Mises on Money

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) made a major contribution to the theory of money with the publication of his book, The Theory of Money and Credit (1912). He was 31 years old. It was translated into English in 1924. It was updated in 1934. The 1934 edition was reprinted, without changes except for an appendix, in 1953 by Yale University Press. It had previously been published in England.

He followed this path-breaking book with what has proven to be one of the most important essays in the history of economic theory: “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth” (1920). In it, he argued that without capital markets based on private ownership, socialist central planners are economically blind. They cannot know either the economic value or the price of capital goods. Therefore, they cannot know which resources should be allocated to meet the desires of consumers, including the State itself. He expanded this essay into a book, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (1922). A second German edition appeared in 1932, the year before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. This was the edition used to translate the English-language edition, published in 1951 by Yale University Press. Mises added an Epilogue, which began with these words: “Nothing is more unpopular today than the free market economy, i.e., capitalism.” It ended with these words: “Not mythical ‘material productive forces,’ but reason and ideas determine the course of human affairs. What is needed to stop the trend towards socialism and despotism is common sense and moral courage.”

More than any other economist, it was Mises who offered the most detailed theoretical critique of socialism. But, as it turned out, it was not sound ideas, but the economic irrationality of socialist economic planning that finally undermined the envy-driven, power-loving, statist religion of socialism. Socialism by 1989 had bankrupted its most powerful incarnation, the Soviet Union. When it fell in 1991, socialist economists found themselves with few followers. Overnight, socialism had become a joke. Books on “what Marx really meant” filled the “books for a buck” bins in college-town bookstores. Socialist professors never had a plausible economic theory; they had only tenure. As the pro-socialist and millionaire economics textbook author Robert Heilbroner finally admitted in The New Yorker in 1990, “Mises was right.” Heilbroner’s ideological academic peers have not been equally honest over the last two decades.

Mises’s last major book was Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Yale University Press, 1949). Human Action presented a comprehensive theory of the free market on the one hand and an equally comprehensive critique of economic interventionism by civil government on the other.

The timing of the publication of Human Action could not have been worse. It was the year after the publication of Paul Samuelson’s textbook, Economics, which went on to sell four million copies and shape economics students’ thinking without significant opposition for almost two decades. It is still in print. By 1949, the Keynesian revolution was in full operation in American classrooms outside of the University of Chicago. In contrast, Mises was a little-known Austrian immigrant whose major theoretical contributions to economics were long forgotten, relics of an ante-bellum, pre-Keynesian world. He was teaching in an academically peripheral university that did not even bother to pay him out of its own funds. His salary was paid by a handful of supporters, most notably Lawrence Fertig. There Mises taught his graduate seminars until 1969, when he retired at age 88. He died in 1973, making him ineligible for the Nobel Prize in economic science. The next year, his former disciple, F. A. Hayek, shared the Nobel Prize with socialist Gunnar Myrdal. (It was said at the time that Hayek never expected to win it, and Myrdal never expected to share it.) Hayek won in part on the basis of his theory of the business cycle, developed in the 1930s, which was based almost entirely on Mises’s Theory of Money and Credit, and also for his theory of the free market as a transmitter of accurate information, a theory developed originally by Mises in Socialism, which had converted Hayek from his youthful socialist leanings, as he later said publicly. But Hayek had used a few charts in the 1930s. Mises never did. Hayek was clearly scientific; Mises clearly wasn’t. Thus is academic performance rewarded by the economics profession.

In the war of ideas against monetary debasement and then socialism, Mises served as the lone Marine who led the initial assaults against the statists’ machine gun nests in academia. He did it from outside academia’s walls. The University of Vienna never hired its most distinguished economics graduate. Hayek was part of the third wave: Mises’s early disciples, who began volunteering for duty in the early 1920s. These included Lionel Robbins, Wilhelm Röpke, and several world-famous economists who by 1940 had left “military service” to become part of the “diplomatic corps,” seeking a cease-fire with the enemy. For this, they were rewarded well by the enemy: major publishing houses, academic tenure, and the honorary presidency of at least one regional economics association. Yet at age 88, Mises was still tossing grenades at the enemy’s bunkers. (Hayek also remained on duty in the field, but he was always more of a sniper.)

In summarizing Mises’s theory of money, I draw heavily on his two major works that dealt with monetary theory, The Theory of Money and Credit and Human Action, plus a few minor books. I cover five themes: the definition of money; the optimum quantity of money, and how to achieve it; the myth of neutral money and its corollary, stable prices; fractional reserve banking, and how to inhibit it; and the monetary theory of the business cycle. They are closely interrelated. Mises’s system was a system.

I wrote this book in five days in late January 2002. I did so in response to Jude Wanniski’s decision to publish an e-mail exchange I had with him on the gold standard.1 He led off with this:

Both North and Rockwell have been disagreeing with my contention that the U.S. has been in the grip of a monetary deflation for the past five years, insisting a deflation does not occur until price indices are in negative territory. And like the monetarists, they point out that the monetary aggregates have been growing, which to them is a sign of inflation, not deflation.

As of early 2012, consumer prices are up 26 percent since 2002.2 In short, Wanniski was as bad in predicting price deflation as he was in defending the case for gold.

I was always convinced that Wanniski did not understand Mises, Austrian School economics, or the traditional gold standard, yet he repeatedly claimed Mises as an early supply-side economist. Mises was no supply-side economist. Wanniski’s decision to publish our exchange finally pushed me over the edge. When I go over the edge, I usually write something. Mises on Money was the result.

Wanniski refused to respond in print. He had a staffer write a response.3 The staffer tried to argue, as Wanniski had argued, that modern Austrian School economists, especially those in the Rothbard tradition, are not “true” Austrian School economists, and that the supply-siders are the true heirs—a contention that no other supply-side economist previously argued. They knew better. Gene Callahan responded to this response a few days later. His response was posted on LewRockwell.com on January 31. (http://bit.ly/gcgnlewis)

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4“Exchange With an Austrian” (Jan. 2, 2002). (http://bit.ly/NorthWanniski)

5Inflation calculator, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (http://bit.ly/BLScalc)

6Nathan Lewis, “The Austrian School and the ‘Austrian’ School.” (http://bit.ly/LewisOnMises)

• 1“Exchange With an Austrian” (Jan. 2, 2002). (http://bit.ly/NorthWanniski)
• 2Inflation calculator, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (http://bit.ly/BLScalc)
• 3Nathan Lewis, “The Austrian School and the ‘Austrian’ School.” (http://bit.ly/LewisOnMises)
• 4I wrote this book in five days in late January 2002. I did so in response to Jude Wanniski’s decision to publish an e-mail exchange I had with him on the gold standard. He led off with this:
• 5As of early 2012, consumer prices are up 26 percent since 2002. In short, Wanniski was as bad in predicting price deflation as he was in defending the case for gold.
• 6Wanniski refused to respond in print. He had a staffer write a response. The staffer tried to argue, as Wanniski had argued, that modern Austrian School economists, especially those in the Rothbard tradition, are not “true” Austrian School economists, and that the supply-siders are the true heirs—a contention that no other supply-side economist previously argued. They knew better. Gene Callahan responded to this response a few days later. His response was posted on LewRockwell.com on January 31. (http://bit.ly/gcgnlewis)