Gold and the Gold Standard: The Story of Gold Money, Past, Present, and Future

Description

Gold and the Gold Standard: The Story of Gold Money, Past, Present, and Future is Edwin Walter Kemmerer's major treatise. One of the 20th century's unsung heroes, Kemmerer was an economics professor at Princeton and was a sought-after "money doctor" in the interwar period, helping countries establish and maintain strong currencies between 1923 and 1933. He was a firm advocate of the gold standard in the Misesian tradition.In this work he reviews the history of gold and its outstanding merit as a currency. Writing in 1944, he presented a plan that would have saved the entire world from hyperinflation and the booms and busts we've experienced for 50 years.It was really Kemmerer versus Keynes in those years, and it is a tragedy that Keynes prevailed. Nonetheless, this great book exists so that we can see what might have been and what could be again. Were Kemmerer read widely today, the world would be one great step closer to turning away from paper money and again embracing hard money.Kemmerer was a favorite of Murray Rothbard's, and he loved this particular book. To be sure, Kemmerer doesn't go as far as Rothbard or Mises in demanding the abolition of the central bank; his naïveté is on display here in thinking that government could manage a gold standard. Even so, his gold-standard plan is just about as pure as anyone's in his generation, insisting that banks operate as real businesses and calling for 100 percent reserves.