Abstract: Recent debates in monetary theory have centered on so-called free banking and the role of banks in providing money in the form of fiduciary media in a pure market economy. This paper examines how and to what extent fiduciary media can emerge in a pure market economy. Based on the theory of value, it is argued that those economists are
Having marked the quinquagenary of the destruction of the gold standard Sunday, August 15, it is natural to be a little nostalgic for the Bretton Woods system. After all, it might not have been the classical gold standard, but at least it wasn’t as bad as the fiat standard that succeeded it. As sites such as wtfhappenedin1971.com document, that
In March 2019, the pseudonymous “PlanB,” who describes himself as a “former institutional investor with 25 years of experience in financial markets,” published a short article describing what he dubs the “stock-to-flow” (S2F) model of bitcoin pricing. Influenced by Nick Szabo on “unforgeable costliness” and Saifedean Ammous on S2F , PlanB’s
Since the awarding of the Nobel Prize in economics to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond, and Philip H. Dybvig, most of the media interest has, understandably, concentrated on Bernanke. Mark Thornton wrote a scathing takedown of bailout Ben , while Tyler Cowen inexplicably praised him to the skies (Cowen at least provides a good overview of some
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, despite retiring about fifteen years ago and only publishing lightly since, has an (un)enviable characteristic: he still manages to provoke his opponents to violent and rather silly outbursts from time to time. The most recent round of pearl clutching emanated from the otherwise sound Phillip Magness ( via Twitter ), who seems
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts generally have a great appreciation for the Austrian school of economics. This is understandable since Austrian economists have always argued for the merit of privately produced money outside government control. Unfortunately, an erroneous understanding of the development and functions of money has emerged and become
Throughout the corona “pandemic” the Holy Grail of public health officials has been vaccination: only by vaccinating enough people—first the elderly and infirm, then all adults, and now even children—can the nefarious virus be beaten. As vaccination has proven less than wholly successful in preventing the spread of coronavirus, with studies
The collapse of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse recently was a catastrophe long in the making. A quick perusal of the bank’s financial statements from recent years shows that we’re dealing with something analogous to a classic bank run. Credit Suisse’s pool of liquid assets declined more than 50 percent from 2021 to 2022, mostly in October 2022,
Introduction The problem of government deficit spending and the resulting public debt is a challenge to most modern economies. A few states, such as Germany, with a reputation for fiscal austerity, operated with budget surpluses and declining debt, but that was before the coronavirus gave governments everywhere an excuse to massively extend their
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article. In the first installment of this series on government default, we examined the ethical status of the public debt and debt repudiation. Since the debt represents an unjust imposition on the taxpayers, we concluded that the moral thing to do would be to repudiate it and refuse to pay even
What is the Mises Institute?
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.