| Title | : | What Has Government Done to Our Money? and The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0945466447 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780945466444 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 191 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1963 |
What Has Government Done to Our Money? and The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar Reviews
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This book, along with "The Mystery of Banking" make for fantastic introductions into the system of economic theory known as the Austrian-School.
Austrian-School economics is the foundation for economic theory among most libertarians. If you've come to regard economics as boring, you're missing out! Austrian-School theory is intuitive, commonsensical, and empowering. It's the only fully integrated theory of economics which can simply and reliably explain (and predict!) the ups and downs of the business cycle, without resorting to dubious claims from psychology and bastardizations of group dynamics.
Other theories, like the Keynesian-School, must use intensely complicated and ultimately fallacious concepts to explain common economic phenomena, making for a disinterested public, and an over-reliance on so-called experts to interpret conditions. It's no surprise then, that Keynesian-School theory is the choice of most modern educational institutions, and the orthodoxy of public policy schools. It's inscrutability and need for expert interpretation lends itself to use by the state as a lever of control.
This book and "Banking", mentioned above, both by renown libertarian scholar Murray Rothbard, give an easy, ground-up primer on the monetary aspect of Austrian-School theory. No prior experience is required. You'll likely find yourself "getting it" almost from the first page. And if you've never been in contact with this way of economic thinking before, get ready for a shock. It'll cause you to question why the mainstream doesn't ever seem to want to look at things this way.
You'll discover here why the gold standard was natural, a great idea, why we (and all modern nations) left it, and how it's not the anachronistic boogey-man mainstream media and economists would like you to think it is. -
Excellent introduction to money and gold dollar.
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6 Oct. 2019 - I have read this book at least a couple times over the last 40 years.
Excellent little book.
It really clearly explains the concept of money and how the Fed (Federal Reserve Board) controls it in the US.
Rothbard has a funky notion about 100% reserve requirement and I believe gets that aspect quite wrong. This is not really a minor problem with this book, but the rest is so good that I still give it 4 stars.
But I urge the thoughtful reader to move on to Mises, in particular the pertinent sections of Human Action, to get the more full and complete story.
There are other critiques of Rothbard, and I will add them as I get that info. -
Murray Rothbard was a great writer, and these two essays are no exception. Though the essays are at times repetitive, his arguments are clearly defined, comprehensively argued and in his typical style adorned with various amusing and interesting anecdotes and examples.
Even decades after being first published these essays will still be of interest to those who want a different perspective on banking from the one found in the average newspaper. After reading the essays, it'd be hard to think that, as is often assured, all is well in the world of finance.
Rothbard concludes his essay The Case for the 100 Percent Gold Dollar with the following statement, aimed at those who would argue that the ideas he advocates are out of touch with the modern world, or even dangerous.'There is no gainsaying the fact that this suggested program will strike most people as impossibly “radical” and “unrealistic”; any suggestion for changing the status quo, no matter how slight, can always be considered by someone as too radical, so that the only thoroughgoing escape from the charge of impracticality is never to advocate any change whatever in existing conditions. But to take this approach is to abandon human reason, and to drift in animal- or plant-like manner with the tide of events.'
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Why do we consider that money, alone among all commodities, needs to be carefully regulated and controlled by a central government and cannot be left in the invisible hands of the free market? What really is money, how it came to be and what is its price? Can its creation and regulation be entrusted to the free market? How did currencies such as the pound and the dollar cease to mean a certain weight of gold and become the fiat moneys they are today?
Those are just a few of the questions answered in this book. It is both engaging and extremely informative. It filled many of the gaps in my appalingly meagre financial education. Highly recommend, even if you don't agree with the author's libertalian views. -
"WHERE'S THE GOLD? LET'S GO GET THE GOLD!!!" --ATHF
Ever wonder why gold's breaking $900 (Jan 2008), or "if our money isn't based on the gold standard anymore, then what is it based on?"
Wonder why our government has rendered our money increasingly worthless for their own power and self-aggrandizement?
This book is pretty damn good if you want to take the red pill and see why our government is leading us to financial ruin.
As a bonus, you can download a pdf copy or read the html version off of the mises.org website. Just google, "rothbard government money." -
'What Has Government Done to Our Money' is considered one of the strongest introductions into monetary theory by many liberty-minded individuals. Rothbard is a literary economist, rather than an academic one, and the unfortunate result is an exploratory work, and not a particularly rigorous one. The only interesting part of this work is a modest exploration of the history of 'money'. Unfortunately, Rothbard skips inductive or deductive methodologies, analysis of monetary data, and any semblance of quasi or true experimental design. Instead, he proposes to move straight into the discussion of policy options. It does not occur to Rothbard that proper inferences can only be drawn when there is data from which to draw!In so doing, Rothbard allows himself to leap from bombastic claim(fractional reserve banking is the primary cause of business cycles) to bombastic conclusion (in a free society, people would institute bank runs to close down fractional reserve banks).
My point is not that Rothbard is mistaken (although he is), but rather that his work lends no justification to his claims, or to any claims, for that matter. It is important that this is recognized for what it is: a man's opinion, not argument. -
many people believe we can go back to the gold standard and that it would cause more monetary and economic stability which not possible today. this book provides excellent knowledge on money and the revolution of money
its a good read. i'd recommend it to whoever is calling to go back to the gold standard,specifically the last two chapters, and what he said about world war I is an explanation on why it is impossible to go back to a gold standard today.
NOTE: read the last edition because since the first edition many content changed. -
Governments change, but
policies rarely seem to.
After all, when the creation of false dilemmas is deemed an occupational necessity, their perpetuation becomes an unspoken imperative. So, regardless of the degree of fiscal conservatism practiced, and monetary policy tightening encouraged; all governments tend to be inherently inflationary.
This assertion itself is not greatly disputed, and Rothbard demonstrates why this is so in the first part of the book; What Has Government Done to Our Money? is a cogent account of the evolution of money to facilitate trade, and of its subsequent appropriation by the states and their agencies, the central banks, that eventually led to the de-linking to the gold standard which kept the overall supply of money in check.
How this in turn has fostered the now-familiar economic boom-bust cycles is also well argued; and economists from the Austrian school can feel vindicated for having predicted the current state of affairs on this basis.
The second part of the book, The Case for the 100 Percent Gold Dollar , is not as persuasive, even if it does possess theoretical merit. For one, on the monetary side, fractional-reserve banking is so well-entrenched that to even contemplate that consumers would pay "warehousing fees" for the safe-keeping of their money, rather than receive an interest income, is rather difficult; not is it clear that governments can effectively provide the desired supply of public goods without being at least somewhat inflationary. -
This is an excellent overview of how and why government interferes with the proper use and role of money in society. Nationalization of currency creates unnatural barriers between nations that don't exist where "hard money" (gold) is used. Governments that are too cowardly to tax their citizens the way they would like to, simply steal their money through inflation. They can only inflate at will if they remove the checks on credit pyramiding. We have no practical checks to inflation left in the modern economic world.
One of the chapters read like a prophecy of the cover of WSJ any of the last 6 months. The hard truth here, is that our monetary system is totally screwed up, and all of the current 'ideas' to correct it will only take us in the wrong direction. A proper cure to our monetary system will hurt, but it won't hurt as bad as the disease we currently have. -
Rothbard argues that federal tampering with money depreciates the value of the dollar, thus increasing inflation. More money in the economy is not necessarily good. If I increase the money supply by 10%, then people have more money to spend on goods. However, in order to make a profit (or not go broke), the entrepreneur must increase his prices by 10%, so we are back at square one.
But it is more sinister than that. The FED, by means of controlling central bank, can create wealth ex nihilo, sort of like God in Genesis 1. The more money they create by means of fraction reserve banking, the less our dollar is worth. Don't believe me? Read a newspaper and see the results. -
An excellent case for the gold standard with intelligent rebuttals to the claimed pitfalls of the same. The essay at the end, Case for the 100 Percent Gold Dollar, is a great short read if you don't have as much time, or if you want to decide whether to read the book, but the book is far more detailed and perhaps even more reader friendly. What is monetary policy? What is even money? Why do even some otherwise free market types yet call for government regulation of money? Is there a place for free market types that take the buck all the way to include even money? This book does an excellent job of addressing these questions and more.
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Rothbard is ever the genius. This review will not do his book justice.
He promotes a free market monetary system with no government control/meddling. He clearly favors a hard metal currency, and a single currency within a country. I am more of a believer in any currency (metal or no) that the free market determines. Thus, I would be more than happy to see concurrent currencies. However, Rothbard does not really broach that issue, he simply mentions it in passing.
The book is good and finishes with a brief overview of the history of government meddling in money. -
Rothbard is the man. His brutally methodical and rational approach to what money is, and what it should be, make his case for a gold standard seem obvious, despite the majority of economists supporting government controlled, fiat currencies and condescendingly mocking 'goldbugs.'
After reading from various sources on inflation, deflation, the gold standard, the merits and evils of saving (aka hoarding) and the role of government in creating and regulating money I am convinced that this is the book to go to. Any argument against a gold standard will have to answer Rothbard to remain credible. -
If you've ever wondered how humanity went from a bartered system of trade to one that uses FIAT currency, you should read this book. Eye-opening and seriously scary stuff from Rothbard regarding our system of currency and its evolution.
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Great short book about why we should go back to the 100% Gold Standard and the history of how we got off the gold standard. Free ebook version available at mises.org.
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As someone who knows nothing about economics this was still quite accessible. The beginning was a really nice introduction on the origins of money with examples for every concept. My only complaint is that as the book progressed the concepts started to get out of hand and there were fewer examples to help out. Some extra background reading is probably recommended. Overall I learned quite a bit.
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A very good, short, easy to read and understand book(s) on money, what it is, what it's used for and some of the problems we currently have regarding it. I liked the history he gave of money and how our government gradually seized control of it via banking and minting. This is a fairly accessible book, I think most people will be able to grasp it. He keeps it pretty basic, which is nice.
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This book is pretty damn good if you want to take the red pill and see why our government is leading us to financial ruin. It was first published 1963, it nicely sums up the backstory of banking. Though many more changes have occurred after the book was written, the crux remains the same.
This is a great introduction to the bubble called "banking". The author discusses Austrian school of economics, explains in a simplest possible way
1. why the gold standard was natural, a great idea,
2. why we (and all modern nations) left it, and
3. how it's not the anachronistic boogey-man mainstream media and economists would like you to think it is.
Add the growing interest towards Cryptocurrency and Decentralised Finance, this is an excellent read.
You can find this book in the form of PDF and epub here for free. -
Straightforward to what is relevant. Highly recommended
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Money is the lifeblood of economy. Monetary system is the nerve system of it. AND... The rest of the statement depends on whom it is coming from. It is there that the unity stops and grave disaccords among various schools of economics - such as mainstream economics (think Krugman) and that of Austrians (think Rothbard) - begin.
A MAINSTREAM economicst would finish it something like this: "And THAT IS WHY IT MUST BE controlled and regulated by the government." An AUSTRIAN would go on saying: "And YET, IT IS controlled and regulated by the government."
I wonder how many of the world central bankers, as well as (mainstream) economists endorsing the necessity for central banks, have read this classic. I am even more curious as to what those who have read it truly think about it.
In any case,
what I truly think is that the fiat paper money system under which the world economies operate today - IMHO being one of the two biggest problems of the world - is a PERNICIOUS system. There are more reasons as to why. To name a few:
1) it is detrimental to economy (in that it hampers the division of labor, specialization, and trade, the very essence of society that has progressed and moved beyond its primitive stage of barter);
2) it is immoral (think redistribution of wealth; worse yet, think redistribution of wealth from the many poor to the few rich);
3) it is destabilizing (think boom and bust cycles; worse yet, think credit-induced artificial, phony boom leading to real, painful bust);
4) it creates environment that encourages the culture of consumerism (please, do not confuse consumerism with capitalism).
I think IT IS HIGH TIME PEOPLE GOT EDUCATED about what system we have (and what system we don’t have), whom it benefits, what money is (and what money is not), what governments/central banks do, what the difference between a savings-induced growth and credit-induced boom is, etc. - all this having serious effects on them.
To get this education, this book is an EXCELLENT choice. I find it extremely well written. In fact, Rothbard is BRILLIANT in it.
A must read for all who long to understand how the money - and by extension, the world - works (think Henry Kissinger, Secretery of State under Nixon and then Ford: "If you control the oil, you control nations. If you control food, you control people. If you control money, you control the world.") -
This was a quick read, and an interesting history of money.
The first part of the book explains how money came about, and how gold (and silver) came to be the most common medium for trade exchange, and also makes a case for how a free market gold standard would work in a fictional (or historic) economy. I liked the historic aspects, but thought the case for a gold standard lacking. There was no mention of the limitations to deal with bubbles (may it be tulips, .com, or real estate), and it was very simplistic in how a gold standard would auto-correct prices in a deflation. Further, inflation is painted as a great evil, but there is no mention of the benefits of a moderate inflation, nor the benefits of avoiding deflation. Instead the focus lies on the dangers of hyperinflation, and government interactions .
The author also made it pretty clear that he considered banking leverage being theft, or fraud, but there is no mention of potential benefits from funding loans (be it start-ups or personal) beyond that of the fixed money supply (the finite resource of gold). It seems to me that we would have much less growth without leverage, so it would have been interesting to read the author's take on that.
The last part of the book explained the international standards from WWI and onward. This was, to me, the most interesting part, since I didn't know much about this prior, and it gave me some understanding of the Bretton Woods stystem, etc. Almost bumped the book up to three stars, but I give it two strong stars. -
An exceptionally educational look at the creation of value, wealth, standard of living and how the theory of exchange that is money interacts with those ideas. Not a political diatribe but a historical panoramic examination of how the entities of government (even from the era of fiefdoms) influenced /polluted the sound principles on which the function of money operates in economic terms. It is a relatively easy "connect the dots" type of exercise for the reader to then derive his/her own observations about the adverse social, political, and economic impacts of polluting the operational basis of money. Whether such be instigated by government or private interest, detriment is the result. Government manipulations however often cause a "double whammy" effect when polluting the principles. Many illustrations of this are given in real world examples.
This book will open your eyes in extremely important ways! READ IT! -
The biggest takeaway from this book is this: money arose spontaneously out of the free market (so much for free market chaos), money is one of man's greatest gifts to himself, government took control of money (i.e., the production and regulation of money) and man has suffered ever since.
The first half of this book is amazing for its brevity and ease of understanding. The last half gets more technical and historical. I'd say that even a fairly advanced middle school student could get a tremendous amount of use out of the first half of this book. -
A thorough explanation of the tyrannical central banks in the world and fiat money. From gold standard to fiat money, history has showed us the disastrous effect it has on inflation. What Has Government Done to Our Money is the Francisco D'Anconia of anarcho capitalism.
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My grandparents bought their house for $24K and later sold it to my parent for $64K. One generation later that house is now on the market for $775K. If you want to know how the government is making that inflation happen, this book will be interesting to you.
