Economic Theory Connects Gold to Money

New Mexico 2026 Mises Circle Mark Thornton

Tags: Business Cycles, Cantillon, Gold Standard, Monetary Theory

08/15/2026 Kevin Duffy

Mark Thornton uses Austrian theory to explain where money came from — Menger’s bottom-up origin of money — and why gold makes for sound money and smaller government.

Recorded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on August 15, 2026. Special thanks to George and Sally Gundrey for sponsoring this event.

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

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Economic Theory Connects Gold to Money