Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation.pdf - The Ludwig von ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

man newspaper with regard to economic problems, the FRANKFURTER ZEITUNG, published an article in which it said: “You people who accept this program of the Nazi Party of doing away with interest slavery, do you know that you are creditors and not debtors” And they were, but they didn’t know it. On the day when the FRANKFURTER ZEITUNG published this article on its first page, I was on the way to London traveling in the express train from one end of Germany to the other, from the Austrian frontier of Germany to the Dutch frontier. I could observe people reading this article and I told myself, “ey don’t understand these things, and so they are bound to suffer the consequences.” And did they suffer the consequences Of course! e mark became zero. is meant that all the assets, all the savings of the people, the creditors, disappeared, to the benefit of the debtors. People in a country like the United States are saving in the years when they are in full vigor and can earn money. ey are saving not only to meet unexpected conditions which could develop one day; they are saving systematically to enjoy income without working any longer in their old age. For instance, people are taking out life insurance policies; they are accumulating savings deposits; and they are making agreements with their employers according to which their employers are bound to pay them definite amounts as pension rights later; and so on. Now when there is an inflation going on, all these people are suffering, suffering because they are continually losing with the progress of inflation, because the progress of inflation means that the purchasing power of the monetary unit decreases. If we want to have a system in which the individual can plan for his own life and for the life of his family, if we want to have a system in which people can say: “If I have the opportunity to work and to save I will improve my own conditions and the conditions of my family.” en you must have a regular system of what one used to call “bourgeois security.” But if the governments destroy the savings of their citizens again and again by inflating they bring about a situation in which the people do what these people in various European communist countries did and in which you hear again and again of violence and actions of destruction. e example of Germany may help you realize that there are still many things to be learned about economic problems by everybody, not only by the managers of big banks, professional editors of journals of business, and so on. It is for this reason that I think everybody should be interested in these problems, not because they are more important than other things, nor on account of the fact that one should increase one’s theoreti- 49
cal knowledge, but on account of the fact that one should know, in one’s capacity as a voter and as a citizen, how to cooperate in the formation of one’s own country, nation and the whole world’s economic system. is is one of the reasons why one ought to deal with these problems. ey are not very interesting to many people; they are not easy to study; but there is some reason to say they are fundamental for the preservation of one’s own economic safety. We have to change the opinion of the people who believe that the monetary problem is something that concerns only groups of business, small groups of people, and so on. 50
Page 2 and 3:
LUDWIG VON MISES ON MONEY AND INFLA
Page 4 and 5:
Copyright © 2010 by the Lu
Page 6 and 7: 14 Two Monetary Problems 59 15 Defi
Page 8 and 9: CHAPTER ONE Human Cooperation Human
Page 10 and 11: CHAPTER TWO e Medium of Exchange—
Page 12 and 13: CHAPTER THREE e Role of the Courts
Page 14 and 15: from resorting to violence. Now, vi
Page 16 and 17: the power to call non-potatoes “p
Page 18 and 19: CHAPTER FOUR Gold as Money Now, we
Page 20 and 21: accepted, is that an increase in th
Page 22 and 23: know; it reduced the ratio of gold
Page 24 and 25: CHAPTER FIVE Gold Inflation e gold
Page 26 and 27: such a government to increase the q
Page 28 and 29: CHAPTER SIX Inflation e first rule,
Page 30 and 31: the fact that these countries will
Page 32 and 33: of view of clear fine theories, thi
Page 34 and 35: When the prices of the products whi
Page 36 and 37: ment spends also billions of tax mo
Page 38 and 39: But when he reached his sixtieth bi
Page 40 and 41: CHAPTER EIGHT Inflation and Governm
Page 42 and 43: wanted milk to be more readily avai
Page 44 and 45: CHAPTER NINE Money, Inflation, and
Page 46 and 47: have been in a position to deliver
Page 48 and 49: Germany went to war, the government
Page 50 and 51: constitutional law, that is whether
Page 52 and 53: ery inter-human relation by undermi
Page 54 and 55: servative way with the forests whic
Page 58 and 59: CHAPTER TWELVE Currency Debasement
Page 60 and 61: market has been preserved because o
Page 62 and 63: However, these inflationary methods
Page 64 and 65: and, therefore, impairing their con
Page 66 and 67: CHAPTER FOURTEEN Two Monetary Probl
Page 68 and 69: money What is the effect of governm
Page 70 and 71: was wonderful! It was considered so
Page 72 and 73: sures.” ey have invented many oth
Page 74 and 75: est. In fact the only thing that is
Page 76 and 77: CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Balance of Paymen
Page 78 and 79: ties abroad—in France champagne a
Page 80 and 81: French producers of wine. And the p
Page 82 and 83: CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Inter-bank Liquidi
Page 84 and 85: ate in order to stop the withdrawal
Page 86 and 87: per gold is something which the gov
Page 88 and 89: tants would have to use other figur
Page 90 and 91: CHAPTER TWENTY Conclusion We must r
Page 92: a very popular expenditure on the e
show all

Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation.pdf - The Ludwig von ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?