Just for the sake of clarity, while the central bank of England established in 1694 as a private banking cartel under a grant by the government became the model for central banks, the very first central bank was the Riksbank of Sweden, established in 1668. The Riksbank was not a private cartel and operated instead under the auspices of the Swedish parliament. On the other hand, the English bank was privately operated until 1946. Most of the central banks of the western nations operated under the English model. Of course, communist, socialist, fascist nations (governments) controlled all aspects of their economies, including the central banking functions.
A prime question to ask is “Are central banks necessary?” In this modern world, it is difficult to find a single main stream economist who would reply in the negative. Almost exclusively, either the monetarist school of economics or the Keynesian school are taught in all American colleges and universities. A recent article in the Huffington Post explains that the Federal Reserve has essentially co-opted the main stream economics profession. If one asked an Austrian economist the same question, he would reply not only no but hell, no. It is the central banks that are causing the vast majority of economic problems that currently exist. How could this be?
Back to some history again.
Central banks, as already indicated, got their start from their ability to create debt money that was backed by the “full faith and credit” of which ever government gave the bank its charter in the first place. Let’s first define debt money. Debt money is “money” (von Mises called debt money fiduciary media) that is created from nothing. Fiduciary media is money that a bank issues to a debtor who eventually must repay all the funds created from nothing and in addition, the debtor must pay interest on this debt. So this is one of those dirty little secrets. The debt money comes from no where but when all is said and done, the bank makes a profit on the money from no where.
In the beginning, because gold was still considered money, central banks were limited in their ability to create money from nothing. What central banking did was to tie together the assets of all the banks which joined the cartel. The larger the cartel, the greater the power. Since the cartel had an exclusive grant to issue money in the name of the government, banks which did not join the cartel had greater difficulty gaining clients and therefor profits. Still, not all banks joined the cartel. By pooling their assets, the cartel had greater control over “bank runs” when certain segments of the public became concerned about the balance sheets (liabilities) of specific banks.
However, as long as gold was still considered money and the paper receipts issued by the banks required the bank to redeem the notes in gold specie, the central banks were limited (the central bankers might use the term, frustrated) in the amount of debt money that could be issued. The bank must always concern itself with redeeming issued notes with real gold. This was the case around the world from 1694 until 1913.
The United States had toyed with the concept of a central bank from just after the Constitution was ratified in 1788 until 1913. The First Bank of the United States was promulgated by the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton in 1791 over the strenuous objection of the Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton proposed the bank and President Washington asked Jefferson, Hamilton and Attorney General Edmund Randolph for their opinions on constitutionality. Jefferson provided an extensive response citing profusely from the Constitution to demonstrate that such a bank was not in any way authorized by the Constitution. In “Hamilton’s Curse” Thomas Di Lorenzo states that in response,
The crux of his [Hamilton’s] opinion was that Jefferson did not understand the meaning of the word necessary. Although Webster’s Dictionary defines the word as meaning “essential,” “inevitable,” and “required,” Hamilton argued that it is “a matter of opinion.” The powers enumerated in the Constitution ought to be construed “on principles of liberal construction,” he said, “in advancement of the public good.” This would require giving politicians like himself “great latitude of discretion” in dealing with the limits of federal government powers. In other words, such powers should be made up, even fabricated, on the whims of politicians posing as guardians of “the public good.”
Hamilton won the argument. Washington asked his allies in Congress to introduce the legislation and the charter was granted in 1791 for 20 years. Jefferson fought the bank tooth and nail throughout his years in office and in 1811, during Madison’s administration when the bank’s charter expired, it was not renewed. The War of 1812 brought new demands for debt money because the government was funding yet another war (are you getting the picture yet) and even though Madison had, with Jefferson, opposed the first bank, he encouraged the charter of the second bank which was approved in early 1817 as he was getting ready to leave the presidential office.
I am not going into a complete history of this second bank. It’s a long and complex story involving not just banking privileges but also the distinct personalities of Andrew Jackson, the president who oversaw its demise and Nicholas Biddle, the president of the Second Bank of the Untied States. It was a bitterly fought battle and is easily available for your pursual with a google search. From the death of the second bank in the 1830′s until the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the US had no central bank. Except during the War for Southern Independence, the US functioned with a relatively (but not completely) free banking system and essentially a gold standard.
Though Lincoln is far from my favorite president, he did prove one point that I posed at the start of this part. He funded the war he started with debt money created by the United States government with no intermediary. He recognized that banks create debt money that require repayment plus interest. He reasoned that the US could issue its own debt money and avoid the interest. Thus Lincoln’s famous “greenbacks” were issued. And, most interestingly, these notes were all eventually (1879) fully paid off in gold specie. It would seem that on this basis alone, central banks are not required.
During the period from the end of the war in 1865 until the beginning of WW 1, the US experienced the most magnificent growth rate that history has ever recorded for any society. There were a number of factors involved including the fact that the US was expanding its economic might in the vast western territories with little real opposition. But a major factor was also the existence of relatively free banking and sound money based on a gold standard. Just to bing some attention to an often heard but little understood phrase that is frequently repeated, let’s come to grips with William Jennings Bryan famous speech to the Democrat convention in 1896 which ended with the line:
You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
The cross of gold was the gold standard. Bryan at the time was a little known populist politician who represented the interests of silver and silver miners. The problem was that the gold supply was relatively limited, not withstanding the gold discoveries in California and in the Yukon. In 1873, as silver was being discovered in ever greater quantities the federal government had declared a defacto gold standard, essentially demonetizing silver. The purpose was to protect the nation against inflation. (Boy, isn’t that amazing–the US government actually trying to prevent inflation of the money supply. The concept that inflation can be caused by too much silver or even too much gold is an important one and will be discussed in the future.) Bryan was not opposed to the gold standard but he wanted to reinstate a bi-metal standard with both gold and silver enjoying the protection of the US government in establishing a fixed value. Bryan won the nomination of his party in 1896 but lost the election to McKinley. He lost again four years later to TR and thus the gold standard continued to hold sway and continued to protect the nation from both inflation and from excessive control by bankers. As long as bankers could not produce debt money (fiduciary media) at will, as long as they were subject to bank runs, the nation was safe from any significant financial problems.
I should point out that bankers were held personally liable for bank defaults. You can imagine how careful bankers were with respect to investing since they could be held personally responsible for losses. Knowing that losses could lead to their own personal bankruptcy, they tended to avoid risky, bubble like ventures. Instead, they mostly maintained a conservative, well balanced approach.
It is also interesting to note that from about 1790 to 1913 the level of inflation (as indicated by prices of goods) was relatively level. It is true that during times of war, 1812 to 1814, 1861 to 1865, etc there were inflationary spikes but shortly after each war time period, prices returned to close to those of the pre-war period. Thus with no central bank in existence but only free banking and gold and silver as specie money, inflation was just about nonexistent. And the US economy kept growing throughout this time. Yes, there were bank panics from time to time and even a recession or two but nothing that was long lasting or particularly severe.
Another quite severe financial and banking crisis occurred in 1907. There were runs on the banks as depositors rushed to take out their money before they ran out of specie. The stock market dropped to half its peak 1906 average. The main cause of the crash was stock market and real estate speculation. Also contributing were attempted company takeovers and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Much of the real estate of San Francisco was insured by companies in London. Payouts to San Francisco drained money from the U.K., which raised interest rates there and in the U.S. But interest rates mostly rose due to borrowing for speculation, and the high rates and real estate prices then halted investment in capital goods. The U.S. stock market crashed on March 14, 1907 and then again after a failed attempt on October 16, 1907, of a scheme to corner the stock of the United Copper Company, which highlighted the close connections then among banks, trusts, and brokers. The panic began on October 18, 1907, following the collapse of United Copper share prices. On October 21, there was a run on the large Knickerbocker Trust Company, which then shut down.
To restore confidence, banker chief J. P. Morgan, working together with the Secretary of the Treasury, organized some bank executives and the U.S. Treasury to transfer money to troubled banks and buy stocks. That soon ended the panic.
The fundamental causes of the Panic of 1907 were the flawed monetary and fiscal systems of the United States. The federal government’s control of the money during and after the Civil War created a rigid money supply that did not respond to the demand for money. While the government allowed free banking, it was closely controlling the value (price might be a better word) of money (gold and silver). In a completely free market, the “value” of money will fluctuate along with other goods. During that era, agriculture dominated the economy, and the inflexible money supply created a crunch and a spike up in interest rates whenever farmers and others needed to borrow funds. Had the value of money been allowed to fluctuate to meet demands, there would have been no crisis, just a disturbance in the financial system that would have been self correcting.
The Panic of 1907 shook confidence in the U.S. financial system, but the people and the government officials learned the wrong lessons. The problem with the banking system was the federal control of the money supply, and the effective remedy would have been completely free market banking, where the banks and other private firms would issue private currency backed by gold with the ability to slowly change in value. With competitive banking, the private bank notes and deposited funds would expand flexibly in accord with the demand for money and borrowing, while the redemption into gold would prevent inflation. That is how the Scottish free banking system worked for many years.
Because the wrong lessons were learned, J.P. Morgan and others were able to influence the direction of government control over banking. The crisis of 1907 led almost directly to the Federal Reserve Act which was passed in 1913 thus bringing the US into conformity with most other western nation/state governments. There are some historical economists who suspect that Morgan helped to induce the panic by introducing the rumor that the Knickerbocker Trust might be in trouble.
Now the real fun–and trouble begin as we shall see in the next installment.
We are being bombarded daily with misinformation, hucksterism, and just plain old fashioned lying. For example, this week a friend asked me about another ..flation. He had heard of inflation, deflation and even stagflation but not reflation. He was responding to an article I sent him about Barrick Gold (possibly the largest gold mining company in the world) announcing that it was going to close all existing forward sales of its gold product (forward selling is also called hedging). He asked me to rephrase the following quote from the article I sent him in terms that he could understand.
Barrick claims to have made a strategic decision to gain full leverage to the gold price on all future production, and to exploit the effects of global monetary and fiscal reflation expected to span several years. They see a consequent increased risk of higher inflation and a future negative impact on the value of global currencies.
Of course, the problematic phrase is “global monetary and fiscal reflation.” If you do enough searching you may eventually find the following business definition of reflation: a method of reducing unemployment by increasing an economy’s aggregate demand. If any one can understand what this means and can explain this definition and the process it envisions coherently, please post a comment. This is getting to one of the problems that confront us: namely, the hucksters are filling the media with such nonsense that most of us just figure we don’t understand the dismal “science” of economics so we don’t bother to investigate. One of the purposes of this blog is to explain some fundamental economic concepts that can be easily understood if one takes the time to do so and thus relegate these bloviated jerks who constantly use essentially meaningless terms to the never-never land from which they originated.
Thus we enter the next phase of this Gold = Money topic. As we try to understand this topic, it becomes vitally important that we understand what constitutes a free market. Only by understanding the free market concept can we understand sound money and we cannot determine if Gold = Money unless we understand sound money.
My investigations have convinced me that the Austrian school of economic theory has the only convincing, rational and completely coherent theory that needs no other ancillary explanation. The Austrian school started its development in Vienna, Austria in the 1870′s through the teachings of Karl Menger. His student, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, continued the development of his ideas and Bawerk’s student, Ludwig von Mises was the central figure of the 3rd generation of Austrian theorists. The Austrian school, in the person of von Mises moved to Switzerland for 6 years, then to England via one of von Mises disciples, Frederic von Hayek. Mises and Hayek both moved to the US in the 1920′s developing the ideas further and attracting more disciples in this country including Murray Rothbard and Henry Hazlitt among others. The US today is the center of Austrian theoretical development and the primary repository of most of the collected works of all Austrian economic theorists.
Ludwig von Mises deserves special credit for the development of this school of economic theory and wrote prolifically throughout his life on various aspects of it. I am going to draw heavily from two of these works in this essay. In 1912 von Mises wrote the original version of his “Theory of Money and Credit” which he revised in 1924, 1934 and added a whole new section to the book in 1952. His “magnum opus” titled “Human Action: A Treatise on Economics” was written in 1949. These two books complement each other to a large extent and neither can be understood in full context without the other. Mises died in 1973, a year before his disciple, von Hayek (by then a US citizen) was awarded the Nobel prize in economics.
I begin then with an extensive quote from Chapter 15: “The Market,” Part 1, “The Characteristics of the Market Economy.” of Mises’ “Human Action:”
The market economy is the social system of the division of labor under private ownership of the means of production. Everybody acts on his own behalf; but everybody’s actions aim at the satisfaction of other people’s needs as well as at the satisfaction of his own. Everybody in acting serves his fellow citizens. Everybody, on the other hand, is served by his fellow citizens. Everybody is both a means and an end in himself, an ultimate end for himself and a means to other people in their endeavors to attain their own ends.
This system is steered by the market. The market directs the individual’s activities into those channels in which he best serves the wants of his fellow men. There is in the operation of the market no compulsion and coercion. The state, the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, does not interfere with the market and with the citizens’ activities directed by the market. It employs its power to beat people into submission solely for the prevention of actions destructive to the preservation and the smooth operation of the market economy. It protects the individual’s life, health, and property against violent or fraudulent aggression on the part of domestic gangsters and external foes. Thus the state creates and preserves the environment in which the market economy can safely operate. The Marxian slogan “anarchic production” pertinently characterizes this social structure as an economic system which is not directed by a dictator, a production tsar who assigns to each a task and compels him to obey this command. Each man is free; nobody is subject to a despot. Of his own accord the individual integrates himself into the cooperative system. The market directs him and reveals to him in what way he can best promote his own welfare as well as that of other people. The market is supreme. The market alone puts the whole social system in order and provides it with sense and meaning.
The market is not a place, a thing, or a collective entity. The market is a process, actuated by the interplay of the actions of the various individuals cooperating under the division of labor. The forces determining the – continually changing – state of the market are the value judgments of these individuals and their actions as directed by these value judgments. The state of the market at any instant is the price structure, i.e., the totality of the exchange ratios as established by the interaction of those eager to buy and those eager to sell. There is nothing inhuman or mystical with regard to the market. The market process is entirely a resultant of human actions. Every market phenomenon can be traced back to definite choices of the members of the market society.
The market process is the adjustment of the individual actions of the various members of the market society to the requirements of mutual cooperation. The market prices tell the producers what to produce, how to produce, and in what quantity. The market is the focal point to which the activities of the individuals converge. It is the center from which the activities of the individuals radiate.
The market economy must be strictly differentiated from the second thinkable – although not realizable – system of social cooperation under the division of labor; the system of social or governmental ownership of the means of production. This second system is commonly called socialism, communism, planned economy, or state capitalism. The market economy or capitalism, as it is usually called, and the socialist economy preclude one another. There is no mixture of the two systems possible or thinkable; there is no such thing as a mixed economy, a system that would be in part capitalist and in part socialist. Production is directed by the market or by the decrees of a production tsar or a committee of production tsars.
If within a society based on private ownership by the means of production some of these means are publicly owned and operated – that is, owned and operated by the government or one of its agencies – this does not make for a mixed system which would combine socialism and capitalism. The fact that the state or municipalities own and operate some plants does not alter the characteristic features of the market economy. The publicly owned and operated enterprises are subject to the sovereignty of the market. They must fit themselves, as buyers of raw materials, equipment, and labor, and as sellers of goods and services, into the scheme of the market economy. They are subject to the laws of the market and thereby depend on the consumers who may or may not patronize them. They must strive for profits or, at least, to avoid losses. The government may cover losses of its plants or shops by drawing on public funds. But this neither eliminates nor mitigates the supremacy of the market; it merely shifts it to another sector.
It is best to read the above von Mises description at least twice and a thrid or fourth reading will not hurt. We will, over time, refer back to this quote more than once as it is filled with intuitively obvious a priori assumptions that are integral to capitalism. Note especially this sentence in the second paragraph above: “There is in the operation of the market no compulsion and coercion.” In both parts 1 and 2 of this topic, I have emphasized that the commodity that became most useful as a medium of exchange was determined over a long period of time in a free market environment. That is, the participants in the market process were free to use any commodities they wished as the most desirable and it was these which eventually became money or the medium of exchange. And we know from history without any doubt that the most frequently chosen commodity was gold and to a slightly lesser extent, silver.
Eventually, governments (or the state) became involved. We know that as early as about 700 or 650 BC, Lydia began coining gold. An advantage of coins is that the central authority in charge of the process was able to verify the purity and weight of the metal in the coin. The individuals involved in market exchanges were relieved of the process of verifying the weight and purity making exchanges that much simpler. To make this process easier, the concept of standard coinage was introduced. Pre-weighed and pre-alloyed, coins were typically minted by governments in a carefully protected process, and then stamped with an emblem that guaranteed the weight and value of the metal.
It was extremely common for governments to assert the value of such money lay in its emblem and thus to subsequently debase the currency by lowering the content of the valuable metal contained in the coin. This was the genesis of inflation, the ability to expand the money supply without actually adding anything to the capital stock. (To understand capital or capital stock, please see my blog entry dated August 25th, titled Capital.) Of course inflation has become much more sophisticated since then and we shall consider that process.
According to Wikipedia, the initial use of warehouse receipts or tallies being used as money was in Egypt. Initially, paper receipts were issued for grain in storage. The use of grain banks and bills of exchange expanded over time and came into common usage in Europe in the middle ages. As explained by Wikipedia:
The highly successful ancient grain bank also served as a model for the emergence of the goldsmith bankers in 17th Century England. These were the early days of the mercantile revolution before the rise of the British Empire when merchant ships began plying the coastal seas laden with silks and spices from the orient and shrewd traders amassed huge hoards of gold in the bargain. Since no banks existed in England at the time, these entrepreneurs entrusted their wealth with the leading goldsmith of London, who already possessed stores of gold and private vaults within which to store it safely, and paid a fee for that service. In exchange for each deposit of precious metal, the goldsmiths issued paper receipts certifying the quantity and purity of the metal they held on deposit. Like the grain receipts, tallies and bills of exchange, the goldsmith receipts soon began to circulate as a safe and convenient form of money backed by gold and silver in the goldsmiths’ vaults.
Knowing that goldsmiths were laden with gold, it was only natural that other traders in need of capital might approach them for loans, which the goldsmiths made to trustworthy parties out of their gold hoards in exchange for interest. Like the grain bankers, goldsmiths began issuing loans by creating additional paper gold receipts that were generally accepted in trade and were indistinguishable from the receipts issued to parties that deposited gold. Both represented a promise to redeem the receipt in exchange for a certain amount of metal. Since no one other than the goldsmith knew how much gold he held in store and how much was the value of his receipts held by the public, he was able to issue receipts for greater value than the gold he held. Gold deposits were relatively stable, often remaining with the goldsmith for years on end, so there was little risk of default so long as public trust in the goldsmith’s integrity and financial soundness was maintained. Thus, the goldsmiths of London became the forerunners of British banking and prominent creators of new money. They created money based on public trust.
Initially the goldsmiths’ primary function was that of storing money (gold) and eventually bankers developed the next banking function of investing saved money in potentially profitable ventures. But note clearly, that creation of additional gold receipts beyond the amount of gold that was being kept in storage was a false increase in the money supply. Each goldsmith/banker made a decision about how many receipts he could safely issue without destroying the trust of those with whom he did business. Being human, from time to time, bankers would err in issuing too many receipts to the point that depositors of gold would become distrustful enough to ask for the return of their gold. This is called a “run on the bank” if all receipts or simply more receipts were redeemed than there existed gold in the vaults available for redemption.
An individual bank which suffered a “run” was, in the scheme of the overall economy, a blip. The banks were not interconnected and no bank was required to accept or redeem the receipts from another bank. Banks could redeem receipts of other banks if they desired (i.e. it might enhance their own business) but since they were not required to do so, they could redeem them at face value (if the issuing bank had a great reputation) or they could “discount” the receipt at some percentage lower than the face value. Thus if a bank lost all of its assets due to a run, it seldom had a serious effect on other banks. Usually, only the one bank and such of its clients who arrived at the redemption window too late were the losers.
Banking became a centralized system in England in 1694 with the grant by the British government to a Scotsman (William Patterson) to operate a private banking cartel which agreed to fund England’s then current war (the Nine Years’ War, 1688–97, also known as the War of the Grand Alliance) with debt. Funding the war with debt became necessary because the government did not have the funds to continue paying for the war but it did have the power to tax its productive citizens currently and into the future. And in this, dear reader, is the essence of all the dirty little secrets about money, gold, paper substitutes, and central banking.
We will discuss more of the important features and history of money and gold in Part 4.
There are several aspects of the development of money which we need to grasp so we can apply them to our current situation. First, note that money is both conceptual and physical. It was the physical reality of being able to conduct barter arrangements that eventually led to the concept of money. The physical part of the concept was that the commodity actually existed and was considered to be valuable to both parties in the exchange.
As a consequence of the development of money, individuals were able to specialize in the work they performed (officially called the division of labor). People were freed from producing virtually all of their own needs and thus could concentrate of producing a constantly narrowing spectrum of products which could in turn be exchanged for other desired products. This in turn improved both the quality and quantity of the various items needed by all. Obviously, as the quantity of goods increased, it became possible to produce items that were not “necessary” for survival but rather were just desired or pleasing. Art and music come to mind as do refinements to food, clothing and shelter. The continuing developments led to ever larger groups or societies forming what could eventually be called a civilization.
Another important aspect of this development of money is that it occurred naturally. That is, no person or no entity directed it. It simply happened over many centuries and many generations as millions of people we able to make voluntary economic exchanges among themselves. However, as the larger groups developed into civilizations, there were always steps backward for one reason or another. The lack of a knowledge of the past (history) was one reason that some societies would go back and try goods or products that had been unsuccessful as a medium of exchange in the past.
Human beings have lived together for possibly as long as two million years. Money in its modern form, that is coin of fixed weight and denomination, came into use less than three thousand years ago. It took a long time to discover the physical good which best serves the purpose of a medium of exchange.
Whatever its complexity, a civilization and its economy depends upon a very basic foundation. First, Individuals must be free to think and act on their decisions; in addition, they must be able to reap the rewards of being right and must bear the cost of making foolish or wrong decisions. Second, they must be able to concentrate on what they do best, and what they most enjoy doing, instead of spending their time providing for their immediate wants. Third, they must be able to make provision for the future by preserving a portion of what they have produced. In short, they must think, they must produce, they must save. And to do that to the greatest and most efficient extent possible, they must trade with each other.
In an advanced economy, physical survival is seldom an issue but all the imperatives which confronted primitive societies still apply. The extent to which individuals can think, work, produce and trade freely determines the potential of the economy. The confidence with which individuals can save and invest long term determines the prosperity of the economy. To save, invest, and plan for the long term is a luxury not granted to very small and primitive groups. This is the domain only of those living in an advanced economy.
An economically advanced economy must, by its nature, be one in which there is indirect exchange, using money. In the place of the essentials needed for staying alive, there is money. Instead of working all day and part of the night to ensure one’s immediate needs for food and shelter, there is money. In the place of never being able to rest on past productivity, there is money. In lieu of being at the mercy of nature or dependent on the nature of mercy, there is money.
That is what money does. The evolution of any civilized society is dependent on the discovery of the idea of money, and on the discovery of something that can be used as money. The future of any civilized society is dependent on the quality of what is used as money.
Llet’s consider just a bit more history briefly. From Part 1, we remember that Lydia is the first known society to have coined a precious metal into money. It is true that many other products and goods have been used since then but always civilized societies have come back to gold. Thus we have a history of close to 2700 years in which gold was the ultimate form of money. This period ended in either 1933 or 1971 depending on one’s perspective. In 1933, FDR made it illegal for US citizens to own gold other than numismatic coins, however, the US Treasury still redeemed Federal Reserve Notes to foreign nations. But even this ended in August 1971 when the Nixon administration closed the gold window to every person or entity in the world. Thus, for the first and only time in modern history, there is no currency in the world that is backed by a reserve of precious metal or any other commodity.
Every modern nation uses a fiat currency, that is a currency that is given value only by the “full faith and credit” of the nation that issues that currency. Within the defined territory of each nation, by law, that fiat currency must used to settle all debts, contracts, and other obligations that involve the use of money.
Thus we are now at a point in time when gold is not considered money–that is not considered “legal” money by any government in the world. To see if, in fact, Gold = Money even today, we must try to determine why gold has been abandoned by ruling authorities throughout the world and this will be the primary topic of Part 3.
The USA is in a financial mess. One of the reasons for the mess is the simple fact that most of us who are citizens of this country have an extremely limited knowledge of economics and money. I see this daily in my conversations with friends and acquaintances. One of the objectives of this blog is to help individuals come to a basic understanding of the economic concepts which determine the quality of their lives. Because so few of us understand basic economic ideas, we are easily led by bankers and politicians into making personal and societal decisions that make our lives worse rather than better.
This post is about money because it is one of the most fundamental economic concepts which we deal with every day and yet do not understand. When we want something, perhaps to eat or to make our lives more comfortable, we peel off some of those green pieces of paper in our wallet or just use a plastic card which works as a kind of substitute these days. Mostly we just understand that the other party to our exchange will accept those pieces of paper or the plastic in exchange for whatever item we desire or need. But we must try to get to the fundamental concepts behind the willingness of two parties to make a mutually beneficial exchange.
I’m going to start with a primitive market which I did also in a previous post. In the most primitive of markets, there were very limited exchanges of goods. In fact, money was an unknown concept. Most societies were quite small and at the same time, self sufficient. That doesn’t mean that life was pleasant only that markets as we understand them, did not exist. A small society produced its own essential products needed for survival internally. Life was pretty difficult and there was little if any time for recreational activities. Almost all human activity was devoted just to keeping everyone alive, clothed and fed.
In these societies, it was apparent that food and water, the most essential requirements for life, were not always readily available. Eventually, some folks in these groups realized that food and water were more readily available at different times during the time cycles we understand as years. Some of the smarter people found ways to conserve and save food and water so that both would be available throughout the year.
Eventually the small societies began to come in contact with each other and to interact. Some of the groups were primarily farmers, others were hunters and others were fisherman. I’m sure there were other specialty groups. They began to trade amongst themselves but remember, there was still no concept of money. So the trading was simply a barter relationship. We have no way of assessing relative value but a farmer might have been willing to exchange a bushel of wheat for 5 medium sized tilapia (a fish). Exchanges like this were probably common. But suppose a hunter bagged a 600 lb elk and a 200 lb mule deer. This was more than his family group needed so he set out looking for an exchange. The farmer had only 10 bushels of wheat which the hunter recognized as not being equal to even the 200 lb deer. And time entered into the process. The deer meat which was probably considered more valuable but would rot much sooner than the wheat.
The point is that the barter process could effect an exchange but it was clunky and did not always meet the needs of both parties to the exchange. The small societies began to realize that it was possible to make indirect exchanges. That is, the hunter may not want or need 50 bushels of wheat for his 200 lb deer but the deer meat was a more time sensitive commodity than the wheat. By exchanging it for something that had longer lasting value, the hunter could get very close to the full value of his deer and have a product that would last longer and thus he could delay making another exchange until he knew what his next priority for an exchange would be.
The small societies were constantly searching for items or products that had lasting value. By exchanging their short life value products for other products that retained their value for longer time periods they developed a methodology to delay their final exchanges until they were more sure what would be most needed within their small groups.
These barter groups were constantly looking for items that would provide ever longer time periods before requiring an exchange. As the groups grew and refined their productivity, they came into contact with more groups with whom exchanges could be made. Each new group had the potential to introduce a new product for exchange. Over many years and many exchanges, the primitive markets began to develop into formalized exchanges and the possible exchanges began to develop into structured arrangements. These structures became possible after the precious metals had been discovered. The metals themselves had no intrinsic value but began to be valued simply because they were rare, beautiful and difficult to extract from the earth.
This discussion has possibly created the impression that the precious metals were a clear and early recognized item of exchange. This is not true at all. Different societies valued different items and the items valued changed with time. Such things as sea shells, bird feathers, arduously formed pieces of stone, and many other products were used as long lasting exchange items. It was only over a very long period of time (we do not know how long) that the two primary precious metals, silver and gold, became the most valued items across many multiples of societies as meeting the requirements of a long lasting and valued commodity that could be used to make indirect exchanges.
To understand gold (and less so, silver) as money, we need to consider how the barter process could develop into a more formalized exchange process. But the first step is to fully understand what gives value to any commodity. For example, gold has few uses that are naturally available to man. It cannot be eaten, provide shelter or protection of any kind and indeed, even today is used for very limited industrial purposes. Some folks have gold fillings in their teeth but in the time frame of these primitive societies, there were no dentists and no ability to process gold to use it in this capacity.
In fact, all commodities have value that is determined by large numbers of individuals making decisions about how desirable they are. There are, of course, those items that are necessary for survival. We all need food, water and shelter. Once these basic needs are met, individuals have more flexibility to express their individual desires. We can only guess at how many bushels of wheat would be required for the hind quarter of a 200 lb deer. But the reality is that depending on the desires of the two individuals involved in the exchange, one day it might require 4 bushels and the same trade could be made several days later for only 3 bushels. Of course as the meat is getting older its value is probably dropping.
But lets consider a more difficult trade. Suppose the hunter has just one hind quarter of his 200 lb deer remaining and what he really needs is a new pair of shoes. The farmer still has his wheat and is willing to trade 4 bushels for a hind quarter but the hunter would rather have new shoes so he can continue hunting. Enter a workman in a near by group who is willing trade an extra pair of shoes he just made for two bushels of wheat. As long as these three people can find each other in the proper time frame, a trade can occur. But you can imagine the difficulties involved if the three folks do not know each other and cannot find the correct trade in a time frame that meets the needs and desires of all involved.
If instead, there existed a product that was mutually recognized by all involved in the process as having the approximately the same value and at the same time kept its value for an extended period of time, then the hunter could exchange his hind quarter of deer meat for this product and not be concerned about possibly having to make an exchange first with the farmer. The workman could make a direct exchange for the meat and use this product later to make another exchange for the wheat he wanted.
Another difficulty that might prevent an exchange is when the value perceived by the two individuals in an exchange is not easily subdivided. Suppose the hunter just bagged a wild turkey and he was willing to exchange it for a half gallon of fresh water because he is thirsty after his hunting trip. He meets a man on the road with a gallon jug of water. They agree that a half gallon jug of water for the turkey is an agreeable exchange but neither of them has a half gallon container. It’s possible that no exchange will take place just because of the mechanics of the situation prevent the agreed exchange.
The difficulties of these barter exchanges can be overcome if a product exists that (1) is relatively scarce and thus has a generally recognizable perceived value, (2) is not easily used up (it is durable) or does not decay such that its value changes over time, (3) is relatively easy to subdivide such that the intrinsic character of the product is the same after it is subdivided as it was before, and (4) it is relatively easy to either store or transport it.
A bit of reflection allows one to see that gold and (to a slightly lesser extent) silver come extremely close to meeting all these parameters. Thus it should be no surprise to anyone that gold and silver have been among the most common products (commodities) used as a medium of exchange, otherwise known as money. Gold was valued by multiple civilizations even before the concept of money had been developed so it simply makes sense that its primary use eventually became the most used medium of exchange or money. While the first gold coins were struck in Lydia about 700 BC, it is only in the recent history of world civilizations that gold has become just a barbarous relic and is not treated as money by any government in the world.
Why this has happened is important and needs some discussion thus we will consider some of the more current developments in part two of Gold = Money?
August 27, 2009 by the law perverted
A friend emailed me a copy of a NY Times editorial by Paul Krugman. I had told him that I read almost nothing printed by the Times since it is quite predictable what will be said and also because in order to read articles with the Times, one must register with them. And register with them I will not do.
So when he emailed Krugman’s opinion, All the President’s Zombies, I read it. The link here is to the San Jose Mercury so you will not have to subscribe to the NY Times to check it out.
Krugman sets up his reading audience in his second paragraph with this assessment:
Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — an ideology that says government intervention is always bad and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good.
The rest of the article is based on this false premise. What false premise? Oh, what Krugman wishes us to believe is that Reaganism (also sometimes called Reaganomics) is the same thing as laissez-faire capitalism. I personally do subscribe to the belief that laissez-faire capitalism in conjunction with free markets in money will be infinitely more efficient in regulating markets than all of the governments and all of the bureaucrats in the world. But this was not what Reaganism was all about.
Reaganism (when one gets to its essence) was primarily a commitment to lower taxes but continue to spend by increasing deficits. There were certainly many other aspects of Reagan and his administration but I believe it’s essential to define the core. In no way did Regan dismantle the myriad channels of government intervention in our markets. He did take tiny little bites out of the sides of the vast government bureaucracy but there was never any serious attempt or even the intention of seriously reducing government interventions. Does anyone remember that while campaigning he promised to eliminate the Dept of Education which his predecessor had created? We all know how far that idea sailed.
No one alive in this country today has a recollection of free markets and sound money. The closest thing to free markets in this country began to disappear after 1900 and the era of Teddy Roosevelt. See this excellent short article by Floy Lilly describing Robert Higgs book, Crisis and Leviathan. Higg’s book chronicles the interventions created through the 1920’s at the latest. I hope there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the eerie shadow of government bureaucracy has continued to do nothing but grow over the years. In fact, if anything it has grown at a continually faster pace.
Free markets and sound money were slowly eliminated from our history and our memory because these are the essentials of individual liberty. When one understands that the very nature of government is to grow and increase its power over individual lives, one will be able to see through the constant fog of misinformation fed to us on a daily basis through government statistics and the willing fools who call themselves journalists in the news media.
Capital
August 25, 2009 by the law perverted
With the many stimulus packages floating around in US markets, perhaps it might be useful to discuss briefly the topic of capital. I think it is useful because most of us not only do not have a good understanding of economics or money but “capital” especially is misunderstood. I know because until I began my own personal investigations within the past 10 years, I had never even contemplated the ideal of capital. I am, of course, referring to the idea of money as capital.
It helps to begin with a primitive system. By primitive, I mean a system or market in which there is little specialization. In such a market, a person or a family is primarily self supporting. There may be some bartering but mostly a family or a small group of families provide for themselves. This is difficult work and it presents difficulties in getting ahead. In such a system, all the effort expended goes into producing those items essential for survival. Such things as food, clothing and housing are the most important production items. In essence, everything produced is consumed and nothing or very little is saved for the rainy day so to speak.
But eventually, one or more of the people in this primitive society realize that life could be easier if somehow the group managed to save some of the current production. Food might have been the first item that a thinking human might decide is most important to save. In a farming community, the winter months would provide little food and so saving some of the harvest was actually essential for survival over the winter months. Even a hunter/gather community would have recognized that certain times of the year were more productive than others in terms of food production.
As the idea of saving developed, these primitive societies (markets) or rather some members of them realized that not only would the saved goods help carry them through the leaner times of the year but they could be used to help them spend time on making “secondary” items. By secondary I mean tools of various kinds that could be used to help speed up the basic production process or allow more of any given item to be produced.
As you are reading this, you can or perhaps even are applying this to our current situation. Our markets and societies are quite specialized. Individuals are trained for very specific tasks. In fact most of us have nothing to do with food production or the clothing industry or the construction industry. But the items we need for food, clothing and housing are all relatively available in our markets. Actually the specialization which makes this possible is more related to the topic of money than to capital and this topic (money) will be covered on another day. But the point here is that those secondary tools mentioned earlier along with the concept of saving some part of each day’s production constitutes “capital.”
So the very first aspect of capital is the original production of goods required for survival. The second aspect is saving some part of that which is produced. And the third is using the savings to produce secondary tools or equipment or methods that will either speed up the production process or allow more of a specified product to be produced in a give time period.
Two principle ideas come to mind when one considers this idea of capital. The first is that the concept of capital is cumulative. Issac Newton is famous for saying something to the effect “If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” In other words, many of his predecessors produced information which allowed his fertile mind to use and manipulate in ways that had not been possible previously. He said in effect, yes I am brilliant but if the prior ground work had not been done, I would have been quite limited in what I could have accomplished by myself. In the same way, almost everything that is available to us today was made possible by the investments of our predecessors over the centuries. The simple fact is that all those who were willing to use less than they produced so that time and energy could be spent in producing capital resources have made our current world possible. In fact, we owe a debt of gratitude to all of our ancestors who were willing to consume less than they produced.
The second principle is that production must precede the development of capital. Without production, there is no potential to save and without saving there is no capital. So my point in this short essay has been that the idea of a stimulus package is bogus. Again, we have not discussed the concept of money. If we had the concept of money firmly in mind, it would make it even more clear that any stimulus must come from production first. In each of the stimulus packages, nothing was produced other than money. Money was simply created from nothing and inserted into the market. Nothing was produced before the money was created. All the stimulus money does is to produce a greater demand for the existing products on the market which simply means higher prices than would otherwise exist.
But there is one more idea concerning capital which must be discussed. After our ancestors (and we) have used time, energy and savings on capital goods (secondary tools) we recognize that these items will wear out over time as we use them to produce the things we desire either faster or in greater quantity than would be possible without them. Thus we continually save so we can invest in both the up keep of the secondary tools or eventually to replace those tools when they either wear out or become too antiquated to be useful as the modern markets continue to develop. Again, we are back at the production level. It always comes first. Second we must have savings–that is we must consume less than we produce. It is only in savings that we will have the capacity to not just expand our current inventory of secondary goods but we need to maintain and replace those goods we are currently using. Every businessman involved in producing goods understands this and more or less implements this by using some of his company’s profits to repair or replace equipment.
Unfortunately, as a society, we seem not to understand this concept. That is, first we must produce, second we must consume less than we produce and third we must use at least some of those savings to repair and replace existing secondary (capital) goods. When I was a child in the 1940’s and 1950’s, the United States economy was based on production. Some 60 to 70 percent of our economy was production based which led to saving and to investing in capital goods. Today, less than 10% of the US economy is production based. Not surprisingly, the savings rate in this country has hovered around zero for at least the past decade. By savings rate, I mean the percentage amount of disposable income that the average family saves. Interestingly, in China, the average savings rate of disposable income is in the range of 30%. Even more interesting is the fact that China is buying our Treasury notes and bonds. In effect, we are consuming the savings of the average Chinese citizen so we can continue (as a society) to consume more than we produce.
What does all of this mean. Quite simply, we are not investing in our future by maintaining and replacing our capital goods. Instead we have become a consumption based economy. We are actually consuming more than we produce which means that our “capital” is being diminished. Thus our capacity to pass on to our heirs the goods and services we currently have will be reduced. If we provide this kind of lesson to our children and grandchildren, then they also will learn to consume more than they produce. You can see where this leads.
Economic stimulus in the form of money produced from nothing is totally bogus. It is a farce. It’s more than a farce because it helps to blind us to reality which means less goods and services in the future.
Health Care
August 23, 2009 by the law perverted
Health care is an individual responsibility. It is unfortunate that the US government has manipulated this activity to such a large extent. Very few Americans understand either the extent of health care manipulation or their own responsibilities in this regard. The Democrat and Republican parties both have their own versions of a health care program. The Republican version is essentially the Democrat version in a “lite” form. Big deal. Victor David Hanson (VDH) is a Republican mouth piece who spouts supposed reforms from the conservative perspective. It is as I say, just a lite version of the Democrat progam. What is required is a radical revision of health care that just stops the constant government intervention in this arena.
The progam that will resolve the health care “problem ” is explained neatly and cleanly by Hans-Herman Hoppe in a four point essay. It is simple and succinct. It would solve the supposed “problem” but there is no political motivation to implement Hoppe’s program. It is easier for the elites in power to condemn the alternative solutions proposed by the “other” party and to just ignore all other potential solutions.
This is a problem of knowledge and information. Quite simply, most of us do not want to know the truth about anything. We prefer to believe that body of knowledge (even if it is not an accurate knowledge) that we have believed for all of our lives. It is easier to accept past beliefs than it is to challenge those things we have accepted as reality.
August 23, 2009 by the law perverted
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish! –Frederic Bastiat
The central theme of this blog can be traced to the Frenchman, Frederic Bastiat and the quote above taken from the opening lines of his treatise on how The Law had become perverted by the politicians of his time. Bastiat was born in 1801 and died from tuberculosis in 1850.
There are many (both living and dead) who believe(d) that the times in which they lived were unique. Another purpose of this blog is to help clarify this misconception. This blogger believes there is very little that is unique to any given time. Certain aspects of events change but the fundamental characteristics of almost all things are simply a variation of something that has occurred in the past.
The topics on which I plan to blog include the concept of knowledge, history (emphasis on American history), economics, politics, gold and silver, and the theory of money. With respect to economics, my emphasis will be on the Austrian theory. With respect to politics, my emphasis will be on libertarian ideas which are actually closely related to the 17th and 18th century liberal ideas. Of course, I clearly imply that label of ” liberal” today is an entirely different concept from 17th century liberal philosophy.
One should have the opportunity to read Bastiat for himself. If you are so inclined, you can read The Law for your self at this site.