Copyright Page
COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY
SQUIER PUBLISHING CO., INC.
20 BROAD STREET, NEW YORK 5, N. Y.
All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Publisher’s Foreword
The author of this volume is Dr. L. Albert Hahn, an internationally known economist, who came to this country in 1941 after having lived in Germany and Switzerland. He is the author of the Volkswirtschaftliche Theorie des Bankkredits (Economic Theory of Bank Credit) which appeared in three editions, and of many pamphlets and contributions to scientific journals, as well as innumerable articles in well-known dailies. These writings covered the economic events in Germany from the days of the Great Inflation to the times of the Great Depression.
Acknowledgments
For permission to use quotations from The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by J. M. Keynes I am indebted to Harcourt, Brace and Company, publishers, 383 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y.
For permission to reprint pages 327 to 334 of German Monetary Theory, 1905-1933, by Howard S. Ellis I am indebted to Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
For permission to reprint articles written by me and previously published I am indebted to:
The Banking Law Journal, Cambridge, Mass.
Introduction
By HENRY HAZLITT
Dr. L. Albert Hahn has long enjoyed a high reputation in Europe, as well as among German-speaking and German-reading economists throughout the world. But linguistic barriers, unfortunately, are still real. Economic thought is not yet an international unit. It is still broken to a large extent into nationalistic or linguistic compartments, which tend to influence each other only sluggishly and often with a deplorable time lag. That is the only reason why Albert Hahn needs any introduction to American readers.
1. Introductory: Cycles in Monetary Theory and Policy
2. Should a Government Debt, Internally Held, Be Called a Debt at All?
Professor Alvin Hansen and Mr.
3. The Illusion of the War Boom
Undoubtedly an increasing number of people begin to consider the war boom as a highly beneficial phenomenon. They see in its mechanism a simple remedy, if not the remedy, for most economic difficulties and especially unemployment. “The war has proved that full employment can be created through government spending.
4. Capital Is Made at Home
Plans for the export of American capital to the European continent after the war are being widely discussed. The opposition generally argues that the loans will again lead to losses, this time for the taxpayer, since they would be granted through the government rather than by private investors.
5. Don’t Predict Postwar Deflation—Prevent It!
Deflation—Prevent It!1
The country is swamped with predictions about Postwar Business. They run all the way from lasting prosperity to hopeless depression. How much weight should be attached to these predictions?
6. Compensating Reactions to Compensatory Spending
In the plans for maintaining full employment after the war that flood the country, governmental “compensatory” spending plays a major role. Only a few proposals mention the question of adjustment that was so prominent in the earlier literature on the liquidation of booms.
