Volume 6, No. 4 (Winter 2003) Mainstream writings on monetary policy typically focus on the goals that are assumed to be the goals of monetary altogether and gives way to a description of the technicalities of open market policies, discount rates, reserve requirements, and so on. In the present article, we only through its focus on the production of money. We also take the case of money competition—parallel production and use of several monies—to be the rule rather than
banks that are endowed with special legal prerogatives to protect them from competition. Central banks are therefore able to produce immaterial fiat money, in It is our hope that the present book will be helpful in assessing the different policy options. However, the main focus of this work is not on economic policy, but
and accountability to the U.S. central bank and “to subject the Fed’s monetary policy and discount-lending actions to an audit by the Government Accounting Office legally protected monopolies are inefficient. Without monitoring, governance, competition, and feedback such organizations make bad decisions and tend to be
countries as The Theory of Money and Credit .] Mises’s discussion of monetary policy concludes the second part of his book, which deals with the causes and the notes, the salaries of their staffs, etc.). If they do this, the force of competition obliges other lenders to follow their example. Accordingly, it would be
citizens of the United States have to make an important choice. They can support a policy designed to perpetuate our current fiat-money system and the sorry state of prevented the discovery of better coins and coin systems through entrepreneurial competition. Governments frequently intervened in the production of money through
can, by and large, agree with these considerations. They would merely add that competition is the best-known way to identify trustworthy certifiers. And they would would have reached on the free market; that is, it boils down to inflation. This policy is truly anti-social: it does not serve the community of money users as a
taking its credits. It is obvious that few firms can afford to resist such offers. Competition is fierce in most industries, and the firms must seek to use the best terms available, lest they lose that “competitive edge” that can be decisive for profits and also for mere survival. It on prior savings. It is not an exaggeration to say that, through their monetary policy, Western governments have pushed their citizens into a state of financial
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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.