expression of big-government
statism, unchecked by any democratic process. The United States,
particularly before 1913, was the world’s greatest expression of a
democratic republic since perhaps the early days of Rome, or the early
Anglo-Saxons in Britain. Yet the United States was also one of the world’s
greatest examples of gold-standard discipline during the nineteenth
century, and maintained the principle of gold-based money for nearly two
centuries until 1971. When the electorate was actually allowed to vote on
the issue, in the 1896 presidential election, it voted overwhelmingly to keep
the gold standard.
Richard Nixon did win the 1972 election, but only after seemingly
putting the Bretton Woods system back together via the Smithsonian
Agreement in December 1971. In November 1972, the official value of the
U.S. dollar was still $38/oz., and foreign exchange rates were again fixed.
The Watergate break-in that eventually brought Nixon down took place on
June 17, 1972. After an early inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
national press reported on September 29, 1972 that John Mitchell, serving
as Nixon’s Attorney General, controlled a secret slush fund used to finance
activities against Democratic candidates. On October 10, 1972, the FBI told
the press that the Watergate break-in was part of an organized campaign of
political spying and sabotage in favor of the Nixon re-election campaign.
One month later, Nixon won his second presidential term. But as the
Smithsonian Agreement disintegrated in March of 1973, and the dollar fell
to new lows vs. gold, the scandal re-intensified. In August 1974, when Nixon
became the only U.S. president ever to resign from office in the middle of his
term, the dollar averaged $155/oz. of gold, less than one-fourth of its value
during Bretton Woods.
Intellectual Failure
The conflict that Keynes and Graham identified at the beginning of

Bretton Woods – the inherent instability of Currency Option Three – led to
its demise. 28 Milton Friedman explained it in 1965: 29
One [option] is the kind of automatic criterion that is provided by

a commodity standard, a gold standard in which we do not have
discretionary management of the system but in which the amount of
money in the system is determined entirely by external affairs. I think
such a system is neither desirable nor feasible in the United States
today. ... [It] is not feasible because we are not willing at home to obey
its discipline; we are not willing to subordinate domestic stability to

the necessities of the external balance of payments. A
Allan Sproul, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,
described the problem in 1949:
We can’t have, or we don’t want, both an automatic gold coin

standard and discretionary control of the reserve base by a monetary
authority. The existence of two independent and frequently
incompatible types of control over the reserves of our banking system
is undesirable. In the light of that finding we abandoned the gold coin
standard as a control over the domestic money supply, and placed our
reliance in monetary management by the Federal Reserve. I think it
has become established American policy that a principal means of
Government intervention in the economic processes of the country is
the administration of broad credit powers by the System. It this way a
pervasive influence may be brought to bear on our economy, without
intrusion upon specific transactions between individuals, which is
likely to be the consequence of more detailed physical controls, and
which would spell the end of democratic capitalism as we have known
it. 30
Yet, the striking thing is how poorly this was understood at the time,
and how this misunderstanding also continues to the present. All of the talk
of “balance of payments imbalances,” liquidity, reserves, bullion flows,
relative prices, budget deficits, “fundamental disequilibrium” and so forth,
which consumed the attention of economists throughout the 1950s and
1960s, amounted to evidence of just how little economists comprehended
of what was happening around them. They couldn’t fix the problem,
because they couldn’t perceive the problem. 31
This confusion continued into the 1990s: Britain – still at it – dropped
out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (a kind of continental
Bretton Woods) in 1992, as its domestic monetary policy once again came
into conflict with the fixed-rate regime. 32 In 1997-1998, a large number of
countries with “pegged” Currency Option Three systems experienced
widespread failure. (Currency Option One currency boards in Hong Kong
and Argentina, however, were fine.) Another group of mostly Eastern
European countries, with Currency Option Three euro-pegged currencies,
had similar failures in 2008-2009, while the euro-linked currency board
systems remained unruffled. After four decades, the lessons of Bretton
A In the terminology of the time, “domestic stability” meant active monetary

management, and the “balance of payments” here referred to increases or decreases
in the monetary base necessary to maintain fixed parity values.
Woods – the inherent instability of Currency Option Three – remained

unlearnt.
The tragic ignorance of the era was epitomized in a single person:
Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns. Burns had been the director of
research at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a professor at
Columbia University, and, in 1953-1956, the head of president
Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors. He had risen to the pinnacle of
prestige and influence. Just before the effective end of the Bretton Woods
gold standard on August 15, 1971, a discussion was held among Nixon’s top
advisors. Most in attendance wanted to suspend gold conversion, or “close
the gold window.” The chief dissenter was: Arthur Burns. Nixon recounted
in his memoirs: “Even if all the arguments were right, [Burns] said, he still
felt that there was no rush. He warned that I would take the blame if the
dollar were devalued. ‘Pravda would write that this was a sign of the
collapse of capitalism,’ he said. On the economic side he worried that the
negative results would be unpredictable ...” 33 Burns wrote in his diary: “My
efforts to prevent the closing of the gold window ... do not seem to have
succeeded. The gold window may have to be closed tomorrow because we
now have a government that seems incapable, not only of constructive
leadership, but of any action at all. What a tragedy for mankind!”
One might have expected that, in this council of the President of the
United States, with access to the best minds in the country and the planet,
there would have been a sensible discussion of whether to abide by the
automatic discipline necessary to maintain a fixed-value currency system
such as the existing $35/oz. gold parity, or to embrace a program of active
domestic macroeconomic management with a floating currency – Currency
Option One or Currency Option Two.
But there was no such discussion. Those present did not seem to even
conceive of the problem that such a discussion might resolve. Arthur Burns,
the proximate cause of Bretton Woods’ demise, Nixon’s hand-picked agent
of the “easy money” election strategy that was fatally undermining the
dollar’s value, was also the gold standard’s final and most enthusiastic
champion. He did not seem to perceive this as a contradiction. The rest of
the economics profession was no better.
The Bretton Woods years had been prosperous and happy. Major
governments, and Richard Nixon himself, anxiously attempted to patch
things up in the Smithsonian Agreement just a few months later. But, they
didn’t know how. They had forgotten.
Chapter 8:
The Floating Currency Era, 1971-
The pre-1914 era, and also the brief 1925-1931 period, were examples
of Currency Option One – a fixed-value system that is essentially automatic,
has no domestic monetary policy, and has no need for trade or capital
controls. The Bretton Woods system was an example of the unstable
Currency Option Three – an attempted combination of both “external” fixed
values and “internal” discretionary policy, bound together with trade and
capital controls. The floating currency era that began in 1971 has been an
example of Currency Option Two – floating fiat currencies, domestic
monetary policy, no trade or capital controls.
This option emerged mostly by accident. The internal conflicts of
Bretton Woods finally erupted in a system-destroying crisis. Nobody could
remember how to establish Currency Option One – a gold standard in the
pre-1914 model. Currency Option Two, floating fiat currencies, seemed to
be the only option left.
The immediate result was a worldwide disaster. The bountiful 1960s
economy crumbled into stagflationary decline in the 1970s. Foreigners
called it the “Nixon shocks.” The U.S. government mostly blamed Middle
East oil producers. The value of the dollar eventually fell to one-tenth of its
Bretton Woods value versus gold, from $35/oz. to around $350/oz. during
the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980, the dollar momentarily reached a nadir of
$850/oz.
Despite earlier notions that floating fiat currencies would allow every
government to manage its domestic economy independently, this was never
the case. Even those countries that were staunch advocates of the
worldwide gold standard system found that, when the world’s major
currencies were devalued, trade competitiveness issues tended to suck all
countries into the vortex of devaluation. Much the same thing had
happened after the British devaluation of 1931. Governments had floated
their currencies from the dollar, and allowed them to rise, in a sort of
protest against the U.S.’s abandonment of the $35/oz. gold parity. But they
were not able to organize themselves into an independent gold bloc. To
prevent the trade consequences of gigantic exchange rate moves with the
declining dollar, and all the currencies also declining alongside, even
Germany, Japan and Switzerland, the governments most committed to
Stable Money principles, allowed their currencies to depreciate vs. gold.
The Floating Currency Era, 1971- 203
100
10
Gold oz. per $1000
$35/oz. 1970s "Great Moderation" post-2000

Bretton Woods inflation depreciation
Gold Standard
0.1
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
U.S.: Value of $1000 in Gold oz., 1950-2015

logarithmic scale
Interest rates around the world soared to levels not seen in the
previous two hundred years. Prices for commodities – especially oil –
quickly adjusted upward to reflect declining currency value. Prices for all
other things also adjusted upwards, at a slower pace. “Inflation” raged.
Economists were confused. They blamed anything and everything for the
“inflation” – everything, that is, except the most obvious thing, a decline in
currency value. The “inflation” was due to pushing costs and pulling wages,
naughty Arabs, a world that was “running out of everything,” budget
deficits, or any other fig leaf that could be used to cover up the fact that a
major mistake had been made.
With all currencies essentially sucked into the wake of the declining
dollar, the responsibility for halting this disaster also fell upon the United
States. This took the form of Paul Volcker’s leadership of the Federal
Reserve, which began in August of 1979. But it was more than one man. The
political consensus had finally shifted. “Easy money” was no longer seen as
the solution to all the economic problems of the day. It was seen as the
cause.
Volcker had never been among the academic Keynesians and

Monetarists braying for the glories of floating currencies and the
continuous application of “easy money.” As Undersecretary of the Treasury
for International Monetary Affairs, he had been present at the fateful
meeting at Camp David in August 1971. “I hate to do this, to close the [gold]
window,” he said at the meeting. “All my life I have defended fixed exchange
rates.” He warned Nixon: “[W]e are releasing forces that we need not
release.” 1 In late 1979, he began to put out the fires that had erupted
globally after the end of Bretton Woods.
16%
14%
Britain
12%
United States
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1730
1740
1750
1760
1770
1780
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
U.S. and Britain: Yield on Long-Term Government Bond, 1730-2015
The process was rough – far rougher than it needed to be. The first
result of Volcker’s initial fumbling was a sickening collapse in the dollar’s
value. But, it turned out to be the last such breakdown, as Volcker found his
footing. Years of trauma followed, as the dollar’s value careened up and
down. In the past, the reinstatement of a gold standard system, after a
period of floating and devaluation, had typically been the start of a great
economic boom. This was the case in the U.S. in 1880, France in 1926, and
Japan and Germany in 1950. Despite the early difficulties, in time the value
of the dollar stabilized in a rough band – a very rough band – around
$350/oz. of gold, between 1982 and 2005. When it moved toward the edges
of this band, beyond $425/oz. or $300/oz., problems erupted and efforts
were made to bring the dollar back toward the $350/oz. level. The 1985
Plaza Accord, formed when the dollar was at $300/oz. was to deal with a
strong dollar; the 1987 Louvre Accord, formed at $400/oz. was to deal with
a weak one. The whole world was helping stabilize the dollar around
$350/zo.
Volcker was succeeded by Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve in
August 1987. Greenspan had been among the few remaining gold standard
advocates in the 1960s, part of a circle of libertarians associated with the
writer Ayn Rand. In 1966, he penned a memorable essay called “Gold and
Economic Freedom.” In 1981 – already a member of the elite establishment
following a term (1974-1977) as the head of president Gerald Ford’s
Council of Economic Advisors – he offered an op-ed for the Wall Street
Journal calling for a return to the gold standard. While Volcker was
appointed during the Carter administration, Greenspan was appointed
under president Ronald Reagan, himself a gold standard admirer. For the
1980 election campaign, Reagan recorded a television advertisement
outlining his support for a new gold standard system. 2 The ad never ran,
however, after it was opposed by Reagan’s Monetarist advisors.
After Greenspan’s retirement in 2006, he again made numerous
comments in praise of the gold standard system. He said in 2016: “Now if
we went back on the gold standard and we adhered to the actual structure
of the gold standard as it exists let’s say, prior to 1913, we’d be fine.
Remember that the period 1870 to 1913 was one of the most aggressive
periods economically that we’ve had in the United States, and that was a
golden period of the gold standard.” 3 Perhaps it is no surprise that, during
Greenspan’s tenure, the dollar became even more stable vs. gold than it had
been under Volcker.
The Volcker/Greenspan era, 1982-2005, is often called the “Great
Moderation” by economists today, typically with little understanding of
what had made it possible. As the value of the dollar was stabilized – in
practical terms, stabilized against gold, even if the majority of economists
wished to ignore that fact – interest rates again came down and economies
prospered. The degree of prosperity was still far short of what had been
achieved during the gold standard years, even the problematic Bretton
Woods years. Yet, it was far better than the 1970s, and better than the
period of stagnation and ever-increasing government control of markets
and economies that followed Greenspan’s departure. By intent or by
accident, it amounted to a dirty gold standard. Greenspan explained in
2017:
When I was Chair of the Federal Reserve I used to testify before

U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, who was a very strong advocate of gold.
We had some interesting discussions. I told him that U.S. monetary
policy tried to follow signals that a gold standard would have created.
That is sound monetary policy even with a fiat currency. In that regard,
I told him that even if we had gone back to the gold standard, policy
would not have changed all that much. 4
Problems began in 1997 as the dollar rose out of its crude trading band,
reaching near $250/oz. in 2000. Currency crises erupted worldwide. The
too-strong dollar was corrected, but at the end of 2005, the dollar fell out of
its “Great Moderation” range on the other side, its value descending below
1/500th of an ounce of gold and continuing to nearly 1/2000th of an ounce
in 2011. Benjamin Bernanke, who replaced Greenspan at the beginning of
2006, was a lifelong academic Keynesian – or Monetarist; by this time, the
two camps had meshed into an undifferentiated stew of soft-money
rationalization. A He was followed, in 2014, by another soft-money
academic, Janet Yellen. The “Great Moderation” was over, and a strange new
era ensued, characterized by soaring and then crashing commodity prices,
asset bubbles in housing, bonds, and finally, by 2015, seemingly everything.
Central bank target interest rates fell to near-zero after 2008, and remained
there for years. Aggressive “quantitative easing” programs, involving
monetary expansion by trillions of dollars’ worth worldwide, became
commonplace. Yields on sovereign debt fell to historic lows, and then even
went negative for a sustained period, something that had never been seen
in the past 500 years of capitalism. It was possible only with unprecedented
coordination and control of asset markets.
Fixed-Value Currency Blocs Remain the Norm
Fixed exchange rates, between trading partners, is such an obvious

advantage that governments have always been pushed in that direction by
business interests. When currencies share a standard of value that is
extremely stable and reliable, causing no problems, then the entire world
will naturally move toward sharing in the fixed exchange rate structure.
This was the case during the gold standard era, before 1914, and stretching
back for centuries previous. There were always a few governments who
wanted to experiment with devaluing their currencies, or possibly floating
them, even in the 1750s or 1890s. But most countries, perhaps after some
bad experiences, eventually decided that it was better to participate in the
global system of stable currency values based on gold.
At the other end of the spectrum lies a situation in which nobody would
want to participate – for example, a hyperinflationary currency like the
German mark of 1920-1923. The German mark had been one of the world’s
top four currencies before World War I, and a major reserve currency. After
the war, when all currencies floated, it was not obviously worse than the
U.S. dollar or British pound. The Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 changed
the situation, however, and the mark’s value plummeted. Regional
currencies linked to the mark (such as the currencies of the Baltic states)
A“In one sense, we’re all Keynesians now,” Milton Friedman told Time magazine in
1965. “In another, nobody is any longer a Keynesian.” This was an advanced notion
at the time, but accurately described the situation in 2015.
were also pulled into the hyperinflationary disaster. A similar thing

happened to the former Soviet republics that achieved independence at the
end of 1991. They continued to share the Russian ruble, which descended
into hyperinflation during the early 1990s. The United States also seemed
to be on a similar path in 1973, which is why other European countries
decided to delink their currencies from the dollar. The dollar, once delinked
from gold, ceased to be a standard of value that others could rely upon, or a
currency bloc that they wanted to participate in.
Between these two poles lies a range of unstable tension, as various
governments decide whether to join one or another currency bloc, switch
their allegiances, or perhaps go it alone. Without the reliable standard that
gold once provided, no solution has proved to be beneficial for very long.
$40
$35
$30
$25
$20
$15
$10
$5
$0
1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Greece: Value of 1000 drachma in U.S. dollars, 1957-2000
Even though it seemed as if the world broke up into floating fiat

currencies in 1973, this was never really the case. Most countries in the
world continued to link their currency to one of the major international
currencies. In 2014, the International Monetary Fund found that, out of 188
countries and three territories, 66% had some kind of direct currency value
link. 5 They were participating in one or another currency bloc, not much
different than when they participated in the global unified currency bloc
based on gold. Most of the remaining currencies categorized as “floating”
were, in practice, a loosely-fixed arrangement in which large exchange rate
swings with major currencies were actively minimized. Fixed-value policies

thus remain common throughout the world.
Most of these governments, that have a policy of fixing their currencies
to an international standard, have had no great desire to engage in domestic
money manipulation. The Keynesian dream is not widely shared outside of
its Anglophone region of origin. However, the contradictions of Bretton
Woods – Currency Option Three – continued in the decades to follow, and
remained a major source of unnecessary problems.
The proper mechanism to facilitate a fixed-value system – Currency
Option One – is a currency board. Several countries implemented or used
pre-existing currency boards: Hong Kong in 1984; Argentina in 1992;
Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1997; Bulgaria in 1997; Estonia in 1992;
Lithuania in 1994; Brunei and Darussalam; Djibouti; Grenada; Dominica;
and six countries using the East Caribbean dollar.
$60
$50
$40
$30
$20
$10
$0
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
Thailand: Value of 1000 baht in U.S. Dollars, 1957-2016
According to currency board expert Steve Hanke, of Johns Hopkins

University, no properly-operated currency board has ever failed. They may
be intentionally abandoned in times of crisis, as was the case for Argentina
in 2002, to pursue other goals. Many countries solved the problem of
maintaining fixed exchange rates by adopting either the dollar or euro itself.
Besides the eighteen official members of the eurozone in 2016, an
additional ten minor states and territories used the euro exclusively. Ten
states were “dollarized,” including El Salvador and Ecuador. Another
fourteen officially used the dollar alongside other currencies. Three states
shared the Australian dollar; two used the Indian rupee; five used the New
Zealand dollar; and four used the South African rand.
Unfortunately, the majority of those 120+ countries that have some sort
of fixed-value arrangement, have a Currency Option Three system
(sometimes called a “pegged” arrangement), often without even the
stabilizing element of substantial capital controls. The result has been an
endless series of currency breakdowns, even by well-meaning governments
with no wish to engage in devaluation or domestic monetary management.
$250
$200
$150
$100
$50
$0
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
India: Value of 1000 Rupee in U.S. Dollars, 1957-2014
The small states of Europe, tightly linked in trade and finance over the
centuries, had always used a shared currency standard – the gold standard
– even to the point (among the members of the Latin Monetary Union) of
issuing identical coinage. In 1972 – perhaps foreseeing the upcoming
dissolution of the Smithsonian Agreement in 1973 – most governments of
the European Economic Community agreed to tie their currencies together,
and prevent exchange rate fluctuations of more than 2.25%. This was
known as the “snake.” There was no central standard of value, although the
deutschemark soon became the effective center of the system. The
arrangement was troubled by chronic deviations and revaluations, as
governments and central banks still did not have effective Currency Option
One operating mechanisms to facilitate their goals. In March 1979, a formal
standard of value was established with the European Currency Unit, in
effect a supranational fiat currency standard similar to Keynes’ bancor in
1944 and the IMF’s SDR in 1968. The European Exchange Rate Mechanism
still suffered from chronic instability due to the lack of proper operating
mechanisms. A crisis in 1992, in which Britain left the arrangement, further
exposed the system’s weakness. A more integrated system was agreed upon
with the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, which led to the adoption of a shared
currency, the euro, in 1999.
$800
$700
$600
$500
$400
$300
$200
$100
$0
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
China: Value of 1000 Renminbi in U.S. Dollars, 1957-2016
In Europe, the continuing problems of unstable exchange rates –

Currency Option Three – provided the political impetus for the creation of a
supranational undemocratic European federal state, the European Union, to
go along with a supranational currency issuer, the European Central Bank.
No such federalism is necessary even when countries share the same
banknotes and coins, as the many countries that used dollars or euros
without any other political connections demonstrated. Repeated claims that
a common currency demands a consolidated fiscal policy were false, and
amounted to federalist propaganda. Euro notes and coins themselves were
not introduced until 2001. Between 1999 and 2001, the existing currencies
of the eurozone were reliably linked to one another via currency-board-like
mechanisms – the original goal of the “snake” or ERM – which
demonstrated that there were certainly people who could solve these
problems, if they wanted to. To ascribe all of these difficulties to ignorance
and error is not credible; nor does it fit with the evidence.
The dollar’s value fell by about 90% vs. gold during the 1970s. The
currencies of at least forty-seven countries saw their currencies’ value fall
by more than 50% even against the sinking dollar during the decade, with
hyperinflation in Iceland, Israel, Poland, Uruguay, Brazil, and elsewhere.
$100,000
$10,000
$1,000
$100
$10
$1
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Mexico: Value of 100 pesos in U.S. dollars, 1950-2014
logarithmic scale
The 1980s, the beginning of the “Great Moderation” period of currency

stabilization among developed countries, nevertheless saw an explosion of
currency disasters particularly in Latin America. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Guyana, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Paraguay, and
Venezuela all had currency declines of at least 90% vs. the dollar – often
much, much more. They were joined by the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Israel, Lebanon, Mozambique, Niger,
Poland, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and
Zambia. Hyperinflation raged across whole continents.
Latin America settled down during the 1990s, despite a high-profile
collapse of the Mexican peso in 1995. New troubles emerged elsewhere:
Many dollar-pegged currencies, particularly in Asia, suffered widespread
breakdown in 1997-98. But the true disasters were in Eastern Europe. The
Russian ruble had been reasonably reliable before 1989, though not used
much in the Soviet command economy. The dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991 led to hyperinflation throughout the former Soviet sphere, from
Poland to the Sea of Japan. In 1993, Kazakhstan had a monthly inflation rate
of 56%. In Armenia, the monthly rate was 438%. 6
The International Accounting Standards Board, and also the U.S.’s
Federal Accounting Standards Board, define the term “hyperinflation” as an
increase in the official consumer price index by more than 100% over three
years. This is an annualized rate of 27%, or about 2% per month, which is
far milder than the extreme hyperinflations that tend to attract attention.
Nevertheless, a situation in which the official CPI is rising at 27% per year
or more, for three years or more, is one in which normal monetary and
market systems tend to break down. Lending becomes impossible, except
for very short maturities and typically small volumes. Basic accounting, of
costs or depreciation, turns into a guessing game. Pensions and savings are
destroyed, along with all other long-term contracts and commitments. At
least seventy-three countries had a hyperinflation episode during 1970-
2013, according to this definition. B
$1,000,000,000
$100,000,000
$10,000,000
$1,000,000
$100,000
$10,000
$1,000
$100
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Turkey: Value of 1000 lira in U.S. dollars, 1957-2014

logarithmic scale
This count does not include milder, but still quite destructive trends
toward currency depreciation common throughout the globe. Between
1980 and 2000, the value of the Greek drachma fell by 5:1 vs. the dollar; the
Indian rupee by 6:1; the South African rand by 9:1; and the Portuguese
escudo by 4:1. Some currencies had the opposite problem: the Japanese yen
was 260/dollar in 1985, and touched 80/dollar in 1995, more than a
threefold increase in relative value. The German mark was 3.30/dollar in
1985, and 1.40/dollar in 1995. All attempts at international trade and
finance were thrown into mayhem by these moves – a long way indeed
from the prior era of “globalization” before 1914, when gold-based
BThis does not count numerous states that had such turmoil – including
Afghanistan, Vietnam and Cambodia – that the IMF has no statistics at all.
currencies had fixed exchange rates. After the trade wars of the 1930s,
governments embraced the principle of “free trade;” but “free trade”
became nonsensical under such conditions, and endless conflicts broke out.
The “Great Moderation” period was still troubled by debilitating currency
turmoil, in both the developed and developing economies.
$90
$80
$70
$60
$50
$40
$30
$20
$10
$0
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
Germany: Value of 100 marks in U.S. dollars, 1945-2015
The currency turmoil led to chronic financial crises. The high short-
term rates of the 1970s and early 1980s demolished the U.S. savings and
loan industry. Large U.S. commercial banks, not restricted to domestic
residential lending, financed a surge of investment in developing
economies, especially focused on commodity production. These went bust
in the 1980s, causing industry-wide insolvency particularly among lenders
to Latin American countries then collapsing in hyperinflation. Chastened by
their Latin American losses, they pursued opportunities in Asia, which in
turn went bust in 1997-98. The Asian Crisis caused attention to focus on
seemingly-safe U.S. equities in general, and technology-media-telecom
sectors in particular, driving valuation metrics to levels never before seen.
Residential real estate was the next area of focus, which again had a history
of seeming stability. The combination of declining currency values (vs. gold)
and low interest rates also made houses a hard-asset inflation play, as had
been so successful in the 1970s. This too turned to bust in 2007-2008, and
again caused a wave of financial system insolvency. In 2012-2016, bond
yields worldwide were pushed to levels never before seen; indeed, to levels
that people once said were theoretically impossible.
$14
$12
$10
$8
$6
$4
$2
$0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Japan: Value of 1000 yen in U.S. dollars, 1950-2015
Currency instability and interest rate manipulation was a core cause in

every case. Government bailouts became the norm – at least, for the largest
banks. Smaller banks were liquidated by the hundreds, and their assets
acquired by larger banks. Independent domestic banks were taken over by
multinational giants. Government corruption and cronyism became a
critical part of every large bank’s survival strategy. In the boom times, they
pocketed the profits. In the busts, they dumped their losses on taxpayers,
and swallowed up their competitors.
$6.00
$5.00
$4.00
$3.00
$2.00
$1.00
$0.00
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Britain: Value of British pound in U.S. dollars, 1900-2016

The floating fiat regime had led to disaster and chaos over most of the
globe. The IMF and World Bank, originally intended to keep currencies
stable among the developed countries, found a new role as the engine of
soft re-colonization as they saddled one government after another with
debt and then commandeered economic policy – often, via deregulation and
mass privatization, in favor of multinational corporations.
Confusion of Economic Cooperation
“Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike

abomination to the Lord,” says the Bible, in Proverbs 20:10. This principle
applied also to money and coinage, traditionally seen as a weight or
measure of gold or silver. The U.S. Constitution, in Article I Section 8, allows
Congress to: “coin Money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin,
and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.” The “regulation” of the
coinage, though some would love to interpret this to mean “change at will,”
actually meant: to enforce a precise and unchanging specification. Congress
did so in the Coinage Act of 1792. In Section 19 of the Act, the punishment
was defined for anyone who changed the metal content of the coinage:
death.
People long sensed that changing the value of the money would confuse
and distort economic cooperation between humans, somewhat in the
manner that a change in the kilogram, meter, or minute would. By the
twentieth century, the old analogies between money and standard
measures were supplemented by a more precise vision of the role that
money plays in a market economy. An industrial market economy is,
ultimately, a vast network of cooperation. The extraordinary productivity of
the market economy has come about via increasing specialization,
organization, and trade. The rudimentary cooperation of the pin factory
described by Adam Smith in 1776, at the earliest glimmer of the Industrial
Revolution, and its productive advantage over a single craftsman working
alone, has grown today to a situation in which hardly anything is created
without combining goods, services, labor and capital from all over the
world. The simplest item today – a pencil, perhaps – combines capital from
France and Brazil, machinery from Germany, management and labor from
China, wood from Canada, distribution by a Greek shipping company, and a
retail network in the United States. Every one of these components has
their own globe-spanning networks of exchange and cooperation.
This cooperation is not consciously organized. The Soviet model of
central planning and bureaucratic control was a failure, unable even to feed
the population from the state’s vast and fertile agricultural lands. The
network of cooperation is organized through the use of money, with
information transmitted via prices, interest rates, profit and loss. These
seemingly simple bits of information direct all economic activity. Every
shopper seeks the most value at the lowest cost. Investment flows to where
the returns on capital are highest, in turn causing increasing or decreasing

employment in various industries. Production of unusually profitable goods
or services expands; production of inadequately profitable ones is reduced.
One production method is chosen over another for its cost. The implication
is that it requires less input to produce the same output – that it is more
productive. Inherent in the system is a constant focus on increasing wealth,
the production of goods and services of greater perceived value. A good that
is in demand gets a higher price; profit margins expand; returns on capital
increase; capital investment rises; employment expands; production
increases. Goods and services that are not sufficiently valued find that
selling prices do not cover the costs of production; losses ensue; investment
ceases; production declines, along with employment.
160
140
120
100
gold oz.
80
60
40
20
0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
U.S.: Per Capita GDP in Gold Oz., 1900-2015
When the value of money changes erratically, these economic signals

become confused. Prices, interest rates, profit and loss are different than
they would have been had money been stable in value. The result is that
economic resources and activity are directed into unproductive and even
wasteful or destructive channels, a process sometimes called
“malinvestment.” If the profitability of housing construction, to take one
potential example, does not reflect real need, desire, or ability to pay for
housing, the result is that many more houses are built than are justified – an
artificial boom. Although this activity shows up in statistics as “gross
domestic product,” in effect it is waste. The artificial boom in the housing
industry, resulting from some sort of monetary effect, can increase
employment and produce the appearance of bustling economic activity.
This is the effect that the soft-money advocates wish to intentionally create.
However, the real productivity, and thus the real wealth or income, of the
society declines. In the extreme example, all people spend all day building
excess houses. Employment soars, along with official GDP; but the real
productivity of the economy collapses. They soon die of starvation, in a
landscape littered with empty buildings.
140
120
100
80
gold oz.
60
40
20
0
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
U.S.: Hourly Wages of Production Workers,
Adjusted by CPI, 1880-2015 7
Thus, it should be expected that economic health would become

difficult, stagnate, or even decline, in a floating fiat currency regime. The
information system – money, prices, interest, profits – that makes economic
cooperation and organization possible, the basic mechanism that allows
high levels of productivity in the free market economy, the signaling system
that shows, via profit and loss, how cooperation can be optimized,
productivity increased and waste avoided, has become corrupted. This has
indeed been the case for most of the world since 1971. It is perhaps most
obvious in those many unfortunate locales that suffered a major currency
disaster, even hyperinflation. Employment in such situations is often quite
high, but wages bring little more than bare subsistence. The economy is
moribund, financial intermediation disappears, investment centers on
acquiring existing assets at crisis-depressed prices, and nobody dares risk
any significant capital on creating new businesses. However, even in the
world’s seemingly-successful developed economies, the great advances –
and rising wages – common when money was based on gold, in the pre-
1914 era, the prosperous 1920s, and even the Bretton Woods years,
became strangely unobtainable.
6.00%
5.00%
4.00%
3.00%
2.00%
1.00%
0.00%
-1.00%
-2.00%
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
U.S.: Annualized Growth Rate of Wages of Production Workers,
Adjusted by CPI, Prior Ten-Year Period, 1880-2015
At the simplest level, a major decline in currency value, as happened

throughout the world during the 1970s, implies a decline in the value of
wages paid. Nominal wages would rise in response to a decline in currency
value, along with the price of everything else. However, reflecting the
decline in overall economic productivity caused by monetary instability, the
rise typically does not fully compensate for the decline in currency value.
This is most obvious perhaps when some developing economy’s currency
collapses to a third of its prior value. The value of domestic wages, in terms
of dollars, also collapses. Nominal wages rise in reaction, but it can take
many years of recovery before they return even to their prior level in terms
of dollars.
Certainly many improvements have occurred in technology and
industrialization since 1800. Even Louis XIV, the Sun King of France, did not
have antibiotics, smartphones, electric lighting, automobiles, plastics, or a
thousand other amenities enjoyed today by the common masses. And yet, it
would be absurd to say that middle-class people today are wealthier than
Louis XIV. In a similar way, we can see that in a less-developed country
today – perhaps Laos – for those who can afford it, practically any modern
convenience and technology is available; and yet, the people of Laos are far
poorer than the people of Germany. Technology, despite its benefits, does
not in itself bring prosperity or high incomes. Americans of 2016 may be
poorer, on average, than Americans of 1965. If we discount the change in
technology, evidence for this abounds: the lifestyle that could be supported
by a single working parent, with a high school education – a house, a car or
two, adequate healthcare, a college education for the children, and a 15%
savings rate – often seemed unattainable in 2016, even for two working
parents.
120
100
80
gold oz.
60
40
20
0
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
U.S.: Wages of Production Workers, 1000 Hours, in Gold Oz. 1880-2015
In the United States, per capita GDP as measured in ounces of gold – the
standard measure of value used in the United States for nearly two
centuries before 1971 – was, in 2015, at a level comparable to the early
1950s. Hourly wages of production workers, adjusted by the official
consumer price index, showed an extended stagnation after 1971
unprecedented in U.S. history. This is bad enough; but the official consumer
price index itself was constantly modified since 1980, with each
modification making it look better than it would have otherwise. When
using a consumer price index calculated in the same fashion that it was
done in 1980, the outcome is similar to the story told by gold – a decline in
the real value of wages to levels of the 1950s, or even below that. 8
Much of the developed world showed a similar pattern. Except for a few
outliers, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, the experience of the rest of the
developed world was not clearly superior to the United States after 1971.
World per capita GDP, in terms of gold, tells a story much like that for the
U.S. A few emerging markets had great success after 1970, notably in Asia:
China, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, and, to a lesser degree,
India. They were characterized by very high rates of savings and
investment, relatively low tax rates, and a low tax revenue/GDP ratio. Their
monetary policies focused on maintaining a fixed exchange rate with the
U.S. dollar, largely abandoning any ambition to manage the domestic
economy by monetary means. The most successful Asian countries did not
get rich by being better money-fiddlers than the United States. They got rich
with savings and investment, in a business-friendly low tax environment,

and the most stable money that they could achieve.
25
20
15
gold oz.
10
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
World Per Capita GDP, In Gold Oz., 1960-2015
With the exception of Hong Kong’s currency board, however, the Asian
countries did not have a coherent operating mechanism to achieve this goal,
and instead used a grab-bag of vaguely Keynesian monetary tools –
Currency Option Three. The result was periodic failure of currency pegs, in
China in 1980-1994, followed by widespread failure across dollar-pegged
currencies in Asia in 1997-1998.
Deterioration of Public Morality
A decline in currency value (“inflation”) has long been associated with

decay in the moral order of society. This is arguably true of floating
currencies in general, even if – as in the 1980s and 1990s – they end up
with roughly the value with which they began, or perhaps, even if they rise
substantially. “Morality,” at base, refers to mutually-beneficial behavior
towards other people. Outside of the family unit, the primary interaction
between people is via money. Unstable money undermines public morality
because monetary transactions are public morality. Profit and loss, success
and failure, reward and punishment, are meted out not by relative merit –
what one might, with more elevated language, call “justice” – but by
fluctuations in currency value, at times seemingly random, or perhaps
managed intentionally to benefit one group or another. The economy
becomes inherently unjust. As currency values are no longer fixed to long-
held and commonly agreed-upon absolutes, like gold, but become
changeable and relativistic, so too moral values become changeable and
relativistic, provisional and expedient: It all depends on your point of view.
100% Total
Non-Hispanic white
Non-Hispanic black
80% Hispanic
Percentage of All Births
60%
40%
20%
0%
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
U.S.: Births to Unwed Mothers, 1960-2015 9
The Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you” – is rendered, in terms of a long-term debt, pension or wage contract,
as: pay me in a currency whose value is the same as when we formed the
agreement. In the U.S. before 1933, this commonly took the form of a “gold
clause” in commercial contracts. In the environment of floating currencies,
no such assurances could be made. “You get what you get” was the principle
of the age, expressed in every daily interaction, and anyone who aspired to
a higher ideal was seen as hopelessly naive. No longer did people feel
constrained by moral principles codified in legal contract. “Do as thou wilt”
becomes the subtle principle of all business. In politics, in divorce court,
during a weekend in Las Vegas, it becomes the principle of all life.
In such an environment, capitalism loses its moral foundation. Personal
reward does not lead to collective prosperity. In The Foundations of
Morality (1964), the libertarian economist Henry Hazlitt wrote:
There is hardly an ethical problem, in fact, without its economic

aspect. Our daily ethical decisions are in the main economic decisions,
and nearly all our daily economic decisions have, in turn, an ethical
aspect.
Moreover, it is precisely around questions of economic
organization that most ethical controversy turns today. The main
challenge to our traditional "bourgeois" ethical standards and values
comes from the Marxists, the socialists, and the Communists. What is
under attack is the capitalist system; and it is attacked mainly on
ethical grounds, as being materialistic, selfish, unjust, immoral,

savagely competitive, callous, cruel, destructive. 10
In a 1923 essay called “Social Consequences of Changes in the Value of

Money,” John Maynard Keynes wrote:
If the depreciation of money is a source of gain to the business

man, it is also the occasion of opprobrium. ... In his heart he loses his
former self-confidence in his relation to Society, in his utility and
necessity in the economic scheme. He fears the future of his business
and his class, and the less secure he feels his fortune to be the tighter
he clings to it. The business man, the prop of Society and the builder
of the future, to whose activities and rewards there had been
accorded, not long ago, an almost religious sanction, he of all men and
classes most respectable, praiseworthy, and necessary, with whom
interference was not only disastrous but almost impious, was now to
suffer sidelong glances, to feel himself suspected and attacked, the
victim of unjust and injurious laws, – to become, and know himself
half guilty, a profiteer.
No man of spirit will consent to remain poor if he believes his
better to have gained their goods by lucky gambling. To convert the
business man into the profiteer is to strike a blow at capitalism,
because it destroys the psychological equilibrium which permits the
perpetuance of unequal rewards. The economic doctrine of normal
profits, vaguely apprehended by every one, is a necessary condition
for the justification of capitalism. The business man is only tolerable so
long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly
and in some sense, his activities have contributed to Society. 11
Although floating currencies eroded economies as a whole, some found

that they could prosper in this environment. In the discussions surrounding
the “free coinage of silver” debates of the 1890s, Andrew Carnegie, one of
the wealthiest men of the time, wrote:
Nothing places the farmer, the wage-earner, and all those not
closely connected with financial affairs at so great a disadvantage in
disposing of their labor or products as changeable "money." ... You all
know that fish will not rise to the fly in calm weather. It is when the
wind blows and the surface is ruffled that the poor victim mistakes the
lure for a genuine fly. So it is with the business affairs of the world. In
stormy times, when prices are going up and down, when the value of
the article used as money is dancing about–up to-day and down to-
morrow–and the waters are troubled, the clever speculator catches
the fish and fills his basket with the victims. Hence the farmer and the
mechanic, and all people having crops to sell or receiving salaries or

wages, are those most deeply interested in securing and maintaining
fixity of value in the article they have to take as "money."
In his fourteenth-century work De Moneta, Nicholas Oresme warned of

the consequences of altering the coinage:
Some sections of the community are occupied in affairs

honourable or profitable to the whole state, as in the growing of
natural wealth or negotiating on behalf of the community. Such are
churchmen, judges, soldiers, husbandmen, merchants, craftsmen and
the like. But another section augments its own wealth by unworthy
business, as do money-changers, bankers or dealers in bullion: a
disgraceful trade as was said in Chapter XVIII. These men, then, who
are as it were unwanted by the state, and some others such as
receivers and financial agents, etc., take a great part of the profit or
gain arising from changes in coinage and by guile or by good luck,
draw wealth from them, against God and Justice, since they are
undeserving of such riches and unworthy of such wealth. But others,
who are the best sections of the community, are impoverished by it;
so that the prince in this way damages and overburdens the larger and
better part of his subjects and yet does not receive the whole of the
profit; but the persons abovementioned, whose business is
contemptible and largely fraudulent, get a large part of it.
The warnings of Carnegie and Oresme seem oddly appropriate today.

By the 1990s, profits of financial companies had swollen to around 30% of
all corporate profits, far above the levels of prior decades. Financial
companies, which produce no final goods and services, function as
middlemen between investors and the real economy of nonfinancial
industry. At base, this is important and necessary. However, their old roles
had actually become even less profitable during the 1980s and 1990s, as
margins – on direct lending, new issuance of securities, and secondary
trading of securities – were eroded by competition and advances in
information technology. If anything, the financial system should have
become a smaller, cheaper, and less-obtrusive part of the economy,
declining in price and increasing in value like other economic sectors. In the
floating-fiat world, in-house speculation, dealing in derivatives and foreign
exchange, and financial engineering were the new profit centers. Ultimately,
this amounted to sheer parasitism. It didn’t hurt that they were
shareholders in the Federal Reserve. The ultimate loss, however, was not
the money that financial companies extracted while providing little of value.
Rather, it was the talent they absorbed – talent that, simply because it is
talented, would have expressed itself in a myriad of new creative forms,

creating millions of productive jobs in the process.
It has long been popular to argue that a gold standard system disallows
government deficits. This is nonsense: governments are certainly able to
finance deficits via debt issuance with a gold standard system, and did so
for centuries. If anything, the very low long-term interest rates typical
under gold standard regimes makes this process easy. It is true that
governments are not able to finance deficits via the printing press.
Historically, this was common only during wartime, and a suspension of
gold standard parities.
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
U.S.: Profits of Financial Corporations, as a Percentage of Total

Corporate Profits, 1948-2015 12
However, a look at history reveals a more subtle pattern. Since 1880,

estimated government debt/GDP ratios have generally been stable or
falling during peacetime. The pattern that seems inevitable among
governments today – a chronic inability to limit expenditures, continuous
deficits, and a steady rise in debt/GDP ratios – is a historical anomaly. At
any time, there are always those in government who want to spend more;
and also those who want to spend less. Outside of the demands of large-
scale war, the political balance had been found at a point that limited
debt/GDP ratios, or even allowed them to fall. Beginning in the early 1970s
– even with the advantage of inflationary diminishment of prior debt
balances – debt/GDP in advanced economies began to rise, to a level
unprecedented outside of the demands of World War II.
In U.S. history, Federal government expenditures of $18.5 billion in

1919, related to World War I, fell to $5.1 billion in 1921 and $2.9 billion in
1927. In that year, the government had tax revenue of $4.0 billion.
Expenditures of $92.7 billion in 1945 fell to $34.5 billion in 1947 and $29.8
billion in 1948. In that year, tax revenue was $41.6 billion. Although
budgets were not always balanced, from 1792 until 1971, the U.S. Federal
government had managed to reduce its debt/GDP level during every era of
peace and prosperity, registering a small rise only during the Great
Depression.
140%
120%
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Government Debt to GDP in Advanced Economies, 1880-2015 13
Why did the political balance change, right around 1971 with the
emergence of floating fiat currencies? Why did the budget discipline that
had been common throughout the Western world for two centuries,
suddenly evaporate at that time? At some level, perhaps people understood
that the money didn’t have to be paid back in a currency of unchanging
value. The debt would, in essence, be inflated away. Almost immediately
people sensed the change in mood, described in detail by James Buchanan
and Richard Wagner in Democracy In Deficit (1977).
The core flaw in floating fiat currencies, Currency Option Two, may be
that it encourages expediency, short-termism, and self-interest in all
aspects of life, from marriage, family, employment, and business, up to
Congress, the Presidency, and the Federal Reserve itself – a deterioration of
what, in the nineteenth century, would have been called “public morality.”
The purpose of a floating fiat currency is to attempt to use monetary
distortion as a tool to solve nonmonetary problems. Since monetary
distortion affects nearly all economic relationships, it eventually comes to

pass that the monetary distortion is seen as a cure for every imaginable
economic ill. With this comes a perception of responsibility: central banks
then become responsible for making all good things happen. This tends to
cripple the entire political process. Rather than using all of the other tools
of government – tax reform, regulatory reform, budget discipline,
expanding new programs and ending others – legislatures and
administrations fall into a mood of complacency and indolence, hoping and
then insisting that central banks will take care of all their problems. The
legislative or administrative reform process is difficult, contentious and
time-consuming. How much easier it is simply to rely upon – pressure, if
necessary – the central bank, which can act immediately, which has no
democratic process, and whose remedies apparently have no cost.
55%
50%
45%
40%
35%
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
U.S.: Wages as a Percentage of GDP, 1948-2015
But, a central bank cannot ultimately do anything except distort the

money that allows the economy to function. This mechanism, though it may
grant favors and advantage to some, cannot, by its nature, create lasting
prosperity. Its whole method of operation is to undermine the market
systems that create prosperity. Thus, a society puts all of its hopes on a
vehicle that is inherently destructive, while all other matters of economic
policy languish for lack of attention. When governments give up the idea of
an independent monetary policy – when they go from Currency Option Two
to Currency Option One – attention returns to their other policy options.
One effect of the introduction of the euro common currency, in 1999, was
that European governments could no longer hope that their independent
central banks would solve their domestic difficulties. One result was that
these governments engaged in an aggressive program of corporate tax rate
reductions, to allow greater economic activity.
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
1945
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
U.S.: Wages of Financial Sector, Percent of All Corporate Wages,
1948-2014
In 2016, the issue of public debt was already being resolved by the
printing press. “Quantitative easing” had been variously implemented by
the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank and Bank of
Japan since the aftermath of a financial crisis in 2008. Initially, this offset a
dramatic rise in demand for central bank reserves among commercial
banks, but by 2012 it took on a flavor of government debt management. By
2016, assets of major central banks had increased to $17.2 trillion, from
$6.5 trillion at the beginning of 2008. In 2016, the European Central Bank
continued to purchase government bonds via base money expansion –
what, in earlier times, would have been called the “printing press” – at a
rate of €960 billion per year, equivalent to about 9.1% of eurozone GDP.
The euro area’s aggregate gross government debt/GDP ratio was 90.7%,
but that manageable figure obscured continuing sovereign debt crises
among several members including Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
The Bank of Japan was purchasing ¥80 trillion of bonds per year in 2016,
equivalent to 15.0% of GDP. Japan’s gross government debt/GDP ratio was
229%.
The forty-plus years of floating fiat currencies since 1971 have been a
relatively brief period, compared to Britain’s 379 years under a largely
unchanged gold/silver standard from 1552 to 1931, 14 or the 722 years (312
– 1034) that the gold content of the Byzantine solidus remained unchanged.
The floating fiat era’s end may already be in sight. At least, the end of its
first iteration; over the past three and a half centuries, the Western
governments have tended to return to a gold standard system after the
failure of a fiat paper regime, but the Chinese experience of the eleventh
through fifteenth centuries showed that many more cycles of
reconstruction and collapse are possible.
140%
120%
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
U.S.: Federal Debt to GDP, 1792-2015 15
The floating fiat era was accidental and unplanned, born of ignorance
and failure, wanted by no government. Despite the glee of certain
economists, who saw monetary manipulation as the solution to all
conceivable problems, the immediate result was a decade of worldwide
currency decline and economic stagnation. Recessions were not particularly
rare, or gentle. Unemployment was never very low. Financial crises and
rounds of systemic bank insolvency became, if anything, more common.
Curious asset bubbles began to pop up, in equities, housing, bonds, or art,
and observers blamed monetary causes. As one bubble collapsed,
governments and central banks seemed eager to replace it with another. At
no time did people look back on what they had created, and say, as people
said in 1910: it is good.
Times were best when currencies were most like the gold standard era.
Real economic progress was made in the 1980s and 1990s, the “Great
Moderation,” although the results did not come anywhere near the stellar
successes of the 1960s or the 1880s. The more unreliable and changeable
the money became – in 1971-1982, or 1998-2015 – the more disappointing
the economic results. Much the same was true for less-developed countries
as well. The most successful had a reliable currency, in practice achieved by
linking its value to a major international currency such as the dollar,
deutschemark or euro. When their currencies became unstable, economic
stagnation and decline was the common result.
Continuous currency chaos, and with it endless contention over trade,
polluted relations between the major developed countries. Incomes
stagnated across much of the developed world, as a parasitic financial
system grew in size and political influence. The moral foundations of

civilized society, from the most personal level to the highest halls of power,
seemed to erode from decade to decade, along with the values of currencies
themselves. Government debt levels soared, for the first time during
peacetime. The idea of “paying it back,” as previous generations did, seemed
laughably naive; the alternative remained unspoken. Among the less-
developed countries, chronic currency disasters became a sad fact of life.
Hyperinflation flared up again and again, and the advice of the IMF or
World Bank only seemed to make things worse. The “low interest rates”
once promoted as the source of all good things economic, did not
materialize after the floating fiat regime emerged in 1971; instead, interest
rates soared to their highest in centuries. Finally, after 2012, they fell to
their lowest in centuries, and still no benefit was found. It was just another
unsustainable anomaly, produced by central bank manipulation and
destined to collapse in failure once again.
It was, by any and every measure, a big mess. In 2016, the U.S. dollar
was worth less than a thirtieth of its value during Bretton Woods, compared
to gold. This did not seem to bother anybody; indeed, the dollar remained a
favored international currency because nearly every other currency had
fared worse.
Chapter 9:
Conclusions
People rarely thought about why they used gold and silver as money. It
was a human institution, like language or marriage, so intrinsic to daily life
that it did not apparently need to be discussed. When Aristotle briefly took
up the topic in the mid-fourth century B.C., people in the eastern
Mediterranean region had been using gold and silver for over two
millennia. The subject did not get much attention, at least among Western
philosophers, in the following two millennia either. What we do know is
that gold and silver defeated all other contenders. Japan made its first
contact with Europeans when Portuguese sailors landed on a southern
island in 1542. Yet, Japanese had been using gold and silver coinage for
roughly nine hundred years, hardly different from the coins used by the
Portuguese themselves. People had different languages, different religions,
different traditions of philosophy, different forms of economic organization
and different forms of government, but they did not have different money.
We can only surmise as to why this was so. It was certainly not a
“superstition,” “mania,” “obsession” or “fetish.” The simplest reason is the
same reason why the Japanese and Portuguese of the sixteenth century
both carried swords made of steel: because it was the best thing for the job.
“Money” is a human ideal – a universal medium of trade, a unit of
account, and a standard of value. Humans then search for the practical
implementation that most closely fits this concept. If nothing better is
available, beaver pelts, shells, cigarettes or whale’s teeth may be pressed
into service. Inherent within the concept of money is the idea that it should
be as stable in value as possible – that it should serve as a universal
measure of the market values of all the other goods and services in an
economy, in something of the fashion that meters and kilograms are
standards of length and weight. The simplest expression of unchanging
value is physical: gold doesn’t rot. The idea that the metallic content, and
thus the value, of coinage should not be changed, and that many negative
consequences flow from this, goes back as far as the creation of coinage
itself. By the nineteenth century, a more complete view emerged: the idea
that gold and silver themselves became used as money, not only because of
their convenient physical properties but because they closely approximated
this monetary ideal of “unchanging value” – a result that seemed to have
something to do with the large aboveground stock of gold or silver,
compared to annual mine production.
Conclusions 231
The free market economy has, inherent within it, the assumption that
money is stable in value. This is the basis upon which its mechanisms work.
Through the processes of market prices, profit margins, interest rates, and
returns on capital, all of the activities of the market economy are organized.
When the nominal market price of corn rises, that is interpreted to
represent some change in the supply and demand characteristics of corn,
not a decline in the value of the money. The result of the price change might
be that some people curtail their corn consumption, and others increase
their corn production – a productive and beneficial response to real
changes in the supply and demand for corn, and a nonsensical or
destructive response if it is caused by changes in the money.
When building condos in Florida produces an ample profit margin and
a high return on capital, while making steel in Pennsylvania does not,
capital is directed at producing condos in Florida, while capital is
withdrawn from steelmaking in Pennsylvania. Condo construction
increases; steelmaking production declines. Jobs are created here and lost
there, people migrate, population expands in one city and declines in
another; all according to the informational signals produced by prices,
profit margins, and returns on capital. As described by George Gilder in The
Scandal of Money (2016), this process can function properly when money
itself is as “noiseless” as possible, so that the “signals” of the informational
market economy are least corrupted. When money becomes “noisy,” the
market signals are corrupted, and economic activity becomes chaotic,
wasteful, inefficient, and destructive. The failure of the free market system
to produce productive outcomes then leads to greater government
intervention and control of all economic processes. This intervention too
then leads to greater free market failure.
No economic problem can arise from money that is perfectly stable in
value. A rise in the value of money causes certain distortions; a fall also
causes distortions. The floating currency advocates believe that they can
use these distortions to their advantage. An economy can certainly have a
great many problems, even when its money is stable. But, these are not
monetary problems.
The various advantages claimed by soft-money doctrines come about,
in large part, because stability of value is inherent in the concept of money.
This is the “money illusion” – the tendency for people to treat money as
unchanging, when it is not. Even supposed sophisticates complain today
that gold is “too volatile,” assuming – in defiance of all evidence – that the
floating fiat currencies in which gold’s price is expressed are themselves
perfectly stable in value.
Nobody can claim that gold and silver – and finally, after the retirement
of silver in the 1870s, gold alone – were a perfect representative of this
ideal of “stable money,” as precise and unchanging as the length of the
meter. But we can confirm that gold has been close enough to this ideal that
whatever minor variance existed didn’t matter very much. A more perfect
expression of stable monetary value has never been found. Mostly, people
didn’t feel the need to search for one.
Unfortunately, there is no perfect measure of value against which gold
can be compared, to gauge with certainty how much the value of gold has
deviated from that perfect ideal over the centuries. Commodity prices are
an imperfect measure, since commodity values themselves vary due to the
supply and demand for commodities. If gold were perfectly stable in value,
we would expect to see variation in commodity prices roughly equivalent to
what we do indeed see – year-to-year variance within a relatively small
range, and longer trends related to broad changes in supply and demand for
commodities. Changes in mining production seem to have had virtually no
effect on the value of gold, probably due to the large amount of
aboveground gold in relation to annual production. Even the tenfold
increase in mining production around 1850 seems to have had no
discernible effect. A tenfold increase in silver production, in the second half
of the sixteenth century, was accompanied by only a modest and slow
decline in the value of silver vs. gold.
If we could measure gold’s value against some perfect scientific
standard, what would it look like? Perhaps it would look something like
silver’s relationship to gold, in the centuries before 1870.
Any variation in the value of gold, large enough to have substantial
economic effects, should be apparent in commodity prices. The historical
record shows only two episodes of importance, outside of the disruption of
large-scale war – the decline of commodity prices in the 1880s and 1890s,
and the decline in the 1930s. The first can be explained primarily – perhaps,
entirely – as a result of increased commodity supply. If there was some rise
in the value of gold during that time, it did not interfere with the splendid
economic expansion of that period. The primary economic difficulties,
around 1890-1896, were related to the threats, via “free coinage of silver”
arguments, that the U.S. dollar, and other currencies worldwide, would be
devalued. The Classical Gold Standard era, 1870-1913, is not remembered
as a time of difficulty and distress, but as a belle époque, the most perfect
expression of the Stable Money ideal that humans have ever achieved.
The idea that the Great Depression “had something to do with the gold
standard” is pervasive today. Yet, the claim that gold somehow failed to
serve its role as a stable standard of value – the only meaningful criticism
that can be made – has not been common. To make that claim is to say that
gold somehow had an aberration of value unprecedented in half a
millennia; that this happened, for no obvious reason, in the middle of the
late-1920s prosperity; and that it was unrelated to any significant change in
supply/demand conditions for gold. Perhaps, given these difficulties, it is
no surprise that the most common (“Keynesian”) view of the Depression is
that it emerged from undefined nonmonetary causes, expressed as a
“decline in aggregate demand.” More monetary-themed views, from the
Austrian or Monetarist schools, nevertheless did not claim any change in
Conclusions 233
gold’s value. They mostly ignored the fact that the gold standard existed at
all. The relatively small group that claimed some sudden and gigantic rise in
gold’s value, a rise large and abrupt enough to blow up the world economy,
blamed an increase in central bank accumulation that demonstrably did not
exist. The decline in commodity prices during the 1930s was a
nonmonetary phenomenon related to the economic downturn, itself arising
from nonmonetary causes – a cascade of error involving virtually every
aspect of economic policy, except for the money. It was, after all, the Great
Depression.
The world gold standard was once again reassembled after World War
II; and once again, it helped produce prosperity and bounty everywhere.
But a fatal flaw had been introduced, at the beginning in 1944. The idea that
governments could conduct a discretionary “domestic” monetary policy,
while maintaining an “external” fixed exchange rate with gold or the U.S.
dollar, was inherently contradictory and caused endless problems. Most
economists still did not perceive this error even in 1971, instead blaming a
host of imaginary “imbalances” and “dilemmas” somehow related to the
“balance of payments.” It was, they insisted loudly, Not Their Fault. The
actual problem was solved by the comically effortless means of reducing the
rate of base money growth, which allowed Federal Reserve Chairman
William McChesney Martin to return the value of the U.S. dollar to its
$35/oz. gold parity in January 1970. But, it was the last month of his term.
It had taken a World War, a Great Depression, and then another World
War, to break up the world gold standard of the past. The Bretton Woods
system disintegrated in the midst of blue-sky prosperity and friendly
international cooperation, despite even the many safeguards put in place to
prevent such an event.
The Classicals and the Mercantilists
Throughout history, a dispute has ensued between those who wished

to keep the money as stable and unchanging as possible, and those who
think they can gain some sort of advantage, or some solution to their
problems, by altering the money unit. At the beginning of the sixth century
B.C., Solon of Athens reduced the silver content of the Greek drachma in an
effort to reduce debtors’ burdens and lower interest rates. In 1736,
Japanese emperor Tokugawa Yoshimune debased the coinage to stimulate
the economy and raise prices. The British Mercantilist writers, 1600-1770,
constantly praised the advantages to be gained by increasing the money
supply. After 1650, the Mercantilists’ vision included a floating fiat paper
currency, to be overseen by a “statesman” that would carefully control
interest rates, credit growth, and economic activity. After the British pound
became a floating currency due to the outbreak of war in 1797, many
argued that it should stay that way even during peacetime. The idea of
manipulating economic relationships by changing the value of the money
has been around since the invention of coinage introduced the initial
fracture between face value and metallic content. The only surprising thing
is how little the arguments have changed. The primary innovation of the
past century has been to sprinkle spurious math upon these age-old claims.
The math itself is not convincing; rather, it is confusing, which is convincing.
The Classical economists, who became dominant after 1780 following
the popularity of Adam Smith, instead focused on the importance of a stable
and unchanging monetary unit. This idea too is as old as coinage itself: the
first coinage debasement was certainly followed by the first complaint
about coinage debasement. Since the very first known coins of Lydia were
inherently debased, not containing the metallic content claimed by their
face value, these complaints also must have begun very early. Later, the
ideal of Stable Money was expressed in the Classical Gold Standard of the
latter part of the nineteenth century. The success of the Stable Money
paradigm – exemplified by Britain, the U.S., France and Germany – stood in
contrast to the difficulties of those countries that allowed their currencies
to deviate from that ideal. The devaluations and floating currencies of Italy,
Spain, Greece, Portugal or several Latin American countries, in 1850-1914,
caused nothing but problems. Not one of them, by way of some sort of
skillful manipulation of their floating currencies, rose to challenge the
British Empire, or the financial dominance of London.
Coinage was often debased, but it rarely floated. Coinage values
typically reflected their metal content. The introduction and spread of
paper money, a token currency, after 1650 created the possibility of a
currency that could float, up and down unpredictably, for long periods of
time. Before 1850, paper money experiments tended to either stay soundly
attached to a metallic basis, or quickly decline in a one-way road to oblivion.
After 1850, as paper currencies became more common worldwide along
with monopoly central banks, floating fiat currencies could remain viable
for some extended period of time, even if they still tended to depreciate.
The British pound’s floating fiat era during wartime, in 1797-1821, was an
early example of this principle.
The Classical ideal of a neutral and unchanging money, a universal
constant of commerce free of human intervention – practically expressed by
the gold standard system – experienced some erosion towards the end of
the nineteenth century. The idea of a “lender of last resort,” as it developed
around the middle of the century, introduced a new element of
discretionary management and apparent intervention by central banks. In
actual practice, the “lender of last resort” function was wholly compatible
with the gold standard system, and aimed to address short-term variance in
base money demand. There was no ambition to influence the broader
economy, or alter currency values. However, this was not very well
understood. The idea that central bankers could “resolve financial crises” or
“reduce interest rates” with discretionary money creation – the idea that
Conclusions 235
had already been widely expressed in the writings of the British

Mercantilists in previous centuries – began to spread again.
The decline in commodity prices in the 1880s and 1890s combined
with the decline in silver’s value since the 1870s to create a “free coinage of
silver” movement worldwide that amounted to a major devaluation. Family
farms constituted a major interest group. Other industries did not seem to
suffer, and the idea of currency devaluation was roundly rejected.
Nevertheless, the idea persisted among academics. As the first PhDs in
economics were issued, the first claims were made that economies should
be managed by people with PhDs, via the mechanism of monetary
distortion.
By the 1920s, the experience of floating currencies during the First
World War, and the various debates surrounding a return to a gold
standard system at either prewar parities or devalued rates, created a new
emphasis on the macroeconomic effects of monetary changes. Academics
enthusiastically embraced the new ideas expressed by John Maynard
Keynes, as part of a broader program of socialist economic intervention that
included new welfare programs and punitive taxes on income and
inheritance. The necessities of war itself created a new experience with
central planning, state control, and high taxes. A new Soviet Union emerged
in the East.
Statesmen and businessmen were unimpressed by these novelties, and
hewed to the Classical liberal doctrine of fixed currency values based on
gold. But the idea of active intervention in monetary affairs saturated the
atmosphere even before 1930, in turn causing chronic currency difficulties
as people wondered if this unhealthy daydreaming might soon have
unpleasant consequences. For the most part, central banks adhered to
effective fixed-value operating mechanisms, particularly regarding bullion
conversion, which naturally canceled out any experimentation with central
banks’ debt assets.
After 1930, under the pressures of a Great Depression that few
understood, Mercantilist money-manipulation ambitions became
prominent, especially among intellectuals. The Bretton Woods arrangement
of 1944 attempted to weld Classical and Mercantilist ideals into one unit.
This failed in 1971, leaving a wreckage of floating fiat currencies in its
aftermath.
Recent Moves Toward Classical Ideals
Over a century has now passed since the end of the Classical Gold
Standard in 1914. Only a few alive today even have an adult memory of the
flawed gold standard system of the Bretton Woods era.
Many people today would claim that recreating a world gold standard
system is “impossible.” By this, they mean: politically unlikely in the near
term. It is not very difficult at all to use gold as a standard of value, instead
of using the euro or dollar as a standard of value, as dozens of countries do

today. “Political impossibility” is, of course, a hurdle, but one that can be
overcome – surprisingly quickly and easily, under the right conditions. Even
this assessment of politics reflects mostly the Anglophone countries, a very
small subset of governments as a whole, and a subset whose influence in
global affairs, so important in 1700-2000, may now be on the wane. Soft-
money ideals are not so popular in the rest of the world. Many governments
worldwide have been expressing their interest in a world currency system
based on gold, including Russia, Malaysia, the Gulf States, Libya and others.
In 2009, the head of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, wrote:
The outbreak of the current crisis and its spillover in the world
have confronted us with a long-existing but still unanswered question,
i.e., what kind of international reserve currency do we need to secure
global financial stability and facilitate world economic growth, which
was one of the purposes for establishing the IMF? There were various
institutional arrangements in an attempt to find a solution, including
the Silver Standard, the Gold Standard, the Gold Exchange Standard
and the Bretton Woods system. The above question, however, as the
ongoing financial crisis demonstrates, is far from being solved, and has
become even more severe due to the inherent weaknesses of the
current international monetary system.
Theoretically, an international reserve currency should first be
anchored to a stable benchmark and issued according to a clear set of
rules, therefore to ensure orderly supply; second, its supply should be
flexible enough to allow timely adjustment according to the changing
demand; third, such adjustments should be disconnected from
economic conditions and sovereign interests of any single country. The
acceptance of credit-based national currencies as major international
reserve currencies, as is the case in the current system, is a rare
special case in history. The crisis again calls for creative reform of the
existing international monetary system towards an international
reserve currency with a stable value, rule-based issuance
and manageable supply, so as to achieve the objective of safeguarding
global economic and financial stability. 1
The Chinese seem to know exactly what they want, and, though they
don’t say the words outright, exactly how to get it.
Most governments in the world have already repudiated the idea of
domestic monetary manipulation, and have adopted a fixed-value policy by
joining a major currency bloc. Their attention then turns from domestic
affairs to international: the major currency blocs must themselves be
beneficially managed. The conclusion of this line of thought is a world gold
Conclusions 237
standard system similar to the single “currency bloc” of the Classical Gold
Standard and Bretton Woods era.
Even in the United States, although academic opinion remained heavily
skewed towards soft-money ideals, in 2016 five Republican presidential
contenders – Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Mike
Huckabee – indicated that they were friendly toward the idea of restoring
the dollar’s link to gold. One of them, Donald Trump, became president. In
2010, Mike Pence, then a Congressman from Indiana, said:
[A] debate has started anew over an anchor to our global

monetary system. My dear friend, the late Jack Kemp, probably would
have urged me to adopt the gold standard, right here and now in
Detroit. Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, encouraged
that we rethink the international currency system including the role of
gold, and I agree. I think the time has come to have a debate over
gold, and the proper role it should play in our nation’s monetary
affairs. A pro-growth agenda begins with sound monetary policy. 2
Pence became Trump’s vice-president. Ben Carson also joined Trump’s

cabinet. Newt Gingrich, an advisor to the Trump administration, was a co-
sponsor of Congressman Jack Kemp’s Gold Standard Act of 1984.
As a young man, Paul Volcker defended the Bretton Woods gold parity
at $35/oz. Later, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, he halted the decline
of the 1970s and crudely stabilized the dollar around $350/oz. In 2014, he
said:
The two words, “Bretton Woods,” still seem to invoke a certain

nostalgia – memories of a more orderly, rule-based world of financial
stability, and close cooperation among nations. ... With prices stable in
the United States ... the use of the dollar convertible into gold at the
center of the system was rarely questioned. ...
By now I think we can agree that the absence of an official, rules-
based cooperatively managed, monetary system has not been a great
success. In fact, international financial crises seem at least as frequent
and more destructive in impeding economic stability and growth. 3
During his eighteen-year stint at the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan’s

leadership was skillful enough that he gained an extravagant nickname:
“the Maestro.” In 2002, while still in office, he received a knighthood in
Britain – a foreign country – for his “contribution to global economic
stability.” The “Great Moderation” that took place under his watch was as
good as the post-1971 floating fiat era ever got. In 2004, Greenspan
explained what he was doing:
[The] most effective central banks in this fiat money period tend
to be successful largely because we tend to replicate which would
probably have occurred under a commodity standard in general. 4
But even his tenure was marred by numerous distortions, booms and
crashes that, to many, looked suspiciously like they had a monetary origin:
the Asian Crisis of 1997-1998, the tech bubble of 1999-2000, and the
housing bubble of 2002-2005, among others. As successful as he was, he
was also, by his own implicit judgment, not successful enough. In 2017 he
remained, as in his youth, an admirer of the pre-1914 Classical gold
standard era:
I view gold as the primary global currency. ... The gold standard
was operating at its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a
period of extraordinary global prosperity, characterised by firming
productivity growth and very little inflation.
But today, there is a widespread view that the 19th century gold
standard didn’t work. ... It wasn’t the gold standard that failed; it was
politics. ...
[I]f the gold standard were in place today we would not have
reached the situation in which we now find ourselves. 5
Mervyn King was the governor of the Bank of England for a decade,
2003-2013. What did he learn from this experience? In The End of Alchemy:
Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy (2016), he said:
There are those who advocate even more monetary and fiscal
stimulus to trigger a recovery ... Further monetary stimulus, however,
is likely to achieve little more than taking us further down the dead-
end road of the paradox of policy. ...
Only a recognition of the severity of the disequilibrium into which
so many of the biggest economies of the world have fallen, and of the
nature of the alchemy of our system of money and banking, will
provide the courage to undertake bold reforms. 6
King did not share Greenspan’s Stable Money convictions. But even in
the citadels of soft-money rationalization, an uneasy recognition spread
that the entire contemporary system of monetary and financial
manipulation – the “alchemy” – was rotten and self-destructive. During
King’s tenure, researchers at the Bank of England found:
Overall, the evidence is that today’s [international monetary and

financial] system has performed poorly against each of its three
objectives, at least compared with the Bretton Woods system, with
Conclusions 239
the key failure being the system’s inability to maintain financial

stability and minimize the incidence of disruptive sudden changes in
global capital flows. 7
In Fed Up: An Insider’s Take On Why The Federal Reserve Is Bad For
America (2017), Danielle DiMartino Booth described ten contentious years
on the staff of the Federal Reserve. Finally disgusted with the process by
which the monetary alchemy is concocted, she concluded:
We must demand that the Fed stop offering excuse after excuse
for its failures. Short-term interest rates must return to some
semblance of normality and the Fed’s outrageously swollen balance
sheet must shrink in size. And most of all, the Fed must never follow
Europe by taking interest rates into negative territory.
No more excuses. The Fed’s mandate isn’t to have a perfect
world. That only exists in fairy tales, dreams, and the Fed’s
econometric models. 8
In 2015, former Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke and

former head of the IMF John Lipsky both reportedly used the same word to
describe the international monetary system: “incoherent.” 9
Retirement helps. It seems that central bankers are afraid to say what
they really think until they have nothing to lose, and even then, in the
mildest language. Yet their warnings, to younger men perhaps, seem clear.
They have actually gone through the process. They have spent their ablest
years reading stacks of economic statistics; listened to the advice of their
research staff of hundreds; attempted to juggle a constellation of different
factors in their minds; finessed the infinitesimal subtleties of wording in
their policy statements; tramped off to international conferences to argue
with their counterparts worldwide; dispatched their lackeys and rattled
their press contacts to make public hints of some undercurrent of changing
opinion; hashed out their differences in heated policy council debates; been
the target of endless public attack, and the beseeching of one interest group
after another; been blamed for everything, and then, given responsibility to
fix every problem; gotten angry phone calls from presidents and prime
ministers; seen their intentions crumble time and again as financial markets
refuse to follow their tune; seen how academic theory has not played out in
economic reality, leaving them little alternative but ad hoc improvisation;
seen how little it has all amounted to, at best, and how much can go wrong,
at worst; and have concluded: this is a game you cannot win. The best thing
would be to stop playing.
In the past, it perhaps did not require much convincing why gold
should be the basis of currency value. Money was based on gold (and silver,
before 1870) because money had always been based on gold. Only a few
economic philosophers bothered to examine the reason for this outcome,
and the logic behind it. Today, the idea that money should be, or even could
be, based on something besides the variable whims of central bankers can
be a little unfamiliar.
We can no longer rely upon habit and custom. A new grasp of the
underlying principle of Stable Money is necessary. Only money that is stable
in value can prevent the distortion of prices, interest rates, profit margins
and returns on capital, and all the other myriad effects that follow from
money that either rises or falls in value. Gold is simply a tool to achieve this
result – the best tool that humans have ever found, and perhaps the only
tool humans ever needed.
When the principle of Stable Money is fully grasped, today’s floating fiat
currencies, and the activities of major central banks, are seen as abhorrent
and absurd.
Yet still we hesitate. We still carry a kind of emotional trauma, from all
of the monetary failures, and broader economic policy failures, of the past
century. This trauma should be examined and resolved.
Do Something Vs. Do Nothing: As the study of economics restricted itself

to Prices, Interest and Money in the late nineteenth century, the guiding
principle was laissez-faire – a subtle set of ideas, among lesser minds
crudely expressed as: Do Nothing. When tariffs, taxes and all manner of
interventionist regulation ballooned – begun by president Herbert Hoover
in the U.S., and then expanded dramatically by Franklin Roosevelt –
economists trained in the old principles had little to offer but to recommend
again that nothing be done. This was completely unacceptable. Before long,
some economists demanded that something be done. Using the same
framework of Prices, Interest and Money, this naturally led to forms of price
intervention, various arguments to lower interest rates, and, via one
rationale or another, a depreciation of currency value and abandonment of
the gold standard system.
A concurrent battle was fought over fiscal policy, which also tended to
reduce to one single numerical figure, the budget deficit. Classicals wanted
to eliminate the deficit, via lower spending and higher taxes – a strategy
summarized as “austerity.” The consequences were economic contraction
due to the higher taxes, new spending demands for welfare and to purchase
political support in the deteriorating economic environment, depressed tax
revenues, and persistent deficits. The new Mercantilists recommended
increased government spending, and increased deficits, with little care as to
what form the extra spending might take. Even the sacrifice of blood and
treasure in war could work, in a pinch; paying people to “dig holes and fill
them back up,” an expression of perfect waste, could be a less-violent
alternative. Higher taxes tended to follow the higher spending, toward a
longer-term socialist goal of greater government involvement in all matters.
This was called “stimulus.” The idea of lower taxes, combined with either
Conclusions 241
higher spending (to provide needed welfare support), or lower (to

eliminate waste) was nowhere to be seen.
All of these approaches – Do Nothing or Do Something, Stimulus or
Austerity – were failures. Today, increased government spending as an
economic remedy still has some advocates (to a large degree, this is a cover
story for a cruder process of political patronage) but expectations of its
effectiveness have been greatly curtailed after decades of mediocre results.
Various forms of price intervention – price controls, or various forms of
price support such as restrictions on production or government purchases
of products – have also fallen out of favor. From the Great Depression’s
menu of policy failure, which still informs action today even if its origins are
largely forgotten, two main options are left: Interest and Money. Both are
today the purvey of central banks. “Do Something” today means: to
interfere with interest rates and either the quantity or value of money.
Without this one flawed tool, the economic simpletons are reduced to “Do
Nothing,” which remains unacceptable. Although governments have
carefully avoided further tariff wars since the 1930s, the basic drama of the
Great Depression played out again among several southern European
governments after 2010, where “austerity” tax increases were soon
followed by a crumbling economy and calls to leave the eurozone and
devalue.
The nineteenth-century Classical liberals were right. Governments
should not intervene in the free market formation of prices and interest
rates. Money should remain stable and reliable – in practice, a gold
standard system. But that still leaves a vast realm of economic policy: taxes,
regulation, and spending programs of every sort including welfare,
healthcare and the military, in all of their complicated details and
consequences, not compressed into a single numerical value of Spending or
the Deficit. Within this realm lie many opportunities to Do Something, for
better and for worse. Economists should do things for the better; and if
something harmful is done, the problem should be quickly identified and
remedied.
No longer should economists rely solely on central banks’ manipulation
of Interest and Money to attempt to remedy nonmonetary problems. When
this principle is grasped, then people can again return to the ideal of Stable
Money, without reservation or hesitation.
Currency Option One Vs. Currency Option Three: Governments did not
want to abandon the Bretton Woods gold standard system in 1971. Rather,
it seemed that the gold standard had abandoned them. It became, to their
eyes, so obstreperous and difficult to manage, subject to so many
“fundamental disequilibriums” and “Triffin dilemmas,” that even the great
many capital controls and earnest international agreements laid upon it
could not keep it from disintegrating. Currencies, it seemed, wanted to float
freely, and nothing could keep them from doing so. Governments and
central bankers were even a little happy to be relieved of the responsibility

for maintaining the system; a responsibility that, as twenty-seven years of
experience had shown, they were incapable of fulfilling. It too seemed like a
game that they could not win, even as many economists, including Milton
Friedman, told them it was a game they did not need to play. They
attempted to deflect blame onto any other conceivable thing, but their
failure was obvious, and embarrassing.
All of these problems can be expressed as the difference between
Currency Option One and Currency Option Three. Currency Option Three,
though common, should not even be considered an “option” at all, but
rather a form of error to be avoided in all instances.
When economists claim that a fixed-value system would be “subject to
speculative attack,” or a “one-way bet,” and would “soon collapse,” they are
referring to Currency Option Three systems, for which all these things are
true. Currency Option One systems, such as currency boards today, are
rarely subject to speculative attack, and do not fail when they are. The gold
standard systems of the nineteenth century were notable for their absence
of speculative pressures. If anything, speculation tended to be in favor of
maintaining gold parity values. Economists who make such warnings
simply do not have a good grasp of the principles involved. They should
probably find some other branch of economics more suited to their abilities.
It is not the right time: Despite all the brilliant arguments by David
Ricardo and others, returning Britain’s floating pound to its gold anchor
was “politically impossible” until after the wars with France ended in 1815.
Today, governments have spent the last four decades making promises with
the tacit assumption that it would all be eventually resolved by the printing
press. To return to a gold standard system today would mean that all those
obligations – existing government debt, state pensions (Social Security),
healthcare obligations, and the habit of persistent deficits – would have to
be either paid off in hard money, or completely renegotiated. This is
possible: the British government’s giant debts after the Napoleonic Wars,
estimated at possibly over 200% of GDP, were eventually paid off in a
currency of unchanging value. The U.S. Federal government’s debt of 119%
of GDP in 1946 shrank to 35% of GDP in 1970, entirely through an increase
in GDP, since the nominal amount of debt increased. These displays of
virtue and fortitude have been rare, however, and demonstrate one reason
why Britain dominated world affairs after 1815, and the U.S. after 1945.
The political balance at this time may favor a monetary resolution,
whether through a short-term event or a long period of erosion sometimes
called “financial repression.” This position would rarely be voiced in those
terms. Just as was the case in Britain prior to Waterloo, it would be
expressed as a continual stream of threadbare rationalizations why the
floating fiat system must continue, and why central banks, and their money-
creation mechanism, must be the final response to all concerns of statecraft.
Conclusions 243
If so, then so be it. Such a political consensus is likely to lead to its own
demise before too long, especially since its own demise is an inherent part
of its constitution. In the time that comes after, a time of broken promises
and broken currencies, a wholly different political consensus will form,
which will be: anything but that.
New Forms of Gold Standard Systems
All gold standard systems have the same goal – to fix the value of the
currency to a defined quantity of gold. The institutional arrangements used
to attain this goal have always varied, over time and among different
governments. The world gold standard systems of the twenty-first century
would be different, in their details, from those of the nineteenth, and
certainly different from the flawed Bretton Woods arrangements.
Over time, the world economy’s demand for money has tended to grow
faster than available aboveground gold. It would not be possible today to
replace all base money (banknotes and central bank deposits) with gold
coins and bullion, a pure coinage or “100% reserve” system. It might be
difficult to return to the roughly 30% reserve ratios common to central
banks in the late nineteenth century. Certainly a small country could do so –
Malaysia, perhaps – but not the world as a whole. This is not a problem,
because it is necessary only to maintain the value of currencies at their gold
parities, not to warehouse giant amounts of bullion in vaults. Indeed, it
would arguably be better – that gold would more perfectly serve its role as
a stable standard of value – if most of the gold in the world was in private
hands, trading freely, rather than being locked up by central banks and
possibly subject to centralized decisions to buy and sell. Today, roughly
20% of the world’s aboveground gold is reportedly held by central banks, a
ratio that seems appropriate for the purpose, and also the same ratio as in
1910.
Some have suggested forms of a gold standard system which do not
require any bullion reserves at all, and in which base money is not
convertible to bullion at the currency issuer. A This is technically possible,
but politically weak: such systems are more prone to accidental or
intentional mismanagement. Traditionally, central banks have offered
unlimited bullion conversion. In practice, this was not a problem. However,
any central bank might justifiably feel nervous about making such a
commitment when gold reserves are perhaps 5%-10% of base money
liabilities. At the end of 2016, the United States had official gold holdings of
261 million oz., worth $313 billion at $1200/oz., against Federal Reserve
base money liabilities of $3,531 billion – a reserve ratio of 9.5%.
A A “gold price rule,” described in detail in Chapter 8 of Gold: The Monetary Polaris. A
currency board with a major international gold-based reserve currency is one

common variant of this theme, and popular since the late nineteenth century.
One solution is to allow limited conversion. If the Federal Reserve

agreed to sell up to one million ounces of gold at $1,200/oz. per day (worth
$1.2 billion), and this maximum was reached every day, it would take 261
working days, or a little more than a calendar year, for the reserve to be
completely depleted. This would give the Federal Reserve more than
enough time to respond to the problem of sagging dollar value via measures
such as open market operations (selling government bonds and reducing
the monetary base) in whatever size was necessary to achieve the goal. At
the same time, speculators would be reluctant to pay more than $1,200/oz.
on the open market, preferring perhaps to wait a day and get their bullion
at the parity price from the Federal Reserve. With proper management, the
value of the dollar could rise at some point slightly above its $1,200/oz.
parity, at which point the Federal Reserve would experience bullion
inflows.
Especially since 2011, various “paper gold” markets including the U.S.
Comex futures exchange and the London Bullion Market Association, have
exerted enough influence upon gold prices that such prices apparently do
not reflect actual supply and demand conditions for bullion itself. This
prompted several efforts, the most prominent of which was the Shanghai
Gold Exchange, to provide a mechanism for gold pricing that reflected large-
scale and liquid trade in actual bullion for immediate delivery. Certainly a
market for actual gold bullion, as opposed to gold-flavored derivatives that
can be created or extinguished at will, is a necessity for gold to best serve its
role as a standard of value. One advantage of including gold conversion by
central banks is that central banks themselves in effect act as bullion
dealers, in multi-billion dollar size. Bullion in large quantity could be bought
or sold with central banks themselves, in the process illustrating the
relationship of currency value to bullion itself without the influence of any
external “paper gold” pricing mechanism.
Central banks – monopoly currency issuers – are a relatively recent
innovation, with a dubious history of for-profit private ownership. People
have always sought uniformity in their monetary affairs, but
monopolization has exposed monetary systems to a single point of failure,
and the actions of a few people. A more distributed multi-issuer model,
known as “free banking,” has been common throughout history. Like central
banks today, currency issuers should be segregated from all other banking
activities. A system with perhaps a few dozen issuers, none of which has
more than a 20% market share, could provide diversification and reliability
that today’s currency monopolies lack.
An even more libertarian vision of multiple independent alternative
currencies, some based upon gold and some based on whatever their
creators imagine, may be surprisingly close at hand. The popularity of
Bitcoin, and its many imitators including some based upon gold, suggests
that this may be the favored template for the eventual replacement of
Conclusions 245
monopoly central banks – even if, for the time being, Bitcoin itself is far too
volatile to serve as the basis of contracts or coherent pricing.
Crisis and Renewal
Can any group of money bureaucrats, supported by whatever statistical

apparatus, create a standard of value more stable than gold, a standard that
can serve as the basis of a world currency system just as gold served this
role – to resounding success! – over the centuries? There is no evidence that
they can. There is not much evidence that they even want to. Out of
hundreds of floating fiat currencies, not one has ever been managed with
this goal in mind; not one has ever attained it. Not very many of these
people even know what “stable value,” in this context, means.
But beyond these fundamental problems lie several other
complications. The euro project came attached to an ambitious program of
federalization, an incremental, decades-long effort to weld Europe’s
sovereign democratic governments into a single super-state – a super-state
divorced of democratic principles, and run by a bureaucratic elite. It
appears to be a monarchy without a monarch; but, perhaps the monarch
simply wishes to remain unseen.
Can the same trick be pulled on the world as a whole? Out of some
period of financial and monetary chaos, could a new currency order be
imposed, perhaps based initially around the IMF’s SDR? 10 Would some
unified world currency system, with a world central bank in the model of
the European Central Bank – even one initially, and temporarily, based on
gold – act as the public justification for a world superstate, a world
government of unassailable domination, a tiny ruling class that rules
forever; an administrative class that executes their orders; a great working
class that toils in endless serfdom? This principle would be inherent in the
money itself. These ruling classes may decide that monetary disintegration,
rather than monetary order, better serves their purposes. Perhaps a decade
of global hyperinflation would best cement their rule, pressing the
desperate to give up every remaining freedom in exchange for the crudest
elements necessary to sustain life – just as the breakdown of the Roman
coinage system eventually pressed small landholders to voluntarily enter
into slavery, and began a thousand years of feudal serfdom. Or perhaps a
milder pattern of calculated boom and bust would effectively shear the
sheep of their wealth with a minimum of bleating. Already, the longstanding
effort to eliminate banknotes, and restrict payment strictly to electronic
banking methods, has reached is implementation phase. The League of
Nations, and then the United Nations, laid the blueprint for a world
superstate decades ago. Alger Hiss, the Secretary General of the
international meeting in 1945 that founded the United Nations, and
primary author of the United Nations Charter, was a communist agent.
Another communist agent, Harry Dexter White, helped create the IMF, and
served as its first director.
An international gold standard system requires no such superstate, or
single global currency run by a world central bank. Any country that wished
to participate could do so, unilaterally. There need be no other policy
coordination on any other level. Currencies would not be under the control
of an unelected board of bureaucrats, at the national or international level,
but could be provided by a multi-issuer “free banking” model.
Throughout history, gold has been the money of liberty and
sovereignty, justice and morality, prosperity and cooperation. Fiat
currencies have been the money of absolutism and tyranny, favoritism and
expediency, parasitism and conflict. Governments have devalued, debased
and floated their currencies many times for many reasons, but never
because gold itself failed to serve its role as a reliable standard of value –
not in 1914, not in 1931, and not in 1971. If a crisis is in our future, wiping
away the present order, let the solution be one that benefits all of humanity,
not one that serves as a new mechanism of global enslavement. We know
what that solution is.
Would it work? It has always worked. It has always been the only thing
that worked.
Notes
Chapter 1:
1Edwin Walter Kemmerer, who established gold standard systems for
several countries between 1905 and 1930, explained in 1944:
The third function that [gold] convertibility performs is

fundamentally the most important one. It is the function of maintaining
the gold parity of the monetary unit by continually adjusting the
currency supply to changing currency demand. ...
When, under a normally functioning international gold standard,
the supply of currency in any country becomes excessive relative to
demand, ... exchange rates move toward the gold export point; ... These
exports [of gold] are continued until the reduction of the country’s
money supply has made the monetary unit so valuable that further
exportation of gold becomes unprofitable.
Under conditions of such currency redundancy and resulting gold
exportation, the central banks must always be in a position to give out
gold freely, as long as it is required, to relieve the country of its
relatively redundant currency and to force exchange rates below the
gold-export point.
Kemmerer (1944), pp. 218-219.

2 Gallarotti (1995), p. 22.
3 Source: Bank of England (2016).
4 Mundell and Friedman (2001).
Chapter 2:
1 Interview with National Public Radio, November 19, 2010.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-
chemist-explains-why-gold-beat-out-lithium-osmium-einsteinium
2 Mill (1848), III.7.6
3 The Silver Institute (2016).
4 The objects at Nahal Kana appear to have been an early form of "ring
money."
5 Powell (1996).
6 Crawford (2004), p. 159.
7 Postgate (1992), p. 203
8 Postgate (1992), p. 66
9 Postgate (1992), p. 202
10 Postgate (1992), p. 193
11 Heichelheim (1958).
12 Mundell (2002).
13 Mundell (2002).
14 Postgate (1992), p. 193
15 Crawford (2013).
16 Powell (1996) and Postgate (1992).
17 Among the 282 laws:
113: If a man hold a [debt of] grain or money against a man, and if
he take grain without the consent of the owner from the heap or
the granary, they shall call that man to account for taking grain
without the consent of the owner from the heap or the granary, and
he shall return as much grain as he took, and he shall forfeit all that
he has lent, whatever it be.
114: If a man do not hold a [debt of] grain or money against a man,
and if he seize him for debt, for each seizure he shall pay one-third
mina of silver.
122: If a man give to another silver, gold or anything else on

deposit, whatever he gives he shall show to witnesses and he shall
arrange the contracts and (then) he shall make the deposit.
123. If a man give on deposit without witnesses or contracts, and at

the place of deposit they dispute with him (i.e., deny the deposit),
that case has no penalty.
124: If a man give to another silver, gold or anything else on

deposit in the presence of witnesses and the latter dispute with
him (or deny it), they shall call that man to account and he shall
double whatever he has disputed and repay it.
18 Davies (1994), p. 50.

19 Postgate (1992), and Powell (1996).
20 Mundell (2002), footnote 63.
21 Green (2007), p. 40.
22 Johnson (1999), p. 113.
23 Neumann (1995).
24 Gentet and Maucourant (1991).
25 Green (2007), p. 52.
26 Johnson (1999), p. 79-83.
27 Johnson (1999), p. 214.
28 Rostovtzeff (1941), p. 1285.
Notes 249
29 Davies (1994), p. 52.

30 Heichelheim (1958), Vol. III p. 122.
31 Kenoyer (1998), p. 97.
32 Thornton (2013).
33 Mundell (2002), p. 27.
34 Milne (1930), p. 184.
35 Extensively described in Milne (1930).
36 Roche (2005), p. 573.
37 Translated by Benjamin Jowett (1892).
38 Herodotus. Histories. Chapters 27-29 and 38-39.
39 It has been argued that “niksha” copper beads, of about 1200 B.C., served
as a sort of coinage in India. See Bhatt (1998).

40 Pliny, Natural History, Book XII, Chap. 41.
41 Duncan-Jones (1982). In Davies (1994), p. 92.
42 Davies (1994), p. 107.
43 Green (2007), p. 207.
44 Von Glahn (1996), p. 32.
45 Swan (1950), p. 377.
46 Green (2007), p. 179.
47 Green (2007) p. 180.
48 Green (2007), p. 171.
Chapter 3:
1 Warren and Pearson (1933), p. 316.
2 Drelichman and Voth (2011).
3 Green (2007), p. 245.
4 Kohn (1999).
5 Davies (1995), p. 180-181.
6 Yang (1952), p. 53.
7 Yang (1952), p. 57.
8 Yang (1952), p. 61.
9 Von Glahn (1996), p. 61-62.
10 Yang (1952), p. 64.
11 Von Glahn (1996), p. 71.
12 Yang (1952), p. 67.
13 Yang (1952), p.95.
14 For an exhaustive record of Indian gold coinage, see Friedberg and
Friedburg (2009).
15 Toda (1882).
16 Lochan (1988), pp. 222, 229-230.
17 Wicks (1992), p. 184.
18 Wicks (1992), p. 278.
19 for example: Hosler (1988), p. 832-855.
20 See Mann (2006).

21 Kolata (2013), p. 141.
22 Moseley (1992), p. 73.
23 Green (2007), p. 269.
24 D’Altroy (2002), p. 84.
25 McEwan (2006), p. 130.
26 D’Altroy (2002), p. 67.
27 D’Altroy (2002), p. 73.
28 McEwan (2006), p.131.
Chapter 4:
1 Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451, and did not migrate to Spain
until 1485. Known as Cristóbal Colón in Spanish, his name in Latin was
Christophorus Columbus, and in Italian Cristoforo Colombo.
2 Green (2007), p. 285.
3 Von Glahn (1996), p. 113.
4 Von Glahn (1996) estimated that, between 1550 and 1645 roughly 7,200
metric tons of silver was imported into China. Surprisingly, Von Glahn
concluded that roughly half of this (3,700 tons) came from Japan, 2,300 tons
came from the Spanish mines via the Pacific, and 1,230 tons came from the
west via India and Europe. (p. 140) During the overlapping 1601-1700
period, Von Glahn estimated total imports of 4,704 tons, of which 3,596
tons came from Japan. (p. 232)
5 Quinn and Roberds (2012), p. 10.
6 Griffin (1994), p. 173.
7 Suprinyak (2011).
8 Mayhew (1999), p. 105.
9 See Selgin (2008).
10 Davies (1994), p. 253.
11 Shareholders’ equity is the sum of “capital” (initial capital) and “rest”
(essentially, retained earnings). Source: Bank of England (2016).

12 Davies (1994), p.279.
13 Davies (1994), p. 259.
16 Davies (1994), p. 316.
17 Davies (1994), p. 256.
19 Rothbard (2002), p. 61.
20 Gouge, (1833), part II page 32.
21 Rothbard (2008), p. 193.
22 Wikipedia.com. 2015. “Bank of North America”
23 Galbraith (1975), p. 72.
Notes 251
24 The First Bank was likely controlled by the Rothschild family. See Griffin
(1994), p. 331.
25 Wettereau (1937).
26 Holdsworth (1910).
27 Holdsworth (1910).
28 Galbraith, (1975), p. 72.
29 Griffin (1994), p. 329.
30 U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975), p. 1018, 1020.
31 Holdsworth (1910). p. 204.
32 Holdsworth (1910). Appendix F.
33 Krooss (1983), pp. 26-27. Quoted in Griffin (1994), p. 350.
34 U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975), p. 1020.
35 U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975), p. 995.
36 Warren and Pearson (1933), p. 316.
37 See White (1990), p. 251-276.
38 Quigley (1966), p. 515.
39 Nataf (1992).
40 Source: White (2011), pp. 245-274.
41 Davies (1994), p.567.
42 Copernicus (1985), pp. 190-191.
43 Rothbard (1995a), p. 213.
44 Cantillon (2010), p. 223.
45 Book II, Chapter XXVII.
46 Rothbard (1995b), pp. 207-208.
47 Source: Indiana Monetary Commission (1898), p. 554-555.
48 The amount of gold obtained by Pizarro in the initial looting of the Inca
hoards has been estimated at five metric tons. Bernstein (2000), p. 130.
49 Magee, J.D. (1910), pp. 54-58.
50 Source: Magee (1910), years 1500-1686; measuringworth.com, years
1687-2011.
51 The value of the British pound was devalued from 2000 troy grains of
silver in 1543 to 1200 grains in 1545, 800 grains in 1546, and 400 grains in
1551, before being restored to 1768 grains in 1552. Thus, the volatility of
commodity prices in terms of gold in Britain around 1550-1560, as
represented here from the calculations of Jastram (1977), may have been
mostly an effect of these monetary changes.
52 Source: Jastram (1977).
53 “The intricate debate that has run on for two-and-a-half centuries is the
product of an erroneous interpretation,” Bank of Italy researcher Filippo

Cesarano argued. “In Hume’s essay, the law of one price is not violated and
in fact is the foundation of his analysis.” Cesarano (2006), p. 23. Also see
Cesarano (1998). Hume, and his imitators, were basically describing,
somewhat poorly, the mechanisms by which the Law of One Price becomes
manifest.

55 Green (1999), p. 20.
Chapter 5:
1 A similar opinion was put forth by McCloskey and Zecher (1976):
What has been established here is that there is a reasonable

case ... for the postulate of integrated commodity markets between
the British and American economies of the late nineteenth century,
vindicating the monetary theory. There appears to be little reason
to treat these two countries on the gold standard differently in
their monetary transactions from any two regions within each
country.
Thus do we come round again to the conclusions of David Hume in 1742:
What happens in small portions of mankind, must take place in

greater. The provinces of the Roman empire, no doubt, kept their
balance with each other, and with Italy, independent of the
legislature; as much as the several counties of Great Britain, or of
several parishes of each county. And any man who travels over
Europe at this day, may see by the prices of commodities, that
money [gold and silver], in spite of the absurd jealousies of princes
and states; has brought itself nearly to a level; and that the
difference between one kingdom and another is not greater in this
respect, than it is often between provinces of the same kingdom.
(“On the Balance of Trade,” 1742)
Hume’s observations are totally contrary to the “price-specie flow”

theory attributed to his name, in which persistent “balance of payments
imbalances” (Hume says they do not exist) cause localized changes in the
supply and consequently the value of money (Hume says it is the same
everywhere), which lead to changes in prices (Hume says they are the same
everywhere), which in turn leads to reversed bullion flows, which then
resolves the (nonexistent) “balance of payments imbalance.”
An extensive discussion of Hume’s writings and the “price-specie flow
mechanism” is found in Cesarano (1998). A more recent interpretation of
Hume, in Cesarano (2006, p. 22), found that the “price-specie flow
mechanism” attributed to Hume was due to “the emphasis placed on a
single passage cited out of context.”
An extended discussion of the intellectual history of the “price-specie
flow mechanism” can be found in Bordo (1984). Gallarotti (1995, pp. 35-41)
Notes 253
summarized the extensive inconsistencies between the “price-specie flow”

theory and observed conditions.
2 Cesarano (2006), p. 23. See also Kemmerer (1944), p. 214:
On this subject there has been much confusion growing out of the
popular notion that gold moves in international trade only “to pay
balances.” As a matter of fact, gold moves for the same fundamental
reason that any other commodity moves—to seek the best market. It
goes abroad whenever it is worth abroad more than at home, by a
sufficient margin to yield an attractive profit after paying all the
expenses of its exportation. Its importation from abroad is merely the
other side of the same shield.
3 Source: Jones and Obstfeld (2001), available at nber.org, and the
International Monetary Fund.

4 A description of the high degree of market integration within the United
States and across the Atlantic – including the ease with which gold bullion
could be transported – can be found in Calomiris and Hubbard (1996).
5 The first use of the term “rules of the game” was ascribed to Sir Robert
Kindersley, a director of the Bank of England, in February 1930 during

testimony before the Macmillan committee. (Comment by Donald E.
Moggridge, in Dutton (1984).) It was picked up and used by John Maynard
Keynes two weeks later, as meaning, in Keynes’ words: “you so conduct
your affairs that you tend neither to gain nor to lose large quantities of
gold.” In other words, the currency’s value is maintained at its gold parity.
The Macmillan committee concluded that:
It is difficult to define in precise terms what is implied by the

“rules of the game.” The management of an international standard
is an art and not a science, and no one would suggest that it is
possible to draw up a formal code of action, admitting of no
exceptions and qualifications, adherence to which is obligatory on
peril of wrecking the whole structure. Much must necessarily be
left to time and circumstance.
There were no hard and fast rules, naturally frustrating later attempts
to find them. Due to the wide variety of operating mechanisms available
(gold convertibility, open market operations in bonds, foreign exchange
operations, and operations via lending and discounting), plus the option of
altering asset composition at will, considerable discretion was allowed to
central bankers, with the goal, as per Keynes, of maintaining the currency’s
value at its gold parity. The ultimate rule was that base money should be
contracted, by some means, when the currency value was less than its
parity value (causing gold conversion outflows), and increased when the
currency value was greater (causing gold conversion inflows). In the end,
changing the monetary base, via one mechanism or another, is the only
thing that central banks are able to do, so to say that a gold standard system
is maintained by appropriate changes in the monetary base is close to a
tautology.
The modern equivalent of such a system is a currency board. Because it
has only one operating mechanism – foreign exchange transactions – its
operation is much more easily reduced to a simple rule, which is to buy or
sell at the parity price. Even in this case, however, a central bank has some
discretion as to its reserve asset mix. The equivalent would be a gold
standard system where base money adjustment would be done entirely via
gold conversion, and there would be no open-market operations, lending
and discounting, or foreign-exchange transactions. The Issue Department of
the Bank of England was structured along these lines after 1844, although
in practice it worked as part of an integrated system with the Banking
Department.
6 McGouldrick (1984) came to this conclusion in regard to Germany during
the 1879-1913 period.

7 Source: Bank of England.
8 Gallarotti (1995), p. 22.
9 See Gold: The Monetary Polaris (Lewis, 2013) for a much more detailed
discussion of central bank operating techniques.

10 U.S. National Monetary Commission (1910a), p. 20.
12 A typical expression of this view is from Bayoumi and Eichengreen
(1996):
Despite the attention lavished on it by generations of scholars,

the question of why the pre-1914 gold standard operated so
smoothly for so long remains stubbornly unresolved. Under the
gold standard, the exchange rates of the major industrial countries
were firmly pegged within narrow bands (“the gold points”) in an
environment free of significant restrictions on international flows
of financial capital. This is precisely the sort of international
monetary arrangement that recent experience suggests should be
fragile, precarious and difficult to maintain. The breakdown of the
Bretton Woods System following the liberalization of international
capital markets in the 1960s and the collapse of the narrow-band
European Monetary Systems (EMS) on the heels of the removal of
Europe’s residual capital controls in the 1980s illustrate this point.
How the pre-1914 gold standard managed to avoid the same fate
constitutes an analytical mystery and an important policy question.
...
Eichengreen (1992), for example, focuses on credibility and
cooperation as the dual pillars of the policy regime.
Notes 255
The “mystery” is no mystery to anyone who understands the distinction

between Currency Option One and Currency Option Three. Without this
insight, the authors were naturally drawn to invent other scenarios, mostly
involving “international cooperation,” “credibility” and “confidence,”
somewhat in the fashion of the International Monetary Fund or London
Gold Pool of the Bretton Woods period – the notion that currency parities
could be maintained for decade after decade by little more than bluffing.
Even at the late date of 1996 (just before another group of Currency Option
Three systems were destroyed in the Asia Crisis of 1997-1998), this
apparently seemed like a credible idea.
15U.S. National Monetary Commission (1910b), p. 173.

16 U.S. National Monetary Commission (1910b), p. 173.
18 Dutch National Bank, “History of the DNB,” dnb.nl.
21 Source: Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database.
www.macrohistory.net/data; Center for Financial Stability, Historical

Financial Statistics centerforfinancialstability.org.
22 U.S. National Monetary Commission (1910c), p. 28-37.

24 Federal Reserve (1943).
25 Reti (1998). pp. 55-56.
26 Hawtrey (1919), p. 311.
27 Reti (1998). pp. 136-153.
28 Bloomfield (1959), p. 14.
29 Kemmerer (1944), p. 163. Kemmerer, who established gold-exchange
standards in several countries beginning with the Philippines in 1905, has

an excellent discussion of the characteristics of those systems.
30 Betancourt (2008).
31 Hawtrey (1927), p. 73.
32 Source: Fregert (2014).
33 Betancourt (2008).
34 Source: Fregert (2014).
35 Jonung (1984). p. 386.
36 Source: Center for Financial Stability, Historical Financial Statistics
centerforfinancialstability.org.
37 Lindert (1969), p. 23.

39 Lindert (1969), p. 10-12.
40 Lindert (1969), p. 76.
41 Bordo and Rockoff (1996). pp. 326-311.
42 U.S. National Monetary Commission (1910b), p. 79-80.
45 Jonung (1984). p. 364.
46 Jonung (1984), p. 369.
47 Fratianni and Spinelli (1984) p. 433-434.
50 Flink (1930), p. 24.
54 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1943).
55 Friedman and Schwartz (1963). p. 704.
56 Green (2007), p. 326.
57 GFMS, in Turk (2012).
60 Warren and Pearson (1933).
61 Source: Warren and Pearson (1933).
62 Green (2007), pp. 344-348.
63 Again, this figure is based on the GFMS estimates and is subject to
interpretations of pre-1492 aboveground supply.

64 Source: GFMS.
65 Source: GFMS.
66 Source: GFMS.
67 Latham and Neal (1983).
68 National Bureau of Economic Research, “macro history database”
nber.org
69 U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975), p. 898-899.
70 Source: Green (1999), GFMS.
71 See, for example, Bordo, Landon-Lane and Redish (2009), Atkenson and
Kehoe (2004), White (2013), and Selgin (1997).

72 National Bureau of Economic Research, “macro history database.”
nber.org.
nber.org.
Notes 257

nber.org.
76 Timberlake (1993), pp. 166-182.
77 Paloera and Taylor (2001). p. 76.
78 Ricardo (2005b), pp. 59-60.
79 Mises (1981), p. 145.
80 Shlaes (2007), p. 153.
81 In Yeager (1984).
82 Anderson (1949), pp. 3-4, 6. Quoted in Yeager (1984).
83 Keynes (1920), pp. 10-12. Quoted in Yeager (1984).
84 Grant (2014), p. 29.
Chapter 6:
1 Dowd (2001).
2 Source: Globalfinancialdata.com.
3 This chart, and others in this series, do not accurately represent currency
values vs. gold before 1920. The figures are calculated as a product of
exchange rates vs. the dollar, and dollar prices of gold. However, during
wartime, both exchange rates and dollar gold prices came under capital
controls. The real value of the U.S. dollar vs. gold in 1916-1919 did not
remain at its gold parity at $20.67/oz., as the Federal Reserve expanded
aggressively to fund U.S. government wartime deficits. Source: Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve (1943).
4 Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (1943).
7 Shlaes (2007), p. 97.
8 Wanniski (1978), pp. 136-159, and Reynolds (1979).
9 Wanniski (1978), pp. 136-159.
10 Hall and Ferguson (1998), p. 71.
11 Saint-Etienne (1984), p. 27.
12 Hall and Ferguson (1998), p. 72.
13 See “Dates of Adoption of Major State Taxes,” taxfoundation.org.
14 Reinhart, Carmen and Kenneth Rogoff (2009), p. 96.
15 “All Debtors To U.S. Excepting Finland To Default Today,” New York
Times, June 15, 1934.

16 A summary of nonmonetary factors, as they were understood in
academia at the time, is given in Gordon and Wilcox (1981). An excellent

new history of the U.S. during the Great Depression, including many
nonmonetary elements, was given by Shlaes (2007).
17 Eichengreen (1995), p. 188-191.
18 Saint-Etienne (1984), p. 24.
19 Steindl (1995) gives a good summary of monetary theories of the Great
Depression. As an example of the near-total focus on monetary factors

common in recent years, see Smiley (2002), pp. 31-70.
20 Hawtrey (1922). Quoted in Cesarano (2006), p. 74. Italics in the original.
21 A similar argument, in much greater detail, was given by Silvano
Wueschner in Charting Twentieth Century Monetary Policy: Herbert Hoover

and Benjamin Strong, 1917-1927 (1999).
25 For example, Meltzer (2003), p. 167.
27 Meltzer (2003), p. 216.
28 Rothbard (1963), p. 155.
29 Meltzer (2003), p. 261.
30 Meltzer (2003), p. 226. Friedrich Hayek, Lionel Robbins and Benjamin
Anderson apparently shared similar views. See Selgin (2013).

31 Source: Robert Schiller, http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/
32 Meltzer (2003), p. 165.
33 Keynes (1924), pp. 172-173.
34 Source: Robert Schiller, http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/
35 Meltzer (2003) gives an extended and more contemporary version in
Chapter Five, “Why Did Monetary Policy Fail in the Thirties?” including
references to many influential interpretations. Yet, the Federal Reserve did
not fail, in its mandate to maintain the dollar at its gold parity, and to
resolve any liquidity-shortage crisis issues. The whole notion of “failure”
presumes that the Federal Reserve was already on a floating-fiat system,
with a mandate for broad macroeconomic management. While the authors
of the many papers and books that Meltzer references would no doubt
agree with the notion that floating fiat currencies, and an aggressive activist
policy, are preferable to a fixed-value gold standard policy, their advocacy
for floating currencies has unfortunately clouded their interpretation of
history to such an extent that they fail to perceive the basic elements of
policy at the time.
36 Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve.
37 This argument was also made by Temin (1976), p. 169.
38 Source: Bank of Greece.
39 Similar arguments were made by Douglas Irwin (2010), and Irwin
(2012). See also Eichengreen (1990), pp. 83-112.

42 Bernanke (1991) suggested a “deflation” caused by the Bank of France’s
gold accumulation. Yet, the franc, pound and dollar did not rise vs. gold;
Federal Reserve and Bank of England gold reserves were higher in July
Notes 259
1931 than they were in 1926, even as France’s reserves tripled; and the
monetary bases of the Federal Reserve and Bank of France had expanded
considerably, while the Bank of England’s was essentially unchanged. These
suggestions of “deflation” (without argument that the value of gold itself
rose) are not supported by theory or evidence.
44 Eichengreen (1995), p. 12.
45 The idea that the 1929 stock market crash had serious psychological
consequences was popular especially in Keynesian circles for many

decades. However, this idea was largely discarded after the 1987 stock
market crash had few consequences for the economy, with not even a mild
recession resulting.
46 Steindl (1995).
47 Schwartz (1981), p. 5-6
48 Temin (1976), p. 7.
49 Temin (1976), p. 171, p. 178. Temin reiterated his views in Temin (1989):
“The decline that started in 1929 was due to a failure of aggregate demand.”
(p. 60.)
50 Boyle (1967), p. 258.
51 Rueff (1932), and Rueff (1954).
52 Keynes (1963), p. 183-184. Quoted in Bernstein (2000), p. 293.
53 source: Eichengreen (1990).
54 This conclusion was prominent in the Macmillan Report, issued July 23,
1931. Hall and Ferguson (1998), p. 96.

55 Eichengreen (1990, pp. 239-270) has a discussion of the “gold exchange
standard” including good information about the details of reserve holdings

of “gold exchange standard” countries.
56 Bernstein (2000), p. 314.
57 Davies (1994), p. 381. It is not clear here whether the expansion in
government securities came first, and thus caused the gold outflow, or
whether the gold outflow was followed by a purchase of government
securities. Either action had dire consequences.
58 source: Bank of England (2016b).
59 The claim that a contraction in the monetary base, to support the
currency’s value in the context of a gold standard, is “deflationary,” was

made by Temin (1989). It is incorrect. The notion is related to the “price-
specie flow mechanism” idea, which is also incorrect. “The response to a
shortage of reserves [gold outflows] was to be deflation rather than
devaluation” (Temin, 1989, p. 19). Certainly a “gold standard system” which
opts for devaluation whenever there is a gold outflow would not last for
very long.
60 Numerous detailed examples of this pattern were given in Gold: The
Monetary Polaris (Lewis, 2013).

61 source: Bank of England (2016b).
62 This argument is touched upon in Johnson (1997) and Mundell (1999).

63 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (1943), p. 544.
65 This is entirely due to Russia, whose reserves are assumed to fall to zero
after the Communist Revolution in 1917. The actual fate of Russia’s gold
reserves is unclear.
66 A similar conclusion was reached in Eichengreen (1990), p. 241.
68 Green (1999).
Chapter 7:
1 Eichengreen (1996), p. 96
2 Quoted in Cesarano (2006), p. 162.
4 Wikipedia.org, “Harry Dexter White.”
7 By the 1970s, economists began to unravel the confusion of the 1950s and
1960s. Rabin and Yeager (1982) stated:
The monetary approach to the balance of payments (MABP)

presupposes fixed exchange rates. A version associated with Harry
G. Johnson and his followers became fashionable in the early and
middle 1970s. We will call it the “strong" version. It identifies a
country's balance-of-payments surplus under fixed exchange rates
with a process of satisfying a demand for domestic money to hold
in excess of actual holdings, and it identifies a payments deficit with
a process of working off a supply of domestic money in excess of
desired holdings. ... We begin with statements of the strong version.
According to Johnson (1976, pp. 282-283),
The central point of the monetary approach to balance-of-

payments policy theory is that balance-of-payments deficits or
surpluses reflect stock disequilibrium between demand and
supply in the market for money.
By this point, they are not talking about any real “balance of payments”
at all, but simply the regular adjustment process of a properly-operating
fixed-value currency regime, like a currency board or gold standard system.
However, the continued use of the term “balance of payments” reflects the
continuing confusion of economists of that time, to the present.
Notes 261
8 For example, in Garber (1993, p. 468), the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit
is “defined as official U.S. gold sales plus foreign accumulations of liquid

dollar claims on the United States.”
9 Eichengreen (1996), p. 128.
10 In Meltzer (2003), p. 160.
11 Triffin (1964), Triffin (1968).
12 Martin, William McChensney. 1955. “Address ... before the New York
group of the Investment Bankers Association of America.” Federal Reserve.

Available at fraser.stlouisfed.org.
13 Steil and Hinds (2009), p 196.
14 Meltzer (2009), p. 480.
15 A good account of the London Gold Pool is given by Eichengreen (2007).
16 Bordo (1993) has a good description of the policies that led to the British
devaluation of 1967. “Declining output and rising unemployment in early

1967 led to a reversal of the tight fiscal and monetary policies. The balance
of payments deteriorated in the summer of 1967. ... A speculative attack on
sterling mounted in November. This time the $3 billion rescue package was
insufficient to stem the tide. On 18 November 1967, sterling was devalued
by 14.3% to $2.40.” pp. 449-451.
17 Author’s calculations based on information from the International
Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics database.

19 Skousen (1985), p. 217.
20 Rothbard (1962), p. 19.
21 Rothbard (1962), p. 67.
22 Meltzer (2009), p. 275.
23 Kenen (1963), p. 3.
24 Rueff (1972), pp. 30-31, p. 87. Rueff also suggested at the time that the
“price of gold” could change from time to time in response to mining

production. Rueff (1972), p. 90-91. Rothbard said that this idea, of
devaluing to $70/oz., was also held at the time by Ludwig von Mises and
Henry Hazlitt, and cites Mises’ influence on Rueff. Rothbard (1962), p. 11.
25 Figures for nominal GDP for Germany and Japan were derived from the
Penn World Table 9.0 data series. Available at fred.stlouisfed.org.

26 The Fed funds rate in 1960, around 3.8%, was the highest in decades, and
preceded a recession dated from April 1960 to February 1961. The high
rates of 1969 were followed by a recession dated December 1969 to
November 1970.
27 Wells (1994), p. 75.
28 For an explicit expression of this idea, see James (1996), p. 226:
Three features had characterized the evolving international financial

system in the 1960s:
• Increasing freedom of capital movements
• An insistence on autonomy and growth-orientation in the national

policy setting
• A fixed exchange rate system
The development of the second half of the decade showed that these
characteristics were mutually incompatible.
James’ book was commissioned by the International Monetary Fund for the
organization’s fiftieth anniversary.
29 Friedman (1965). The term “balance of payments” refers to the increase
or decrease in the monetary base required to maintain currency parity

values.
30 Rist (1961), p. 248.
31 A good discussion of the intellectual history that led to the failure of
Bretton Woods is in Cesarano (2006), p. 188-216.

32 See, for example, Bordo and Eichengreen (1993).
33 Quoted in “Nixon Shock: Getting Off Gold VI: Fed Chairman Arthur Burns
Objects” August 15, 2011. thegoldstandardnow.org.
Chapter 8:
1 Wells (1994), p. 76.
2 In 2016, this television advertisement was rediscovered by the Lone Star
Project, and used in a television advertisement in support of presidential
candidate Ted Cruz.
3 Interview with Bloomberg Television, June 28, 2016.
4 Greenspan (2017).
5 International Monetary Fund (2014). The IMF classified the eighteen
members of the European monetary union as having a “floating” currency.

These were reclassified as “fixed.”
6 The “Hanke-Krus Hyperinflation Table.”
7 Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson, “Annual Wages in the
United States, 1774-Present,” MeasuringWorth, 2016. Lawrence H. Officer

and Samuel H. Williamson, “The Annual Consumer Price Index for the
United States, 1774-2014,” MeasuringWorth, 2016.
8 See John Williams’ alternate 1980-base CPI at shadowstats.com. Nominal
wages adjusted by Williams’ alternative CPI is described in Lewis (2013), p.

23.
9 Source: childtrends.org.
10 Hazlitt (1964), p. 301-302.
11 Keynes (1963), p. 94-95
12 Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Profits Accounts.
13 Source: IMF World Economic Outlook (October 2012), IMF World
Economic Outlook (April 2016).

Notes 263
14 The adjustment of the gold parity in 1717, which effectively made gold
the standard of value for the pound instead of silver, was a relatively minor
adjustment to a silver basis of the pound that was officially unchanged since
1601, when the “62 shilling standard” (62 shillings per troy pound of silver)
was introduced. This was a minor adjustment from the 60-shilling standard
of 1552, which stabilized the value of the pound after a series of major
debasements earlier in the sixteenth century. Thus, the value of the pound,
defined in silver and then gold, did not change much from 1552 to 1931.
Changes in the silver/gold ratio, and issues relating to coin wear,
introduced elements of variability, but these were not related to
government policy.
15 Samuel H. Williamson, "What Was the U.S. GDP Then?"
MeasuringWorth.com, 2015. U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975).
Chapter 9:
1 Zhou (2009).
2 Speech at Detroit Economic Club, November 29, 2010.
3 Remarks by Paul Volcker at the Bretton Woods Annual Committee, 2014.
4 Congressional testimony, July 21, 2004.
5 Greenspan (2017).
6 King (2016), p. 358, 369.
7 Bush, Farrant and Wright (2011).
8 Booth (2017), p. 266.
9 Rickards (2016), p. 278.
10 For a discussion of existing plans along these lines, see Rickards (2016).
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Index
A money in, 33–37

Abbasid Caliphate, 50 Rome, 27–31
Act of 1697 (England), 71–72 Anderson, Benjamin, 135
activist macroeconomic Andronikos (Palaiologos), 41
management, 155–56, 160–61 Anglo-Dutch Wars, 69
ad talum/at face value, 22 Annual Mining Production as a
"adjustable pegs" of currency Percentage of World
values, 180 Aboveground Gold Supply, 1800-
Africa, 169 2011, 125
agriculture, Mesoamerica, 52 Annual World Gold Mining
Akkadian Empire, 16 Production, 1800-2012, 121
Albania, 106 Arab dinar, 49–50
Alexander and India, 26–27 Argentina, 114, 119, 145, 208, 211
Alexander III (Alexander the argentus, 29
Great), 26–27 Aristophanes, 24
Alexius I Comnenus, 40–41 arrowheads as commodity money,
Alfonso (Spain), 106 52
Algeria, 106 Article 1, Section 10, Constitution
American colonies, 74–79 of 1789, 75
American Revolution (1776), 75– Asia, 169
76 Asian Crisis, 213
Americas (North, Central and Assignation Bank, 81
South), 169 Assignation rubles, 81
America’s Great Depression assignats, 75, 79, 84
(1963), 151 Athena Parthenos, 22
The Anatomy of an International Athens, 136
Monetary Regime: The Classical Aurelian, 29
Gold Standard, 1880-1914, 6 aureus, 28–29
ancient world, 3500 B.C. - 400 Australia, 113, 120, 125–26, 169
A.D. Australian dollar, 209
Alexander and India, 26–27 Austria, 136–37, 169
China, 31–33 Austria-Hungary, 113, 133
Egypt and Indus Valley Austrian economic doctrine, 232–
Civilization, 19–21 33
Lydia, Greece and Persia, 21–26 Austrian economic interpretations
Mesopotamia, 15–19 (Great Depression), 142, 149,
money as medium of exchange, 151–58, 176
13 axe-head currency, 53
Index 275
Bank of Hamburg, 60–61

B Bank of Hindostan, 50
Babylon, 18 Bank of Italy, 104, 251n53
Bagehot, Walter, 112 Bank of Japan, 110, 226–27
Bahadur Shah Zafar, 50 Bank of Korea, 110
balance of payments, 7, 89, 184– Bank of North America, 76–77
86, 200n1 Bank of Pennsylvania, 76–77
balance of payments, confusion Bank of Portugal, 106
over, 183–190 Bank of Prussia, 80–81
"balance of payments deficit," 185– Bank of Scotland, 72
86 Bank of Spain, 106
balance of payments imbalances, Bank of St. George, 42
200 Bank of Stockholm, 68
Bali, 52 Bank of the Netherlands, 60–61
Baltic states, currencies of, 206–7 bank reserve deposit balances, 2
bancor, 180, 210 bank reserves, 2n1, 152
Bank Act of 1893 (Italy), 104 Banking Act of 1756 (Scotland), 72
bank deposits, 119–120 Banking Act of 1844 (England),
Bank of Amsterdam, 60–61 119
Bank of Bengal, 114 banknotes
Bank of China (Hong Kong) American, 75–79, 93–94, 108–9,
Limited, 72 111, 130, 151–53, 191
Bank of England Bank of Amsterdam, 60
assets in the form of discounting as base money, 1–6
and direct lending, 99–101 best money is useless, 15
British paper money and Bank British, 65–74, 92–93, 113, 131,
of England, 67–74 138–39, 168–170
economic effects on and demand Chinese, 32
for currency, 3, 7–8 commodity basket arguments,
and the Great Depression, 167– 133–34
172, 176 De Nederlandsche Bank, 104–5
ignores Keynes, 157 European Central Bank, 245–46
interplay of gold convertibility, European Union, 210–11
discount policy and open- first paper rupee, 50
market operations, 155 French, German and Russian,
as "lender of last resort," 112–13 79–93
as note-issuing central bank vs. gold coins in the U.S., 34
model, 76–79, 83, 91–94 gold convertibility, 95–96
pegged rates or adjustable peg gold convertibility problems,
arrangements, 11 142
quantitative easing, 226 increasing use of bank notes and
triumph of the gold standard, deposits, 119–120
134 Japanese, 62, 110
Bank of France, 80, 107, 155–56, replacing coinage, 17
163–65, 167, 170, 175–76. see banks, in Italy, 41–43
also France banliang, 32
Banque Royal, 79 Black Death, 42

Barings Bank, 131 Bolivia, 145, 211
barley, as money, 16 Bonaparte, Louis, 104
base money, 1–2, 152–54 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 43, 80
Basil II, 40–41 Bosnia, 208
Battle of Lake Poyang, 48 Brazil, 119, 145, 210–11
Battle of Thermopylae, 25 Brazil: Value of 1000 Milreis in
Bavarian Soviet Republic, 133 Gold Oz., 1916-1941, 140
“beggar thy neighbor devaluation," Brazil: Value of Brazilian Reals in
146 British Pence, 1808-1913, 116
Belgian Revolution, 105 Bretton Woods Agreement, 1944,
Belgium, 105, 138 146, 158, 170
belle epoque, 129 Bretton Woods era, 237
Bentley, Elizabeth, 180–81 Bretton Woods gold parity, 237
Berkeley, Bishop George, 84 Bretton Woods gold standard, 241
Bernanke, Benjamin, 206, 239 Bretton Woods period, 1944-1971
Bessemer Process, 134 Bretton Woods prosperity, 194–
bicameral legislature, 18 99
"big government" interpretation of confusion over balance of
capitalism, 148–49 payments, 183–190
bills bought, 152 history of and agreement, 177–
bills discounted, 152 183
bills of credit, 75 hostility toward stable money
bimetallic coinage system, 17, 26– principles, 190–94
27, 35–36, 91–92, 102, 184, 230. intellectual failure, 199–201
see also bimetallic era, 1500-1854 Bretton Woods prosperity, 194–99
bimetallic era, 1500-1854 Bretton Woods system, 9, 12
American colonies and the Brief Observations Concerning
United States, 74–79 Trade, and Interest of Money
British paper money and Bank (1668), 83
of England, 67–74 Britain. see also Bank of England;
British pound, 62–67 British pound
Classical and Mercantilist debasement and fiat currency,
thought, 81–86 138
exploration and expansion of devaluation and US dollar
countries, 56 expansion, 141
France, Germany and Russia, as main reserve currency, 117–
79–81 18
Japan during the Tokugawa Era, and monometallic gold standard,
61–62 110
the Netherlands, 59–61 paper money, 102
Silver Mining Boom of the response to high wartime taxes,
Sixteenth Century, 86–90 142–43
the Thaler and the Spanish silver and Special Drawing Rights,
dollar, 56–59 195–96
bimetallic ratios, 105–6 Stable Money, 234
Index 277
tax increases and the Great Bulgaria, 106, 141, 208

Depression, 145 Bullion and Foreign Exchange
Britain, early monies of, 32 Reserves, 1913, 118
Britain: Average Annual Yield on bullion flows, 200
Consol Bond, 1703-2015, 73 bullion point, 116–17
Britain: Bank of England, Burns, Arthur, 197–99, 201
Aggregate Assets, 1790-1914, Byzantium, 40–41
100
Britain: Bank of England, C
Aggregate Assets, 1930-1932, cacao bean as commodity money,
171 52–53
Britain: Bank of England, Caesar, Julius, 28, 32
Aggregate Liabilities, 1790-1914, Cai Lun, 32
101 Caisse d'Escompte, 79
Britain: Bank of England, Calabar, 81
Aggregate Liabilities, 1930-1932, California gold rush, 120
172 Callaghan, James, 183
Britain: Bank of England, Change Calvin, John, 59
in Base Money From Previous Calvinism, 59
Year, 1720-1913, 8 Canada, 113, 138
Britain: Bank of England, Ratio of Cantillon, Richard, 84
Gold Bullion Reserves to Capital: Critique of Political
Banknote and Deposit Liabilities, Economy, 191–92
1694-1914, 71–72 capitol control, 8–9
Britain: Commodity Prices in Gold Carnegie, Andrew, 222–23
oz., 1400-1640, 88 Carson, Ben, 237
Britain: Commodity Prices in Gold The Case for a 100% Gold Dollar
Oz., 1560-1970, 89 (1962), 192
Britain: Value of British Pound in Cassel, Gustav, 174
Silver, 790-1931, 39 Catherine II (Catherine the Great),
Britain: Value of British pound in 81
U.S. dollars, 1900-2016, 214 central banks. see also Bank of
British East India Company, 50, 65 England; United States
British paper money, 67–74 after 1850, 234–35
British pound, 1, 40, 62–67, 116– development of, 1–6
17, 178, 234, 251n51 as "lenders of last resort," 112–
British Treasury, 64 13
bronze, used a money spread of, 102–10
China, 31–33 Cesarano, Filippo, 251n53
Mesopotamia, 16 chalkoi, 23
pre-industrial era, 15 Chamberlain, John, 191–92
Rome, 27–31 Chambers, Whittaker, 180
bronze knife currencies, 51 Chan Chan, 54
Brunei, 208 Charles I, 67
Bryan, William Jennings, 131 Charles II, 68
budget deficits, 200 Charles V, 42, 81
Chase National Bank, 135 35

Chhuan Chih (Treatise on Coinage) Cleveland, Grover, 130
(1149), 81 Clinton, George, 77
Child, Josiah, 83 Clydesdale Bank, 72
Chile, 119, 145, 211 Code of Hammurabi, 18, 248n16
China, 31–33, 44–49, 110–11, 114– coinage. see also coins by name,
15, 129–130, 180, 219 e.g. drachma, solidus, lieh; gold
China, communist, 136 coinage
China: Value of 1000 Renminbi in abandonment of, 38–39
U.S. Dollars, 1957-2016, 210 bimetallic coinage system. see
Chronicles of Peru, 54 bimetallic coinage system
Civil War, 109–10, 125 debasement of, 11–12, 40–41,
The Civilization of Ancient Egypt 56, 234
(1999), 19 first use of, 21–26. see also
Classical Gold Standard, 236–37 countries by name
classical gold standard, 1850-1914 problems with, 13n1, 62–66
central banks, as "lenders of last Roman, 28–31
resort," 112–13 Coinage Act, 1792 (U.S.), 58–59,
composition of major currencies, 75, 215
99–102 Columbia, 106, 211
gold mining expansion, 120–131 Columbus, Christopher, 68, 250n1
gold monometallism and decline “Commission of the Gold
of silver, 110 Exchange Standard," 114
history leading up to, 91–92 commodity basket arguments, 133
increasing use of bank notes and commodity prices, 84–86, 122–
deposits, 119–120 131, 206, 231–32, 234–35
intellectual trends toward Conduit, John, 65
monetary manipulation before confusion of economic cooperation,
1914, 131–33 215–220
operational mechanisms of, 92– Congress of the Confederation
99 (1781-1789), 76
political unification and the Constantine (306-337), 30–31
spread of central banks, 102– Constantine VIII, 40–41
10 Constantinople/Byzantine
reserve-currency systems before Empire/Roman Empire, 30–31
1914, 113–19 consumer price index, 219
triumph of the classical gold Continental dollar, 75–76
standard, 134–37 Copernicus, Nicholas, 81–82
and Walras, 147–48 copper based coin system
Classical Gold Standard era, 232. in Africa, 81
see also classical gold standard, in the ancient world, 15–18, 35–
1850-1914 36, 67
Classical Ideals, recent moves in China, 32–34, 46–49, 57–58
toward, 235–243 copper coins in Rome, 29
Classical thought (money), 81–86 copper pennies and large
Classicals and Mercantilists, 233– purchases, 13
Index 279
in East Asia, 51–53 Czechoslovakia, 169

in Greece, 23–24
in India, 50 D
in Japan, Tokugawa currency, daler, 56–57
61 Darussalam, 208
copper bracelets and legbands, as De Moneta (The Mint) (1365), 81,
symbol of wealth, 81 223
Cornwallis, Charles, 76 De Nederlandsche Bank, 104–5
Costa Rica, 145, 211 debasement of coinage, 11–12, 40–
Council of Economic Advisors 41, 56, 62–64
(Eisenhower), 201 debt defaults, 145
Council of Economic Advisors debt finance, 1
(Ford), 205 debt instruments, 2
Council of Nicaea, 31 debt-deflation, 159
cowrie shells, as coinage, 31 debt/GDP ratio, gross government,
CPI target, 133 227
credit notes, 68–69 deflation, 158–59
crisis and renewal, 245–46 Democratic Republic of Congo,
Crisit of 1890 (Britain), 131 211
Cromwell, Oliver, 67 demurrage currency, 133
Cruz, Ted, 237 denarii, 28–31
Culpepper, Sir Thomas, 83 denarius, 28–29
cuneiform clay tablets, as denarius auri, 49–50
certificates of deposit, 17 deniers, 38–39
Cureency Option One, 226 Denmark, 111, 113, 138
currency deposit promissory notes, 45
defined, 2 d'Estaing, Valery Giscard, 193
demand and economic growth, 3 devaluing currency, 36
economic effects of change in Did Monetary Forces Cause the
value, 7–8 Great Depression? (1976), 166–
uniform currency, 1 67
value, coercion of, 8–9 DiMartino, Danielle, 239
currency board, 2 dinar, 43
currency devaluations, 141, 147–48 Diocletian, 29–30
Currency Option One, 10–12, 99, dirham, 49
154, 167, 181, 200–201, 208–9 A Discourse showing the many
Currency Option One vs. Currency Advantages which will accrue to
Option Three, 240–41 this Kingdom by the Abatement of
Currency Option Three, 10–12, 99, Usury together with the Absolute
195, 198, 200–201, 208, 210 Necessity of Reducing Interest of
Currency Option Two, 10–12, 201, Money to the lowest Rate it bears
225–26 in other Countreys, 1668, 83
currency trilemma, 9–12, 179, 181 Djibouti, 208
"current account deficit," 187–88 "Do as thou wilt," 221
cylinder seals, 17 Do Something vs. Do Nothing,
Cyrus, 25 240–41
Dojima Rice Exchange, 61 in General (1730), 84

dollar, U. S., 1, 3 Estimated World Aboveground
"dollar glut," 186 Gold Supply, 1800-2011, 126
domestic monetary policy, 179– Estimated World Aboveground
180, 195 Gold Supply, 1820-1860, 123
domestic stability, 200n1 Estimated World Mining
Dominican Republic, 145, 208 Production of Silver, 1500-1850,
doubloon, 58 86–87
drachma, 23, 26, 45, 212, 234 Estonia, 169, 208
"dual mandate" clause, 182 euro currency board (ECB), 2–6
ducat, 43 euro-linked currency boards, 3, 5–6
Dutch East India Company, 59–61 European Central Bank, 210, 226,
Dutch West India Company, 59–60 246
Dutch West Indies, 106 European Currency Unit, 209
European Economic Community,
E 209
East Asia outside of China, 51–52 European Exchange Rate
East Caribbean dollar, 208 Mechanism, 200, 210
Eastern Europe, 136–37 European Union, 210
"easy money," 150–51, 166, 179, eurozone, 208, 227
187, 198–99, 201, 203–4 Exchequer Orders to Pay, 68
Ecuador, 145, 208 "external" fixed values, 181
Edict of Milan, 30–31
Edict of Prices (301), 29 F
Edward I, 67 Fabian Socialist, 180
Edward III, 40, 42–43 Fanakati, Ahmad, 47, 47n1
Edward IV, 40 favors as currency, 53–54
Edward VI, 40 Fed Up: An Insider’s Take On Why
Egypt and Indus Valley The Federal Reserve Is Bad For
Civilization, 19–21 America (2017), 239
Eichengreen, Barry, 165 Federal Accounting Standards
eight-real coin, 57–58 Board, 211–12
El Salvador, 145, 208 Federal Reserve. see also
elastic currency, 112–13 banknotes; United States
electrum, 23 balance of payment deficits,
Elements of Pure Economics, 147– 185–88
48 base money liabilities, 2016,
Empire of Nicaea, 41 243–44
Employment Act, 1946 (U.S.), 182 base money managed by, lender
The End of Alchemy: Money, of last resort, 159–163
Banking, and the Future of the crash of the credit bubble and
Global Economy (2016), 238–39 inflation, 151–56, 166–67
English Civil War, 1642, 67 creation of, 134
equilibrium in balance of De Moneta (The Mint) (1365),
payments, 11, 11n3 223–24
Essay on the Nature of Commerce dollar returns to gold parity,
Index 281
1970, 233 154

and Employment Act, 1946, fixed-value parity, 9
195–98 fixed-value systems, 2–8, 3n2, 7–8
free banking, 108–9 Flatiron Building, 134
gold based currency and floating currency era, 1971-
expansion, 195–98 confusion of economic
gold coin standard and control of cooperation, 215–220
reserve base, 200–201 deterioration of public morality,
gold conversion, 1931, 170–71 220–29
and the Great Depression, 176 fixed-value currency blocs
Greenspan's leadership, 205–6, remain the norm, 206–15
237–38 worldwide economic crisis and
outbreak of WWI, 113 lack of gold standard, 202–6
quantitative easing, 226–27 floating exchange rates, 178
Spahr, gold parity and IMF, floating fiat currencies, 2, 7, 11–12,
192–93 36, 45, 147–48, 198–99, 202, 217,
values of currencies vs. gold, 234, 237. see also United States
139n1 floating fiat era, 228
Volcker's leadership, 203–5, 237 Florence, 41–42
Federal Reserve Act, 1977 (U.S.), florin, 41–42
182 florin, British, 43
Federal Reserve Bank of New flying cash, 45
York, 199–200 Ford, Gerald, 205
Federal Reserve Notes, 108–9 Ford Model T, 134
Federal Reserve-credit bubble, Foreign assets as a percentage of
151–57 total gold and foreign assets,
Federal Reserve/Treasury Accord, 1929, 169
1951, 195 Foreign Direct Investment
Ferdinand, 42 program, 187
Ferdinand and Isabella (1474- foreign exchange markets, 116–17
1504), 42 foreign reserves, 116–17
Fertig, Lawrence, 192 The Forgotten Man: A New History
fiat currencies, 2–7, 138–141 of the Great Depression (2007),
financial repression, 242 145
fine arts and wealth finance, 54 The Foundations of Morality
Finland, 106 (1964), 221–22
First Bank of the United States, 77– fractional reserve banking, 193
78 France
Fischer, Irving, 133, 159 Bank of France foreign reserves,
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 167–69
Period, 45 banknotes, 90–92
fixed currency values, 191 belle epoque, 129–130
fixed exchange rate, 3 bimetallic usage, assignats, 79–
fixed parity values, 3–6, 195 83
fixed-value currency blocs, 206–15 Blame France, 163–65
fixed-value gold standard policy, bullion reserves and transfers,
175–76, 197–98 monetary system

central banks, uniform currency, "free trade," 213
100–103 French East India Company, 79
copies Joachimsthaler, 56–57 Friedman, Milton, 10–11, 133,
floating currencies and 158–59, 166, 188, 191, 199–200,
devaluation, 141 206n1
Gresham's Law, 138 Friedmanite monetarists, 163
invades Netherlands, 61 The Frogs, 24
Merovingian France thru Middle full employment, 191
Ages, 38–44 Funan era, 51
and the Mississippi Bubble, 84 fundamental disequilibrium, 200,
overissuance and devaluation of 241
currency, 71, 74–75
reserve currencies, 117–18 G
response to high wartime taxes, Gallarotti, Giulio, 6
142–43 General Agreement on Tariffs and
Roaring Twenties, 142–43 Trade, 177
Roman coinage used in, 32 The General Theory of
Rothbard conference, 155–56 Employment, Interest and Money
Stable Money, 234 (1936), 149
trade disadvantage due to Genghis Khan, 46, 50
devaluations and defaults, 146 Germany
and William III of Orange, 69, 14th century gold coins, 43
171–72 austerity and stimulus, 145
France, blaming for the Great in the bimetallic era, 79–81
Depression, 163–65 Bretton Woods period, 1944-
France: Bank of France, Assets, 1971, 177, 180–82, 192
1875-1908, 104 and British devaluation of 1931,
France: Bank of France, Assets, 202
1928-1940, 164 economic boom in 1950, 204
France: Bank of France, Liabilities, economic expansion in the
1875-1908, 105 1920's, 195–98
France: Bank of France, Liabilities, English penny in, 39–40
1928-1937, 165 foreign exchange markets, 117–
France: Value of 100 Assignats in 120
Gold Livres, 1791-1796, 80 forgeign currency reserves, 168
France: Value of 1000 Francs in Franco-Prussian War, 1870-
Gold Oz., 1913-1940, 140 1871, 107
Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), gold monometallism, 111
80, 107 hyperinflation and, 138
francs, 79, 106, 117 industrial production and
free banking, 72, 79–80, 102, 108– currency, 129–130
9, 245, 258 low tax principals, 150
free coinage, 131 modern mark 1871, 61
“free coinage of silver,” 129–131, monetary unification and
222–23, 232. see also silver-based standardization, 91
Index 283
no devaluation in the Great circulation drops with central

Depression, 141 bank concentration, 168
Stable Money paradigm, 234 and closing of the gold window,
tax increases and the Great 204
Depression, 145 in France, 120
Germany: Reichsbank, Assets, illegal to own, 190–91
1876-1907, 102 Italian, 41–43
Germany: Reichsbank, Liabilities, in the medieval era, 39
1876-1907, 103 mining production of, 175–76
Germany: Value of 100 marks in in Rome, 28–30
U.S. dollars, 1945-2015, 213 Tokugawa system, 61–62
Gesell, Silvio, 133 turn away from after 1900, 126,
Ghana, 211 139
Gilded Age, 129 gold convertibility, 245n1
Gilder, George, 231 gold exchange standard, 113, 167–
Gingrich, Newt, 237 172, 174
gold Gold Fields Minerals Services,
and Indian coinage, 27 121n1
mining industry in Egypt, 19–21 gold mining expansion, 120–131
as perfect metal for currency, 14 gold monometallism, 91–92, 106,
and Roman coinage, 28–30 110–12. see also Classical Gold
used as money in China, 31–33 Standard; gold standard
used as money in Egypt and gold parity goal, 178–79
Indus Valley Civilization gold parity values, 2
money, 19–21 gold penny (first), 43
used as money in Lydia, Greece gold price rule, 243n1
and Persia, 21–26 Gold Reserves of Central Banks,
used as money in Mesopotania, 1913-1938, 174
15–19 gold standard
Gold, France and the Great end of, 177–79
Depression, 1919-1932 (1997), management problems, 179
163 purpose of, 157
gold, value of, 232 Gold Standard Act, 1900, 131
"Gold and Economic Freedom," Gold Standard Act, 1984, 237
205 gold standard census, 36n2
gold bullion and gold conversion, Gold Standard Systems, new forms
99, 139 of, 243–45
Gold Bullion Holdings of Central gold window, 197, 201
Banks and Governments, 1913- gold-based monetary system, 2–3,
2010, 173 35
"gold clause," 221 "golden fetters," 151
gold coinage golden fetters, 167
in the Arab empire, 49–52 Golden Fetters: the Gold Standard
and the British pound, 62–63, and the Great Depression, 1919-
65–66 1939 (1992), 165–67
in China, 31 Golden Rule, 221
gold's stability of value, 176 Guanzi, 32

gold-silver complex, 91, 123–24, guilder, 104–5
136 Guinea, 211
goldsmiths as bankers, 67–70 guinea, 44
Government Bond Yields, 1870- Gulf States, 236
1914, 107–8 Guniea-Bissau, 211
Government Debt to GDP in Gupta Empire, 50
Advanced Economies, 1880- Guyana, 211
2015, 225
Graham, Frank, 181, 198 H
grain-based deposits/banking, 20– Hamilton, Alexander, 76–77
21 Han Dynasty, 32–33, 44
‘Grandsons of Egibi,’ banking Hanke, Steve, 208
house, 18 Harappa, 21
Great Depression Harrison, Benjamin, 130
Austrian economic Hawtrey, Ralph, 149, 186
interpretations, 149, 151–58 Hayek, Friedrich, 149, 192
beginning of and theories of, Hazlitt, Henry, 221–22
141–150 Helvetic Republic, 103
Blame France, 163–65 Henry I, 43
currency devaluations as remedy Henry II, 39–40
for, 12 Henry III, 43
"Do Something" and austerity Henry IV, 43
taxes, 241 Henry VIII, 40, 88
explanations for, 175–76, 232– Herodotus, 25
33 Herzegovina, 208
and "Gilded Age," 129 Hien Tsung, 45
Keynesian economic Hiss, Alger, 246
interpretations, 148–150, 165– The Histories, 25
67 Ho Qui-Li, 51
Monetarist economic Hong Kong, 208, 219–220
interpretations, 158–163 Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking
monetary explanations for, 162 Corporation, 72
"Great Moderation," 205–6, 211, Hongwu Emperor, 48
213, 227, 237 Hoover, Herbert, 144
"Great Society," 196 House of Orange, 59
Great Society welfare projects, House of the Sun, 54
187–88 House Un-American Activities
Greece, 21–26, 138, 145, 160, 227, Committee, 180–81
234 Huckabee, Mike, 237
Greece: Value of 1000 drachma in Hung Tsun, 81
U.S. dollars, 1957-2000, 207 Hungary, 136–37, 145, 169
greenbacks, 109–10 Hutchings, Robert, 192
Greenspan, Alan, 205–6, 237–38 hyperpyron, 40–43, 54–55, 57
Grenada, 208
Gresham's Law, 138
Index 285
I The “Rising Value of Gold”

Iceland, 210 Interpretation, 172–76
Inca Empire, 54–55, 251n48 war and floating fiat currencies,
India, 26–27, 50, 111, 113, 219 138–141
India: Value of 1000 Rupee in U.S. Ireland, 227
Dollars, 1957-2014, 209 iron coinage, 24–25
Indus Valley, 21 Isabella II, 106
Industrial Revolution, 76, 134, Israel, 210–11
146–47 It is not the right time, 241–43
inflation, 158–59, 191 Italy, 41–43, 91, 138, 227, 234
An Inquiry into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations J
(1776), 85 Jackson, Andrew, 78
An Inquiry into the Principles of Jakatas, 26
Political Economy (1767), 84 James 1, 65
intellectual failure (Bretton Woods James II, 69
period), 199–201 Japan
Interest Equalization Tax, 1963 in the bimetallic era, 56
(U.S.), 187 and Bretton Woods agreement,
“internal” activist management, 180, 192
187 commodities as money, 52
"internal" discretionary copper based coin system, 58
management, 181 early monies of, 230
International Accounting Standards and the effects of global
Board, 211–12 depreciation, 210
international assets, 117–18 flexible currency and, 10
International Monetary Fund gold exchange standards, 113
(IMF), 177, 180, 192, 207, 213, and the Great Depression, 173
253–55 invasions, 47
International Trade Organization, Meiji Restoration of 1868, 110
177 paper currency, 90
interwar period, 1914-1944 per capita GDP, 178, 195–96
Austrian economic quantitative easing, 227
interpretations, 151–58 repegges currency to gold, 138
blame France, 163–65 response to high wartime taxes,
failure of the Prices-Interest- 142–43
Money Model, 146–150 silver mining, 57
"gold exchange standard," 167– Stable Money principles, 202–5
172 during the Tokugama era, 61–62
gold's stability of value, 176 use of banknotes, 74
Great Depression, 141–46 Japan: Value of 1000 Yen In Gold
Keynesian economic Oz., 1910-1941, 141
interpretations, 163–67 Japan: Value of 1000 yen in U.S.
Monetarist economic dollars, 1950-2015, 214
interpretations (Great Jefferson, Thomas, 77
Depression), 158–163 Jevons, William Stanley, 131–32
jewelry, 23 Kitty Hawk, 134

Jews knife money, 31
expelled from Lombard by King Knights Templar, 44
Philip IV, 44 koban, 61–62
migration and the Spanish Korea, 51
Inquisition, 59 Korean War, 195
not subject to usury laws, 31 krona, 116–17
welcomed back to England by krone, 189
Cromwell, 67 kroner (Norwegian and Danish),
Jin Dynasty, 46 117
Joachimsthaler (thaler silver coin), Kublai Khan, 46–47
56–57 Kumar, Sanat, 14
Johnson, H. Clark, 163
Johnson, Lyndon, 196 L
Johnson, Paul, 19–20 laissez-faire, 240
Joint Statement (Bretton Woods), "the Land of Gold," 51
180 Latin America, 114, 138, 211, 234
joint-stock banks, 119 Latin Monetary Union, 91, 105–6,
111, 208
K Latvia, 169
Kamakura period, 61–62 Law, John, 79, 83–84
Kemmerer, Edwin Walter, 245n1 The Laws, 24
Kemmerer Commission, 169 Laws of Eshnunna, prices, 18
Kemp, Jack, 237 League of Nations, 246
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 150, 197 Lebanon, 211
The Key to Wealth (1650), 83 legal tender, 138
Keynes, John Maynard, 113, 135– "lender of last resort," 112–13, 161
36, 149, 157, 163–65, 168, 170, León, Cieza de, 54
179–180, 198, 222 Leonidas, 25
Keynesian economic doctrine, 222, Leopold I, 105
232–33. see also Keynes, John letters of credit, 44
Maynard Leyhaus Bank of Brunswick, 80–
Keynesian economic interpretations 81
(Great Depression), 142, 148– libra/Roman pound, 28, 38–39
150, 165–67, 176 Libya, 236
Keynesian economic theory, 98, lieh, 31
191 Lindsay, A.M., 114
Keynesian model of interest rate Lipsky, John, 239
manipulation, 98 liquidity, 200
Keynesians, 204, 206, 206n1 lira, 104
King, Mervyn, 238–39 Lithuania, 169, 208
King Canute, 189 Liu Xian, 47
King Offa of Mercia, 39 livre, 38–39
Kingdom of Holland, 104–5 livre parisis, 79
Kingdom of Italy, 104 livre tournois, 79
King's Mint, 67 Livy, 28
Index 287
Locke, John, 64, 83 Mencius, 150

Lombard Street (1873), 112 Menes, 19
London Bullion Market Mercantilism, 64–66, 81–86, 113,
Association, 244 136, 184, 191
London Gold Pool, 9, 189, 195–96 Merovingian France, 38
Louis IX, 79 Mesopotamia, 15–19
Louis XIV, 69 Mexico, 114, 211
Lowe, Joseph, 132 Mexico: Value of 100 pesos in U.S.
Lowndes, William, 64 dollars, 1950-2014, 211
Lycurgus, 24 Michael IV, 40–41
Lydia, Greece and Persia, 21–26 Michael VIII Palaiologos, 41
Midas, 23
M Mill, John Stuart, 14
Macmillan Committee, 1931, 167 Miller, Adolph, 156
Madison, James, 77 mines and mining
major currencies, composition of, Arab control of African mines,
99–102 49–50
Malaysia, 219, 236, 242 Chinese control of Japanese
manilla currency, 81 mines, 57
mark, 107 expansion of gold mining, 120–
marks, 117, 189, 197–98, 206, 212 133
Martin, William McChesney, 187– gold mining expansion, 120–131
88, 197 gold standard and, 7, 232
Marx, Karl, 191–92 Inca and Aztec silver and gold
Mary (wife of William III), 69 mining, 54–57
Massachusetts Bay colony, 75 Lydian oversight of mines, 22
McKinley, William, 131 mining in Greece, 23–25
Medici Bank, 42 mining industry in Egypt, 19–21
medieval era, 400-1500 and money in the ancient world,
Arab dinar, 49–50 34–36
decline of the Byzantium, the silver mines in Americas, 58, 74,
solidus and the hyperpyron, 86
40–41 silver mining boom in 16th
East Asia outside of China, 51– century, 86–90
52 Spanish mining and China, 57–
gold and silver money in pre- 58
Columbian Americas, 52–55 and total above ground supply of
India, 50 metals, 15
Italian gold coinage and the rise Ming Dynasty, 48
of Italian banks, 41–43 Mises, Ludwig von, 192
money in, 38–40 Mississippi Bubble, 79
paper money in China, 44–49, Mohenjo Daro, 21
52 Moneta, 27–28
representative money in, 43–44 Monetarist economic doctrine, 198,
Meiji Restoration of 1868, 61–62, 232–33
110 Monetarist economic
interpretations (Great N
Depression), 142, 149, 158–163, Nahal Kana, 15–16
176 Napoleon III, 107
Monetarists, 143, 149, 163, 191– Napoleonic Code, 43
92, 195, 198, 204–6, 232 Napoleonic Wars, 103, 242
monetary base, 7–8 Naram-Sin, 16
monetary gold, 126 National Bank of Belgium, 105
Monetary Gold as a Percentage of National Bank System (U.S), 76,
Aboveground Gold, 1845-1950, 108–10, 134, 151–52
128 National Bureau of Economic
A Monetary History of the United Research, 155–56, 197, 201
States, 1867-1960 (1963), 159, National Debt Productive of
166 National Prosperity (1780), 85
monetary manipulation before Nero, 29
1914, intellectual trends, 131–33 Netherlands, 59–61, 103–5, 113,
Monetary Theory and the Trade 138
Cycle (1929), 149 Neupauer, Josef, 133
money. see also commodity prices; New Economics, 179
floating fiat currencies; gold New Zealand dollar, 209
standard; paper money Newton, Sir Isaac, 65–67
in the ancient world, 33–37 Nicaragua, 145, 211
characteristics and definition of, nickels, 13n1
13–15 Niger, 211
defined, 1–2 Nine Years' War, 69
Egypt and Indus Valley 1985 Plaza Accord, 205
Civilization, 19–21 1987 Louvre Accord, 205
Mesopotamia, 15–19 Nixon, Richard, 178, 197–99, 201,
money, as human ideal, 230 204
Money and the Mechanism of "noble" coin, 43
Exchange (1875), 132 nomisma, 41
Money and Trade Considered, with Norman, Montagu, 155–56, 167
a Proposal for Supplying the Northern Song Dynasty, 45
Nation with Money (1705), 83–84 Norway, 111, 113, 138
"money in circulation," 151–53
money-market funds, 2 O
Mongol paper currency, 46–48 obol, 23
mon/mun/van (copper coins, Octavian, 29, 89
Japan/Korea/Vietnam), 58 "100% reserve," 3–6
moral values, 220–21 Oresme, Nicholas, 81–82, 223
morality, definition of, 220 Otto III, 40–41
Morris, Robert, 76–77 Overend and Gurney, 112
Mosley, Michael, 54 owl coinage, 24
Mozambique, 211
Mughal Empire, 50 P
Mundell, Robert, 10–11 Palmstruch, Johan, 68
Panama, 145
Index 289
Panic of 1893, 130 Plato, 24, 230

paper money. see also floating fiat Pliny the Elder, 27
currencies; gold parity goal; paper Poland, 136–37, 141, 169, 210–11
money by name, e.g. British political economy, 146, 150
pound, franc, kroner political unification and spread of
in the American colonies, 75–78 central banks, 102–10
American colonies, 75 Pope Clement V, 31, 44
British, 67–74 Portugal, 106, 110, 138, 227, 234
in China, 17, 32–33, 44–49, 57– Postgate, J. N., 16–17
58 Potter, William, 83–84
and floating fiat currencies, 11 pound, British, 1
France, 79–81 Pravda, 201
in Japan, Tokugawa currency, pre-Columbian Americas, gold and
61–62 silver in, 52–55
Mongol, 51 “The Present State of England in
paper banknotes and bank regard to Agriculture, Trade and
deposit balances in common Finance” (1822), 132
use, 91 price interventions, 241
Paraguay, 145, 211 Prices and Production (1931), 149
parity, 2–6 Prices-Interest-Money Model,
parity ratio, of gold, 1 failure of, 146–150
Pasion, 25–26 price-specie flow mechanism, 7, 89
Paul, Rand, 237 Princes, Interest and Money, 240–
Paul, Ron, 205 41
Pearson, Frank, 133 Principles of Political Economy
pecunia, 30 (1848), 14
Peel, Sir Robert, 85 Profits, Interest and Investment
pegged rates or adjustable peg (1939), 149
arrangments, 11 A Program for Monetary Stability
Pence, Mike, 237 (1960), 188
Persia, 21–26 The Purchasing Power of Money,
Peru, 106, 114, 145, 211 Its Determination and Relation to
peseta, 106, 189 Credit, Interest and Crises
pesos, 58, 189 (1911), 132–33
Philip II (France), 79 Pythius, 25
Philip II (Macedon), 26, 32, 36
Philip II (Spain), 42 Q
Philip IV (France), 44, 79 qian, 32
Philippine-American War, 1899- Qin Shi Huang, 32
1902, 114–15 Qing Dynasty, 58
Phillipines, 113 "Quantitative easing," 226
Phillips, William, 191 "quantitative easing" programs, 206
Phillips curve, 191 The Querist (1735-37), 84
Philostephanus, 25–26 Quran, 49
Pitt, William, 85–86
Pizarro, 251n48
R ryo, 61
rand, 209
Rand, Ayn, 205 S
Randolph, Edmund, 77 Sargon of Akkad, 21
Rashidun Caliphs, 49 Sassanid Empire, 45, 49
Reagan, Ronald, 205 Scandal of Money (2016), 231
Red Turbans, 48 schilling (Austrian), 133
The Reformation of the Monetary Schwartz, Anna, 159, 166
System as a Bridge to the SDR, 195–96, 210, 245–46
Socialist State (1891), 133 seals (signature stamps), 17, 21
Reichsbank, 107, 155–56 Second Bank of the United States,
relative prices, 200 78
representative money, 43–44. see Second Empire (1852-1870), 107
also banknotes Second Punic War, 28
Republic of Genoa, 42 Serbia, 106
reserve currencies, 117–18, 174 A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold
reserve-currency systems before Ascertained, and Its Social Effects
1914, 113–19 Set Forth (1863), 131–32
retaliatory tariffs, 143–44 sesterces, 27
Ricardo, David, 85, 132, 242 Shanghai Gold Exchange, 244
rice as commidity money, 51, 61 shat, 19
Riksens Ständers Bank, 68 shell rings, as money, 16
"Rising Value of Gold" Shlaes, Amity, 144
interpretation (Great Depression), Sierra Leone, 211
172–76 silk cloth as commodity money,
Rist, Charles, 155–56 46–47, 51
Roaring Twenties, 142–43 silver mining boom in 16th century,
Rockefeller, John D., 134 86–90
Roman Treasury, 28 silver penny, English, 39–40. see
Romanos III, 40–41 also Britain
Rome, 27–31 silver ruble coin, 81
Roosevelt, Theodore, 114 silver vase coin, 51
The Roots of Capitalism (1959), silver-based monetary system. see
191–92 also bimetallic coinage system;
Rostovtzeff, Michael, 20 bimetallic era, 1500-1854
Rothbard, Murray, 83, 151, 155– in ancient world, 35
56, 158, 192–93 as bimetallic system, 36
Royal Bank of Scotland, 72 in China, 32, 47, 250n3
Royal Prussian Seehandlung, 80– decline of, 110–12
81 end of with death of gold
ruble, 207 standard, 192
Rueff, Jacques, 167, 193–94 free coinage, 129–130
rupee, 50, 209, 212 in medieval Britain, 38–40
rupiya, 50 Singapore, 219
Russia, 79–81, 107–8, 113, 120, Six Dynasties, 44
136–37, 236 Smith, Adam, 85, 191–92, 215, 234
Index 291
Smithsonian Agreement, 178, 198, Spanish Empire, 59

208 Spanish Inquisition, 59
Smoot-Hawley Tariff, 143–44 Spanish silver dollar, 56–59
“Social Consequences of Changes Spanish-American War, 1898, 114
in the Value of Money," 222 Sparta, 23, 136
Social Security, 242 "Special Drawing Rights," 195–96
soft-money doctrines, 145–46, Sproul, Allan, 199–200
154–57, 163–67, 176, 182–83, Sriviajya Kngdom, 51
206, 216–17, 231–32, 236–38 Stable Money, 131, 149, 157, 163,
solidus/solid gold, 29–30, 38, 40– 230–31, 234, 239, 241
41, 227 Stable Money principles, 202
Solon of Athens, 23–24, 234 stable money principles, hostility
Song Dynasty, 45 toward, 190–94
"Sons of Marashcu," banking Stalin, 144
house, 18 Standard Chartered Bank, 72
sous, 38–39 Standard Oil, first oil well, 134
South Africa, 113, 125–26 standards of value
South Korea, 219 examples of, 3–6
sovereign, gold, 67 gold standard, 6–7
sovereign defaults, 42, 187, 189 State Bank of Russia, 81, 107–8
Sovereigns of Destiny, 32 stater, 32
Soviet Union, 136–37, 144, 180 Stato da Mar, 42
spade money, 31 stavraton, 41
Spahr, Walter, 192–93 Steindl, Frank, 166
Spain sterling silver, 40
Bank of Spain, 105–7 Steuart, James Denham, 84–85
currencies repegged to gol, 138 Stimulus or Austerity, 240–41
devaluations in, 147–48, 234 “Stop-Go” policy, 187
ducats, 59 Strong, Benjamin, 151, 155–56,
floating fiat currencies, 234 161
gold dinar, 50 Sulla, 28
gold taken by Rome during "supply side" economic theory, 150
wars, 28 “supranational currency" U.S.
and Latin Monetary Union, 105– dollar as, 180
6 Sveriges Riksbank, 68, 117
mining in the Americas and Sweden, 102, 111, 113, 138
trade with China, 56–59 Sweden: Sveriges Riksbank,
political unification and Assets, 1840-1913, 114
reorganization of, 91 Sweden: Sveriges Riksbank,
sovereign debt crisis, 227 Liabilities and Capital, 1840-
sovereign defaults, 42 1913, 115
suspends convertibility, 119 Swiss National Bank, 103
Spain, Italy, Greece, Chile and Switzerland, 103, 138, 202
Portugal: Normalized Foreign sword money, 32
Exchange Rate With British sycees or catties, 31, 35
Pounds, 1800-1913, 117
T Treatise of Money (1526), 82

taels, 32–33, 61–62 Treaty of Versailles, 206
Taiwan, 219 tremissis, 38
tallia dividenda, 43–44 Triffin, Robert, 186–87, 193
tally stick/split tally stick, 29, 43– Triffin dilemmas, 241
44, 47, 68, 71 Tripartite Agreement, 1936, 176
Tang Dynasty, 45 triumph of the gold standard, 134–
Tang era, 48 37
Tanzania, 211 Trump, Donald, 237
Temin, Peter, 166–67 Tunisia, 106
Tenochtitlan, 52 Turkey, 16, 141, 145, 211
Thailand, 51, 219 Turkey: Value of 1000 lira in U.S.
Thailand: Value of 1000 baht in dollars, 1957-2014, 212
U.S. Dollars, 1957-2016, 208 Tutankhamen, 20
thaler, 56–59
Theory of Money and Credit U
(1912), 132–33 Uganda, 211
Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III), 16– U.K.: Bank of England Balance
18 Sheet, Assets, 1696-1790, 70
Third Republic (1870-1940), 107 U.K.: Value of £1000 in Gold Oz.,
Time, 207 1913-1941, 139
tobacco as commodity money, 74 U.K.: Yield on Consol Bond, 1820-
token coinages, 66 1913, 106
Tokugawa Era, 61–62 Umayyad Caliphate, 49
Tokugawa Ieyasu, 61–62 "unchanging value," as property of
Tokugawa Yoshimune, 234 money, 230–32
Topa Inca Yupanqui, 55 unciae, 28
Total Credit, expansion in, 156 uniform currency, 1
total credit (U.S. government), 152 United Nations Charter, 246
Total Deposits, 152 United States. see also Federal
Tower of London, 67 Reserve; Treasury (U.S.)
Tower pound, 28, 39 2016 gold holdings, 240
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 61–62 ban on gold ownership and gold
Tract Against High Rate of Usury coinage in circulation, 1932,
(1621), 83 175–76
A Tract on Monetary Reform bullion reserves and transfers,
(1924), 157 164–66
trade, as balanced system, 183–84 complications even with one
Treasury (U.S.) currency, 1
and Employment Act, 1946, debasement and fiat currency,
182–83 138
and gold parity values in the devaluation of currency, Great
1960's, 197 Depression, 141–44
and the gold standard, 192–93 Employment Act, 1946 (U.S.),
Treasury for International 181–82
Monetary Affairs, 204 examples of gold standard
Index 293
discipline, 199–201 1947-1973, 196

expansion of industrial U.S.: Current Account Balance as a
production, 129–135, 168 Percentage of GDP, 1950-1970,
free-banking or multiple-issuer 185
system, 102, 108–10 U.S. dollar, 9, 91
gold and paper money, 74–79 U.S.: Federal Budget Deficit as a
gold as basis of monetary Percentage of GDP, 1950-1970,
system, 34 188
gold linked banknotes, 93–94 U.S.: Federal Debt to GDP, 1792-
gold ownership outlawed, 55 2015, 228
Gold Standard Act, 1900, 131– U.S.: Federal Reserve Balance
33 Sheet, Assets, 1917-1933, 151
and the Great Depression, 129– U.S.: Federal Reserve Balance
130 Sheet, Liabilities, 1917-1933, 152
Interest Equalization Tax, 1963 U.S.: Federal Reserve, Monetary
(U.S.), 187–88 Base, 1951-1973, 198
London Gold Pool, 189 U.S. government securities, 152
A Monetary History of the U.S.: Gross Federal Debt as a
United States, 1867-1960 Percentage of GDP, 1940-2015,
(1963), 159 189
per capita GDP measured as U.S.: Hourly Wages of Production
gold, 219–220, 225 Workers, Adjusted by CPI, 1880-
soft money, 237 2015, 217
Stable Money, 234 U.S.: Interest Rates, 1919-1941,
Treasury gold certificates, 151– 154
52 U.S.: Monetary Base and Gold
Warren Pearson index of Reserves, 1950-1973, 186
commodity prices, 123–24 U.S.: Per Capita GDP in Gold Oz.,
WWII and per capita GDP, 177– 1900-2015, 216
78 U.S.: Price of Commodities in Gold
Uruguay, 114, 210 Oz., 1750-1970, 129
U.S., Britain and Germany: U.S.: Producer Price Index, All
Industrial Production, 1880-1913, Commodities, 1913-1940, 143
130 U.S.: Profits of Financial
U.S. and Britain: Yield on Long- Corporations, as a Percentage of
Term Government Bond, 1730- Total Corporate Profits, 1948-
2015, 204 2015, 224
U.S.: Annualized Growth Rate of U.S.: S&P 500 Trailing 12-Month
Wages of Production Workers, Price/Earnings Ratio, 1870-2015,
Adjusted by CPI, Prior Ten-Year 156
Period, 1880-2015, 218 U.S.: S&P500 Dividend Yield,
U.S.: Births to Unwed Mothers, 1870-2015, 158
1960-2015, 221 U.S.: Short-Term Interest Rates,
U.S.: Composition of Currency in 1919-1941, 155
Circulation, 1880-1912, 109 U.S. Treasury, 77–78, 109, 130–31,
U.S.: CRB Commodity Index, 151–53. see also Federal Reserve;
United States Walras, Leon, 146–47

U.S.: Value of $1000 in Gold Oz., Wang Mang, 33, 48
1922-1941, 139 "warehouse receipt" system, 3–6
U.S.: Value of $1000 in gold oz., Warren, George, 133
1930-1973, 182 Warren Pearson index, 123–24
U.S.: Value of $1000 in Gold oz., Warren-Pearson Index in Gold oz.,
1950-2015, 203 1750-1913, 124
U.S.: Wages as a Percentage of Washington, George, 77
GDP, 1948-2015, 226 Waterloo, 242
U.S.: Wages of Financial Sector, The Wealth of Nations, 191–92
Percent of All Corporate Wages, wen (Chinese copper coin), 58
1948-2014, 227 White, Harry Dexter, 179–181, 246
U.S.: Wages of Production William I (Netherlands), 104–5
Workers, 1000 Hours, in Gold William I of the House of Orange,
Oz. 1880-2015, 219 59
U.S.: Warren-Pearson William II of the House of Orange,
Commodities Price Index, 1820- 69
1860, 123 William III of Orange (King of
U.S.: Yield on 10yr Treasury Bond England), 69
and Fed Funds Rate, 1942-1973, Willing, Thomas, 77
190 Withers, Hartley, 136
usury, 26, 31, 41, 44, 50, 59, 83, Witwatersrand discovery, 125–26
193 World Bank, 177, 213, 237
World Gold Production, 1820-
V 1860, 122
Value of 1000 oz. of silver in gold World Gold Production, 1870-
oz., 1500-2011, 87 1920, 127
value of money and economic world per capita GDP, 219–220
theories, 230–33 World Per Capita GDP, In Gold
values of currencies vs. gold, Oz., 1960-2015, 220
139n1 worldwide economic crisis and lack
Varna, 16 of gold standard, 202–6
Vedas, 26 Wright Bros., 134
vellon, 58 writing, history of, 15–16, 31
Venezuela, 211
Venezuela, 106 X
Venice, first national bank, 42 Xerxes, 25
Vietnam, 51, 211
Vietnam War, 187–88 Y
Volcker, Paul, 203–5, 237 Yale University, 132
Voluntary Foreign Credit Restraint, Ye Ziqi, 48
187 Yellen, Janet, 206
Von Mises, Ludwig, 132–33 yen, 61–62, 110, 173, 212
yuan (round object - Spanish silver
W dollar), 58, 110
Wall Street Journal, 205 Yuan Dynasty, 46–47
Index 295
Yugoslavia, 211
Z
Zambia, 211
Zhou Dynasty, 31–33
Zhou Xiaochuan, 236
Zhu Yuanzhang, 48
Zoe (daughter of Constantine VIII),
40–41
Zoellick, Robert, 237

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Gold: The Final Standard

Published by Canyon Maple Publishing

Third Edition: July 2019

Introduction by George Gilder i

roles had actually become even less profitable…eroded by competition and

impact of monetary policy actions than on their informational content.

What is “money”? It is the thing generally accepted in payment. Today,

Assets (millions) Liabilities (millions)

For purposes of demonstration, we will assume that the central bank

Assets (millions) Liabilities (millions)

Assets (millions) Liabilities (millions)

In the extreme case, independent market participants, as a whole,

Assets (millions) Liabilities (millions)

In practice, the actual operations of central banks can be considerably

The practice of gold monometallism is partly what has been

Thus, a “gold standard” system is a subset of fixed-value systems, which

Britain: Bank of England, Change in Base Money From Previous Year,

becomes intrinsically floating, but through various forms of coercion, the

Currency Option One: A fixed-value policy, free trade and no

Currency Option Two: A floating fiat currency, free trade and no

Currency Option Three: A fixed-value policy, trade and capital

In practice, Currency Option Three, though unfortunately popular in

Freidman: Discussion of this issue requires replacing the

1. hard fixed (e.g., members of Euro, Panama, Argentine currency

By now, there is widespread agreement that a global move to

Mundell: The distinction between fixed and pegged rates that I

The term “trilemma” suggests an insoluble problem. Economists want

C“Maintaining equilibrium in the balance of payments” means, in this case,

unpredictably: it still reflected its metal content afterwards, even if perhaps

palladium were not discovered until the eighteenth century. Platinum’s

[G]old and silver have been generally preferred by nations which

The concept of “money” is a human invention, devised to facilitate trade

2015, 66% of silver mine production was used in industrial applications. 3

One of the most striking features of the Ur III balance sheets is

remaining balance, negative or positive, to be expressed in silver,

Other monetary items, such as copper or gold, could be accepted in

1 gur [300 liters] of barley 1 shekel of silver

Egypt and the Indus Valley Civilization

Money, of any sort, was somewhat uncommon in Egypt. This reflected

The Egyptians were at no stage a colonizing or conquering people.

Alexandria. Banks that previously operated on a local basis were tied

Coinage in Lydia, Greece and Persia

You know what I often think:

To Athens’ credit, these base metal coins were “demonetized” in 393

Further, the law enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to

process that included government-owned precious metals mines in the

was Pasion, who began as a slave to the bankers Antisthenes and

Alexander and India

The Vedas of India (2000-1440 B.C.) mention the concept of usury,

indigenous Buddhism and Hinduism. They continued to make silver coins

Rome was founded, according to legend and tradition, in 753 B.C. It

coinage took precedence over payment in bank deposit transfers.

official denomination or relation to the various junk coinage then in use

Evidence of proto-writing in China dates from as early as 7000 B.C.,

serve as their common currency,” it said. “Gold is the standard of

Money in the Ancient World

Throughout the world, money and writing developed roughly

Britain: Value of British Pound in Silver, 790-1931 1

introduced a new coinage. He imitated the English penny so devotedly that