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Money and Banking
Banking
Against the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States
1791
by Thomas Jefferson
Anarchist Finance, or What Price Ancapistan?
by Mark Gillespie
"A mutual savings and credit association (MSCA) is the perfect solution on many
levels. For one, they are mostly unregulated. They are not banks. Secondly,
they can operate using whatever currency they wish. Thirdly, because of the
mutual aspect of the association, there is an emphasis upon shared responsibility
and shared profits."
Banking for Free: Banking in a Free Society
by Bobby Yates Emory
There will be more banking options in a free society.
"Market forces will select the solution that provides the best
combination of safety and efficiency."
Banking on Aggression
by Mary J. Ruwart
"We established the "money monopoly" in the hopes of creating economic stability. By
using aggression as our means, we created boom-and-bust cycles instead."
Banking Without Regulation
by Lawrence H. White
"How well would the banking system work if there were no government regulation? One
way to begin answering this question is to examine the historical record. In the
nineteenth century many countries had relatively unregulated banking systems with few
or none of the restrictions that face American banks today: legal barriers to new entry,
deposit insurance, geographic and activity restrictions, reserve requirements, and
protection of favored banks from failure. Because these systems were so different from
today’s, they throw valuable light on the possible consequences of completely
deregulating banking in the future."
Banking Without the Too-Big-to-Fail Doctrine
by Richard M. Salsman
"In conclusion, I want to stress that the “too-big-to-fail” doctrine is part and parcel
of a wider system of central banking that undermines the financial condition of the
banking system. The sooner we phase out this system in favor of free banking and the
rule of law, the better off we will be. In other words, repealing the “too-big-to-fail”
doctrine will be a good start, but it won’t go far enough in curing what really ails
the banks."
Bank privacy hypocrisy
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Banks Cannot Create Money
by Jörg Guido Hülsmann
"Central banking and related institutions were not created de novo but as responses
(however misguided) to prior problems caused by fractional-reserve banking. Contrary
to Selgin, the only permanent beneficiaries of fractional-reserve banking are the
bankers themselves."
Commercial Banking in a Free Society
by Steven Horowitz
"Banks in a free society will be literally nothing special. ... If they
are fraudulent or use force, they need to face the consequences. ... The
result will not only be a more free banking system, but a more efficient,
safe, and productive one."
Ending the Federal Reserve
by Mary Ruwart
"Libertarians object to the Federal Reserve and other central banks because they
ultimately steal the wealth of the citizenry through a mechanism that causes price
inflation. Central banks expand the money supply at will, thereby diluting the purchasing
power of the average person's salary and savings."
Fractional Reserve Banking
by Murray N. Rothbard
"The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution
(fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart
whenever the public finally understands the swindle?"
Fractional versus 100% Reserve Banking
by Morris J. Markovitz
"As the fractional reservers point out, there’s nothing wrong with loan-brokering.
What’s wrong is forcing people to deposit into a loan-brokering scheme by forbidding
the alternative, while simultaneously falsely advertising the loan-broker outfit as
a safe warehouse. That’s what today’s banking system does and both sides would agree
that it’s wrong."
Government, Fiscal Responsibility, and Free Banking
by Richard Ebeling
"If the belief in and desire for personal and economic liberty gains hold and grows,
monetary and fiscal reform will eventually come by logical necessity."
Market Money and Free Banking
by Bettina Bien Greaves
"The monetary problem that the advocates of free banking are trying to solve, as
described by modern monetary economists, is very complex. But this complexity is
not a consequence of the economics of money. Rather it is caused by governmental,
not economic, factors—especially the designation of government’s notes as legal
tender for the payment of debts. The complexity of the monetary situation is the
outcome of many regulations and controls."
The Mystery of Banking
by Murray N. Rothbard
This book explains and critiques fractional-reserve banking.
A Note on Credit Institutions in a Free Nation
by Roderick Long
Corrects and clarifies Roy Halliday's article
Money, Banking
and the Gambling-Stakes Paradign for Loan Collateral and Labor Contracts.
The revised version of Roy Halliday's article is The
Gambling-Stakes Paradigm for Loans and Labor Contracts.
Privatize Deposit Insurance
by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
"Only one solution can overcome moral hazards in the banking and thrift
industries: private deposit insurance. The government must dissolve the FDIC and FSLIC
and remove all remaining regulations upon depository institutions. The first step would
permit the competitive forces of the market to arrange actuarially sound insurance that
protects depositors without subsidizing insolvency. The second step would help
depository institutions gain the geographical and asset diversity necessary to shore up
liquidity during runs."
Should We Let Banks Create Money?
by George Selgin
"Some economists of the Austrian school oppose fractional-reserve banking on the grounds
that it is inherently fraudulent, pro-cyclical and unstable. These critics should focus
their wrath on repressive financial legislation and central-bank mischief, not on a
legitimate practice that encourages savings and investment."
State-Tamperings with Money and Banks
1858
by Herbert spencer
"If Government will promptly execute the law against all defaulters, the self-interest
of bankers and traders will do the rest: such evils as would still result from mercantile
dishonesties and imprudences, being evils which legal regulation may augment but cannot
prevent."
Swiss Bank Secrecy Lives
July 27, 2003
by Rob Vrijhof
"The Swiss government and its people will continue to stand up for
financial freedom, self-determination and our long standing tradition
and legal principal of bank secrecy. That's one important reason why
more than one third of the world's offshore funds are entrusted to Swiss management."
Toward Free Banking
by Donald R. Wells and L.S. Scruggs
"Most economists consider money to be a special good that should be controlled by the
national government. But advocates of free banking consider money a private good which,
as any other good, must meet the market test of acceptability. Let us consider the
advantages of free banking, and see how such a system might be implemented in the
United States."
Victimological Banking
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Banks should be prudent rather than indiscriminate.
What’s Wrong with the IMF? What Would Be Better?
by Allan H. Meltzer
"Created in 1944 to help stabilize debtor countries, the International Monetary Fund
today is a source of instability, chiefly through its subsidies of risky bank loans
and penalties on sound ones. The time has come to rely more on bank capital and
market-based incentives to strengthen the international financial system."
Why Private Banks and Not Central Banks Should Issue Currency, Especially
in Less Developed Countries
April 19, 2000
by Lawrence H. White and George Selgin
"What would a private currency system look like? As in Scotland and Northern Ireland
today, domestic banks would issue circulating notes denominated in and directly
redeemable for foreign-currency assets (there, Bank of England notes). Each note would
clearly carry the name of the issuing bank whose liability it is. Any bank that tried
to issue too many notes would find them being deposited into other banks, and returning
via the clearing system for redemption in reserve money. "
Why Not Monetary Freedom?
by Richard M. Ebeling
"In all of the commentaries that have appeared since President George W. Bush nominated
Dr. Ben S. Bernanke as Alan Greenspan’s successor at the Federal Reserve, there has been
one crucial question that has remained virtually unasked: Why do we need a central bank
and therefore a new chairman for the Fed?"
Your Privacy again in danger:
FATF Strikes Again.
July 18, 2003
by Bob Bauman
"Sovereign Society suggests a way to counter FATF and
protect your financial privacy."
Coinage
On Private Coinage
by Murray N. Rothbard
Appendix A of
Private Coinage in America
by Brian Summers
The Rise of the State and the Decline of Coins
by Jacob Halbrooks
"Coins were once valuable because of their contents, the artwork on them, and the fact
that they were minted into specific weights; now they are valuable because the government
tells us they are."
Counterfeit Money
Abolish Legal Tender
by D. Alexander Moseley
"Legal tender laws effectively have nationalized currencies, making them the
prerogative of the state. Economics teaches that money cannot be invented or
created by decree, that it is very much the result of traders’ decisions across
many markets and over much time. It is time to return currency to the market."
Constitution or Competition? Alternative Views on Monetary Reform
by Pamela J. Brown
"Economists have clearly articulated the need for reform of the existing monetary system.
The available alternatives for change have in recent years also taken clear and
unambiguous shape: either continued yet constrained monopoly or free-market
competition in the supply of currency. The case for competition rather than constitutional
restriction seems at present to be far stronger."
The Failure of State Money and the Case for Monetary Individualism
by Simon McIlwaine
The Fed Is Lifeblood to the Root of Evil
by Alexander Baker
"Central banking makes possible the expansion of government power in all forms,
most particularly the wicked godfather of all government programs: war. Without
central banking, it is doubtful that any of the great wars of the 20th century,
or the current debacle in Iraq , would have ever taken place, certainly not on
the scale we have seen."
Fractional Reserve Banking
by Murray N. Rothbard
"The very idea of "deposit insurance" is a swindle; how does one insure an institution
(fractional reserve banking) that is inherently insolvent, and which will fall apart
whenever the public finally understands the swindle?"
Money for Nothing
by Jacob Halbrooks
"Austrian economists have demonstrated that there is no benefit for an increasing
money supply. No benefit, of course, to the majority of people who use the money,
but much benefit to those who create the money. Money is the medium of exchange for
nearly all trades, and it is the very lifeblood of the economy. The government that
controls the money supply therefore has great influence on the economy, and the result,
aside from a continuously devalued dollar and wealth confiscation, is a cycle of booms
and recessions. If the country operated on a sound currency, it is likely that prices
for goods would actually decrease over time, and there would be no way for any entity
to silently steal from the people. Interest rates, which reflect the time-preference
of capital formation versus consumption, would be dictated by the natural forces of the
economy, and the business cycle would die out. Instead, we are saddled with a system
that distorts the true wishes of millions of people voluntarily interacting and enriches
a few privileged bankers and politicians at the expense of the people. The Federal
Reserve must be abolished."
Money, the State and Modern Mercantilism
by Murray N. Rothbard
The Moral Issue of Honest Money
by Gary North
"The appeal of specie metals is not the lure of magical talismans, as some critics of
gold seem to imply. Gold is not a barbarous relic. Gold is a metal which, over millennia,
has become acceptable as a means of payment in a highly complex institutional
arrangement: the monetary system. Gold is part of civilization’s most important economic
institution, the division-of-labor-based monetary system. Without this division of labor,
which monetary calculation has made possible, most of the world’s population would be
dead within a year, and probably within a few weeks. The alternative to the free market
social order is government tyranny, some military- based centralized allocation system.
Any attempt by the state to alter men’s voluntary decisions in the area of exchange,
including their choice of exchange units, represents the true relic of barbarism, namely,
the use of force to determine the outcome of men’s decisions."
Paper Money and Tyranny
September 30, 2003
by Ron Paul
"Liberty is virtually impossible to protect when the people allow their government to
print money at will. Inevitably, the left will demand more economic interventionism,
the right more militarism and empire building.
Both sides, either inadvertently or deliberately, will foster corporatism."
The Solution
by Murray N. Rothbard
"To save our economy from destruction and from the eventual holocaust of run away
inflation, we the people must take the money-supply function back from the government.
Money is far too important to be left in the hands of bankers and of Establishment
economists and financiers. To accomplish this goal, money must be returned to the market
economy, with all monetary functions performed within the structure of the rights of
private property and of the free-market economy."
Taking Money Back
by Murray N. Rothbard
"There is no aspect of the free-market economy that has suffered more scorn and contempt
from "modern" economists, whether frankly statist Keynesians or allegedly
"free market" Chicagoites, than has gold. Gold, not long ago hailed as the basic staple
and groundwork of any sound monetary system, is now regularly denounced as a "fetish" or,
as in the case of Keynes, as a "barbarous relic." Well, gold is indeed a "relic" of
barbarism in one sense; no "barbarian" worth his salt would ever have accepted the phony
paper and bank credit that we modern sophisticates have been bamboozled into using as
money."
Taking Money Back: Part I
Part II: Fractional Reserve Banking
Part III: The Solution
by Murray N. Rothbard
"To save our economy from destruction and from the eventual holocaust of run away
inflation, we the people must take the money-supply function back from the government.
Money is far too important to be left in the hands of bankers and of Establishment
economists and financiers. To accomplish this goal, money must be returned to the
market economy, with all monetary functions performed within the structure of the
rights of private property and of the free-market economy."
What has government done to our money?
by Murray N. Rothbard
Why the Business Cycle Happens
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Mises’ theory shows the complete workings of the boom-bust cycle: the inflationary
injection of bank credit, fostered by government; a boom marked by malinvestments caused
by inflation’s tampering with the signals of the free market; the end of inflation
revealing these unfortunate malinvestments; and finally, the depression as the correction
by the free market of the wastes and distor*tions of the boom."
Genuine Money
The Case for a Genuine Gold Dollar
by Murray N. Rothbard
"It is my contention that there should be no mystery about the unusual chronic inflation
plaguing the world since the 1930s. The dollar is the American currency unit (and the
pound sterling, the franc, the mark, and the like, are equivalent national currency
units), and since 1933, there have been no effective restrictions on the issue of these
currencies by the various nation-states. In effect, each nation-state, since 1933, and
especially since the end of all gold redemption in 1971, has had the unlimited right and
power to create paper currency which will be legal tender in its own geographic area. It
is my contention that if any person or organization ever obtains the monopoly right to
create money, that person or organization will tend to use this right to the hilt. The
reason is simple: Anyone or any group empowered to manufacture money virtually out of
thin air will tend to exercise that right, and with considerable enthusiasm. For the
power to create money is a heady and profitable privilege indeed."
Digital Cash and Monetary Freedom
by Jon W. Matonis
"Hard Money" in the Voluntaryist Tradition
by Carl Watner
"In the Southeast during the Civil War it became customary to specify the settlement
of monetary obligations in "Becthler gold" rather than Union coin or Confederate or
state currencies. A similar preference manifested itself in Colorado, where Clark,
Gruber & Co. coins were the preffered media of exchange during the same era."
Market Money and Free Banking
by Bettina Bien Greaves
"The monetary problem that the advocates of free banking are trying to solve, as
described by modern monetary economists, is very complex. But this complexity is
not a consequence of the economics of money. Rather it is caused by governmental,
not economic, factors—especially the designation of government’s notes as legal
tender for the payment of debts. The complexity of the monetary situation is the
outcome of many regulations and controls."
The Micropolitics of Free Market Money: A Proposal
by Antoine Clarke
Money And Freedom by Hans F. Sennholz
reviewed by Richard A. White
"Books which espouse sound economic analysis are essential if the present monetary
system is to be reformed. Sennholz’s Money and Freedom is such a book. It
provides explanations of past mistakes and solutions to present problems. The clarity
with which Sennholz expresses his ideas makes complicated economic ideas understandable
to the reader, and even those who disagree with Sennholz will benefit from his analysis.
The government money monopoly has failed. Only when freedom is restored to money will
a sound currency be established."
Money and How to Privatise It: An Introduction
by Roderick Moore
Money and the Individual
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Ludwig von Mises's The Theory of Money and Credit is, quite simply, one of the
outstanding contributions to economic thought in the twentieth century. It came as the
culmination and fulfillment of the "Austrian School" of economics, and yet, in so doing,
founded a new school of thought of its own."
Money in a Free Nation
by Joanna Parker
Presents a good case for hard money and e-gold.
Gold
The Case for a Genuine Gold Dollar
by Murray N. Rothbard
Combine the Power of the Internet and the Gold Standard
by Wayne Dawson
The e-gold system, which already exists, would be a suitable medium
of exchange for a libertarian nation.
The Gold Standard
by Ludwig von Mises
"Men have chosen the precious metals gold and silver for the money service on account
of their mineralogical, physical, and chemical features. The use of money in a market
economy is a praxeologically necessary fact. That gold--and not something else--is used
as money is merely a historical fact and as such cannot be conceived by catallactics. In
monetary history too, as in all other branches of history, one must resort to historical
understanding. If one takes pleasure in calling the gold standard a "barbarous relic,"
one cannot object to the application of the same term to every historically determined
institution. Then the fact that the British speak English--and not Danish, German, or
French--is a barbarous relic too, and every Briton who opposes the substitution of
Esperanto for English is no less dogmatic and orthodox than those who do not wax
rapturous about the plans for a managed currency."
Gold Versus Fractional Reserves
by Henry Hazlitt
How Gold Was Money--How Gold Could Be Money Again
by Richard H. Timberlake
"The only way to ensure that gold becomes a viable money is first to separate the
gold from the state and the state from any further role in the operation of a gold
money. Indeed, the separation of gold and the state would begin as an economizing
measure--a form of privatization. Here are all those thousands of tons of gold lying
idle and useless. Give them back to the people from whom the gold was unconstitutionally
snatched in 1934."
How to Return to Gold
by Henry Hazlitt
How to Return to the Gold Standard
by Bettina Bien Greaves
"Let's consider possible ways for transforming our present paper and credit monetary
system, based on fractional reserve banking, into a gold standard. There may be better
ways and worse ways. Unfortunately the science of economics cannot prescribe a correct,
scientific or “right” way. It can only help us choose among alternatives by analyzing
their various consequences. A review of monetary history will also be helpful."
A Private-Enterprise Gold Standard?
by W. J. Brogdon, Jr.
"With all the debate about establishing a gold standard and multinational fiat money,
why can’t businesses simply quote the prices of their products in gold? Why indeed
can’t they establish a de facto gold standard? One tiny company is betting that it
can be a start."
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