The Theory of Money and Credit (Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises) by Ludwig von Mises

The Theory of Money and Credit (Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises) Reviews

• 
  Luis Jiménez

  If you want to become like Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, you need to read and understand this book, otherwise you will be only an amateur on financial markets, this book alone with Mises 1928 monograph are the best books on money ever, becareful you need to have some background on Menger,Bohm-Bawerk and Banking theories, Take a breath and open your mind into the best book on money ever !
• 
  Petter Gran

  Fourth re-read, this time with gpt4 helping me, still goat. DM for summary.
• 
  Charles Allan

  As most of the Western world continues to believe that monetization of debt has no real consequences, it is important to point out that not everyone shares this view.
  
  Ludwig von Mises's The Theory of Money and Credit takes the opposite view. This book belongs to what is called "The Austrian School" - the concept that the expansion of the money supply and/or credit will have real - although not always apparent - consequences.
  
  The heart of much contention is a debate over the nature of economic activity. Is the economy largely organic or is the economy basically created and guided by the state?
  
  Von Mises, of course, believes that the economy functions best without government intervention in the money supply (which can take many forms).
  
  This is a debate that many people are having, and it behooves you to read up on more specific points like the business cycle, potential price distortions in the market, demand, and international trade.
  
  My favorite point: creating money does not always produce obvious inflation if it prices goods out of the reach of ordinary people. Hmmm.....
• 
  David Mears

  a dense and somewhat difficult book on the nature of money, the reasons for interest, the effects of inflation, and the justifications for metal currency. The arguments that it refutes soundly I still hear today, but they are no more correct now than then, and I think this holds up quite well with the passing of time, and is a good point of reference for arguments against deficit spending and inflationary policies. Far more self consistent than the competition.
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  Strong Extraordinary Dreams

  In the end I couldn't follow this as an audiobook. I didn't abandon it because it wasn't interesting, 'twas very interesting.
  
  Basically monetarism + geography + time + humans. Delivers a constant stream of iinteresting ideas (Keynesiasm as inflationary disaster, inflation as a very uneven redistribution - banks first.)
  
  But this book is from way back, before the current era of a completely false economy
• 
  Arsen Zahray

  This is a nice booklet, but Human Action is a better book, and it contains a section on monetary policy, and this book doesn't add anything to it
• 
  Rommel Monet

  Part Three: Money and Banking > Chapter 19. Money, Credit, and Interest
  
  5. Credit and Economic Crises
  
  Our theory of banking, like that of the currency principle, leads ultimately to a theory of business cycles. It is true that the Currency School did not inquire thoroughly into even this problem. It did not ask what consequences follow from the unrestricted extension of credit on the part of the credit-issuing banks; it did not even inquire whether it was possible for them permanently to depress the natural rate of interest. It set itself more modest aims and was content to ask what would happen if the banks in one country extended the issue of fiduciary media more than those of other countries. Thus it arrived at its doctrine of the "external drain" and at its explanation of the English crises that had occurred up to the middle of the nineteenth century.
  
  If our doctrine of crises is to be applied to more recent history, then it must be observed that the banks have never gone as far as they might in extending credit and expanding the issue of fiduciary media. They have always left off long before reaching this limit, whether because of growing uneasiness on their own part and on the part of all those who had not forgotten the earlier crises, or whether because they had to defer to legislative regulations concerning the maximum circulation of fiduciary media. And so the crises broke out before they need have broken out. It is only in this sense that we can interpret the statement that it is apparently true after all to say that restriction of loans is the cause of economic crises, or at least their immediate impulse; that if the banks would only go on reducing the rate of interest on loans they could continue to postpone the collapse of the market. If the stress is laid upon the word postpone, then this line of argument can be assented to without more ado. Certainly, the banks would be able to postpone the collapse; but nevertheless, as has been shown, the moment must eventually come when no further extension of the circulation of fiduciary media is possible. Then the catastrophe occurs, and its consequences are the worse and the reaction against the bull tendency of the market the stronger, the longer the period during which the rate of interest on loans has been below the natural rate of interest and the greater the extent to which roundabout processes of production that are not justified by the state of the capital market have been adopted.
• 
  Jared Tobin

  Being on a particular topic in economics, The Theory of Money and Credit struck me as a clearer and more focused effort than did Mises's magnus opus, the possibly better-known Human Action. There is no waxing on the virtues of praxeology here; instead, Mises writes exhaustively and with precision solely on the natures of money and credit, and almost always with a dispassionate, analytical, and careful disposition (pace Rothbard, for example). The result is a lengthy tome on money and credit, written by a master, as far as one could understand the subject prior to the Great Depression.
  
  And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much knowledge of the subject has really improved since. Surely as far as micro is concerned there is little that Mises has left out (probably the most interesting, developed after Mises published this work, would be game-theoretic explanations for the emergence of monetary standards via coordination games). From a macro standpoint -- I'm afraid I can't really say. I feel as if almost all of 20th century macro can be dispensed outright; I'll have to review what I think I know about the Depression and the monetarists and such and see if, in hindsight & post-Mises, I reckon anyone from Keynes onward actually had anything useful to contribute. There's probably something or other useful that I'm forgetting, but somehow I doubt I'll reckon that Mises missed very much.
• 
  kz

  The first two-thirds of this book is legitimately interesting with Ludwig Von Mises thoughts on the price of gold’s effect on the creditor-debtor relationship and how the government turning to the printer in order to pay national debts gives banks that offer access to credit a heads up to increase interest on extending credit. This and how the banks work more together cooperatively opposed to be in strict competition with each other as banks rely on other banks not to fail to not lose consumer trust in their monetary deposits. Several goods points in here and I like most of what Mises was saying about inflation and inflationary policies. I don’t agree that going back to the gold standard is a worthy idea but I feel like I left this text with a better understanding of Golds importance as a store of value.
  
  The last third of the book though is just Mises trying to push “individual freedoms” of laisez-faire capitalism and thinks muttering this line is enough to sink the idea of central planning and socialist economics. Saying multiple times how deep critical analysis is required but continues to give a dogmatic defense of the invisible hand of the market and the gold standard as means to stop “totalitarian” government practices.
  
• 
  Benjamin Brasford

  Awesome read. Very comprehensive. I will be reading this one again. It is difficult to review this book. The original content and the addendum that Mises made later are well worth the read. Both the original content and the addendum, Part Four, are within this binding and edition. I recommend that anyone who cares about Economics, whether you are of the Austrian School persuasion or not, read this book.
• 
  Radu

  Although a little dated, the majority of Ludwig Von Mises' arguments regarding government intervention being the primary cause of uncontrollable inflation without a gold standard to stabilise currency still hold water even today... and it wouldn't be a book by Von Mises unless he continued in his criticisms towards socialist and Keynesian monetary theory.
  
  Definitely something to read slowly, but still an excellent and insightful read.
• 
  Kurt Rocourt

  There's a lot of stuff in this book. That's the problem with this book. There are plenty of theories, facts and differing ideas but their all over the place. Thiz is more of a text book then a book many may want to read. The main idea ends up being stick to gold. That sounds great but keep in mind this book was written in the middle of the last century. The few ideas that connect to current times are spread out so be prepared for lots of information but put in a boring presentation.
• 
  Shem Doupé

  This really gets good about half way through and it really gets interesting after about chapter 29 when he talks about inflation. But really, this was a longggg book and it was work to get through.
  
  If you want Austrian Economics (economics) then read Thomas Sowell. If nothing else this has just really solidified my admiration and appreciation of Sowell's ability to communicate economic ideas.
• 
  Matthias

  Good read if you want to understand what money was until 1500-1600, useless if you want to actually understand money after that. LvM insists on bringing forward his own personal opinions regardless of 400+ years of historical evidence falsifying them. Much more annoying than this fact, of course, are the ones who, more than a hundred years later, point to this book saying it was right: surreal.
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  KAIZOS

  The best book on money ever written in history. Mises saw the future and accurately predicted and warned us of the consequences. I wish the whole world would read this book, but unfortunately it is very dense.
• 
  Chris Richardson

  Dense
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  Hodey Johns

  Amazing concepts, more about currency than economy. Very hard to read, doesn't flow well, but the single line quotes are among the best you'll find in any novel.
• 
  Eve

  Stopped at page 60, not engaging
• 
  Roger James Delavera

  A tough read, but well worth it. Much more accessible than Human Action. A good primer on Austrian economics, and an alternative viewpoint from the conventional Keynesian economic thought.
• 
  Theodore Wright

  Certainly not my favorite work from the notoriously overrated Mises. But still a good and light read for beginners to the Austrian School.
• 
  Richard Marney

  This was reading number two. Product warning - I am not a believer in the Austrian School (non-interventionism in the a world of periodic, weak aggregate demand, long-term unemployment and growing inequality makes no sense to me on a human level, nor as an economist). As we all know, it is challenging to read what one disputes. This is especially true with faced with turgid and convulated prose. Slow and painful progress. In this book, the theory of money is not realistic, even if giving allowance for time of the study's publication. In the contemporary world, the view of a money as simple transactional commodity, as opposed to the true roles money and monetary policy must play, seems the stuff of a goecentric view of the heavens. On a laughable, but still scary note, I seem to remember a recent Republican VP candidate saying she carried this book with her to the beach......
  
• 
  Sean Rosenthal

  Interesting Quotes:
  
  "Arguments from authority are invalid; the proof of a theory is in its reasoning, not in its sponsorship."
  
  -Ludwig von Mises, the Theory of Money and Credit
  
  "The increase in the quantity of money does not mean an increase of income for all individuals. On the contrary, those sections of the community that are the last to be reached by the additional quantity of money have their incomes reduced, as a consequence of the decrease in the value of money called forth by the increase in its quantity."
  
  -Ludwig von Mises, the Theory of Money and Credit
  
  "There cannot be stable money within an environment dominated by ideologies hostile to the preservation of economic freedom...The ruling parties will certainly not consent to reforms that would deprive them of their most formidable weapon, inflation. Monetary reconstruction presupposes...an unconditional rejection of those allegedly progressive policies...designated by the slogans New Deal and Fair Deal."
  
  -Ludwig von Mises, the Theory of Money and Credit
• 
  Adrián Sánchez

  Es otra de las obras de economistas austríacos que describen la realidad actual, a pesar de que tiene más de 100 años de haber sido publicado, en este se explica con detalle el ciclo económico y cómo debido a la manipulación centralizada del dinero pueden causar crisis económicas, es decir, las deliberadas y arbitrarias medidas de los banco centrales crean señales erróneas en el mercado sobre el comportamiento del dinero creando la típicas burbujas que conocemos actualmente.
  
  Me sorprende que esta clase de obras hayan existido incluso antes del famoso crash del 29 el cual fue causado por las medidas que aquí se describen, es una lástima que el parche de aquella crisis haya creado el keynesianismo que ha mantenido una fuerte influencia estatal en la sociedad hasta nuestro días, no siendo la cura para el verdadero problema que es el estatismo.
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  Aaron Crofut

  I've read many books that could be described as dry or dense and they all seem to deal with the field of economics. I didn't find much to really disagree with but I also didn't find a whole lot that really stuck with me, either. I found myself skimming over large sections of review of 19th century economics/economic theory or sections that just repeated what the author had said already or sections that stated the obvious. Not worth the time in my opinion.