Money,
Bank Credit,
AND
Economic Cycles
Second Edition
Money,
Bank Credit,
AND
Economic Cycles
Second Edition
Jesus Huerta de Soto
Translated by Melinda A. Stroup
Lubwig
von Mises
Institute
AUBURN, ALABAMA
First Spanish edition 1998, Dinero, Credito Bancario y Ciclos
Economicos, Union Editorial, Madrid
Copyright © 1998 Jesus Huerta de Soto
Second Spanish edition 2002, Union Editorial, Madrid
Third Spanish edition 2006, Union Editorial, Madrid
Copyright © 2006, 2009 Jesus Huerta de Soto
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Translated from Spanish by Melinda A. Stroup
First English edition 2006
Second English edition 2009
Cover design: Photograph by Guillaume Dube of a series of arches in a
cloister in Salamanca, Spain.
Ludwig von Mises Institute
518 West Magnolia Avenue
Auburn, Alabama 63832-4528
All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the
publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for
brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.
ISBN: 978-1-933550-39-8
Contents
Preface to the Second English Edition xvii
Preface to the First English-Language Edition xxxi
Preface to the Third Spanish Edition xxxiii
Preface to the Second Spanish Edition xxxvii
Introduction xli
Chapter 1: The Legal Nature of the Monetary
Irregular-Deposit Contract 1
1 A Preliminary Clarification of Terms:
Loan Contracts (Mutuum and Commodatum)
and Deposit Contracts 1
The Commodatum Contract 2
The Mutuum Contract 2
The Deposit Contract 4
The Deposit of Fungible Goods or "Irregular"
Deposit Contract 4
2 The Economic and Social Function of Irregular
Deposits 6
The Fundamental Element in the Monetary
Irregular Deposit 7
Resulting Effects of the Failure to Comply
with the Essential Obligation in the
Irregular Deposit 9
Court Decisions Acknowledging the
Fundamental Legal Principles which Govern
the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract
(100-Percent Reserve Requirement) 11
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
3 The Essential Differences Between the Irregular
Deposit Contract and the Monetary Loan Contract ... .13
The Extent to Which Property Rights are
Transferred in Each Contract 13
Fundamental Economic Differences Between
the Two Contracts 14
Fundamental Legal Differences Between the
Two Contracts 17
4 The Discovery by Roman Legal Experts of the
General Legal Principles Governing the Monetary
Irregular-Deposit Contract 20
The Emergence of Traditional Legal Principles
According to Menger, Hayek and Leoni 20
Roman Jurisprudence 24
The Irregular Deposit Contract Under Roman
Law 27
Chapter 2: Historical Violations of the Legal
Principles Governing the Monetary
Irregular-Deposit Contract 37
1 Introduction 37
2 Banking in Greece and Rome 41
Trapezitei, or Greek Bankers 41
Banking in the Hellenistic World 51
Banking in Rome 53
The Failure of the Christian Callistus's Bank 54
The Societates Argentariae 56
3 Bankers in the Late Middle Ages 59
The Revival of Deposit Banking in
Mediterranean Europe 61
The Canonical Ban on Usury and the
"Depositum Confessatum" 64
Contents
Banking in Florence in the Fourteenth Century . . . .70
The Medici Bank 72
Banking in Catalonia in the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Centuries: The Taula de Canvi 75
4 Banking During the Reign of Charles V and the
Doctrine of the School of Salamanca 78
The Development of Banking in Seville 79
The School of Salamanca and the Banking
Business 83
5 A New Attempt at Legitimate Banking: The Bank of
Amsterdam. Banking in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries 98
The Bank of Amsterdam 98
David Hume and the Bank of Amsterdam 102
Sir James Steuart, Adam Smith and the
Bank of Amsterdam 103
The Banks of Sweden and England 106
John Law and Eighteenth-Century Banking in
France 109
Richard Cantillon and the Fraudulent Violation
of the Irregular-Deposit Contract Ill
Chapter 3: Attempts to Legally Justify
Fractional-Reserve Banking 115
1 Introduction 115
2 Why it is Impossible to Equate the Irregular Deposit
with the Loan or Mutuum Contract 119
The Roots of the Confusion 119
The Mistaken Doctrine of Common Law 124
The Doctrine of Spanish Civil and Commercial
Codes 127
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Criticism of the Attempt to Equate the Monetary
Irregular-Deposit Contract with the Loan or
Mutuum Contract 133
The Distinct Cause or Purpose of Each Contract . .134
The Notion of the Unspoken or Implicit
Agreement 139
3 An Inadequate Solution: The Redefinition of the
Concept of Availability 147
4 The Monetary Irregular Deposit, Transactions
with a Repurchase Agreement and Life Insurance
Contracts 155
Transactions with a Repurchase Agreement 157
The Case of Life Insurance Contracts 161
Chapter 4: The Credit Expansion Process 167
1 Introduction 167
2 The Bank's Role as a True Intermediary in the Loan
Contract 172
3 The Bank's Role in the Monetary Bank-Deposit
Contract 178
4 The Effects Produced by Bankers' Use of Demand
Deposits: The Case of an Individual Bank 182
The Continental Accounting System 184
Accounting Practices in the English-speaking
World 194
An Isolated Bank's Capacity for Credit
Expansion and Deposit Creation 200
The Case of a Very Small Bank 208
Credit Expansion and Ex Nihilo Deposit
Creation by a Sole, Monopolistic Bank 211
Contents
5 Credit Expansion and New Deposit Creation by
the Entire Banking System 217
Creation of Loans in a System of Small
Banks 223
6 A Few Additional Difficulties 231
When Expansion is Initiated Simultaneously by
All Banks 231
Filtering Out the Money Supply From the
Banking System 239
The Maintenance of Reserves Exceeding the
Minimum Requirement 242
Different Reserve Requirements for Different
Types of Deposits 243
7 The Parallels Between the Creation of Deposits
and the Issuance of Unbacked Banknotes 244
8 The Credit Tightening Process 254
Chapter 5: Bank Credit Expansion and Its
Effects on the Economic System 265
1 The Foundations of Capital Theory 266
Human Action as a Series of Subjective
Stages 266
Capital and Capital Goods 272
The Interest Rate 284
The Structure of Production 291
Some Additional Considerations 297
Criticism of the Measures used in National
Income Accounting 305
2 The Effect on the Productive Structure of an Increase
in Credit Financed under a Prior Increase in
Voluntary Saving 313
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Three Different Manifestations of the
Process of Voluntary Saving 313
Account Records of Savings Channeled into
Loans 315
The Issue of Consumer Loans 316
The Effects of Voluntary Saving on the
Productive Structure 317
First: The Effect Produced by the New Disparity
in Profits Between the Different Productive
Stages 319
Second: The Effect of the Decrease in the Interest
Rate on the Market Price of Capital Goods 325
Third: The Ricardo Effect 329
Conclusion: The Emergence of a New, More
Capital-intensive Productive Structure 333
The Theoretical Solution to the "Paradox of
Thrift" 342
The Case of an Economy in Regression 344
3 The Effects of Bank Credit Expansion Unbacked
by an Increase in Saving: The Austrian Theory or
Circulation Credit Theory of the Business Cycle 347
The Effects of Credit Expansion on the
Productive Structure 348
The Market's Spontaneous Reaction to Credit
Expansion 361
4 Banking, Fractional-Reserve Ratios and the Law of
Large Numbers 385
Chapter 6: Additional Considerations on the Theory
of the Business Cycle 397
1 Why no Crisis Erupts when New Investment is
Financed by Real Saving (And Not by Credit
Expansion) 397
Contents
2 The Possibility of Postponing the Eruption of the
Crisis: The Theoretical Explanation of the Process
of Stagflation 399
3 Consumer Credit and the Theory of the Cycle 406
4 The Self -Destructive Nature of the Artificial Booms
Caused by Credit Expansion: The Theory of
"Forced Saving" 409
5 The Squandering of Capital, Idle Capacity and
Malinvestment of Productive Resources 413
6 Credit Expansion as the Cause of Massive
Unemployment 417
7 National Income Accounting is Inadequate to Reflect
the Different Stages in the Business Cycle 418
8 Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the Cycle 421
9 The Policy of General-Price-Level Stabilization and
its Destabilizing Effects on the Economy 424
10 How to Avoid Business Cycles: Prevention of and
Recovery from the Economic Crisis 432
11 The Theory of the Cycle and Idle Resources:
Their Role in the Initial Stages of the Boom 440
12 The Necessary Tightening of Credit in the Recession
Stage: Criticism of the Theory of "Secondary
Depression" 444
13 The "Manic-Depressive" Economy: The Dampening
of the Entrepreneurial Spirit and Other Negative
Effects Recurring Business Cycles Exert on the
Market Economy 456
14 The Influence Exerted on the Stock Market by
Economic Fluctuations 459
15 Effects the Business Cycle Exerts on the Banking
Sector 467
16 Marx, Hayek and the View that Economic Crises
are Intrinsic to Market Economies 468
17 Two Additional Considerations 474
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
18 Empirical Evidence for the Theory of the Cycle 476
Business Cycles Prior to the Industrial
Revolution 479
Business Cycles From the Industrial
Revolution Onward 482
The Roaring Twenties and the Great
Depression of 1929 487
The Economic Recessions of the Late 1970s
and Early 1990s 494
Some Empirical Testing of the Austrian
Theory of the Business Cycle 500
Conclusion 503
Chapter 7: A Critique of Monetarist and
Keynesian Theories 509
1 Introduction 509
2 A Critique of Monetarism 512
The Mythical Concept of Capital 512
Austrian Criticism of Clark and Knight 518
A Critique of the Mechanistic Monetarist
Version of the Quantity Theory of Money 522
A Brief Note on the Theory of Rational
Expectations 535
3 Criticism of Keynesian Economics 542
Say's Law of Markets 544
Keynes's Three Arguments On Credit
Expansion 546
Keynesian Analysis as a Particular Theory 553
The So-Called Marginal Efficiency of Capital 555
Keynes's Criticism of Mises and Hayek 557
Criticism of the Keynesian Multiplier 558
Criticism of the "Accelerator" Principle 565
Contents
4 The Marxist Tradition and the Austrian Theory of
Economic Cycles: The Neo-Ricardian Revolution
and the Reswitching Controversy 571
5 Conclusion 576
6 Appendix on Life Insurance Companies and Other
Non-Bank Financial Intermediaries 584
Life Insurance Companies as True Financial
Intermediaries 586
Surrender Values and the Money Supply 591
The Corruption of Traditional Life-Insurance
Principles 594
Other True Financial Intermediaries: Mutual
Funds and Holding and Investment
Companies 597
Specific Comments on Credit Insurance 598
Chapter 8: Central and Free Banking Theory 601
1 A Critical Analysis of the Banking School 602
The Banking and Currency Views and the
School of Salamanca 603
The Response of the English-Speaking World
to these Ideas on Bank Money 613
The Controversy Between the Currency School
and the Banking School 622
2 The Debate Between Defenders of the Central Bank
and Advocates of Free Banking 631
Parnell's Pro-Free-Banking Argument and the
Responses of McCulloch and Longfield 632
A False Start for the Controversy Between
Central Banking and Free Banking 633
The Case for a Central Bank 635
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Position of the Currency-School Theorists
who Defended a Free-Banking System 639
The "Theorem of the Impossibility of Socialism"
and its Application to the Central Bank 647
The Theory of the Impossibility of
Coordinating Society Based on Institutional
Coercion or the Violation of Traditional
Legal Principles 650
The Application of the Theorem of the
Impossibility of Socialism to the Central
Bank and the Fractional-Reserve Banking
System 651
(a) A System Based on a Central Bank
Which Controls and Oversees a
Network of Private Banks that
Operate with a Fractional Reserve 654
(b) A Banking System which Operates with
a 100-Percent Reserve Ratio and is
Controlled by a Central Bank 661
(c) A Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking
System 664
Conclusion: The Failure of Banking
Legislation 671
A Critical Look at the Modern Fractional-Reserve
Free-Banking School 675
The Erroneous Basis of the Analysis: The
Demand for Fiduciary Media, Regarded as
an Exogenous Variable 679
The Possibility that a Fractional-Reserve
Free-Banking System May Unilaterally
Initiate Credit Expansion 685
The Theory of "Monetary Equilibrium" in
Free Banking Rests on an Exclusively
Macroeconomic Analysis 688
Contents
The Confusion Between the Concept of Saving
and that of the Demand for Money 694
The Problem with Historical Illustrations of
Free-Banking Systems 701
Ignorance of Legal Arguments 706
Conclusion: The False Debate between Supporters of
Central Banking and Defenders of Fractional-
Reserve Free Banking 713
Chapter 9: A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement . . . .715
1 A History of Modern Theories in Support of a
100-Percent Reserve Requirement 716
The Proposal of Ludwig von Mises 716
FA. Hayek and the Proposal of a 100-Percent
Reserve Requirement 723
Murray N. Rothbard and the Proposal of a
Pure Gold Standard with a 100-Percent
Reserve Requirement 726
Maurice Allais and the European Defense of
a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 728
The Old Chicago-School Tradition of Support
for a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 731
2 Our Proposal for Banking Reform 736
Total Freedom of Choice in Currency 736
A System of Complete Banking Freedom 740
The Obligation of All Agents in a Free-Banking
System to Observe Traditional Legal Rules
and Principles, Particularly a 100-Percent
Reserve Requirement on Demand Deposits . . . .742
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
What Would the Financial and Banking System
of a Totally Free Society be Like? 743
3 An Analysis of the Advantages of the Proposed
System 745
4 Replies to Possible Objections to our Proposal for
Monetary Reform 760
5 An Economic Analysis of the Process of Reform
and Transition toward the Proposed Monetary
and Banking System 788
A Few Basic Strategic Principles 788
Stages in the Reform of the Financial and
Banking System 789
The Importance of the Third and Subsequent
Stages in the Reform: The Possibility They
Offer of Paying Off the National Debt or
Social Security Pension Liabilities 791
The Application of the Theory of Banking
and Financial Reform to the European
Monetary Union and the Building of the
Financial Sector in Economies of the
Former Eastern Bloc 803
6 Conclusion: The Banking System of a Free Society 806
Bibliography 813
Index of Subjects 861
Index of Names 875
Preface to the
Second English Edition
I am happy to present the second English edition of Money,
Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles. Its appearance is particu-
larly timely given that the severe financial crisis and result-
ing worldwide economic recession I have been forecasting,
since the first edition of this book came out ten years ago, are
now unleashing their fury.
The policy of artificial credit expansion central banks have
permitted and orchestrated over the last fifteen years could not
have ended in any other way. The expansionary cycle which
has now come to a close began gathering momentum when the
American economy emerged from its last recession (fleeting
and repressed though it was) in 2001 and the Federal Reserve
reembarked on the major artificial expansion of credit and
investment initiated in 1992. This credit expansion was not
backed by a parallel increase in voluntary household saving.
For many years, the money supply in the form of bank notes
and deposits has grown at an average rate of over 10 percent
per year (which means that every seven years the total volume
of money circulating in the world has doubled). The media of
exchange originating from this severe fiduciary inflation have
been placed on the market by the banking system as newly-
created loans granted at very low (and even negative in real
terms) interest rates. The above fueled a speculative bubble in
xviii Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the shape of a substantial rise in the prices of capital goods,
real-estate assets and the securities which represent them, and
are exchanged on the stock market, where indexes soared.
Curiously, like in the "roaring" years prior to the Great
Depression of 1929, the shock of monetary growth has not sig-
nificantly influenced the prices of the subset of consumer
goods and services (approximately only one third of all
goods). The last decade, like the 1920s, has seen a remarkable
increase in productivity as a result of the introduction on a
massive scale of new technologies and significant entrepre-
neurial innovations which, were it not for the injection of
money and credit, would have given rise to a healthy and sus-
tained reduction in the unit price of consumer goods and serv-
ices. Moreover, the full incorporation of the economies of
China and India into the globalized market has boosted the
real productivity of consumer goods and services even fur-
ther. The absence of a healthy "deflation" in the prices of con-
sumer goods in a stage of such considerable growth in pro-
ductivity as that of recent years provides the main evidence
that the monetary shock has seriously disturbed the economic
process. I analyze this phenomenon in detail in chapter 6, sec-
tion 9.
As I explain in the book, artificial credit expansion and the
(fiduciary) inflation of media of exchange offer no short cut to
stable and sustained economic development, no way of avoid-
ing the necessary sacrifice and discipline behind all high rates
of voluntary saving. (In fact, particularly in the United States,
voluntary saving has not only failed to increase in recent
years, but at times has even fallen to a negative rate.) Indeed,
the artificial expansion of credit and money is never more
than a short-term solution, and that at best. In fact, today there
is no doubt about the recessionary quality the monetary shock
always has in the long run: newly-created loans (of money cit-
izens have not first saved) immediately provide entrepreneurs
with purchasing power they use in overly ambitious invest-
ment projects (in recent years, especially in the building sector
and real estate development). In other words, entrepreneurs
act as if citizens had increased their saving, when they have not
actually done so. Widespread discoordination in the economic
Preface to the Second English Edition xix
system results: the financial bubble ("irrational exuberance")
exerts a harmful effect on the real economy, and sooner or
later the process reverses in the form of an economic recession,
which marks the beginning of the painful and necessary read-
justment. This readjustment invariably requires the reconver-
sion of every real productive structure inflation has distorted.
The specific triggers of the end of the euphoric monetary
"binge" and the beginning of the recessionary "hangover" are
many, and they can vary from one cycle to another. In the cur-
rent circumstances, the most obvious triggers have been the
rise in the price of raw materials, particularly oil, the subprime
mortgage crisis in the United States, and finally, the failure of
important banking institutions when it became clear in the
market that the value of their liabilities exceeded that of their
assets (mortgage loans granted).
At present, numerous self-interested voices are demand-
ing further reductions in interest rates and new injections of
money which permit those who desire it to complete their
investment projects without suffering losses. Nevertheless,
this escape forward would only temporarily postpone prob-
lems at the cost of making them far more serious later. The cri-
sis has hit because the profits of capital-goods companies
(especially in the building sector and in real-estate develop-
ment) have disappeared due to the entrepreneurial errors pro-
voked by cheap credit, and because the prices of consumer
goods have begun to perform relatively less poorly than those
of capital goods. At this point, a painful, inevitable readjust-
ment begins, and in addition to a decrease in production and
an increase in unemployment, we are now still seeing a harm-
ful rise in the prices of consumer goods (stagflation).
The most rigorous economic analysis and the coolest, most
balanced interpretation of recent economic and financial
events support the conclusion that central banks (which are
true financial central-planning agencies) cannot possibly suc-
ceed in finding the most advantageous monetary policy at
every moment. This is exactly what became clear in the case of
the failed attempts to plan the former Soviet economy from
above. To put it another way, the theorem of the economic
impossibility of socialism, which the Austrian economists
xx Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek discovered, is fully
applicable to central banks in general, and to the Federal
Reserve — (at one time) Alan Greenspan and (currently) Ben
Bernanke — in particular. According to this theorem, it is
impossible to organize society, in terms of economics, based
on coercive commands issued by a planning agency, since
such a body can never obtain the information it needs to
infuse its commands with a coordinating nature. Indeed,
nothing is more dangerous than to indulge in the "fatal con-
ceit"— to use Hayek's useful expression — of believing oneself
omniscient or at least wise and powerful enough to be able to
keep the most suitable monetary policy fine tuned at all times.
Hence, rather than soften the most violent ups and downs of
the economic cycle, the Federal Reserve and, to some lesser
extent, the European Central Bank, have most likely been their
main architects and the culprits in their worsening. Therefore,
the dilemma facing Ben Bernanke and his Federal Reserve
Board, as well as the other central banks (beginning with the
European Central Bank), is not at all comfortable. For years
they have shirked their monetary responsibility, and now they
find themselves in a blind alley. They can either allow the
recessionary process to begin now, and with it the healthy and
painful readjustment, or they can escape forward toward a
"hair of the dog" cure. With the latter, the chances of even
more severe stagflation in the not-too-distant future increase
exponentially. (This was precisely the error committed follow-
ing the stock market crash of 1987, an error which led to the
inflation at the end of the 1980s and concluded with the sharp
recession of 1990-1992.) Furthermore, the reintroduction of a
cheap-credit policy at this stage could only hinder the neces-
sary liquidation of unprofitable investments and company
reconversion. It could even wind up prolonging the recession
indefinitely, as has occurred in Japan in recent years: though
all possible interventions have been tried, the Japanese econ-
omy has ceased to respond to any monietarist stimulus involv-
ing credit expansion or Keynesian methods. It is in this context
of "financial schizophrenia" that we must interpret the latest
"shots in the dark" fired by the monetary authorities (who
have two totally contradictory responsibilities: both to control
Preface to the Second English Edition xxi
inflation and to inject all the liquidity necessary into the finan-
cial system to prevent its collapse). Thus, one day the Federal
Reserve rescues Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie
Mac or Citigroup, and the next it allows Lehman Brothers to
fail, under the amply justified pretext of "teaching a lesson"
and refusing to fuel moral hazard. Then, in light of the way
events were unfolding, a 700-billion-dollar plan to purchase
the euphemistically named "toxic" or "illiquid" (i.e., worth-
less) assets from the banking system was approved. If the plan
is financed by taxes (and not more inflation), it will mean a
heavy tax burden on households, precisely when they are
least able to bear it. Finally, in view of doubts about whether
such a plan could have any effect, the choice was made to
inject public money directly into banks, and even to "guaran-
tee" the total amount of their deposits, decreasing interest
rates to almost zero percent.
In comparison, the economies of the European Union are in
a somewhat less poor state (if we do not consider the expansion-
ary effect of the policy of deliberately depreciating the dollar, and
the relatively greater European rigidities, particularly in the labor
market, which tend to make recessions in Europe longer and
more painful). The expansionary policy of the European Central
Bank, though not free of grave errors, has been somewhat less
irresponsible than that of the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, ful-
fillment of the convergence criteria involved at the time a healthy
and significant rehabilitation of the chief European economies.
Only the countries on the periphery, like Ireland and particularly
Spain, were immersed in considerable credit expansion from the
time they initiated their processes of convergence. The case of
Spain is paradigmatic. The Spanish economy underwent an eco-
nomic boom which, in part, was due to real causes (liberalizing
structural reforms which originated with Jose Maria Aznar's
administration in 1996). Nevertheless, the boom was also largely
fueled by an artificial expansion of money and credit, which
grew at a rate nearly three times that of the corresponding
rates in France and Germany. Spanish economic agents essen-
tially interpreted the decrease in interest rates which resulted
from the convergence process in the easy-money terms tradi-
tional in Spain: a greater availability of easy money and mass
xxii Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
requests for loans from Spanish banks (mainly to finance real-
estate speculation), loans which these banks have granted by
creating the money ex nihilo while European central bankers
looked on unperturbed. When faced with the rise in prices,
the European Central Bank has remained faithful to its man-
date and has tried to maintain interest rates as long as possi-
ble, despite the difficulties of those members of the Monetary
Union which, like Spain, are now discovering that much of
their investment in real estate was in error and are heading for
a lengthy and painful reorganization of their real economy.
Under these circumstances, the most appropriate policy
would be to liberalize the economy at all levels (especially in
the labor market) to permit the rapid reallocation of produc-
tive factors (particularly labor) to profitable sectors. Likewise,
it is essential to reduce public spending and taxes, in order to
increase the available income of heavily-indebted economic
agents who need to repay their loans as soon as possible. Eco-
nomic agents in general and companies in particular can only
rehabilitate their finances by cutting costs (especially labor
costs) and paying off loans. Essential to this aim are a very
flexible labor market and a much more austere public sector.
These factors are fundamental if the market is to reveal as
quickly as possible the real value of the investment goods pro-
duced in error and thus lay the foundation for a healthy, sus-
tained economic recovery in a future which, for the good of
all, I hope is not long in coming.
We must not forget that a central feature of the recent
period of artificial expansion was a gradual corruption, on the
American continent as well as in Europe, of the traditional
principles of accounting as practiced globally for centuries. To
be specific, acceptance of the International Accounting Stan-
dards (IAS) and their incorporation into law in different
countries (in Spain via the new General Accounting Plan, in
effect as of January 1, 2008) have meant the abandonment of
the traditional principle of prudence and its replacement by
Preface to the Second English Edition xxiii
the principle of fair value in the assessment of the value of bal-
ance sheet assets, particularly financial assets. In this aban-
donment of the traditional principle of prudence, a highly
influential role has been played by brokerages, investment
banks (which are now on their way to extinction), and in gen-
eral, all parties interested in "inflating" book values in order
to bring them closer to supposedly more "objective" stock-
market values, which in the past rose continually in an eco-
nomic process of financial euphoria. In fact, during the years
of the "speculative bubble," this process was characterized by
a feedback loop: rising stock-market values were immediately
entered into the books, and then such accounting entries were
sought as justification for further artificial increases in the
prices of financial assets listed on the stock market.
In this wild race to abandon traditional accounting prin-
ciples and replace them with others more "in line with the
times," it became common to evaluate companies based on
unorthodox suppositions and purely subjective criteria
which in the new standards replace the only truly objective
criterion (that of historical cost). Now, the collapse of finan-
cial markets and economic agents' widespread loss of faith in
banks and their accounting practices have revealed the seri-
ous error involved in yielding to the IAS and their abandon-
ment of traditional accounting principles based on prudence,
the error of indulging in the vices of creative, fair-value
accounting.
It is in this context that we must view the recent measures
taken in the United States and the European Union to "soften"
(i.e., to partially reverse) the impact of fair-value accounting
for financial institutions. This is a step in the right direction,
but it falls short and is taken for the wrong reasons. Indeed,
those in charge at financial institutions are attempting to "shut
the barn door when the horse is bolting"; that is, when the
dramatic fall in the value of "toxic" or "illiquid" assets has
endangered the solvency of their institutions. However, these
people were delighted with the new IAS during the preceding
years of "irrational exuberance," in which increasing and
excessive values in the stock and financial markets graced
their balance sheets with staggering figures corresponding to
xxiv Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
their own profits and net worth, figures which in turn encour-
aged them to run risks (or better, uncertainties) with practi-
cally no thought of danger. Hence, we see that the IAS act in a
pro-cyclic manner by heightening volatility and erroneously
biasing business management: in times of prosperity, they cre-
ate a false "wealth effect" which prompts people to take dis-
proportionate risks; when, from one day to the next, the errors
committed come to light, the loss in the value of assets imme-
diately decapitalizes companies, which are obliged to sell
assets and attempt to recapitalize at the worst moment, i.e.,
when assets are worth the least and financial markets dry up.
Clearly, accounting principles which, like those of the IAS,
have proven so disturbing must be abandoned as soon as pos-
sible, and all of the accounting reforms recently enacted,
specifically the Spanish one, which came into effect January 1,
2008, must be reversed. This is so not only because these
reforms mean a dead end in a period of financial crisis and
recession, but especially because it is vital that in periods of
prosperity we stick to the principle of prudence in valuation,
a principle which has shaped all accounting systems from the
time of Luca Pacioli at the beginning of the fifteenth century
to the adoption of the false idol of the IAS.
In short, the greatest error of the accounting reform
recently introduced worldwide is that it scraps centuries of
accounting experience and business management when it
replaces the prudence principle, as the highest ranking among
all traditional accounting principles, with the "fair value"
principle, which is simply the introduction of the volatile mar-
ket value for an entire set of assets, particularly financial
assets. This Copernican turn is extremely harmful and threat-
ens the very foundations of the market economy for several
reasons. First, to violate the traditional principle of prudence
and require that accounting entries reflect market values is to
provoke, depending upon the conditions of the economic
cycle, an inflation of book values with surpluses which have
not materialized and which, in many cases, may never mate-
rialize. The artificial "wealth effect" this can produce, espe-
cially during the boom phase of each economic cycle, leads to
the allocation of paper (or merely temporary) profits, the
Preface to the Second English Edition xxv
acceptance of disproportionate risks, and in short, the com-
mission of systematic entrepreneurial errors and the consump-
tion of the nation's capital, to the detriment of its healthy pro-
ductive structure and its capacity for long-term growth.
Second, I must emphasize that the purpose of accounting is
not to reflect supposed "real" values (which in any case are
subjective and which are determined and vary daily in the
corresponding markets) under the pretext of attaining a
(poorly understood) "accounting transparency." Instead, the
purpose of accounting is to permit the prudent management
of each company and to prevent capital consumption,1 by
applying strict standards of accounting conservatism (based
on the prudence principle and the recording of either histori-
cal cost or market value, whichever is less), standards which
ensure at all times that distributable profits come from a safe
surplus which can be distributed without in any way endan-
gering the future viability and capitalization of the company.
Third, we must bear in mind that in the market there are no
equilibrium prices a third party can objectively determine.
Quite the opposite is true; market values arise from subjective
assessments and fluctuate sharply, and hence their use in
accounting eliminates much of the clarity, certainty, and infor-
mation balance sheets contained in the past. Today, balance
sheets have become largely unintelligible and useless to eco-
nomic agents. Furthermore, the volatility inherent in market
values, particularly over the economic cycle, robs accounting
based on the "new principles" of much of its potential as a
guide for action for company managers and leads them to sys-
tematically commit major errors in management, errors which
have been on the verge of provoking the severest financial cri-
sis to ravage the world since 1929.
-^See especially F. A. Hayek, "The Maintenance of Capital," Economica 2
(August 1934), reprinted in Profits, Interest and Investment and Other Essays on
the Theory of Industrial Fluctuations (Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley, 1979;
first edition London: George Routledge & Sons, 1939). See especially section
9, "Capital Accounting and Monetary Policy," pp. 130-32.
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In chapter 9 of this book (pages 789-803), I design a
process of transition toward the only world financial order
which, being fully compatible with the free-enterprise system,
can eliminate the financial crises and economic recessions
which cyclically affect the world's economies. The proposal
the book contains for international financial reform has
acquired extreme relevance at the present time (November
2008), in which the disconcerted governments of Europe and
America have organized a world conference to reform the
international monetary system in order to avoid in the future
such severe financial and banking crises as the one that cur-
rently grips the entire western world. As is explained in detail
over the nine chapters of this book, any future reform will fail
as miserably as past reforms unless it strikes at the very root
of the present problems and rests on the following principles:
(1) the reestablishment of a 100-percent reserve requirement
on all bank demand deposits and equivalents; (2) the elimina-
tion of central banks as lenders of last resort (which will be
unnecessary if the preceding principle is applied, and harmful
if they continue to act as financial central-planning agencies);
and (3) the privatization of the current, monopolistic, and
fiduciary state-issued money and its replacement with a clas-
sic pure gold standard. This radical, definitive reform would
essentially mark the culmination of the 1989 fall of the Berlin
Wall and real socialism, since the reform would mean the
application of the same principles of liberalization and private
property to the only sphere, that of finance and banking,
which has until now remained mired in central planning (by
"central" banks), extreme interventionism (the fixing of inter-
est rates, the tangled web of government regulations), and
state monopoly (legal tender laws which require the accept-
ance of the current, state-issued fiduciary money), circum-
stances with very negative and dramatic consequences, as we
have seen.
I should point out that the transition process designed in
the last chapter of this book could also permit from the outset
the bailing out of the current banking system, thus preventing
Preface to the Second English Edition xxvii
its rapid collapse, and with it the sudden monetary squeeze
which would be inevitable if, in an environment of wide-
spread broken trust among depositors, a significant volume of
bank deposits were to disappear. This short-term goal, which
at present, western governments are desperately striving for
with the most varied plans (the massive purchases of "toxic"
bank assets, the ad hominem guarantee of all deposits, or sim-
ply the partial or total nationalization of the private banking
system), could be reached much faster and more effectively,
and in a manner much less harmful to the market economy, if
the first step in the proposed reform (pages 791-98) were
immediately taken: to back the total amount of current bank
deposits (demand deposits and equivalents) with cash, bills to
be turned over to banks, which from then on would maintain
a 100-percent reserve with respect to deposits. As illustrated in
chart IX-2 of chapter 9, which shows the consolidated balance
sheet for the banking system following this step, the issuance
of these banknotes would in no way be inflationary (since the
new money would be "sterilized," so to speak, by its purpose
as backing to satisfy any sudden deposit withdrawals). Fur-
thermore, this step would free up all banking assets ("toxic"
or not) which currently appear as backing for demand
deposits (and equivalents) on the balance sheets of private
banks. On the assumption that the transition to the new finan-
cial system would take place under "normal" circumstances,
and not in the midst of a financial crisis as acute as the current
one, I proposed in chapter 9 that the "freed" assets be trans-
ferred to a set of mutual funds created ad hoc and managed by
the banking system, and that the shares in these funds be
exchanged for outstanding treasury bonds and for the implicit
liabilities connected with the public social-security system
(pp. 796-97). Nevertheless, in the current climate of severe
financial and economic crisis, we have another alternative:
apart from canceling "toxic" assets with these funds, we could
devote a portion of the rest, if desired, to enabling savers (not
depositors, since their deposits would already be backed 100
percent) to recover a large part of the value lost in their invest-
ments (particularly in loans to commercial banks, investment
banks, and holding companies). These measures would
xxviii Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
immediately restore confidence and would leave a significant
remainder to be exchanged, once and for all and at no cost, for
a sizeable portion of the national debt, our initial aim. In any
case, an important warning must be given: naturally, and I
must never tire of repeating it, the solution proposed is only
valid in the context of an irrevocable decision to reestablish a
free-banking system subject to a 100-percent reserve require-
ment on demand deposits. Any of the reforms noted above, if
adopted in the absence of a prior, firm conviction and decision
to change the international financial and banking system as
indicated, would be simply disastrous: a private banking sys-
tem which continued to operate with a fractional reserve
(orchestrated by the corresponding central banks), would gen-
erate, in a cascading effect, and based on the cash created to
back deposits, an inflationary expansion like none other in
history, one which would eventually finish off our entire eco-
nomic system.
The above considerations are crucially important and
reveal how very relevant this treatise has now become in light
of the critical state of the international financial system (though
I would definitely have preferred to write the preface to this
new edition under very different economic circumstances).
Nevertheless, while it is tragic that we have arrived at the cur-
rent situation, it is even more tragic, if possible, that there exists
a widespread lack of understanding regarding the causes of
the phenomena that plague us, and especially an atmosphere
of confusion and uncertainty prevalent among experts, ana-
lysts, and most economic theorists. In this area at least, I can
hope the successive editions of this book which are being pub-
lished all over the world2 may contribute to the theoretical
2Since the appearance of the first English-language edition, the third and
fourth Spanish editions have been published in 2006 and 2009. Moreover,
Tatjana Danilova and Grigory Sapov have completed a Russian translation,
Preface to the Second English Edition xxix
training of readers, to the intellectual rearmament of new gen-
erations, and eventually, to the sorely needed institutional
redesign of the entire monetary and financial system of cur-
rent market economies. If this hope is fulfilled, I will not only
view the effort made as worthwhile, but will also deem it a
great honor to have contributed, even in a very small way, to
movement in the right direction.
Jesus Huerta de Soto
Madrid
November 13, 2008
which has been published as Dengi, Bankovskiy Kredit i Ekonomicheskie Tsikly
(Moscow: Sotsium Publishing House, 2008). Three thousand copies have
been printed initially, and I had the satisfaction of presenting the book Octo-
ber 30, 2008 at the Higher School of Economics at Moscow State University.
In addition, Professor Rosine Letinier has produced the French translation,
which is now pending publication. Grzegorz Luczkiewicz has completed
the Polish translation, and translation into the following languages is at an
advanced stage: German, Czech, Italian, Romanian, Dutch, Chinese, Japan-
ese, and Arabic. God willing, may they soon be published.
Preface to the First
English-Language
Edition
It is a genuine pleasure for me to see this handsomely-
printed English edition of my book, Dinero, Credito Bancario
y Ciclos Economicos, which first appeared in Spain in 1998.
This translation incorporates the small number of corrections
included in the second Spanish edition of January 2002, and it
is the result of the great effort of Melinda A. Stroup, who
wrote the first English manuscript of the entire book.
This English version was thoroughly examined by Dr. Jorg
Guido Hiilsmann, whose comments on several important
points improved the manuscript significantly. I would also
like to acknowledge the work of my research assistant, Dr.
Gabriel Calzada, who searched for various English editions of
rare books unavailable in Spain and looked up certain quota-
tions and references. Last, I personally inspected the final ver-
sion in its entirety to ensure the accuracy of its content.
I am grateful to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and espe-
cially to its president, Lewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., for bringing
the project to its culmination with such high standards.
Jesus Huerta de Soto
Senorio de Sarria
May 2005
Note: The author welcomes any comments on this English-language edition
and requests they be sent to huertadesoto@dimasoft.es.
Preface to
the Third
Spanish Edition
In this, the third edition of Dinero, Credito Bancario y Ciclos
Economicos, an attempt has been made to preserve as far as
possible the contents, structure, and page numbering of
the two previous editions. However, changes have been nec-
essary in certain cases, as I have taken this new opportunity to
raise some additional arguments and points, both in the main
text and in several footnotes. Also, the bibliography has been
updated with the new editions and Spanish translations
which have appeared in the four years since the previous edi-
tion, and with a few new books and articles which have a par-
ticular bearing on the topics covered in the book.1 Finally, the
editor of the English version, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic
Cycles,2 Judith Thommesen, very patiently and painstakingly
!One such book is Roger W. Garrison's Time and Money: The Macroeco-
nomics of Capital Structure, published by Routledge in London and New
York in 2001, three years after the appearance of the first Spanish edition
of Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles. Garrison's text can be viewed
as complementary to this one. His book is especially noteworthy because
in it he develops the Austrian analysis of capital and economic cycles in
the context of the different paradigms of modern macroeconomics, and
the approach and language he uses to do so are fully consistent with
those used by the mainstream in our discipline. Hence, Garrison's book
will undoubtedly help build awareness among economists in general of
the need to consider the Austrian perspective and its comparative
advantages. I do feel that Garrison's explanations are too mechanistic
xxxiv Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
verified hundreds of quotations in English and other lan-
guages against their original sources. A significant number of
small misprints had been detected and have now been recti-
fied, and thus her efforts have helped to make this third edi-
tion even more polished. I am deeply grateful to her, as well
as to Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Associate Professor at the Universi-
dad Rey Juan Carlos, for his assistance in reviewing and cor-
recting certain bibliographic references.
In the interval since the publication of the previous edi-
tion, economic trends have been marked by the high fiduciary
inflation and the sharp increase in public deficits necessary to
finance the war in Iraq and to meet the rising costs which the
"welfare state," plagued by severe and insoluble problems,
generates in most western countries. The money supply and
the interest rate have been subject to further manipulation. In
fact, the United States Federal Reserve lowered the rate to a
historical minimum of 1 percent, thus preventing the neces-
sary correction of the investment errors committed prior to the
2001 recession. The above circumstances have triggered a new
speculative bubble in real estate markets, along with a dra-
matic rise in the price of the energy products and raw materi-
als which are the object of almost unlimited demand on a
worldwide scale, due to new investment projects undertaken
mainly in the Asiatic basin, and particularly in China. Thus,
we seem to be approaching the typical turning-point phase of
and that he falls short of providing sufficient justification for his analysis
from the juridical-institutional standpoint. Nonetheless, I thought it
advisable to promote the book's translation into Spanish by a team of
professors and disciples from my department at the Universidad Rey
Juan Carlos. Dr. Miguel Angel Alonso Neira led the team, and the trans-
lation has already been published in Spain under the title Tiempo y
dinero: la macroeconomia en la estructura del capital (Madrid: Union Edito-
rial, 2005).
2The English edition was beautifully published in 2006 as Money, Bank
Credit, and Economic Cycles under the auspices of the Ludwig von Mises
Institute in Auburn, Alabama, thanks to the support of the Institute's
president, Llewellyn H. Rockwell.
Preface to the Third Spanish Edition xxxv
the cycle, the phase which precedes every economic recession.
Moreover, the very recent 180-degree turn in the monetary
policy of the Federal Reserve, which has jacked up interest
rates to 4 percent in only a few months, confirms the trend
even further.
It is my hope that this new edition will help readers and
scholars to better understand the economic phenomena of the
world that surrounds them. May it also serve to convince spe-
cialists and framers of current economic policy that we must
abandon social engineering in the monetary and financial
sphere as soon as possible. The attainment of these goals will
mean the complete fulfilment of one of my primary objectives.
Jesus Huerta de Soto
Formentor
August 28, 2005
Preface to
the Second
Spanish Edition
Following the success of the first edition of Dinero,
Credito Bancario y Ciclos Economicos, which sold out
rapidly, I am pleased to present the second edition to
Spanish-speaking readers. To avoid confusion and facilitate
the work of scholars and researchers, the contents, struc-
ture, and page numbering of the first edition have been
maintained in the second, though the book has been thor-
oughly examined and all misprints detected have been
eliminated.
In the wake of a decade marked by great credit expan-
sion and the development of a large financial bubble, the
course of economic events in the world from 1999 through
2001 was characterized by the collapse of stock-market val-
ues and the emergence of a recession which now simultane-
ously grips the United States, Europe, and Japan. These cir-
cumstances have left the analysis presented in this book
even more clearly and fully illustrated than when it was first
published, at the end of 1998. While governments and cen-
tral banks have reacted to the terrorist attack on New York's
World Trade Center by manipulating interest rates, reducing
them to historically low levels (1 percent in the United
States, 0.15 percent in Japan and 2 percent in Europe), the
massive expansion of fiduciary media injected into the sys-
tem will not only prolong and hinder the necessary stream-
lining of the real productive structure, but may also lead to
xxxviii Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
dangerous stagflation. In light of these worrisome economic
conditions, which have repeated themselves since the emer-
gence of the current banking system, I fervently hope the
analysis this book contains will help the reader to under-
stand and interpret the phenomena which surround him and
will exert a positive influence on public opinion, my univer-
sity colleagues and economic -policy authorities in govern-
ment and central banks.
Various reviews of this book's first edition have
appeared, and I am grateful to the eminent authors of them
for their many positive comments.1 A common denomina-
tor among all has been to urge the translation of this book
into English, a task now complete. It is my hope that, God
willing, the first English edition of this book will soon be
published in the United States and will thus become avail-
able to some of the most influential academic and political
circles.
Finally, since 1998 this manual has been employed suc-
cessfully as a textbook during the semester devoted to the
theory of money, banking, and business cycles in courses on
Political Economy and in Introduction to Economics, first at
the law school of Madrid's Universidad Complutense and
later at the school of law and social sciences of the Universi-
dad Rey Juan Carlos, also in Madrid. This educational expe-
rience has been based on an institutional and decidedly mul-
tidisciplinary approach to economic theory, and I believe this
method can be easily and successfully applied to any other
course connected with banking theory (Economic Policy,
Macroeconomics, Monetary and Financial Theory, etc.). This
experience would not have been possible without the keen
interest and enthusiasm hundreds of students have
expressed each academic year as they studied and discussed
the teachings contained in the present volume. This book, to
1I am particularly grateful to Leland Yeager (Review of Austrian Econom-
ics 14 no. 4 [2001]: 255) and Jorg Guido Hulsmann (Quarterly journal of
Austrian Economics 3, no. 2 [2000]: 85-88) for their remarks.
Preface to the Second Spanish Edition xxxix
which they have dedicated their efforts, is chiefly aimed at
them, and I thank all of them. May they continue to cultivate
their critical spirit and intellectual curiosity as they progress
to higher and increasingly enriching stages in their forma-
tive journey2
Jesus Huerta de Soto
Madrid
December 6, 2001
2Comments on this second edition are welcome and may be sent to
huertadesoto@dimasoft.es.
Introduction
The economic analysis of juridical institutions has come
to the fore in recent years and promises to become one
of the most fruitful spheres of economics. Much of the
work completed thus far has been strongly influenced by tra-
ditional neoclassical assumptions, namely by the concept of
strict maximization in contexts of equilibrium. Still, economic
analyses of law reveal the shortcomings of the traditional
approach and do so perhaps better than any other branch of
economics. In fact, juridical institutions are so intimately
involved in daily life that it is notoriously difficult to apply the
traditional assumptions of economic analysis to them. I have
already attempted elsewhere to expose the dangers the neo-
classical perspective brings to the analysis of juridical institu-
tions.1 Economic analyses of law are certainly necessary, but
they call for a less restrictive methodology than has generally
been used to date, one more suited to this particular field of
research. The subjectivist view is a more fitting approach.
Developed by the Austrian School, it is based on their concept
of creative human action or entrepreneurial activity and
implies a dynamic analysis of the general processes of social
interaction. This perspective promises to make great contribu-
tions to the future development of the economic analysis of
juridical institutions.
In addition, most studies of juridical institutions carried
out so far have had exclusively microeconomic implications
because, among other reasons, theorists have simply borrowed
the traditional analytical tools of neoclassical microeconomics
!See Jesus Huerta de Soto, "The Ongoing Methodenstreit of the Aus-
trian School," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines 8, no. 1
(March 1998): 75-113.
xli
xlii Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and applied them to the analysis of law. This has been the
case, for example, with respect to the economic analysis of con-
tracts and civil liability, bankruptcy law, the family, and even
criminal law and justice. Very few economic analyses of law
have had mainly macroeconomic implications, and this reflects
the harmful decades-long separation between these two sides
of economics. However, this need not be the case. It is neces-
sary to recognize economics as a unified whole, where macro-
economic elements are firmly rooted in their microeconomic
foundations. In addition, I will attempt to demonstrate that
the economic analysis of some juridical institutions yields crit-
ical implications and conclusions that are essentially macro-
economic. Or, in other words, even when the basic analysis is
microeconomic, the conclusions drawn and primary out-
comes resulting from it are macroeconomic. By closing the
profound artificial gap between micro and macroeconomics,
we arrive at a unified theoretical treatment of legal issues in
the economic analysis of law.
This is my primary goal as I undertake an economic analy-
sis of the monetary irregular -deposit contract, in its different
facets. Furthermore, I intend my examination to cast light on
one of the most obscure and complex spheres of economics:
the theory of money, bank credit, and economic cycles. Now
that the issue of socialism has been resolved,2 at least from a
theoretical standpoint, and it has been empirically illustrated
to be impracticable, the main theoretical challenge facing
economists at the dawn of the twenty-first century lies most
likely in the field of money, credit, and financial institutions.
The highly abstract nature of social relationships involving
money in its various forms makes these relationships remark-
ably difficult to understand and the corresponding theoretical
treatment of them particularly complex. In addition, in the
financial and monetary spheres of western countries, a series of
institutions has been developed and imposed; namely central
banks, bank legislation, a monopoly on the issue of currency,
2Jesus Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, calculo economico y funcion empresarial
(Madrid: Union Editorial, 1992; 2nd ed., 2001).
Introduction xliii
and foreign exchange controls. These institutions thoroughly
regulate every country's financial sector, rendering it much
more similar to the socialist system of central planning than is
appropriate to a true market economy. Hence, as I will attempt
to demonstrate, the arguments which establish the impracti-
cability of socialist economic calculation are fully applicable to
the financial sphere. Supporters of the Austrian School of eco-
nomics originally developed these arguments when they
showed it was impossible to organize society in a coordinated
fashion via dictatorial commands. If my thesis is correct, the
impracticability of socialism will also be established in the
financial sector. Furthermore, the inevitable discoordination
to which all state intervention gives rise will be vividly
revealed in the cyclical phases of boom and recession which
traditionally affect the mixed economies of the developed
world.
Any theoretical study today which attempts to identify the
causes, stages, remedies for, and chances of preventing eco-
nomic cycles is guaranteed to be front-page material. As a
matter of fact, as I write these lines (November 1997), a serious
financial and banking crisis grips Asian markets and threatens
to spread to Latin America and the rest of the western world.
This crisis comes in the wake of the period of apparent eco-
nomic prosperity which in turn followed the severe financial
crises and economic recessions that shook the world at the
beginning of the nineties and particularly the end of the sev-
enties. Furthermore, in the eyes of ordinary people, politi-
cians, and the majority of economic theorists themselves, an
understanding has not yet been reached as to the true causes
of these phenomena, the successive and recurrent appear-
ances of which are constantly used by politicians, philoso-
phers, and interventionist theorists alike as a pretext for reject-
ing a market economy and justifying an increasing level of
dictatorial state intervention in the economy and society.
For this reason, from the point of view of classical liberal
doctrine, it is of great theoretical interest to scientifically ana-
lyze the origin of economic cycles, and in particular, to deter-
mine the ideal model for the financial system of a truly free
society. Libertarian theorists themselves still disagree in this
xliv Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
area, and there are great differences of opinion as to whether
it is necessary to maintain the central bank or whether it
would be better to exchange it for a system of free banking,
and in the latter case, as to what concrete rules economic
agents participating in a completely free financial system
should have to follow. The central bank originally appeared as
the result of a series of dictatorial government interventions,
though these were mainly urged by various agents of the
financial sector (specifically by private banks themselves),
who on many occasions have considered it necessary to
demand state support to guarantee the stability of their busi-
ness activities during stages of economic crisis. Does this
mean the central bank is an inevitable evolutionary outcome
of a free-market economy? Or rather, that the way private
bankers have characteristically done business, which at a cer-
tain point became corrupt from a legal point of view, has
brought about financial practices unsustainable without back-
ing from a lender of last resort? These and other issues are of
utmost theoretical interest and should be the object of the
most careful analysis. In short, my main objective is to
develop a research plan to determine which financial and
banking system is appropriate for a free society.
I intend this research to be multidisciplinary It will have to
rest not only on the study of juridical science and the history of
law, but also on economic theory and specifically on the theory
of money, capital, and economic cycles. Furthermore, my analy-
sis will shed new light on some historical economic events
related to the financial realm, and will better illustrate the evo-
lution of certain trends in the history of economic thought itself,
as well as the development of various accounting and banking
techniques. A proper understanding of finance requires the
integration of various disciplines and branches of knowledge,
and we will consider these from the three perspectives I deem
necessary to correctly comprehend any social phenomenon:
historical-evolutionary, theoretical, and ethical.3
3I have presented the theory of the three-tiered approach to studying
social issues in Jesus Huerta de Soto, "Conjectural History and Beyond,"
Humane Studies Review 6, no. 2 (Winter, 1988-1989): 10.
Introduction xlv
This book comprises nine chapters. In the first I describe
the legal essence of the monetary irregular-deposit contract,
paying special attention to the main characteristics distin-
guishing it from a loan contract, or mutuum. In addition,
Chapter 1 deals with the different legal logic inherent in these
two institutions, their mutual incompatibility at a fundamen-
tal level, and how the unique ways each is regulated embody
traditional, universal legal principles identified and devel-
oped from the time of Roman classical law.
Chapter 2 is a historical study of economic events. There I
examine ways in which the traditional legal principle govern-
ing the irregular-deposit contract has been corrupted over
time, mainly due to the temptation felt by the first bankers to
use their depositors' money to their own benefit. The interven-
tion of the political establishment has also played an important
role in this process. Always eager to secure new financial
resources, political authorities have turned to bankers
entrusted with others' deposits and have attempted to exploit
these funds, granting the bankers all sorts of privileges, chiefly
authorization to use their depositors' money for their own ben-
efit (of course on condition that a significant part of such funds
be loaned to the politicians themselves). This chapter offers
three different examples (classical Greece and Rome, the resur-
gence of banking in medieval Italian cities, and the revival of
banking in modern times) to illustrate the process by which the
traditional legal principles governing the monetary irregular-
deposit bank contract have become corrupted and to outline
the resulting economic effects.
In chapter 3 I adopt a legal viewpoint to consider different
theoretical attempts to come up with a new contractual frame-
work in which to classify the monetary bank-deposit contract.
Such attempts are aimed at justifying banks' lending of
demand-deposit funds to third parties. I intend to show that
these attempts at justification are riddled with an insoluble
logical contradiction and therefore doomed to failure. I will
also explain how the effects of privileged banking practices (see
chapter 2) expose profound contradictions and weaknesses in
the formulation of a new legal, theoretical basis for the mone-
tary irregular-deposit contract. The attempt to establish such a
xlvi Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
foundation dates back to the Middle Ages and has continued
until practically the present day. We will take a detailed look
at different efforts to formulate an unorthodox legal principle
capable of governing present-day monetary bank deposits in
a logical, coherent manner. I conclude that such attempts
could not possibly have been successful, because current
banking practices are based precisely on the violation of tra-
ditional principles inherent in property rights, which cannot
be violated without serious harmful effects on the processes of
social interaction.
Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 comprise the heart of my economic
analysis of the bank-deposit contract as it has developed over
time; that is, using a fractional-reserve ratio in violation of tra-
ditional legal principles. I will explain why Hayek's insightful
rule rings true in the banking field as well. This rule states that
whenever a traditional legal principle is violated, sooner or
later there are serious harmful effects on society. From a theo-
retical viewpoint, I will analyze the effects the current banking
practice of disregarding traditional legal principles in the
monetary-deposit contract has on the creation of money, intra-
and intertemporal market coordination, entrepreneurship,
and economic cycles. My conclusion is that the successive
stages of boom, crisis, and economic recession recurring in the
market result from the violation of the traditional legal princi-
ple on which the monetary bank-deposit contract should be
based. They stem from the privilege bankers have come to
enjoy and have been granted in the past by governments for
reasons of mutual interest. We will study the theory of eco-
nomic cycles in depth and critically analyze the alternative
explanations offered by the monetarist and Keynesian schools
for this type of phenomena.
Chapter 8 focuses on the central bank as a lender of last
resort. The creation of this institution resulted inevitably from
certain events. When the principles which should govern the
irregular-deposit contract are violated, such acute and
inescapable effects appear that private bankers soon realized
they needed to turn to the government for an institution to act
on their behalf as lender of last resort and provide support
during stages of crisis, which experience demonstrated to be a
Introduction xlvii
recurrent phenomenon. I will endeavor to show that the cen-
tral bank did not emerge spontaneously as the result of mar-
ket institutions, but was forcibly imposed by the government
and responds to the demands of powerful pressure groups. I
will also examine the current financial system, which is based
on a central bank, and apply to it the analytical economic the-
ory of the impracticability of socialism. Indeed, the current
financial system rests on a monopoly one government agency
holds on the chief decisions regarding the type and quantity
of money and credit to be created and injected into the eco-
nomic system. Thus it constitutes a financial market system of
"central planning" and therefore involves a high level of inter-
vention and is to a great extent "socialist." Sooner or later the
system will inevitably run up against the impossibility of
socialist economic calculation, the theorem of which main-
tains it is impossible to coordinate any sphere of society, espe-
cially the financial sphere, via dictatorial mandates, given that
the governing body (in this case the central bank) is incapable
of obtaining the necessary and relevant information required
to do so. The chapter concludes with a review of the recent
central-banking/free-banking controversy. We will see that
most current free-banking theorists have failed to realize that
their plan loses much of its potential and theoretical weight if
not accompanied by a call to return to traditional legal princi-
ples; that is, to banking with a 100-percent reserve require-
ment. Freedom must go hand-in-hand with responsibility and
strict observance of traditional legal principles.
The ninth and last chapter presents an ideal, coherent
model for a financial system which respects traditional legal
principles and is thus based on the adoption of a 100-percent
reserve requirement in banking. Also considered are the dif-
ferent arguments made against my proposal. I criticize them
and explain how the transition from the current system to the
proposed ideal system could be carried out with a minimum
of tension. A summary of main conclusions wraps up the
book, along with some additional considerations on the
advantages of the proposed financial system. The principles
studied here are also applied to certain urgent practical issues,
such as the construction of a new European monetary system
xlviii Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and of a modern financial system in the former socialist
economies.
A summarized version of this book's essential thesis was
first presented in a paper before the Mont Pelerin Society in
Rio de Janeiro in September 1993 and received the support of
James M. Buchanan, to whom I am very grateful. A written,
Spanish version has been partially published in the "Intro-
duccion Critica" of the first Spanish edition of Vera C. Smith's
book, The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking
Alternative.4 It was later published in French as an article enti-
tled "Banque centrale ou banque libre: le debat theorique sur
les reserves fractionnaires."5
I express my gratitude to my colleague at the law school of
Madrid's Universidad Complutense, Professor Mercedes
Lopez Amor, for her help in the search for sources and a bibli-
ography regarding the treatment under Roman law of the
irregular deposit of money. Also, my former professor, Pablo
Martin Acena, from the University of Alcala de Henares
(Madrid), offered direction in my study of the evolution of
banking throughout the Middle Ages. Luis Reig, Rafael Man-
zanares, Jose Antonio de Aguirre, Jose Luis Feito, Richard
Adamiak of Chicago, the late Professor Murray N. Rothbard,
4Vera C. Smith, Fundamentos de la banca central y de la libertad bancaria
(Madrid: Union Editorial /Ediciones Aosta, 1993), pp. 27-42. (The Ratio-
nale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative [Indianapolis: Lib-
erty Press, 1990].)
5Jesus Huerta de Soto, "Banque centrale ou banque libre: le debat
theorique sur les reserves fractionnaires," in the Journal des Economistes
et des Etudes Humaines 5, no. 2/3 (June-September 1994): 379-91. This
paper later appeared in Spanish with the title "La teoria del banco cen-
tral y de la banca libre" in my book, Estudios de economia politico, chap.
11, pp. 129-43. Two other versions of this article were also later pub-
lished: one in English, entitled "A Critical Analysis of Central Banks and
Fractional Reserve Free Banking from the Austrian School Perspective,"
in Fhe Review of Austrian Economics 8, no. 2 (1995): 117-30; the other in
Romanian, thanks to Octavian Vasilescu, "Band centrale si sistemul de
free-banking cu rezerve fractionare: o analiza critica din perspectiva
Scolii Austriece," Polis: Revista de stiinte politice 4, no. 1 (Bucharest, 1997):
145-57.
Introduction xlix
and Professors Hans-Hermann Hoppe from Las Vegas Uni-
versity in Nevada, Manuel Gurdiel from the Universidad
Complutense in Madrid, Pablo Vazquez from the University
of Cantabria (Spain), Enrique Menendez Urefia from the Uni-
versidad Comillas (Madrid), James Sadowsky from Fordham
University, Pedro Tenorio from the U.N.E.D. (Spain), Rafael
Termes from the I.E.S.E. (Madrid), Raimondo Cubeddu from
the University of Pisa, Rafael Rubio de Urquia from the Uni-
versidad Autonoma in Madrid, Jose Antonio Garcia Duran
from the Universidad Central de Barcelona (Spain), and the
learned Jose Antonio Linage Conde from the University of San
Pablo-C.E.U. in Madrid have been a great help with their sug-
gestions and provision of books, articles, and rare biblio-
graphic references on banking and monetary issues. My stu-
dents in doctorate courses at the law school of Madrid's
Universidad Complutense, especially Elena Sousmatzian,
Xavier Sampedro, Luis Alfonso Lopez Garcia, Ruben Manso,
Angel Luis Rodriguez, Cesar Martinez Meseguer, Juan Igna-
cio Funes, Alberto Recarte and Esteban Gandara, along with
Assistant Professors Oscar Vara, Javier Aranzadi, and Angel
Rodriguez, have provided innumerable suggestions and
worked hard to correct typing errors in several previous ver-
sions of the manuscript. I express my gratitude to all of them
and free them, as is logical, of all responsibility for the book's
final contents.
Finally, I would like to thank Sandra Moyano, Ann Lewis,
and Yolanda Moyano for their great help and patience in typ-
ing and correcting the different versions of the manuscript.
Above all, I am grateful, as always, to my wife, Sonsoles, for
her help, understanding, and continual encouragement and
support throughout this entire project. This book is dedicated
to her.
Jesus Huerta de Soto
Tormentor
August 15, 1997
1
The Legal Nature
of the Monetary
Irregular-Deposit
Contract
i
A Preliminary Clarification of Terms:
Loan Contracts (Mutuum and Commodatum)
and Deposit Contracts
According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a loan is
"a thing lent; esp. a sum of money lent for a time, to be
returned in money or money's worth, and usually at
interest."1 Traditionally there have been two types of loans:
the loan for use, in which case only the use of the lent item is
transferred and the borrower is obliged to return it once it has
been used; and the loan for consumption, where the property of
the lent item is transferred. In the latter case, the article is
handed over to be consumed, and the borrower is obliged to
return something of the same quantity and quality as the
thing initially received and consumed.2
1T/ie Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1973), vol. 1, p. 1227.
2Manuel Albaladejo, Derecho civil II, Derecho de obligaciones, vol. 2: Los
contratos en particular y las obligaciones no contractuales (Barcelona: Libreria
Bosch, 1975), p. 304.
2 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Commodatum Contract
Commodatum (from Latin) refers to a real contract made in
good faith, by which one person — the lender — entrusts to
another — the borrower or commodatary — a specific item to be
used for free for a certain period of time, at the end of which
the item must be restored to its owner; that is, the very thing
that was loaned must be returned.3 The contract is called
"real" because the article must be given over. An example
would be the loan of a car to a friend so he can take a trip. It
is clear that in this case the lender continues to own the lent
item, and the person receiving it is obliged to use it appropri-
ately and return it (the car) at the end of the arranged period
(when the trip is over). The obligations of the friend, the bor-
rower, are to remain in possession of the article (the car or
vehicle), to use it properly (following traffic rules and taking
care of it as if it were his own), and to return it when the com-
modatum is finished (the trip is over).
The Mutuum Contract
Though the commodatum contract is of some practical
importance, of greater economic significance is the lending of
fungible4 and consumable goods, such as oil, wheat, and espe-
cially, money. Mutuum (also from Latin) refers to the contract
by which one person — the lender — entrusts to another — the
borrower or mutuary — a certain quantity of fungible goods,
and the borrower is obliged, at the end of a specified term, to
return an equal quantity of goods of the same type and quality
(tantundem in Latin). A typical example of a mutuum contract
is the monetary loan contract, money being the quintessential
3Juan Iglesias, Derecho romano: Instituciones de derecho privado, 6th rev.
updated ed. (Barcelona: Ediciones Ariel, 1972), pp. 408-09.
^Fungible goods are those for which others of the same sort may be sub-
stituted. In other words, they are goods which are not treated separately,
but rather in terms of quantity weight, or measure. The Romans said
that things quae in genere suo functionem in solutione recipiunt were fungi-
ble; that is, things quae pondere numero mensurave constant. Consumables
are often fungible.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 3
fungible good. By this contract, a certain quantity of monetary
units are handed over today from one person to another and
the ownership and availability of the money are transferred
from the one granting the loan to the one receiving it. The per-
son who receives the loan is authorized to use the money as his
own, while promising to return, at the end of a set term, the
same number of monetary units lent. The mutuum contract,
since it constitutes a loan of fungible goods, entails an exchange
of "present" goods for "future" goods. Hence, unlike the commo-
datum contract, in the case of the mutuum contract the estab-
lishment of an interest agreement is normal, since, by virtue of
the time preference (according to which, under equal circum-
stances, present goods are always preferable to future goods),
human beings are only willing to relinquish a set quantity of
units of a fungible good in exchange for a greater number of
units of a fungible good in the future (at the end of the term).
Thus, the difference between the number of units initially deliv-
ered and the number received from the borrower at the end of
the term is, precisely, the interest. To sum up, in the case of the
mutuum contract, the lender assumes the obligation to hand
over the predetermined units to the borrower or mutuary. The
borrower or mutuary who receives the loan assumes the obli-
gation to return the same number of units of the same sort and
quality as those received (tantundem) at the end of the term set
for the contract. Plus, he is obliged to pay interest, as long as an
agreement has been made to that effect, as is usually the case.
The essential obligation involved in a mutuum contract, or loan
of a fungible good, is to return at the end of the specified term
the same number of units of the same type and quality as those
received, even if the good undergoes a change in price. This
means that since the borrower only has to return the tantundem
once the predetermined time period has ended, he receives the
benefit of temporary ownership of the thing and therefore enjoys
its complete availability. In addition, a. fixed term is an essential
element in the loan or mutuum contract, since it establishes the
time period during which the availability and ownership of the
good corresponds to the borrower, as well as the moment at
which he is obliged to return the tantundem. Without the explicit
4 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
or implicit establishment of a fixed term, the mutuum contract or
loan cannot exist.
The Deposit Contract
Whereas loan contracts (commodatum and mutuum)
entail the transfer of the availability of the good, which shifts
from the lender to the borrower for the duration of the term,
another type of contract, the deposit contract, requires that the
availability of the good not be transferred. Indeed, the contract of
deposit (depositum in Latin) is a contract made in good faith by
which one person — the depositor — entrusts to another — the
depositary — a movable good for that person to guard, protect,
and return at any moment the depositor should ask for it.
Consequently, the deposit is always carried out in the interest
of the depositor. Its fundamental purpose is the custody or safe-
keeping of the good and it implies, for the duration of the con-
tract, that the complete availability of the good remain in
favor of the depositor, who may request its return at any
moment. The obligation of the depositor, apart from delivering
the good, is to compensate the depositary for the costs of the
deposit (if such compensation has been agreed upon; if not,
the deposit is free of charge). The obligation of the depositary
is to guard and protect the good with the extreme diligence
typical of a good parent, and to return it immediately to the
depositor as soon as he asks for it. It is clear that, while each
loan has a term of duration during which the availability of
the good is transferred, in the case of a deposit this is not so.
Rather a deposit is always held and available to the depositor,
and it terminates as soon as he demands the return of the good
from the depositary.
The Deposit of Fungible Goods
or "Irregular" Deposit Contract
Many times in life we wish to deposit not specific things
(such as a painting, a piece of jewelry, or a sealed chest full of
coins), but fungible goods (like barrels of oil, cubic meters of
gas, bushels of wheat, or thousands of dollars). The deposit of
fungible goods is definitely also a deposit, inasmuch as its
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 5
main element is the complete availability of the deposited
goods in favor of the depositor, as well as the obligation on the
part of the depositary to conscientiously guard and protect the
goods. The only difference between the deposit of fungible
goods and the regular deposit, or deposit of specific goods, is
that when the former takes place, the goods deposited become
indiscernibly mixed with others of the same type and quality
(as is the case, for example, in a warehouse holding grain or
wheat, in an oil tank or oil refinery, or in the banker's safe).
Due to this indistinguishable mixture of different deposited
units of the same type and quality, one might consider that the
"ownership" of the deposited good is transferred in the case
of the deposit of fungible goods. Indeed, when the depositor
goes to withdraw his deposit, he will have to settle, as is logi-
cal, for receiving the exact equivalent in terms of quantity and
quality of what he originally deposited. In no case will he
receive the same specific units he handed over, since the
goods' fungible nature makes them impossible to treat indi-
vidually, because they have become indistinguishably mixed
with the rest of the goods held by the depositary. The deposit
of fungible goods, which possesses the fundamental ingredi-
ents of the deposit contract, is called an "irregular deposit,"5
as one of its characteristic elements is different. (In the case of
the contract of regular deposit, or deposit of a specific good,
5Our student Cesar Martinez Meseguer argues convincingly that
another adequate solution to our problem is to consider that in the irreg-
ular deposit there is no true transference of ownership, but rather that
the concept of ownership refers abstractly to the tantundem or quantity
of goods deposited and as such always remains in favor of the deposi-
tor and is not transferred. This solution is the one offered, for example,
in the case of commixture covered in article 381 of the Spanish Civil
Code, which admits that "each owner will acquire rights in proportion
to the part corresponding to him." Though the irregular deposit has tra-
ditionally been viewed differently (as involving the actual transfer of
ownership of physical units), it appears more correct to define owner-
ship in the more abstract terms of article 381 of the Spanish Civil Code,
in which case we may consider there to be no transference of ownership
in an irregular deposit. Moreover, this seems to be the view of Luis Diez-
Picazo and Antonio Gullon, Sistema de derecho civil, 6th ed. (Madrid: Edi-
torial Tecnos, 1989), vol. 2, pp. 469-70.
6 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
ownership is not transferred, but rather the depositor contin-
ues to own the good, while in the case of the deposit of fungi-
ble goods, one might suppose that ownership is transferred to
the depositary). Nevertheless, we must emphasize that the
essence of the deposit remains unchanged and that the irregu-
lar deposit fully shares the same fundamental nature of all
deposits: the custody and safekeeping obligation. Indeed, in the
irregular deposit there is always an immediate availability in
favor of the depositor, who at any moment can go to the grain
warehouse, oil tank, or bank safe and withdraw the equiva-
lent of the units he originally turned over. The goods with-
drawn will be the exact equivalent, in terms of quantity and
quality, of the ones handed over; or, as the Romans said, the
tantundem iusdem generis, qualitatis et bonetatis.
2
The Economic and Social
Function of Irregular Deposits
Deposits of fungible goods (like money), also called irreg-
ular deposits, perform an important social function which
cannot be fulfilled by regular deposits, understood as deposits
of specific goods. It would be senseless and very costly to
deposit oil in separate, numbered containers (that is, as sealed
deposits in which ownership is not transferred), or to place
bills in an individually-numbered, sealed envelope. Though
these extreme cases would constitute regular deposits in
which ownership is not transferred, they would mean a loss of
the extraordinary efficiency and cost reduction which result
from treating individual deposits jointly and indistinctly from
one another6 at no cost nor loss of availability to the depositor,
who is just as happy if, when he requests it, he receives a tan-
tundem equal in quantity and quality, but not identical in
terms of specific content, to that which he originally handed
over. The irregular deposit has other advantages as well. In
6 In the specific case of the monetary irregular deposit, the occasional use
of cashier services offered by banks is an additional advantage.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 7
the regular deposit, or deposit of specific goods, the depositary
is not responsible for the loss of a good due to an inevitable
accident or act of God, while in the irregular deposit, the
depositary is responsible even in the case of an act of God.
Therefore, in addition to the traditional advantages of imme-
diate availability and safekeeping of the entire deposit, the
irregular deposit acts as a type of insurance against the possi-
bility of loss due to inevitable accidents.7
The Fundamental Element in the
Monetary Irregular Deposit
In the irregular deposit, the obligation to guard and pro-
tect the goods deposited, which is the fundamental element in
all deposits, takes the form of an obligation to always main-
tain complete availability of the tantundem in favor of the
depositor. In other words, whereas in the regular deposit the
specific good deposited must be continually guarded consci-
entiously and in individuo, in the deposit of fungible goods,
what must be continually guarded, protected and kept avail-
able to the depositor is the tantundem; that is, the equivalent
in quantity and quality to the goods originally handed over.
This means that in the irregular deposit, custody consists of the
obligation to always keep available to the depositor goods of the
same quantity and quality as those received. This availability,
though the goods be continually replaced by others, is the equiv-
alent in the case of fungible goods of keeping the in individuo
good in the case of non-fungibles. In other words, the owner
of the grain warehouse or oil tank can use the specific oil or
grain he receives, either for his own use or to return to
7As Pasquale Coppa-Zuccari wisely points out,
a differenza del deposito regolare, l'irregolare gli garantisce la
restituzione del tantundem nella stessa specie e qualita, sem-
pre ed in ogni caso. ... II deponente irregolare e garantito
contro il caso fortuito, contro il quale il depositario regolare
non lo garantisce; trovasi anzi in una condizione economica-
mente ben piu fortunata che se fosse assicurato. (See Pasquale
Coppa-Zuccari, II deposito irregolare [Modena: Biblioteca dell'
Archivio Giuridico Filippo Serafini, 1901], vol. 6, pp. 109-10)
8 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
another depositor, as long as he maintains available to the origi-
nal depositor oil or grain of the same quantity and quality as those
deposited. In the deposit of money the same rule applies. If a
friend gives you a twenty-dollar bill in deposit, we may con-
sider that he transfers to you the ownership of the specific bill,
and that you may use it for your own expenses or for any
other use, as long as you keep the equivalent amount (in the
form of another bill or two ten-dollar bills), so that the
moment he requests you repay him, you can do so immedi-
ately with no problem and no need for excuses.8
8Coppa-Zuccari may have expressed this essential principle of the irreg-
ular deposit better than anyone when he said that the depositary
risponde della diligenza di un buon padre di famiglia
indipendentemente da quella che esplica nel giro ordinario
della sua vita economica e giuridica. II depositario invece,
nella custodia delle cose ricevute in deposito, deve spiegare la
diligenza, quam suis rebus adhibere solet. E questa diligenza
diretta alia conservazione delle cose propie, il depositario
esplica: in rapporto alle cose infungibili, con l'impedire che
esse si perdano o si deteriorino; il rapporto alle fungibili, col
curare di averne sempre a disposizione la medesima quantita
e qualita. Questo tenere a disposizione una eguale quantita e
qualita di cose determinate, si rinnovellino pur di continuo e
si sostituiscano, equivale per le fungibili a cio che per le
infungibili e l'esistenza della cosa in individuo. (Coppa-Zuc-
cari, II deposito irregolare, p. 95)
Joaquin Garrigues states the same opinion in Contratos bancarios
(Madrid, 1975), p. 365, and Juan Roca Juan also expresses it in his article
on the deposit of money (Comentarios al Codigo Civil y Compilaciones
Forales, under the direction of Manuel Albaladejo, tome 22, vol. 1, Edito-
rial Revista del Derecho Privado EDERSA [Madrid, 1982], pp. 246-55), in
which he arrives at the conclusion that in the irregular deposit the safe-
keeping obligation means precisely that the depositary
must keep the quantity deposited available to the depositor at
all times, and therefore must keep the number of units of the
sort deposited necessary to return the amount when it is
requested of him. (p. 251)
In other words, in the case of the monetary irregular deposit, the safe-
keeping obligation means the demand for a continuous 100-percent
cash reserve.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 9
To sum up, the logic behind the institution of irregular
deposit is based on universal legal principles and suggests that
the essential element of custody or safekeeping necessitates the
continuous availability to the depositor of a tantundem equal to
the original deposit. In the specific case of money the quintes-
sential fungible good, this means the safekeeping obligation
requires the continuous availability to the depositor of a 100-
percent cash reserve.
Resulting Effects of the Failure to Comply
with the Essential Obligation in the Irregular Deposit
When there is a failure to comply with the obligation of
safekeeping in a deposit, as is logical, it becomes necessary to
indemnify the depositor, and if the depositary has acted
fraudulently and has employed the deposited good for his
own personal use, he has committed the offense of misappro-
priation. Therefore, in the regular deposit, if someone receives
the deposit of a painting, for example, and sells it to earn
money, he is committing the offense of misappropriation. The
same offense is committed in the irregular deposit of fungible
goods by the depositary who uses deposited goods for his
own profit without maintaining the equivalent tantundem
available to the depositor at all times. This would be the case
of the oil depositary who does not keep in his tanks a quantity
equal to the total deposited with him, or a depositary who
receives money on deposit and uses it in any way for his own
benefit (spending it himself or loaning it), but does not main-
tain a 100-percent cash reserve at all times.9 The criminal law
9Other related offenses are committed when a depositary falsifies the
number of deposit slips or vouchers. This would be the case of the oil
depositary who issues false deposit vouchers to be traded by third par-
ties, and in general, of any depositary of a fungible good (including
money) who issues slips or vouchers for a larger amount than that actu-
ally deposited. It is clear that in this case we are dealing with the
offenses of document forgery (the issue of the false voucher) and fraud (if
in issuing the voucher there is an intention to deceive third parties and
obtain a specific profit). Later on we will confirm that the historical
development of banking was based on the perpetration of such criminal
acts in relation to the "business" of issuing banknotes.
10 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
expert Antonio Ferrer Sama has explained that if the deposit
consists of an amount of money and the obligation to return
the same amount (irregular deposit), and the depositary takes
the money and uses it for his own profit, we will have to
determine which of the following situations is the correct
one in order to determine his criminal liability: at the time
he takes the money the depositary has sufficient financial
stability to return at any moment the amount received in
deposit; or, on the contrary, at the time he takes the money
he does not have enough cash of his own with which to meet his
obligation to return the depositor's money at any moment he
requests it. In the first case the offense of misappropriation
has not been committed. However, if at the time the deposi-
tary takes the deposited amount he does not have enough
cash in his power to fulfill his obligations to the depositor,
he is guilty of misappropriation
from the very moment he takes the goods deposited for his
own use and ceases to possess a tantundem equivalent to the
original deposit.10
10Antonio Ferrer Sama, El delito de apropiacion indebida (Murcia: Publica-
ciones del Seminario de Derecho Penal de la Universidad de Murcia,
Editorial Sucesores de Nogues, 1945), pp. 26-27. As we indicated in the
text and Eugenio Cuello Calon also explains (Derecho penal, Barcelona:
Editorial Bosch, 1972, tome 2, special section, 13th ed, vol. 2, pp. 952-53),
the crime is committed the moment it is established that appropriation
or embezzlement has occurred, and the offense actually derives from
the intention of committing the appropriation. Due to their private
nature, these intentions must be perceived by the result of external acts
(like the alienation, consumption or lending of the good). These deeds
generally take place long before the discovery is made by the depositor
who, when he tries to withdraw his deposit, is surprised to find that the
depositary is not able to immediately hand over to him the correspon-
ding tantundem. Miguel Bajo Fernandez, Mercedes Perez Manzano, and
Carlos Suarez Gonzalez (Manual de derecho penal, special section, "Deli-
tos patrimoniales y economicos" [Madrid: Editorial Centro de Estudios
Ramon Areces, 1993]) also conclude that the offense is committed the
very moment the act of disposal takes place, no matter what the subse-
quent effects are, and continues to be a crime even when the object is
recovered or the perpetrator fails to profit from the appropriation,
regardless of whether the depositary is able to return the tantundem the
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 11
Court Decisions Acknowledging the Fundamental Legal
Principles which Govern the Monetary Irregular-Deposit
Contract (100-Percent Reserve Requirement)
As late as the twentieth century, court decisions in Europe
have upheld the demand for a 100-percent reserve require-
ment, the embodiment of the essential element of custody and
safekeeping in the monetary irregular deposit. On June 12,
1927, the Court of Paris convicted a banker for the crime of
misappropriation for having used, as was the common practice
in banking, funds deposited with him by a client. On January
4, 1934, another ruling of the same court maintained the same
position.11 In addition, when the Bank of Barcelona failed in
moment it is required (p. 421). The same authors contend that there exists
an unacceptable legal loophole in Spanish criminal law, compared to
other legal systems containing
specific provisions for corporate crimes and breach of trust,
under which it would be possible to include the unlawful
behaviors of banks with respect to the irregular deposit of
checking accounts, (p. 429)
In Spanish criminal law, the article governing misappropriation is arti-
cle 252 (mentioned by Antonio Ferrer Sama) of the new 1996 Penal Code
(article 528 of the former), which states:
The penalties specified in article 249 or 250 will be applied to
anyone who, to the detriment of another, appropriates or
embezzles money goods, securities or any other movable
property or patrimonial asset which he has received on
deposit, on consignment or in trust, or by way of another
claim carrying the obligation to deliver or return the property,
or who denies having received it, when the amount appro-
priated exceeds 300 euros. These penalties will be increased
by 50 percent in the case of a necessary deposit.
Finally, the most thorough work on the criminal aspects of the misap-
propriation of money, which covers in extenso the position of Professors
Ferrer Sama, Bajo Fernandez, and others, is by Norberto J. de la Mata
Barranco, Tutela penal de la propiedad y delitos de apropiacion: el dinero como
objeto material de los delitos de hurto y apropiacion indebida (Barcelona: Pro-
mociones y Publicaciones Universitarias [PPU, Inc.], 1994), esp. pp.
407-08 and 512.
11These judicial rulings appear in Jean Escarra's Principes de droit com-
mercial, p. 256; Garrigues also refers to them in Contratos bancarios, pp.
367-68.
12 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Spain, Barcelona's northern court of original jurisdiction, in
response to protests of checking-account holders demanding
recognition as depositors, pronounced a judgment acknowledg-
ing them as such and identifying their consequent preferential
status as creditors of a bankruptcy claiming title to some of the
assets. The decision was based on the fact that the right of
banks to use cash from checking accounts is necessarily
restricted by the obligation to maintain the uninterrupted
availability of these account funds to the checking-account
holder. As a result, this legal restriction on availability ruled
out the possibility that the bank could consider itself exclusive
owner of funds deposited in a checking account.12 Though the
Spanish Supreme Court did not have the opportunity to rule
on the failure of the Bank of Barcelona, a decision pronounced
by it on June 21, 1928 led to a very similar conclusion:
According to the commercial practices and customs recog-
nized by jurisprudence, the monetary deposit contract con-
sists of the deposit of money with a person who, though he
does not contract the obligation to retain for the depositor
the same cash or assets handed over, must maintain posses-
sion of the amount deposited, with the purpose of returning it, par-
tially or in its entirety, the moment the depositor should claim it;
the depositary does not acquire the right to use the deposit for his
own purposes, since, as he is obliged to return the deposit the
moment it is requested of him, he must maintain constant posses-
sion of sufficient cash to do so.13
12"Dictamen de Antonio Goicoechea," in La Cuenta corriente de efectos o
valores de un sector de la banca catalana y el mercado libre de valores de
Barcelona (Madrid: Imprenta Delgado Saez, 1936), pp. 233-89, esp. pp.
263-64. Garrigues also refers to this ruling in Contratos bancarios, p.
368.
13Jose Luis Garcia-Pita y Lastres cites this decision in his paper, "Los
depositos bancarios de dinero y su documentation," which appeared in
La revista de derecho bancario y bursdtil (Centro de Documentation Ban-
caria y Bursatil, October-December 1993), pp. 919-1008, esp. p. 991.
Garrigues also makes reference to this ruling in Contratos bancarios, p.
387.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 13
3
The Essential Differences Between the
Irregular Deposit Contract and the
Monetary Loan Contract
It is now important to review and stress the fundamental
differences between the irregular deposit contract and the
loan contract, both with respect to money. As we will see later
in different contexts, much of the confusion and many of the
legal and economic errors surrounding our topic derive from
a lack of understanding of the essential differences between
these two contracts.
The Extent to which Property Rights are
Transferred in Each Contract
To begin with, it is necessary to point out that the inability
to clearly distinguish between the irregular deposit and the
loan arises from the excessive and undue importance given to
the fact that, as we already know, in the irregular deposit of
money or of any other fungible good we may consider that the
ownership of the deposited good is transferred to the deposi-
tary, "just as" in the loan or mutuum contract. This is the only
similarity between the two types of contract and it has led
many scholars to confuse them without reason.
We have already seen that in the irregular deposit the
transfer of "ownership" is a secondary requirement arising
from the fact that the object of the deposit is a fungible good
which cannot be handled individually. We also know there are
many advantages to putting a deposit together with other sets
of the same fungible good and treating the individual units
indistinctly. Indeed, as one may not, in strictly legal terms,
demand the return of the specific items deposited, since this is
a physical impossibility, it may appear necessary to consider
that a "transfer" of ownership occurs with regard to the individ-
ual, specific units deposited, as these are indistinguishable from
one another. So the depositary becomes the "owner," but only
in the sense that, for as long as he continues to hold the tan-
tundem, he is free to allocate the particular, indistinguishable
units as he chooses. This is the full extent to which property
14 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
rights are transferred in the irregular deposit, unlike the loan
contract, where complete availability of the loaned good is
transferred for the duration of the contract's term. Therefore,
even given the one feasible "similarity" between the irregular
deposit and the monetary loan (the supposed "transfer" of
ownership), it is important to understand that this transfer of
ownership has a very different economic and legal meaning in
each contract. Perhaps, as we explained in footnote number
five, it would even be wisest to hold that in the irregular
deposit there is no transfer of ownership, but rather that the
depositor at all times maintains ownership over the tantundem
in an abstract sense.
Fundamental Economic Differences
Between the Two Contracts
This variation in legal content stems from the essential dif-
ference between the two contracts, which in turn derives from
the distinct economic foundation on which each is based. Thus,
Ludwig von Mises, with his habitual clarity, points out that if
the loan
in the economic sense means the exchange of a present good
or a present service against a future good or a future service,
then it is hardly possible to include the transactions in ques-
tion [irregular deposits] under the conception of credit. A
depositor of a sum of money who acquires in exchange for it
a claim convertible into money at any time which will per-
form exactly the same service for him as the sum it refers to,
has exchanged no present good for a future good. The claim
that he has acquired by his deposit is also a present good for
him. The depositing of the money in no way means that he
has renounced immediate disposal over the utility that it
commands.
He concludes that the deposit "is not a credit transaction,
because the essential element, the exchange of present goods
for future goods, is absent."14
14Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (Indianapolis, Ind.:
Liberty Classics, 1980), pp. 300-01. This is the best English edition of H.E.
Batson's translation of the second German edition (published in 1924) of
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 15
Therefore, in the monetary irregular deposit there is no
relinquishment of present goods in favor of a larger quantity
of future goods at the end of a time period, but rather simply
a change in the manner of possessing present goods. This
change occurs because under many circumstances the depos-
itor finds it more advantageous from a subjective standpoint
(that is, more conducive to his goals) to make a monetary
irregular deposit in which the actual good deposited is mixed
with others of the same sort and treated indistinguishably
from them. Among other advantages, we have already men-
tioned an insurance against the risk of loss due to inevitable
accident and the opportunity to use the cashier services pro-
vided by banks to customers with a checking account. In con-
trast, the essence of the loan contract is radically dissimilar.
The aim of the loan contract is precisely to cede today the avail-
ability of present goods to the borrower for his use, in order to
obtain in the future a generally larger quantity of goods in
exchange at the end of the term set in the contract. We say
"generally larger" because, given the logical time preference
inherent in all human actions, which indicates that, other
things being equal, present goods are always preferable to
future goods, it is necessary to add to the future goods a dif-
ferential amount in the form of interest. Otherwise, it would
be difficult to find anyone willing to give up the availability of
present goods, which is a requirement of every loan.
Hence, from an economic viewpoint the difference
between the two contracts is quite clear: the irregular deposit
contract does not entail the exchange of present goods for
future goods, while the loan contract does. As a result, in the
irregular deposit the availability of the good is not transferred,
but rather the good remains continuously available to the
depositor (despite the fact that in a sense "ownership" has
been shifted from a legal standpoint), while in the loan con-
tract there is always a transfer of availability from the lender
to the borrower. Furthermore, the loan contract usually
includes an interest agreement, whereas in the monetary
Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel, published by Duncker and Hum-
blot in Munich and Leipzig. The first edition was published in 1912.
16 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
irregular-deposit contract, interest agreements are contra natu-
ram and absurd. Coppa-Zuccari, with his customary insight,
explains that the absolute impossibility of including an inter-
est agreement in the irregular deposit contract is, from a legal
viewpoint, a direct result of the right granted the depositor to
withdraw the deposit at any time, and the depositary's corre-
sponding obligation to maintain the associated tantundem con-
stantly available to the depositor.15 Ludwig von Mises also
indicates that it is possible for the depositor to make deposits
without demanding any type of interest precisely because
the claim obtained in exchange for the sum of money is
equally valuable to him whether he converts it sooner or
later, or even not at all; and because of this it is possible for
him, without damaging his economic interests, to acquire
such claims in return for the surrender of money without
demanding compensation for any difference in value arising
from the difference in time between payment and repay-
ment, such, of course, as does not in fact exist.16
Given the economic foundation of the monetary irregular-
deposit contract, which does not imply the exchange of pres-
ent goods for future goods, the uninterrupted availability in
favor of the depositor and the incompatibility with an interest
agreement arise logically and directly from the legal essence
15 Conseguenza immediata del diritto concesso al deponente di
ritirare in ogni tempo il deposito e del correlativo obbligo del
depositario di renderlo alia prima richiesta e di tenere sempre
a disposizione del deponente il suo tantundem nel deposito
irregolare, e l'impossibilita assoluta per il depositario di cor-
rispondere interessi al deponente. (Coppa-Zuccari, II deposito
irregolare, p. 292)
Coppa-Zuccari also points out that this incompatibility between the
irregular deposit and the payment of interest does not apply, as is logi-
cal, to the completely separate case where interest is awarded because
the depositary fails to return the money upon request, thus becoming a
defaulter. As a result, the concept of depositum confessatum was, as we
shall see, systematically used throughout the Middle Ages as a legal ploy
to bypass the canonical prohibition on the charging of interest on loans.
16Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 301.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 17
of the irregular deposit contract, which contrasts sharply with
the legal essence of the loan contract.17
Fundamental Legal Differences Between
the Two Contracts
The essential legal element in the irregular deposit con-
tract is the custody or safekeeping of the money deposited. To
the parties deciding to make or receive an irregular deposit,
this is the most important aim or purpose of the contract,18 and
it varies greatly from the essential purpose of the loan con-
tract, which is the transfer of the availability of the loaned good
to the borrower so he can use it for a period of time. Two other
important legal differences arise from this essential dissimilar-
ity in purpose between the two types of contract. First, the
irregular deposit contract lacks a term, the essential element
identifying a loan contract. Indeed, while it is impossible to
17The fact that interest agreements are incompatible with the monetary
irregular-deposit contract does not mean the latter should be free of
charge. Indeed, in keeping with its very nature, the irregular deposit
usually includes the stipulation of payment by the depositor to the
depositary of a certain amount for the costs of guarding the deposit or
maintaining the account. The payment of interest is a reasonable indi-
cation that the essential obligation of safekeeping in the irregular
deposit contract is almost certainly being violated and that the deposi-
tary is using the money of his depositors for his own benefit, misappro-
priating part of the tantundem which he should keep available at all
times to the depositors.
18J. Dabin, La teoria de la causa: estudio historico y jurisprudential, trans-
lated by Francisco de Pelsmaeker and adapted by Francisco Bonet
Ramon, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Editorial Revista de Derecho Privado, 1955),
pp. 24 and on. That the purpose of the irregular deposit contract is cus-
tody or safekeeping and is different from the object of the loan contract
is recognized even by authors who, like Garcia-Pita or Ozcariz-Marco,
still do not accept that the unavoidable, logical consequence of its pur-
pose of safekeeping is a 100-percent reserve requirement for bank
demand deposits. See Jose Luis Garcia-Pita y Lastres, "Depositos ban-
carios y proteccion del depositante," Contratos bancarios (Madrid: Cole-
gios Notariales de Espana, 1996), pp. 119-266, and esp. 167-91; and Flo-
rencio Ozcariz Marco, El contrato de deposito: estudio de la obligation de
guarda (Barcelona: J.M. Bosch Editor, 1997), pp. 37 and 47.
18 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
imagine a monetary loan contract without a fixed term (during
which not only is ownership transferred, but availability is lost
to the lender as well), at the end of which it is necessary to
return the tantundem of money originally loaned plus interest,
in the irregular deposit contract there is no term whatsoever, but
rather there is continuous availability in favor of the depositor,
who may withdraw his tantundem at any time.19 The second
essential legal difference refers to the obligations of the two par-
ties: in the irregular deposit contract the legal obligation
implied by the nature of the contract consists, as we know, of
the conscientious custody or safekeeping (as would be expected of
a good parent) of the tantundem, which is kept continually avail-
able to the depositor.20 In the loan contract this obligation does
not exist, and the borrower may use the loaned amount with
total freedom. Indeed, when we speak of the legal "transfer of
ownership" in the two contracts, we allude to two very dis-
similar concepts. Whereas the "transfer" of ownership in the
19Civil law experts unanimously agree that a term is essential to a loan
contract, unlike an irregular deposit contract, which has no term. Manuel
Albaladejo emphasizes that the mutuum contract concludes and the
loan must be given back at the end of the term (for example, see article
1125 of the Spanish Civil Code). He even indicates that if a term has not
been explicitly designated, then the intention to set one for the debtor
must always be assumed, since a term is required by the essential nature of
the loan contract. In this case a third party (the courts) must be allowed
to stipulate the corresponding term (this is the solution adopted in arti-
cle 1128 of the Spanish Civil Code). See Albaladejo, Derecho civil II, Dere-
cho de obligaciones, vol. 2, p. 317.
20Clearly, it is the tantundem which is kept continually available to the
depositor, and not the same specific units deposited. In other words,
even though ownership of the concrete physical units deposited is
transferred and they may be used, the depositary does not gain any real
availability, since what he gains with respect to the specific units
received is exactly compensated by the necessary loss of the equivalent
availability regarding other specific units already in his power, and this
necessity stems from the obligation to keep the tantundem constantly
available to the depositor. In the monetary deposit contract, this con-
stant availability to the depositor is usually referred to by the expression
"on demand," which illustrates the essential, unmistakable purpose of
the checking account or "demand" deposit contract: to keep the tantun-
dem continually available to the depositor.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract
19
Table 1-1
Essential Differences Between Two
Radically Distinct Contracts
Monetary Irregular Deposit
Monetary Loan
Economic Differences
1. Present goods are not
exchanged for future
goods.
2. There is complete, contin-
uous availability in favor
of the depositor.
3. There is no interest, since
present goods are not
exchanged for future
goods.
1. Present goods are
exchanged for future
goods.
2. Full availability is
transferred from lender
to borrower.
3. There is interest, since
present goods are
exchanged for future
goods.
Legal Differences
1 . The essential element
(and the depositor's main
motivation) is the custody
or safekeeping of the tan-
tundem.
2. There is no term for
returning the money, but
rather the contract is "on
demand."
3. The depositary's obliga-
tion is to keep the tantun-
dem available to the
depositor at all times
(100-percent cash
reserve).
1 . The essential element is
the transfer of avail-
ability of the present
goods to the borrower.
2. The contract requires
the establishment of a
term for the return of
the loan and calcula-
tion and payment of
interest.
3. The borrower's obliga-
tion is to return the
tantundem at the end of
the term and to pay the
agreed-upon interest.
20 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
irregular deposit contract (which could be considered a
requirement of the fungible nature of the deposited goods)
does not imply a simultaneous transfer of availability of the
tantundem, in the loan contract there is a complete transfer of
ownership and availability of the tantundem from lender to
borrower.21 The differences covered in this section are out-
lined in Table 1-1.
4
The Discovery by Roman Legal Experts of the
General Legal Principles Governing the
Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract
The Emergence of Traditional Legal Principles
According to Menger, Hayek, and Leoni
The traditional, universal legal principles we dealt with in
the last section in relation to the irregular deposit contract
have not emerged in a vacuum, nor are they the result of a pri-
ori knowledge. The concept of law as a series of rules and
institutions to which people constantly, perpetually and cus-
tomarily adapt their behavior has been developed and refined
21At this point it is important to draw attention to the "time deposit"
contract, which possesses the economic and legal characteristics of a
true loan, not those of a deposit. We must emphasize that this use of ter-
minology is misleading and conceals a true loan contract, in which pres-
ent goods are exchanged for future goods, the availability of money is
transferred for the duration of a fixed term and the client has the right to
receive the corresponding interest. This confusing terminology makes it
even more complicated and difficult for citizens to distinguish between
a true (demand) deposit and a loan contract (involving a term). Certain
economic agents have repeatedly and selfishly employed these terms to
take advantage of the existent confusion. The situation degenerates fur-
ther when, as quite often occurs, banks offer time "deposits" (which
should be true loans) that become de facto "demand" deposits, as the
banks provide the possibility of withdrawing the funds at any time
without penalty.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 21
through a repetitive, evolutionary process. Perhaps one of Carl
Menger's most important contributions was the development
of a complete economic theory of social institutions. According
to his theory social institutions arise as the result of an evolu-
tionary process in which innumerable human beings interact,
each one equipped with his own small personal heritage of sub-
jective knowledge, practical experiences, desires, concerns,
goals, doubts, feelings, etc. By means of this spontaneous evo-
lutionary process, a series of behavior patterns or institutions
emerges in the realms of economics and language, as well as
law, and these behaviors make life in society possible. Menger
discovered that institutions appear through a social process
composed of a multiplicity of human actions, which is always
led by a relatively small group of individuals who, in their par-
ticular historical and geographical circumstances, are the first
ones to discover that certain patterns of behavior help them
attain their goals more efficiently. This discovery initiates a
decentralized trial and error process encompassing many gen-
erations, in which the most effective behavior patterns gradu-
ally become more widespread as they successfully counter
social maladjustments. Thus there is an unconscious social
process of learning by imitation which explains how the pio-
neering behavior of these most successful and creative individ-
uals catches on and eventually extends to the rest of society.
Also, due to this evolutionary process, those societies which
first adopt successful principles and institutions tend to spread
and prevail over other social groups. Although Menger devel-
oped his theory in relation to the origin and evolution of money,
he also mentions that the same essential theoretical framework
can be easily applied to the study of the origins and develop-
ment of language, as well as to our present topic, juridical insti-
tutions. Hence the paradoxical fact that the moral, juridical, eco-
nomic and linguistic institutions which are most important and
essential to man's life in society are not of his own creation,
because he lacks the necessary intellectual might to assimilate
the vast body of random information that these institutions
generate. On the contrary, these institutions inevitably and
spontaneously emanate from the social processes of human
22 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
interaction which Menger believes should be the main subject
of research in economics.22
Menger 's ideas were later developed by F.A. Hayek in
various works on the fundamentals of law and juridical insti-
tutions,23 and especially by the Italian professor of political
science, Bruno Leoni, who was the first to incorporate the fol-
lowing in a synoptic theory on the philosophy of law: the eco-
nomic theory of social processes developed by Menger and
the Austrian School, the most time-honored Roman legal tra-
dition, and the Anglo-Saxon tradition of rule of law. Indeed,
Bruno Leoni's great contribution is having shown that the
Austrian theory on the emergence and evolution of social
institutions is perfectly illustrated by the phenomenon of com-
mon law and that it was already known and had been formu-
lated by the Roman classical school of law.24 Leoni, citing
22Carl Menger, Untersuchungen tiber die Methode der Socialzvissenschaften
und der Politischen Okonomie insbesondere (Leipzig: Duncker and Hum-
blot, 1883), esp. p. 182. (Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences
with Special Reference to Economics [New York: New York University
Press, 1985]). Menger himself eloquently formulates this new question
which his proposed scientific research program for economics is
designed to answer:
How is it possible that the institutions which are most signif-
icant to and best serve the common good have emerged with-
out the intervention of a deliberate common will to create
them? (pp. 163-65)
The best and perhaps the most brilliant synopsis of Menger 's theory on
the evolutionary origin of money appears in his article, "On the Origin
of Money," Economic Journal (June 1892): 239-55. This article has been
reprinted by Israel M. Kirzner in his Classics in Austrian Economics: A
Sampling in the History of a Tradition (London: William Pickering, 1994),
vol. 1, pp. 91-106.
23F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (London: Routledge, 1st edition
[1960] 1990); Law, Legislation and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1978); and The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1989).
24See Jesus Huerta de Soto, Estudios de economia politica (Madrid: Union
Editorial, 1994), chap. 10, pp. 121-28, and Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the
Law (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1961), essential reading
for all jurists and economists.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 23
Cicero's rendering of Cato's words, specifically points out that
Roman jurists knew Roman law was not the personal inven-
tion of one man, but rather the creation of many over genera-
tions and centuries, given that
there never was in the world a man so clever as to foresee
everything and that even if we could concentrate all brains
into the head of one man, it would be impossible for him to
provide for everything at one time without having the experi-
ence that comes from practice through a long period of his-
tory25
In short, it was Leoni's opinion that law emerges as the
result of a continuous trial-and-error process, in which each
25 Nostra autem res publica non unius esset ingenio, sed multo-
rum, nee una hominis vita, sed aliquod constitutum saeculis
et aetatibus, nam neque ullum ingenium tantum extitisse
dicebat, ut, quern res nulla fugeret, quisquam aliquando fuis-
set, neque cuncta ingenia conlata in unum tantum posse uno
tempore providere, ut omnia complecterentur sine rerum usu
ac vetustate. (Marcus Tullius Cicero, De re publica, 2, 1-2
[Cambridge, Mass.: The Loeb Classical Library, 1961], pp.
111-12. See Leoni, Freedom and the Law, p. 89)
Leoni's book is by all accounts exceptional. Not only does he reveal the
parallelism between the market and common law on the one hand, and
socialism and legislation on the other, but he is also the first jurist to rec-
ognize Ludwig von Mises's argument on the impossibility of socialist
economic calculation as an illustration of
a more general realization that no legislator would be able to
establish by himself, without some kind of continuous collab-
oration on the part of all the people concerned, the rules gov-
erning the actual behavior of everybody in the endless rela-
tionships that each has with everybody else. (pp. 18-19)
For information on the work of Bruno Leoni, founder of the prestigious
journal II Politico in 1950, see Omaggio a Bruno Leoni, Pasquale
Scaramozzino, ed. (Milan: Ed. A. Guiffre, 1969), and the article "Bruno
Leoni in Retrospect" by Peter H. Aranson, Harvard Journal of Law and
Public Policy (Summer, 1988). Leoni was multifaceted and extremely
active in the fields of university teaching, law, business, architecture,
music, and linguistics. He was tragically murdered by one of his tenants
while trying to collect the rent on the night of November 21, 1967. He
was fifty-four years old.
24 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
individual takes into account his own circumstances and the
behavior of others and the law is perfected through a selective
evolutionary process.26
Roman Jurisprudence
The greatness of classical Roman jurisprudence stems pre-
cisely from the realization of this important truth on the part
of legal experts and the continual efforts they dedicated to
study interpretation of legal customs, exegesis, logical analy-
sis, the tightening of loopholes and the correction of flaws; all
of which they carried out with the necessary standards of
prudence and equanimity27 The occupation of classical jurist
was a true art, of which the constant aim was to identify and
define the essence of the juridical institutions that have devel-
oped throughout society's evolutionary process. Furthermore,
classical jurists never entertained pretensions of being "origi-
nal" or "clever," but rather were "the servants of certain fun-
damental principles, and as Savigny pointed out, herein lies
their greatness."28 Their fundamental objective was to dis-
cover the universal principles of law, which are unchanging
and inherent in the logic of human relationships. It is true,
however, that social evolution itself often necessitates the
26In the words of Bruno Leoni, law is shaped by
una continua serie de tentativi, che gli individui compiono
quando pretendono un comportamento altrui, e si affidano al
propio potere di determinare quel comportamento, qualora
esso non si determini in modo spontaneo. (Bruno Leoni,
"Diritto e politica," in his book Scritti di scienza politica e teoria
del diritto [Milan: A. Giuffre, 1980], p. 240)
27In fact, the interpreter of the ius was the prudens, that is, the legal
expert or iuris prudens. It was his job to reveal the law. Jurists provided
advice and assistance to individuals and instructed them in business
practices and types of contracts, offered answers to their questions and
informed judges and magistrates. See Juan Iglesias, Derecho romano:
Instituciones de derecho privado, 6th rev. ed. (Barcelona: Ediciones Ariel,
1972), pp. 54-55.
28Iglesias, Derecho romano: Instituciones de derecho privado, p. 56. And esp.
Rudolf von Ihering, El espiritu del derecho romano, Cldsicos del Pensamiento
Juridico (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 1997), esp. pp. 196-202 and 251-53.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 25
application of these unchanging universal principles to new
situations and problems arising continually from this evolu-
tionary process.29 In addition, Roman jurists worked inde-
pendently and were not civil servants. Despite multiple
attempts by official legal experts in Roman times, they were
never able to do away with the free practice of jurisprudence,
nor did the latter lose its enormous prestige and independence.
Jurisprudence, or the science of law, became an independ-
ent profession in the third century B.C. The most important
jurists prior to our era were Marcus Porcius Cato and his son
Cato Licianus, the consul Mucius Scaevola, and the jurists
Quintus Mucius Scaevola, Servius Surpicius Rufus, and
Alfenus Varus. Later, in the second century A.D., the classical
era began and the most important jurists during that time
were Gaius, Pomponius, Africanus, and Marcellus. In the
third century their example was followed by Papinian, Paul,
Ulpian, and Modestinus, among other jurists. From this time
onward, the solutions offered by these independent jurists
received such great prestige that the force of law was attached
to them; and to prevent the possibility of difficulties arising
from differences of opinion in the jurists' legal writings, the
force of law was given to the works of Papinian, Paul, Ulpian,
Gaius, and Modestinus, and to the doctrines of jurists cited by
them, as long as these references could be confirmed upon
comparison with original writings. If these authors were in
disagreement, the judge was compelled to follow the doctrine
defended by the majority; and in the case of a tie, the opinion
of Papinian was to prevail. If he had not communicated his
opinion on an issue, the judge was free to decide.30
29 The occupation of interpretatio was intimately related to the
role of advisor to individuals, magistrates, and judges, and
consisted of applying time-honored principles to new needs;
this meant an expansion of the ius civile, even when no new
institutions were formally created. (Francisco Hernandez-
Tejero Jorge, Lecciones de derecho romano [Madrid: Ediciones
Darro, 1972], p. 30)
30This force of law was first acquired in a constitution from the year 426,
known as the Citation Law of Theodosius and Valentinianus III. See
Hernandez-Tejero Jorge, Lecciones de derecho romano, p. 3.
26 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Roman classical jurists deserve the credit for first discov-
ering, interpreting, and perfecting the most important juridi-
cal institutions that make life in society possible, and as we
will see, they had already recognized the irregular deposit
contract, understood the essential principles governing it, and
outlined its content and essence as explained earlier in this
chapter. The irregular deposit contract is not an intellectual,
abstract creation. It is a logical outcome of human nature as
expressed in multiple acts of social interaction and coopera-
tion, and it manifests itself in a set of principles which cannot
be violated without grave consequences to the network of
human relationships. The great importance of law in this evo-
lutionary sense, distilled and rid of its logical flaws through
the science of legal experts, lies in the guidance it provides
people in their daily lives; though in most cases, due to its
abstract nature, people may not be able to identify or under-
stand the complete specific function of each juridical institu-
tion. Only recently in the historical evolution of human
thought has it been possible to understand the laws of social
processes and gain a meager grasp on the role of the differ-
ent juridical institutions in society, and the contributions of
economics have been mostly responsible for these realiza-
tions. One of our most important objectives is to carry out an
economic analysis of social consequences resulting from the
violation of the universal legal principles regulating the mon-
etary irregular-deposit contract. In chapter 4 we will begin this
theoretical economic analysis of a juridical institution (the
monetary bank-deposit contract).
The knowledge we have today of universal legal princi-
ples as they were discovered by Roman jurists comes to us
through the work of the emperor Justinian, who in the years
528-533 A.D. made an enormous effort to compile the main
contributions of classical Roman jurists and recorded them in
three books (the Institutiones, the Digest, and the Codex Consti-
tutionum, later completed by a fourth book, the Novellae),
which, since the edition of Dionysius Gottfried,31 are known
as the Corpus Juris Civilis. The Institutiones is an essential work
^Corpus juris Civilis (Geneva: Dionysius Gottfried, 1583).
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 27
directed at students and based on Gaius's Institudones. The
Digest or Pandecta is a compilation of classical legal texts which
includes over nine thousand excerpts from the works of differ-
ent prestigious jurists. Passages taken from the works of
Ulpian, which comprise a third of the Digest, together with
excerpts from Paul, Papinian, and Julianus, fill more of the book
than the writings of all of the rest of the jurists as a group. In all,
contributions appear from thirty-nine specialists in Roman clas-
sical law. The Codex Constitutionum consists of a chronologi-
cally-ordered collection of imperial laws and constitutions (the
equivalent of the present-day concept of legislation), and Novel-
he, the last work in the Corpus, contains the last imperial con-
stitutions subsequent to the Codex Constitutionum.32
Now let us follow up this brief introduction by turning to
the Roman classical jurists and their treatment of the institu-
tion of monetary irregular deposit. It is clear they understood
it, considered it a special type of deposit possessing the essen-
tial deposit characteristics and differentiated it from other
contracts of a radically different nature and essence, such as
the mutuum contract or loan.
The Irregular Deposit Contract Under Roman Law
The deposit contract in general is covered in section 3 of
book 16 of the Digest, entitled "On Depositing and Withdraw-
ing" (Depositi vet contra). Ulpian begins with the following def-
inition:
A deposit is something given another for safekeeping. It is so
called because a good is posited [or placed]. The preposition de
32Justinian stipulated that the necessary changes be made in the com-
piled materials so that the law would be appropriate to the historical
circumstances and as close to perfect as possible. These modifications,
corrections and omissions are called interpolations and also emblemata
Triboniani, after Tribonian, who was in charge of the compilation. There
is an entire discipline dedicated to the study of these interpolations, to
determining their content through comparison, logical analysis, the
study of anachronisms in language, etc., since it has been discovered
that a substantial number of them were made after the Justinian era. See
Hemandez-Tejero Jorge, Lecciones de derecho romano, pp. 50-51.
28 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
intensifies the meaning, which reflects that all obligations cor-
responding to the custody of the good belong to that person.33
A deposit can be either regular, in the case of a specific
good; or irregular, in the case of a fungible good.34 In fact, in
number 31, title 2, book 19 of the Digest, Paul explains the dif-
ference between the loan contract or mutuum and the deposit
contract of a fungible good, arriving at the conclusion that
if a person deposits a certain amount of loose money, which
he counts and does not hand over sealed or enclosed in
something, then the only duty of the person receiving it is to
return the same amount.35
33Ulpian, a native of Tyre (Phoenicia), was advisor to another great
jurist, Papinian, and together with Paul, he was an advising member of
the concilium principis and praefectus praetorio under Alexander Severus.
He was murdered in the year 228 by the Praetorians. He was a very pro-
lific writer who was better known for his knowledge of juridical litera-
ture than for his creative work. He wrote clearly and was a good com-
piler and his writings are regarded with special favor in Justinian's
Digest, where they comprise the main part. On this topic see Iglesias,
Derecho romano: Instituciones de derecho privado, p. 58. The passage cited
in the text is as follows in Latin:
Depositum est, quod custodiendum alicui datum est, dictum
ex eo, quod ponitur, praepositio enim de auget depositum, ut
ostendat totum fidei eius commissum, quod ad custodiam rei
pertinet. (See Ildefonso L. Garcia del Corral, ed., Cuerpo de
derecho civil romano, 6 vols. [Valladolid: Editorial Lex Nova,
1988], vol. 1, p. 831)
34However, as Pasquale Coppa-Zuccari astutely points out, the expres-
sion depositum irregolare did not appear until it was first used by Jason
de Maino, a fifteenth century annotator of earlier works, whose writ-
ings were published in Venice in the year 1513. See Coppa-Zuccari, II
deposito irregolare, p. 41. Also, the entire first chapter of this important
work deals with the treatment under Roman law of the irregular
deposit, pp. 2-32. For an excellent, current treatment in Spanish of bib-
liographic sources on the irregular deposit in Rome, see Mercedes
Lopez-Amor y Garcia's article, "Observaciones sobre el deposito irreg-
ular romano," in the Revista de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad
Complutense 74 (1988-1989): 341-59; and also Alicia Valmana Ochaita, El
deposito irregular en la jurisprudencia romana (Madrid: Edisofer, 1996).
35This is actually a summary by Paul of Alfenus Varus's Digest. Alfenus
Varus was consul in the year 39 A.D. and the author of forty books of the
Digest. Paul, in turn, was a disciple of Scaevola and an advisor to Papinian
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 29
In other words, Paul clearly indicates that in the monetary
irregular deposit the depositary's only obligation is to return
the tantundem: the equivalent in quantity and quality of the
original deposit. Moreover, whenever anyone made an irreg-
ular deposit of money, he received a written certificate or
deposit slip. We know this because Papinian, in paragraph 24,
title 3, book 16 of the Digest, says in reference to a monetary
irregular deposit,
/ write this letter by hand to inform you, so that you will know,
that the one hundred coins you have entrusted to me today
through Sticho, the slave and administrator, are in my pos-
session and I will return them to you immediately, when-
ever and wherever you wish.
This passage reveals the immediate availability of the
money to the depositor and the custom of giving him a
deposit slip or receipt certifying a monetary irregular deposit,
which not only established ownership, but also had to be pre-
sented upon withdrawal.36
during the time Papinian was a member of the imperial council under
Severus and Caracalla. He was a very ingenious, learned figure and the
author of numerous writings. The passage cited in the text is as follows
in Latin:
Idem iuris esse in deposito; nam si quis pecuniam numeratam
ita deposuisset ut neque clausam, neque obsignatam traderet,
sed adnumeraret, nihil aliud eum debere, apud quern
deposita esset, nisi tantundem pecuniae solvere. (See Ildefonso
L. Garcia del Corral, edv Cuerpo de derecho civil romano, 6 vols.
[Valladolid: Editorial Lex Nova, 1988], vol. 1, p. 963)
36Papinian, a native of Syria, was Praefectus Praetorio beginning in the
year 203 A.D. and was sentenced to death by the emperor Caracalla in
the year 212 for refusing to justify the murder of his brother, Geta. He
shared with Julianus the reputation for being the most notable of Roman
jurists, and according to Juan Iglesias, "His writings are remarkable for
their astuteness and pragmatism, as well as for their sober style" (Dere-
cho romano: Instituciones de derecho privado, p. 58). The passage cited in the
text is as follows in Latin:
centum numos, quos hac die commendasti mihi annumerante
servo Sticho actore, esse apud me, ut notum haberes, hac epi-
tistola manu mea scripta tibi notum facio; quae quando volis,
et ubi voles, confestim tibi numerabo. (Garcia del Corral, ed.,
Cuerpo de derecho civil romano, vol. 1, p. 840)
30 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The essential obligation of depositaries is to maintain the
tantundem constantly available to depositors. If for some reason
the depositary goes bankrupt, the depositors have absolute
privilege over any other claimants, as Ulpian skillfully explains
(paragraph 2, number 7, title 3, book 16 of the Digest):
Whenever bankers are declared bankrupt, usually
addressed first are the concerns of the depositors; that is,
those with money on deposit, not those earning interest on
money left with the bankers. So, once the goods have been
sold, the depositors have priority over those with privileges,
and those who received interest are not taken into account —
it is as if they had relinquished the deposit.37
Here Ulpian indicates as well that interest was considered
incompatible with the monetary irregular deposit and that
when bankers paid interest, it was in connection with a totally
different contract (in this case, a mutuum contract or loan to a
banker, which is better known today as a time "deposit" con-
tract).
As for the depositary's obligations, it is expressly stated in
the Digest (book 47, title 2, number 78) that he who receives a
good on deposit and uses it for a purpose other than that for
which it was received is guilty of theft. Celsus also tells us in
the same title (book 47, title 2, number 67) that taking a
deposit with an intent to deceive constitutes theft. Paul
defines theft as "the fraudulent appropriation of a good to
gain a profit, either from the good itself or from its use or
possession; this is forbidden by natural law."38 As we see, what
37 Quoties foro cedunt numularii, solet primo loco ratio haberi
depositariorum, hoc est eorum, qui depositas pecunias
habuerunt, non quas foenore apud numularios, vel cum
numulariis, vel per ipsos exercebant; et ante privilegia igitur,
si bona venierint, depositariorum ratio habetur, dummodo
eorum, qui vel postea usuras acceperunt, ratio non habeatur,
quasi renuntiaverint deposito. (Garcia del Corral, ed., Cuerpo
de derecho civil romano, vol. 1, p. 837)
38 Furtum est contrectatio rei fraudulosa, lucri faciendi gratia,
vel ipsius rei, vel etiam usus eius possessionisve; quod lege
naturali prohibitum est admittere. (Ibid., vol. 3, p. 645)
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 31
is today called the crime of misappropriation was included
under the definition of theft in Roman law. Ulpian, in reference
to Julianus, also concluded:
if someone receives money from me to pay a creditor of
mine, and, himself owing the same amount to the creditor,
pays him in his own name, he commits theft. (Digest, book
47, title 2, number 52, paragraph 16)39
In number 3, title 34 (on "the act of deposit"), book 4 of the
Codex Constitutionum of the Corpus Juris Civilis, which includes
the constitution established under the consulship of Gor-
dianus and Aviola in the year 239, the obligation to maintain
the total availability of the tantundem is even clearer, as is the
commission of theft when the tantundem is not kept avail-
able. In this constitution, the emperor Gordianus indicates to
Austerus,
if you make a deposit, you will with reason ask to be paid
interest, since the depositary should thank you for not holding
him responsible for theft, because he who knowingly and will-
ingly uses a deposited good for his own benefit, against the will
of the owner, also commits the crime of theft. i0
Section 8 of the same source deals expressly with deposi-
taries who loan money received on deposit, thus using it for
their own benefit. It is emphasized that such an action violates
the principle of safekeeping, obligates depositaries to pay
interest, and makes them guilty of theft, as we have just seen
in the constitution of Gordianus. In this section we read:
If a person who has received money from you on deposit
loans it in his own name, or in the name of any other person,
39Ibidv p. 663.
40 Si depositi experiaris, non immerito etiam usuras tibi restitui
flagitabis, quum tibi debeat gratulari, quod furti eum actione
non facias obnoxium, siquidem qui rem depositam invito
domino sciens prudensque in usus suus converterit, etiam furti
delicto succedit. (Ibid., vol. 4, p. 490)
32 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
he and his successors are most certainly obliged to carry out
the task accepted and to fulfill the trust placed in them.41
It is recognized, in short, that those who receive money on
deposit are often tempted to use it for themselves. This is
explicitly acknowledged elsewhere in the Corpus Juris Civilis
(Novellae, Constitution LXXXVIII, at the end of chapter 1),
along with the importance of properly penalizing these
actions, not only by charging the depositary with theft, but
also by holding him responsible for payment of interest on
arrears "so that, in fear of these penalties, men will cease to
make evil, foolish and perverse use of deposits."42
Roman jurists established that when a depositary failed to
comply with the obligation to immediately return the tantun-
dem upon request, not only was he clearly guilty of the prior
crime of theft, but he was also liable for payment of interest on
arrears. Accordingly, Papinian states:
He who receives the deposit of an unsealed package of
money and agrees to return the same amount, yet uses this
money for his own profit, must pay interest for the delay in
returning the deposit.43
This perfectly just principle is behind the so-called deposi-
tum confessatum, which we will consider in greater detail in the
next chapter and refers to the evasion of the canonical prohibi-
tion on interest by disguising actual loan or mutuum contracts
41 Si is, qui depositam a te pecuniam accepit, earn suo nomine
vel cuiuslibet alterius mutuo dedit, tarn ipsum de implenda
suscepta fide, quan eius successores teneri tibi, certissimum.
est. (Ibid., p. 491)
42"Ut hoc timore stultorum simul et perversorum maligne versandi cur-
sum in depositionibus homines cessent." As is clear and we will later
expand upon, it had already been demonstrated that depositaries made
perverse use of money entrusted to them by their depositors. See ibid.,
vol. 6, pp. 310-11.
43 Qui pecuniam apud se non obsignatam, ut tantundem red-
deret, depositam ad usus propios convertit, post moram in
usuras quoque iudicio depositi condemnandus est. (Ibid., vol.
l,p. 841)
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 33
as irregular deposits and then deliberately delaying repay-
ment, thus authorizing the charging of interest. If these con-
tracts had from the beginning been openly regarded as loan or
mutuum contracts they would not have been permitted by
canon law.
Finally we find evidence in the following extracts (among
others) that Roman jurists understood the essential difference
between the loan or mutuum contract and the monetary irreg-
ular-deposit contract: number 26, title 3, book 16 (passage by
Paul); number 9, point 9, title 1, book 12 of the Digest (excerpts
by Ulpian); and number 10 of the same title and book. How-
ever, the clearest and most specific statements to this effect
were made by Ulpian in section 2, number 24, title 5, book 42
of the Digest, in which he expressly concludes that "To loan is
one thing and to deposit is another," and establishes
that once a banker's goods have been sold and the concerns
of the privileged attended to, preference should be given
people who, according to attested documents, deposited
money in the bank. Nevertheless, those who have received
interest from the bankers on money deposited will not be
dealt with separately from the rest of the creditors; and with
good reason, since to loan is one thing and to deposit is
another.44
44 In bonis mensularii vendundis post privilegia potiorem
eorum causam esse placuit, qui pecunias apud mensam
fidem publicam secuti deposuerunt. Set enim qui depositis
numis usuras a mensulariis accepurunt, a ceteris creditoribus
non seperantur; et merito, aliud est enim credere, aliud
deponere. (Ibid., vol. 3, p. 386)
Papinian, for his part, states that if a depositary fails to comply with his
responsibilities, money to return deposits can be taken not only from
deposited funds found among the banker's assets, but from all the
defrauder's assets. The depositors'
privilege extends not only to deposited funds still among the
banker's assets, but to all of the defrauder's assets; and this is
for the public good, given that banking services are necessary.
However, necessary expenses always come first, since the cal-
culation of assets usually takes place after discounting them.
(The principle reflected here of bankers' unlimited liability
appears in point 8, title 3, book 16 of the Digest.)
34 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
It is therefore clear from Ulpian's writings in this section
that bankers carried out two different types of operations. On
one hand, they accepted deposits, which involved no right to
interest and obliged the depositary to maintain the full, con-
tinuous availability of the tantundem in favor of the deposi-
tors, who had absolute privilege in the case of bankruptcy.
And, on the other hand, they received loans (mutuum con-
tracts), which did obligate the banker to pay interest to the
lenders, who lacked all privileges in the case of bankrupcy.
Ulpian could show no greater clarity in his distinction
between the two contracts nor greater fairness in his solutions.
Roman classical jurists discovered and analyzed the uni-
versal legal principles governing the monetary irregular-
deposit contract, and this analysis coincided naturally with
the development of a significant business and trade economy,
in which bankers had come to play a very important role. In
addition, these principles later appeared in the medieval legal
codes of various European countries, including Spain, despite
the serious economic and business recession resulting from
the fall of the Roman Empire and the advent of the Middle
Ages. In Las Partidas (law 2, title 3, item 5) it is established that
a person who agrees to hold the commodities of another takes
part in an irregular deposit in which control over the goods is
transferred to him. Nevertheless, he is obliged, depending
upon agreements in the corresponding document, to return
the goods or the value indicated in the contract for each good
removed from the deposit, either because it is sold with the
authorization of the original owner, or is removed for other,
unexpected reasons.45 Moreover, in 1255 the Fuero Real (law 5,
45In Las Partidas (c. 1312) deposits are called condesijos [hidden deposits],
and in law 2 of this work we read that
Control over the possession of goods given another for safe-
keeping is not transferred to the receiver of the goods, except
when the deposit can be counted, weighed or measured when
handed over; and if it is given the receiver in terms of quan-
tity, weight or measure, then control is transferred to him.
However, he must return the good or the same amount of
another equal to that given him for safekeeping.
The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 35
title 15, book 3) the distinction is made between the deposit
"of some counted money or raw silver or gold," received from
"another, by weight," in which case "the goods may be used
and goods of the same quantity and quality as those received
may be returned;" and the deposit "which is sealed and not
counted or measured by weight," in which case "it is not to be
used, but if it is used, it must be paid back double."46 These
medieval codes contain a clear distinction between the regular
deposit of a specific good and the irregular deposit of money,
and they indicate that in the latter case ownership is trans-
ferred. However, the codes do not include the important clar-
ifications made in the Corpus Juris Civilis to the effect that,
though ownership is "transferred," the safekeeping obliga-
tion remains, along with the responsibility to keep continu-
ally available to the depositor the equivalent in quantity and
quality (tantundem) of the original deposit. Perhaps the reason
for this omission lies in the increasing prevalence of the deposi-
tum confessatum.
In conclusion, Roman legal tradition correctly defined the
institution of monetary irregular deposit and the principles
governing it, along with the essential differences between this
contract and other legal institutions or contracts, such as the
loan or mutuum. In chapter 2 we will consider ways in which
the essential principles regulating human interactions in the
monetary irregular deposit (and more specifically, the rights
of availability and ownership implied by the contract) were
gradually corrupted over the centuries as a result of the com-
bined actions of bankers and politicians. We will analyze the
circumstances which made these events possible, as well as the
reasons behind them. In chapter 3 we will study the different
attempts made by the legal profession to justify contracts
This topic is covered with the utmost eloquence and clarity in Las Par-
tidas. See Las Siete Partidas, annotated by the university graduate Grego-
rio Lopez; facsimile edition published by the Boletin Oficial del Estado
[official gazette] (Madrid, 1985), vol. 3, 5th Partida, title 3, law 2, pp. 7-8.
46See the reference made by Juan Roca Juan to the Fuero Real in his arti-
cle on "El deposito de dinero," in Comentarios al Codigo Civil y Compila-
ciones P or ales, vol. 1, tome 22, p. 249.
36 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
which, against traditional legal principles, gradually gained
acceptance. Then in chapter 4 we will begin to consider the
economic consequences of these events.
Historical Violations
of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary
Irregular-Deposit
Contract
In this chapter we will present various examples to show
how bankers have throughout history violated traditional
legal principles in the irregular deposit, and we will con-
sider the reasons behind the failure of society's regulatory
mechanisms to put a stop to these abuses. We will also con-
template the role of governments in this process. Far from
endeavoring to scrupulously defend property rights, they
supported bankers' improper activity almost from the begin-
ning and granted exemptions and privileges in order to take
advantage of this activity for their own uses. Thus the intimate
complicity and solidarity traditionally present (and still exis-
tent) in relations between state and bank institutions. To
understand why the different attempts to legally justify abuses
have failed, we must first properly understand the legally cor-
rupt origin of fractional reserves in monetary bank deposits.
We will examine attempts at justification in chapter 3.
1
Introduction
In the last chapter we presented the clear, coherent legal
nature of the monetary irregular-deposit contract. Undoubtedly,
37
38 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
those who from the beginning received money from their fel-
low citizens for safekeeping knew the obligations they were
taking on, specifically to guard the tantundem like a good par-
ent, to keep it constantly available to the depositor. This is pre-
cisely the meaning of safekeeping in a deposit contract of a
fungible good. However, while the legal nature of the irregu-
lar deposit contract is clear and easy to understand, human
nature is imperfect and weak. Therefore it is comprehensible
that those receiving monetary deposits were tempted to vio-
late the safekeeping obligation and use for themselves money
that should have been kept available to others. The temptation
was very strong: without depositors realizing it, bankers
could handle large amounts of money; and if they used it well,
it could generate substantial profit or interest, which bankers
could keep without openly harming anyone.1 Given the weak-
ness of human nature and the almost irresistible temptation
felt by bankers, it is comprehensible that the traditional prin-
ciples of safekeeping on which the monetary irregular-deposit
contract is based were violated from the very beginning in a
concealed manner. In addition, given the abstract, confusing
nature of monetary relations, most citizens and the majority of
authorities in charge of enforcing moral and legal principles
failed to notice this phenomenon, except in rare instances.
And once abuses and cases of fraud began to surface and
became better understood, the institution of banking had
l\Ve are referring to the most obvious source of profit, which initially
motivated bankers to misappropriate depositors' money. In chapter 4
we will examine a source of much greater earnings: the power of
bankers to issue money or create loans and deposits out of nowhere. The
resulting profit is immensely larger; however, as it arises from an
abstract process, it is certain not even bankers were fully aware of it
until very late in the evolution of finance. Nevertheless, the fact that
they did not understand, but only intuited, this second type of profit
does not mean they failed to take advantage of it completely. In chapter
4 we will explain how bankers' violation of traditional legal principles
through fractional-reserve banking makes it possible to create loans out
of nowhere, the return of which is then demanded in hard cash (with
interest to boot!). In short, we are dealing with a constant, privileged
source of funding in the shape of deposits bankers create out of nothing
and constantly employ for their own uses.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 39
already been in operation so long and had acquired such
power that it was practically impossible to effectively curb
corruption. Moreover, the gradual discovery authorities made
of banks' immense power to create money explains why in
most instances, governments ended up becoming accomplices
to banking fraud, granting privileges to bankers and legaliz-
ing their improper activity, in exchange for the opportunity to
participate, directly or indirectly, in their enormous profits. In
this way they established an important alternative source of
state funding. Furthermore, this corruption of the state's tra-
ditional duty to define and defend property rights was
encouraged by governments' enormous, recurrent need for
resources, due to their historical irresponsibility and lack of
financial control. Thus, a more and more perfect symbiosis or
community of interests was formed between governments
and bankers, a relationship which to a great extent still exists
today.
However, despite the complexity of the above situation,
certain shrewd thinkers long ago began to understand it. Doc-
tor Saravia de la Calle, in his book, Instruccion de mercaderes,
attributes the destructive effects of banking to the fact that
man's insatiable greed has so thoroughly banished his fear
of God and sense of shame, and I even believe it is due to the
neglect of the republic's spiritual and temporal leaders.2
If Saravia de la Calle shows any weakness, it is an excess
of charity toward the leaders. He correctly attributes fraud in
the irregular deposit to men's frailty or greed, but he only
holds the leaders responsible for their "neglect" in not being
able to end abuses. Historical events reveal that, apart from
demonstrating undeniable neglect, on many occasions gov-
ernments have clearly and explicitly taken advantage of the
large profits of the banking "business." In addition, we will
see that, in other instances, authorities have not only granted
2Luis Saravia de la Calle, Instruccion de mercaderes (Medina del Campo:
Pedro de Castro, 1544; Madrid: Coleccion de Joyas Bibliograficas, 1949),
chap. 8, p. 179.
40 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the bankers privileges so they could carry out their activities
with impunity in exchange for specific favors, but they have
even created government banks in order to directly take
advantage of the corresponding profits.
Although banking activities developed long ago and prac-
tically coincided with the appearance of money the dawn of
trade, and the first steps in the division of labor3, we will pres-
ent and illustrate the violation of traditional legal principles in
3The archeologist Lenor Mant discovered among the ruins of Babylon a
clay tablet with an inscription attesting to intercity trading and the use
of commercial and financial means of payment. The tablet mentions an
Ardu-Nama (the drawer, of the city of Ur) ordering a Marduk-Bal-at-
Irib (the drawee) of the city of Orkoe to pay in Ardu-Nama's name the
sum of four minas and fifteen shekels of silver to Bel-Abal-Iddin within
a set time period. This document is dated the 14th of Arakhsamna, year
2 of the reign of Nabonaid. For his part, the researcher Hilprecht dis-
covered in the ruins of the city of Nippur a total of 730 baked clay tablets
with inscriptions, thought to have belonged to the archives of a bank
existing in the city in 400 B.C., called Nurashu and Sons (see "Origen y
desenvolvimiento historico de los bancos," in the Enciclopedia universal
ilustrada euroipeo-americana [Madrid: Editorial Espasa-Calpe, 1979], vol.
7, p. 477). In turn, Joaquin Trigo, apart from offering us the above infor-
mation, reports that around the year 3300 B.C. the temple of Uruk owned
the land it exploited, received offerings and deposits and granted loans
to farmers and merchants of livestock and grain, becoming the first bank
in history. In the British Museum we also find tablets recording the finan-
cial operations of the bank Sons of Egibi. The sequence of the tablets
demonstrates that from the time of the Assyrians, and for more than 180
years, the institution was controlled by a true financial dynasty. The
Code of Hammurabi facilitated the transfer of property and strictly reg-
ulated the rights associated with it, as well as commercial activity, limit-
ing interest rates and even establishing public loans at 12.5 percent. Part-
nership agreements were also regulated, as was the keeping of accounts
of operations. The Manu Smriti of India also makes reference to banking
and financial operations. In short, remaining records indicate that finan-
cial operations occurred between 2300 and 2100 B.C., though the spread
of the "banking" business began between 730 and 540 B.C., when Assyr-
ian and New Babylonian dynasties ensured safe trade, which gave rise
to specialized banks. This activity also spread to Egypt, and later from
there to the Ancient Greek world (Joaquin Trigo Portela, "Historia de la
banca," chapter 3 of the Enciclopedia practica de la banca (Barcelona: Edito-
rial Planeta, 1989), vol. 6, esp. pp. 234-37).
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 41
the irregular deposit by bankers and authorities in three dif-
ferent historical instances: the Greco-Roman world; the Mediter-
ranean trading cities of the late Middle Ages and the begin-
ning of the Renaissance; and finally, the emergence of the first
important government banks beginning in the seventeenth
century. Moreover, the evolution of banking in these three sep-
arate historical instances produced to a large extent the same
characteristic results. Indeed, in each case we observe that as
people began to violate traditional legal principles, harmful
effects followed, not only in the shape of bank failures, but
also profound financial and economic crises. In the following
historical examples the same frauds are committed, followed
by the same typical stages and results, and the same failed
attempts to enforce traditional principles of safekeeping. The
same damaging effects then inexorably follow, and this process
is repeated again and again, up to the present day. Let us now
examine the violation of legal principles and authorities' com-
plicity in banking frauds and abuses throughout history.
2
Banking in Greece and Rome
In ancient Greece temples acted as banks, loaning money
to individuals and monarchs. For religious reasons temples
were considered inviolable and became a relatively safe
refuge for money. In addition, they had their own militias to
defend them and their wealth inspired confidence in deposi-
tors. From a financial standpoint the following were among
the most important Greek temples: Apollo in Delphi, Artemis
in Ephesus, and Hera in Samos.
Trapezitei or Greek Bankers
Fortunately certain documentary sources on banking in
Greece are available to us. The first and perhaps most impor-
tant is Trapezitica,4 written by Isocrates around the year 393
4Raymond de Roover points out that the current term banker originated
in Florence, where bankers were called either banchieri or tavolieri,
because they worked sitting behind a bench {banco) or table (tavola). The
42 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
B.C.5 It is a forensic speech in which Isocrates defends the
interests of the son of a favorite of Satyrus, king of Bosphorus.
The son accuses Passio, an Athenian banker, of misappropri-
ating a deposit of money entrusted to him. Passio was an ex-
slave of other bankers (Antisthenes and Archetratos), whose
trust he had obtained and whose success he even surpassed,
for which he was awarded Athenian citizenship. Isocrates's
forensic speech describes an attempt by Passio to appropriate
same logic was behind terminology used in ancient Greece as well,
where bankers were called trapezitei because they worked at a trapeza, or
table. This is why Isocrates's speech "On a Matter of Banking" is tradi-
tionally known as Trapezitica. See Raymond de Roover, The Rise and
Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1963), p. 15. The great Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva, for
his part, indicates that
the remuneration paid to money changers for the exchange of
money was called collybus by the Greeks, and therefore
money changers were called collybists. They were also called
nummularii and argentarii, as well as trapezitei, mensularii
or bankers, because apart from changing money they carried
out a much more profitable business activity: they received
money for safekeeping and loaned at interest their own
money and that of others.
See chapter 7 of Veterum collatio numismatum, published in Omnium ope-
rum in Salamanca in 1577.
5Isocrates was one of the ancient macrobioi, and he lived to be almost 100
years old (436-338 B.C.). His life began during the last years of peaceful
Athenian dominance over Persia and lasted through the Peloponnesian
War, Spartan and Theban supremacy and the Macedonian expansion,
which ended in the battle of Chaeronea (Chaironeia), in which Philip II
defeated the Delian League the same year Isocrates died. Isocrates's
father, Theodorus, was a middle-class citizen whose flute factory had
earned him considerable wealth, permitting him to give his children an
excellent education. Isocrates's direct teachers appear to have included
Theramines, Gorgias, and especally Socrates (there is a passage in Phae-
drus where Plato, using Socrates as a mouthpiece, praises the young
Isocrates, apparently ironically, predicting his great future). Isocrates
was a logographer; that is, he wrote legal speeches for others (people
suing or defending their rights) and later he opened a school of rhetoric
in Athens. For information on Isocrates, see Juan Manuel Guzman Her-
mida's "Introduccion General" to Discursos (Madrid: Biblioteca Clasica
Gredos, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 7-43.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 43
deposits entrusted to his bank by taking advantage of his
depositor's difficulties, for which he did not hesitate to
deceive, forge, and steal contracts, bribe, etc. In any case, this
speech is so important to our topic that it is worth our effort to
consider some of its passages in detail.
Isocrates begins his arguments by pointing out how haz-
ardous it is to sue a banker, because
deals with bankers are made without witnesses and the
injured parties must put themselves in jeopardy before such
people, who have many friends, handle large amounts of money
and appear trustworthy due to their profession^
It is interesting to consider the use bankers have always
made of all of their social influence and power (which is enor-
mous, given the number and status of figures receiving loans
from them or owing them favors) to defend their privileges
and continue their fraudulent activity7
6Isocrates, "Sobre un asunto bancario," in Discursos I, p. 112.
7More than 2200 years after Isocrates, the Pennsylvanian senator Condy
Raguet also recognized the great power of bankers and their use of it to
intimidate their enemies and to in any way possible discourage deposi-
tors from withdrawing their deposits and hinder these withdrawals,
with the vain hope, among others, of avoiding crises. Condy Raguet
concluded that the pressure was almost unbearable and that
an independent man, who was neither a stockholder or a
debtor who would have ventured to compel the banks to do
justice, would have been persecuted as an enemy of society.
See the letter from Raguet to Ricardo dated April 18, 1821, published in
David Ricardo, Minor Papers on the Currency Question 1805-1823, Jacob
Hollander, ed. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1932),
pp. 199-201. This same idea had already been expressed almost three
centuries earlier by Saravia de la Calle, who, indicating obstacles cre-
ated by bankers to keep depositors from withdrawing their money
obstacles few dared to protest, mentioned the
other thousands of humiliations you inflict upon those who
go to withdraw their money from you; you detain them and
make them waste money waiting and threaten to pay them in
weak currency. In this way you coerce them to give you all
you want. You have found this way to steal, because when
44 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Isocrates explains that his client, who was planning a trip,
deposited a very large amount of money in Passio's bank.
After a series of adventures, when Isocrates's client went to
withdraw his money, the banker claimed he "was without
funds at the moment and could not return it." However, the
banker, instead of admitting his situation, publicly denied the
existence of any deposit or debt in favor of Isocrates's client.
When the client, greatly surprised by the banker's behavior,
again claimed payment from Passio, he said the banker,
after covering his head, cried and said he had been forced by
economic difficulties to deny my deposit but would soon try
to return the money to me; he asked me to take pity on him
and to keep his poor situation a secret so it would not be dis-
covered he had committed fraud.8
It is therefore clear that in Greek banking, as Isocrates indi-
cates in his speech, bankers who received money for safe-
keeping and custody were obliged to safeguard it by keeping
it available to their clients. For this reason, it was considered
fraud to employ that money for their own uses. Furthermore,
the attempt to keep this type of fraud a secret so people would
conserve their trust in bankers and the latter could continue
they go to withdraw their money they do not dare ask for cash,
but leave the money with you in order to collect much larger
and more infernal profits. (Instruction de mercaderes, p. 183)
Richard Cantillon mentions a list of tricks used by bankers to delay
the payment of deposits in his Essai sur la nature du commerce en general
(London: Fletcher Gyles, 1775), pp. 425-26. Finally Marx also mentions
the fear and reverence bankers inspire in everyone. He cites the follow-
ing ironic words of G.M. Bell:
The knit brow of the banker has more influence over him than
the moral preaching of his friends; does he not tremble to be
suspected of being guilty of fraud or of the least false statement,
for fear of causing suspicion, in consequence of which his bank-
ing accommodation might be restricted or cancelled? The
advice of the banker is more important to him than that of the
clergyman. (Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3: The Process of Capitalist
Production as a Whole, Friedrich Engels, ed., Ernest Untermann,
trans. [Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Company 1909], p. 641)
8Isocrates, "Sobre un asunto bancario," pp. 114 and 117.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 45
their fraudulent activity is very significant. Also, we may
deduce from Isocrates's speech that for Passio this was not an
isolated case of fraud, an attempt to appropriate the money of
a client under favorable circumstances, but that he had diffi-
culty returning the money because he had not maintained a
100-percent reserve ratio and had used the deposited money in
private business deals, and he was left with no other "escape"
than to publicly deny the initial existence of the deposit.
Isocrates continues his speech with more words from his
client, who states:
Since I thought he regretted the incident, I compromised
and told him to find a way to return my money while sav-
ing face himself. Three days later we met and both promised
to keep what had happened a secret; (he broke his promise,
as you will find later in my speech). He agreed to sail with
me to Pontus and to return the gold to me there, in order to
cancel the contract as far from this city as possible; that way,
no one from here would find out the details of the cancella-
tion, and upon sailing back, he could say whatever he chose.
Nevertheless, Passio denies this agreement, causes the dis-
appearance of the slaves who had been witnesses to it and
forges and steals the documents necessary to try to demon-
strate that the client had a debt with him instead of a deposit.
Given the secrecy in which bankers performed most of their
activities, and the secret nature of most deposits,9 witnesses
were not used, and Isocrates was forced to present indirect
witnesses who knew the depositor had taken a large amount
of money and had used Passio's bank. In addition, the wit-
nesses knew that at the time the deposit was made the depos-
itor had changed more than one thousand staters into gold.
9The Greeks distinguished between monetary demand deposits (phan-
era ousia) and invisible deposits (aphanes ousia). The distinction, rather
than denote whether or not the money was continually available to the
depositor (in both cases it should have been), appears to have referred to
whether or not the deposit and its amount were publicly known. If they
were, the money could be seized or confiscated, mostly for tax reasons.
46 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Furthermore, Isocrates claims that the point most likely to
convince the judges of the deposit's existence and of the fact
that Passio tried to appropriate it was that Passio always
refused to
turn over the slave who knew of the deposit, for interroga-
tion under torture. What stronger evidence exists in con-
tracts with bankers? We do not use witnesses with them.10
Though we have no documentary evidence of the trial's
verdict, it is certain that Passio was either convicted or arrived
at a compromise with his accuser. In any case, it appears that
afterward he behaved properly and again earned the trust of
the city. His house was inherited by an old slave of his,
Phormio, who successfully took over his business.
More interesting information on the activity of bankers in
Greece comes from a forensic speech written by Demosthenes
in favor of Phormio. Demosthenes indicates that, at the time of
Passio's death, Passio had given fifty talents in loans still out-
standing, and of that amount, "eleven talents came from bank
deposits." Though it is unclear whether these were time or
demand deposits, Demosthenes adds that the banker's profits
were "insecure and came from the money of others." Demos-
thenes concludes that "among men who work with money, it
is admirable for a person known as a hard worker to also be
honest," because "credit belongs to everyone and is the most
important business capital." In short, banking was based on
depositors' trust, bankers' honesty, on the fact that bankers
should always keep available to depositors money placed in
demand deposits, and on the fact that money loaned to
bankers for profit should be used as prudently and sensibly as
possible. In any case, there are many indications that Greek
bankers did not always follow these guidelines, and that they
used for themselves money on demand deposit, as described
by Isocrates in Trapezitica and as Demosthenes reports of
other bankers (who went bankrupt as the result of this type of
activity) in his speech in favor of Phormio. This is true of
l°Isocrates, "Sobre un asunto bancario," p. 116.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 47
Aristolochus, who owned a field "he bought while owing
money to many people," as well as of Sosynomus, Timode-
mus, and others who went bankrupt, and "when it was nec-
essary to pay those to whom they owed money, they all sus-
pended payments and surrendered their assets to creditors."11
Demosthenes wrote other speeches providing important
information on banking in Greece. For example, in "Against
Olympiodorus, for Damages,"12 he expressly states that a cer-
tain Como
placed some money on demand deposit in the bank of Her-
aclides, and the money was spent on the burial and other rit-
ual ceremonies and on the building of the funerary monu-
ment.
In this case, the deceased made a demand deposit which
was withdrawn by his heirs as soon as he died, to cover the
costs of burial. Still more information on banking practices is
offered in the speech "Against Timothy, for a Debt," in which
Demosthenes affirms that
bankers have the custom of making entries for the amounts
they hand over, for the purpose of these funds, and for
deposits people make, so that the amounts given out and
those deposited are recorded for use when balancing the
books.13
^Demosthenes, Discursos privados I, Biblioteca Cldsica Gredos (Madrid:
Editorial Gredos, 1983), pp. 157-80. The passages from the text are
found on pp. 162, 164 and 176, respectively, of the above edition. For
information on the failure of Greek banks, see Edward E. Cohen, Athen-
ian Economy and Society: A Banking Perspective (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1992), pp. 215-24. Nevertheless, Cohen does not seem
to understand the 'way in which bank credit expansions caused the eco-
nomic crises affecting the solvency of banks.
12Demosthenes, Discursos privados II, Biblioteca Cldsica Gredos (Madrid:
Editorial Gredos, 1983), pp. 79-98. The passage mentioned in the main
text is found on p. 86.
13Ibid., pp. 99-120. The passage cited is found on p. 102.
48 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
This speech, delivered in 362 B.C., is the first to document
that bankers made book entries of their clients' deposits and
withdrawals of money.14 Demosthenes also explains how
checking accounts worked. In this type of account, banks
made payments to third parties, following depositors' instruc-
tions.15 As legal evidence in this specific case, Demosthenes
adduced the bank books, demanded copies be made, and
after showing them to Phrasierides, I allowed him to inspect
the books and make note of the amount owed by this indi-
vidual.16
Finally, Demosthenes finishes his speech by expressing his
concern at how common bank failures were and the people's
great indignation against bankers who went bankrupt.
Demosthenes mistakenly attributes bank failures to men who
in difficult situations request loans and believe that credit
should be granted them based on their reputation; however,
once they recover economically, they do not repay the
money, but instead try to defraud.17
We must interpret Demosthenes's comment within the
context of the legal speech in which he presents his argu-
ments. The purpose of the speech was precisely to sue Timo-
thy for not returning a bank loan. It would be asking too much
to expect Demosthenes to have mentioned that most bank fail-
ures occurred because bankers violated their obligation to
safeguard demand deposits, and they used the money for
themselves and put it into private business deals up to the
point when, for some reason, the public lost trust in them and
tried to withdraw their deposits, finding with great indigna-
tion that the money was not available.
14G.J. Costouros, "Development of Banking and Related Book-Keeping
Techniques in Ancient Greece," International journal of Accounting 7, no.
2 (1973): 75-81.
15Demosthenes, Discursos privados II, p. 119.
16Ibid., p. 112.
17Ibid., p. 120.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 49
On various occasions research has suggested Greek
bankers usually knew they should maintain a 100-percent
reserve ratio on demand deposits. This would explain the lack
of evidence of interest payments on these deposits, as well as
the proven fact that in Athens banks were usually not consid-
ered sources of credit.18 Clients made deposits for reasons of
safety and expected bankers to provide custody and safekeep-
ing, along with the additional benefits of easily-documented
cashier services and payments to third parties. Nevertheless,
the fact that these were the basic principles of legitimate bank-
ing did not prevent a large group of bankers from yielding to
the temptation to (quite profitably) appropriate deposits, a
fraudulent activity which was relatively safe as long as people
retained their trust in bankers, but in the long run it was des-
tined to end in bankruptcy. Moreover, as we will illustrate
with various historical examples, networks of fraudulent
18Stephen C. Todd, in reference to Athenian banking, affirms that
banks were not seen as obvious sources of credit ... it is strik-
ing that out of hundreds of attested loans in the sources only
eleven are borrowed from bankers; and there is indeed no evi-
dence that a depositor could normally expect to receive inter-
est from his bank. (S.C. Todd, The Shape of Athenian Law
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 251)
Bogaert, for his part, confirms that bankers paid no interest on demand
deposits and even charged a commission for their custody and safe-
keeping:
Les depots de paiement pouvaient done avoir differentes
formes. Ce qu'ils ont en commun est l'absence d'interets.
Dans aucun des cas precites nous n'en avons trouve des
traces. II est meme possible que certains banquiers aient
demande une commission pour la tenue de comptes de depot
ou pour "l'execution des mandats." (Raymond Bogaert, Ban-
ques et banquiers dans les cites grecques [Leyden, Holland: A.W.
Sijthoff, 1968], p. 336)
Bogaert also mentions the absence of any indication that bankers in
Athens maintained a certain fractional-reserve ratio ("Nous ne posse-
dons malheureusement aucune indication concernant l'encaisse d'une
banque antique," p. 364), though we know that various bankers, includ-
ing Pison, acted fraudulently and did not maintain a 100-percent reserve
ratio. As a result, on many occasions they could not pay and went bank-
rupt.
50 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
bankers operating, against general legal principles, with a frac-
tional-reserve ratio bring about credit expansion19 unbacked
by real savings, leading to artificial, inflationary economic
booms, which finally revert in the shape of crises and economic
recessions, in which banks inexorably tend to fail.
Raymond Bogaert has mentioned the periodic crises
affecting banking in ancient Greece, specifically the economic
and financial recessions of 377-376 B.C. and 371 B.C., during
which the banks of Timodemus, Sosynomus and Aristolochus
(among others) failed. Though these recessions were triggered
by the attack of Sparta and the victory of Thebes, they
emerged following a clear process of inflationary expansion in
which fraudulent banks played a central part.20 Records also
reflect the serious banking crisis which took place in Ephesus
following the revolt against Mithridates. This crisis motivated
authorities to grant the banking industry its first express, his-
torically-documented privilege, which established a ten-year
deferment on the return of deposits.21
In any case, the bankers' fraudulent activity was extremely
"profitable" as long as it was not discovered and banks did
not fail. We know, for example, that the income of Passio
reached 100 minas, or a talent and two-thirds. Professor Trigo
Portela has estimated that this figure in kilograms of gold
would be equivalent today to almost two million dollars a
year. This does not seem an extremely large amount, though it
was really quite spectacular, considering most people lived at
mere subsistence level, ate only once a day and had a diet of
cereals and vegetables. Upon his death, Passio's fortune
19 The money supply at Athens can thus be seen to consist of
bank liabilities ("deposits") and cash in circulation. The
amount of increase in the bank portion of this money supply
will depend on the volume and velocity of bank loans, the
percentage of these loan funds immediately or ultimately
redeposited in the trapezai, and the time period and volatility
of deposits. (Cohen, Athenian Economy and Society, p. 13)
20Bogaert, Banques et banquiers dans les cites grecques, pp. 391-93.
21Ibid., p. 391.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 51
amounted to sixty talents; given a constant value for gold, this
would add up to nearly forty-four million dollars.22
Banking in the Hellenistic World
The Hellenistic period, especially Ptolemaic Egypt, was a
turning point in the history of banking because it marked the
creation of the first government bank. The Ptolemies soon
realized how profitable private banks were, and instead of
monitoring and cracking down on bankers' fraudulent activi-
ties, decided to cash in on the overall situation by starting a
government-run bank which would conduct business with
the "prestige" of the state.
Although there was never a true government monopoly on
banking, and private banks (mostly run by Greeks) continued
to operate, Egypt's prosperity secured a predominant role for
the state bank. Rostovtzeff observes that the Ptolemaic bank
also developed a sophisticated accounting system:
Refined accounting, based on a well-defined professional
terminology, replaced the rather primitive accounting of
fourth-century Athens.23
Several archaeological studies show how widespread
banking was during the Hellenistic period in Egypt. An
incomplete document found in Tebtunis containing daily
account records of a rural bank in the province of Hera-
cleopolis shows the unexpectedly high number of villagers
22Trigo Portela, "Historia de la banca," p. 238. Raymond Bogaert, in con-
trast, estimates Passio's annual income before his death at nine talents,
several times larger:
Cela donne en tout pour environ 9 talents de revenus annuels.
On comprend que le banquier ait pu constituer en peu d'an-
nees un important patrimonie, faire des dons genereux a la
cite et faire les frais de cinq triarchies. (Bogaert, Banques et ban-
quiers dans les cites grecques, p. 367 and also Cohen, Athenian
Economy and Society, p. 67)
23Michael Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic
World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953), vol. 1, p. 405.
52 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
who, whether farmers or not, did business through banks and
made payments out of their deposits and bank accounts. Rel-
atively wealthy people were few, and most of the bank's cus-
tomers were retailers and indigenous craftspeople, linen mer-
chants, textile workers, tailors, silversmiths and a tinker. Also,
debts were often paid in gold and raw silver, following the
ancient Egyptian tradition. Grain, oil and cattle dealers, as
well as a butcher and many innkeepers were documented as
clients of the bank. The Ptolemaic government bank, private
banks, and temples alike kept custody of different kinds of
deposits. According to Rostovtzeff, bankers accepted both
demand deposits and interest-paying time deposits. The latter
were, in theory, invested in
credit operations of various sorts — loans on collateral secu-
rity, pledges, and mortgages, and a special very popular
type — bottomry loans.24
Private banks kept custody of their clients' deposits while
at the same time placing their own money in the government
bank.
The main innovation of Egyptian banking was centraliza-
tion: the creation of a government central bank in Alexandria,
with branches in the most important towns and cities, so that
private banks, when available, played a secondary role in the
country's economy. According to Rostovtzeff, this bank held
custody of tax revenues and also took in private funds and
deposits from ordinary clients, investing remaining funds in
benefit of the state. Thus, it is almost certain that a fractional-
reserve system was used and that the bank's huge profits were
appropriated by the Ptolemies. Zeno's letters provide ample
information on how banks received money from their clients
and kept it on deposit. They also tell us that Apollonius, the
director of the central bank in Alexandria, made personal
deposits in different branches of the royal bank. All of these
sources show how frequently individuals used the bank for
24Michael Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic
World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), vol. 2, p. 1279.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 53
making deposits as well as payments. In addition, due to their
highly-developed accounting system, paying debts through
banks became extremely convenient, as there was an official
record of transactions — an important piece of evidence in case
of litigation.
The Hellenistic banking system outlived the Ptolemaic
dynasty and was preserved during Roman rule with minor
changes. In fact, Ptolemaic centralized banking had some
influence on the Roman Empire: a curious fact is that Dio Cas-
sius, in his well-known Maecenas speech, advocates the cre-
ation of a Roman government bank which would offer loans
to everyone (especially landowners) at reasonable interest
rates. The bank would draw its capital from earnings on all
state-owned property25 Dio Cassius's proposal was never put
into practice.
Banking in Rome
Since there are no Latin equivalents of the speeches by
Isocrates and Demosthenes, Roman banks are not docu-
mented in as much detail as their Greek counterparts. How-
ever, we know from Roman law that banking and the mone-
tary irregular deposit were highly developed, and we have
already considered (in chapter 1) the regulations classical
Roman jurists provided in this area. Indeed, Roman argentarii
were not considered free to use the tantundem of deposits as
they pleased, but were obliged to safeguard it with the utmost
diligence. This is precisely why money deposits did not pay
interest and in theory were not to be lent, although the depos-
itor could authorize the bank to use the money for making
payments in his name. Likewise, bankers took in time
"deposits," which were actually loans to the bank or mutuum
contracts. These paid interest and conferred upon bankers the
right to use the funds as they thought fit for the duration of
the agreed-upon term. References to these practices appear as
early as 350 B.C. in comedies such as Plautus's Captivi, Asi-
naria and Mostellaria, and Terence's Phormio, where we find
25Ibid., p. 623.
54 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
delightful dialogues describing financial operations, clearings,
account balances, the use of checks and so on.26 In any case, it
appears the work done by professional jurists better regulated
Roman banking and provided at least a clearer idea of what
was and was not legitimate. However, this is no guarantee that
bankers behaved honestly and refrained from using money
from demand deposits to their own benefit. In fact, there is a
rescript by Hadrianus to the merchants in Pergamum who
complained about the illegal exactions and general dishonesty
of their bankers. Also, a written document from the city of
Mylasa to the emperor Septimius Severus contains a decree by
the city council and the people aimed at regulating the activi-
ties of local bankers.27 All this suggests that, while perhaps less
frequently than was common in the Hellenic world, there were
in fact unscrupulous bankers who misappropriated their
depositors' funds and eventually went bankrupt.
The Failure of the Christian Callistus's Bank
A curious example of fraudulent banking is that of Callis-
tus I, pope and saint (217-222 A.D.), who, while the slave of
the Christian Carpophorus, acted as a banker in his name and
took in deposits from other Christians. However, he went
bankrupt and was caught by his master while trying to
escape. He was finally pardoned at the request of the same
Christians he had defrauded.28
26In Plautus's Captivi, for example, we read: "Subducam ratunculam
quantillum argenti mihi apud trapezitam sied" (i.e., "I go inside because
I need to calculate how much money I have in my bank") cited by Knut
Wicksell in his Lectures on Political Economy (London: Routledge and-
Kegan Paul, 1935), vol. 2, p. 73.
27Trigo Portela, "Historia de la banca," p. 239.
28The extraordinary fact that someone in the banking profession actu-
ally became Pope and later a saint would seem to make Callistus I a
good choice for a patron saint. Unfortunately he set a bad example as a
failed banker who abused the good faith of his fellow Christians.
Instead, the patron saint of bankers is St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584),
Archbishop of Milan. He was the nephew and administrator of Gio-
vanni Angelo Medici (Pope Pius IV) and his feast day is November 4.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 55
Refutatio omnium haeresium, a work attributed to Hippoly-
tus and found in a convent on Mount Athos in 1844, reports
Callistus's bankruptcy in detail.29 Like the recurring crises
which plagued Greece, the bankruptcy of Callistus occurred
after a pronounced inflationary boom followed by a serious
confidence crisis, a drop in the value of money and the failure
of multiple financial and commercial firms. These events took
place between 185 and 190 A.D. under the rule of the Emperor
Commodus.
Hippolytus relates how Callistus, at the time a slave to his
fellow Christian Carpophorus, started a banking business in
his name and took in deposits mainly from widows and
Christians (a group that was already increasing in influence
and membership). Nevertheless, Callistus deceitfully appro-
priated the money, and, as he was unable to return it upon
demand, tried to escape by sea and even attempted suicide.
After a series of adventures, he was flogged and sentenced to
hard labor in the mines of Sardinia. Finally, he was miracu-
lously released when Marcia, concubine of the Emperor Com-
modus and a Christian herself, used her influence. Thirty years
later, a freedman, he was chosen the seventeenth Pope in the
year 217 and eventually died a martyr when thrown into a well
by pagans during a public riot on October 14, 222 A.D.30
We can now understand why even the Holy Fathers in
their Apostolic Constitutions have admonished bankers to be
honest and to resist their many temptations.31 These moral
exhortations warning bankers against temptation and remind-
ing them of their duties were used constantly among early
Christians, and some have even tried to trace them back to the
Holy Scriptures.
29Hippolytus, Hippolytus Wercke, vol. 2: Refutatio omnium haeresium
(Leipzig: P. Wendland), 1916.
30Juan de Churruca, "La quiebra de la banca del cristiano Calisto (c.a.
185-190)," Seminarios complutenses de derecho romano, February-May 1991
(Madrid, 1992), pp. 61-86.
3l"Ginesthe trapezitai dokimoi" ("bankers, you must be honest!"). See
"Origenes y movimiento historico de los bancos," in Enciclopedia universal
ilustrada europeo-americana (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1973), vol. 7, p. 478.
56 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Societates Argentariae
Banker associations or societates argentariae were a peculi-
arity of banking in the Roman world. Financial contributions
from members supplied the capital to form them, and this
capital was relied upon to pay debts. However, as banks were
of particular public interest, Roman law established that
members of the societates argentariae must guarantee deposits
with all of their assets.32 Hence, members' joint, unlimited
liability was a general principle of Roman law, intended to
minimize the effects of fraud and abuse by bankers and to
protect depositors' right to recover their money at any time.33
32See Manuel J. Garcia-Garrido, "La sociedad de los banqueros (societas
argentaria)/' in Studi in honore di Arnaldo Biscardi (Milan 1988), vol. 3,
esp. pp. 380-83. The unlimited liability of banker association members
under Roman law was established, among other places, in the afore-
mentioned text by Ulpian (Digest, 16, 3, 7, 2-3) and also in a passage by
Papinian (Digest, 16, 3, 8), where he dictates that money to repay the
debts of fraudulent bankers be drawn not only from "deposited funds
found among the banker's assets, but from all the defrauder's assets"
(Cuerpo de derecho civil romano, vol. 1, p. 837). Some present-day authors
have also proposed a return to the principle of unlimited liability for
bankers, as an incentive for them to manage money prudently. How-
ever, this requirement is not necessary to achieve a solvent banking sys-
tem, nor would it be a sufficient measure. It is not necessary, since a 100-
percent reserve requirement would eliminate banking crises and
economic recessions more effectively. It is not sufficient, because even if
banks' stockholders had unlimited liability, bank crises and economic
recessions would still inevitably recur when a fractional reserve is used.
33Under the Roman Empire, some large, influential temples continued
to double as banks. Among these were the temples at Delos, Delphi,
Sardis (Artemis), and most importantly, Jerusalem, where Hebrews, rich
and poor, traditionally deposited their money. This is the context in
which we must interpret Jesus's expulsion of the money changers from
the temple in Jerusalem, as described in the New Testament. In Matthew
21:12-16 we read that Jesus, entering the temple,
overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches
of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, "My
house will be called a house of prayer," but you are making it
a "den of robbers."
Mark 11:15-17 offers an almost identical text. John 2:14-16 is a bit more
explicit and tells us how, after entering the temple courts,
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 57
The argentarii conducted their business in a special place
called a taverna. Their books reflected the debits and credits
made to their clients' checking accounts. Roman bankers'
books qualified as evidence in court and had to be kept as set
down in the editio rationum, which stipulated the way
accounts were to be dated and managed.34 Bankers were also
he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sit-
ting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of
cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cat-
tle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned
their tables.
(New International Version). The translation of these biblical passages is
not very accurate, and the same mistake is found in Garcia del Corral's
translation of the Digest. Instead of "money changers," it should read
"bankers," which is more in accordance with the literal sense of the Vul-
gate edition of the Bible in Latin, in which Matthew's account reads as
follows:
Et intravit Iesus in templum et eiiciebat omnes vendentes et
ementes in templo, et mensas numulariorum, et cathedras
vendentium columbas evertit: et dicit eis: Scriptum est:
Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur: vos autem fecistis
illam speluncam latronum. (Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam
Clementinam, Alberto Colunga and Laurencio Turrado, eds.
(Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1994), Mateo
21:12-13, p. 982)
These evangelical texts confirm that the temple at Jerusalem acted as a
true bank where the general public, rich or poor, made deposits. Jesus's
clearing of the temple can be interpreted as a protest against abuses
stemming from an illicit activity (as we know, these abuses consisted of
the use of money on deposit). In addition, these biblical references illus-
trate the symbiosis already present between bankers and public offi-
cials, since both the chief priests and the teachers of the law were out-
raged by Jesus's behavior (all italics have, of course, been added). On
the importance of the Jerusalem temple as a deposit bank for Hebrews,
see Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, vol.
2, p. 622.
34Jean Imbert, in his book, Historia economica (de los origenes a 1789),
Spanish translation by Armando Saez (Barcelona: Editorial Vicens-
Vives, 1971), p. 58, points out that
the praescriptio was an equivalent of today's checks. When a
capitalist instructed a banker to make a loan payment in his
name, the banker would do so upon presentation of a bank
draft called a praescriptio.
58 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
called mensarii, after the mensa or counter where they origi-
nally carried out their money-changing activities. Much like
today's banking licenses, the mensa could be transferred. In
Rome, however, as the state owned the premises where bank-
ing took place, it was the right to operate (granted by the state)
that was transmitted. A transfer could include all furniture
and implements of the taverna, as well as financial assets and
liabilities. In addition, bankers formed a guild to defend their
common interests and obtained significant privileges from
emperors, especially Justinian. Some of these privileges
appear in the Corpus juris Civilis.35
The economic and social disintegration of the Roman
Empire resulted from inflationary government policies which
devalued the currency, and from the establishment of maxi-
mum prices for essential goods, which in turn caused a gen-
eral shortage of these goods, the financial ruin of merchants
and the disappearance of trade between different areas of the
Empire. This was also the end for banking. Most banks failed
during the successive economic crises of the third and fourth
centuries A.D. In an attempt to contain the social and eco-
nomic decay of the Empire, additional coercive, intervention-
ist measures were taken, further accelerating the process of
disintegration and enabling the barbarians (whom Roman
legions had defeated repeatedly and kept at bay for years) to
devastate and conquer the remains of the ancient, thriving
Roman Empire. The fall of the classical Roman world began
the long medieval period, and it was nearly eight hundred
years later that banking was rediscovered in the Italian cities
of the late Middle Ages.36
35See, for instance, New Constitution 126 on "Bank Contracts," edict 7
("Decree and Regulation Governing Bank Contracts") and edict 9, "On
Bank Contracts," all by Justinian and included in the Novellae (see Cuerpo
de derecho civil romano, vol. 6, pp. 479-83, 539-44 and 547-51).
36A superb overview of the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire
appears in Ludwig von Mises's work, Human Action: A Treatise on Eco-
nomics, Scholar's Edition (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute,
1998), pp. 161-63. We will also quote Mises's Human Action by the more
widespread third edition (Chicago: Henry Regnery 1966), pp. 767-69.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 59
3
Bankers in the Late Middle Ages
The fall of the Roman Empire meant the disappearance of
most of its trade and the feudalization of economic and social
relationships. The enormous reduction in trade and in the
division of labor dealt a definitive blow to financial activities,
especially banking. The effects of this reduction lasted several
centuries. Only monasteries, secure centers of economic and
social development, could serve as guardians of economic
resources. It is important to mention the activity in this field of
the Templars, whose order was founded in 1119 in Jerusalem
to protect pilgrims. The Templars possessed significant finan-
cial resources obtained as plunder from their military cam-
paigns and as bequests from feudal princes and lords. As they
were active internationally (they had more than nine thousand
centers and two headquarters) and were a military and reli-
gious order, the Templars were safe custodians for deposits
and had great moral authority, earning them the trust of the
people. Understandably, they began to receive both regular
and irregular deposits from individuals, to whom they
charged a fee for safekeeping. The Templars also carried out
transfers of funds, charging a set amount for transportation
and protection. Moreover, they made loans of their own
resources and did not violate the safekeeping principle on
demand deposits. The order acquired a growing prosperity
which aroused the fear and envy of many people, until Philip
the Fair, the King of France, decided to dissolve it. He con-
demned those in charge to be burned at the stake (including
Jacques de Molay, the Grand Maitre), with the prime objective
of appropriating all of the order's riches.37
37See, for example, Jules Piquet's book, Des banquiers au Moyen Age: Les
Templiers, Etude de leurs operations financiers (Paris, 1939), cited by
Henri Pirenne in his work, Histoire Economique et Sociale Du Moyen Age
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1969), pp. 116 and 219. Piquet
believes he sees the beginnings of double-entry bookkeeping and even
a primitive form of check in the records kept by the Templars. How-
ever, it appears the Templars' accounting practices were, at most, mere
direct predecessors of double-entry bookkeeping, later formalized in
60 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The end of the eleventh century and beginning of the
twelfth brought a moderate resurgence of business and trade,
mainly among the Italian cities on the Adriatic (especially
Venice), Pisa, and later, Florence. These cities specialized in
trade with Constantinople and the Orient. Significant financial
growth in these cities led to the revival of banking, and the pat-
tern we observed in the classical world was reproduced.
Indeed, bankers at first respected the juridical principles passed
down from Rome and conducted their business lawfully, avoid-
ing illicit use of demand deposits (i.e., irregular deposits of
money). Only money received as loans (i.e., time "deposits")
was used or lent by bankers, and only during the agreed-upon
term.38 Nevertheless, bankers again became tempted to take
advantage of money from demand deposits. This was a gradual
process which led to abuses and the resumption of fractional-
reserve banking. The authorities were generally unable to
enforce legal principles and on many occasions even granted
privileges and licenses to encourage bankers' improper activity
and derive benefits from it, in the shape of loans and tax rev-
enues. They even created government banks (such as
1494 by Luca Pacioli, the great Venetian monk and friend of Leonardo
da Vinci. A bank in Pisa used double-entry bookkeeping as early as
1336, as did the Masari family (tax collectors in Genoa) in 1340. The
oldest European account book we have evidence of came from a Flo-
rentine bank and dates back to 1211. See G.A. Lee, "The Oldest Euro-
pean Account Book: A Florentine Bank Ledger of 1211," in Accounting
History: Some British Contributions, R.H. Parker and B.S. Yamey, eds.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 160-96.
38 In theory at least, early banks of deposit were not discount
or lending banks. They did not create money but served a
system of 100 percent reserves, such as some monetarists
today would like to see established. Overdrafts were forbid-
den. In practice, the standards proved difficult to maintain,
especially in face of public emergency. The Taula de Valen-
cia was on the verge of using its deposited treasure to buy
wheat for the city in 1567. Illegal advances were made to city
officials in 1590 and illegal loans to the city itself on a num-
ber of occasions. (Charles P. Kindleberger, A Financial His-
tory of Western Europe, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993], p. 49)
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 61
Barcelona's Bank of Deposit, or Taula de Canvi, and others we
will consider later).39
The Revival of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe
Abbott Payson Usher, in his monumental work, The Early
History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe,40 studies the
gradual emergence of fractional-reserve banking during the
late Middle ages, a process founded on the violation of this
general legal principle: full availability of the tantundem must
be preserved in favor of the depositor. According to Usher, it
is not until the thirteenth century that some private bankers
begin to use the money of their depositors to their own advan-
tage, giving rise to fractional-reserve banking and the oppor-
tunities for credit expansion it entails. Moreover, and contrary
to a widely-held opinion, Usher believes this to be the most
significant event in the history of banking, rather than the
appearance of banks of issue (which in any case did not occur
until much later, in the late seventeenth century). As we will
see in chapter 4, although exactly the same economic effects
result from the issuance of bank notes without financial back-
ing and the loaning of funds from demand deposits, banking
was historically shaped more by the latter of these practices
39Islamic law also banned bankers' personal use of irregular deposits
throughout the medieval period, especially on the Iberian Peninsula.
See, for instance, the Compendio de derecho isldmico (Risala, Fi-1-Fiqh), by
the tenth-century Hispano-Arabic jurist Ibn Abi Zayd, called Al-
Qayrawani, published with the support of Jesus Riosalido (Madrid: Edi-
torial Trotta, 1993). On p. 130 we find the following statement of a juridi-
cal principle: "he who uses a money deposit to do business commits a
reprehensible act, but if he uses his own money he may keep the profit."
(See also pp. 214-15, where it is stipulated that, in the case of a true loan
or mutuum, the lender may not withdraw the money at will, but only at
the end of the agreed-upon term; the Islamic legal concept of money
deposit closely parallels that of the Roman irregular deposit.)
40 Abbott Payson Usher taught economics at Harvard University and
authored the celebrated work, The Early History of Deposit Banking in
Mediterranean Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1943).
62 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
than by the former. Usher states that: "the history of banks of
issue has, until lately obscured the importance of due deposit
banking in all its forms, whether primitive or modern." In an
ironic reference to the undue importance given by economists
to the problems of banks of issue versus the older but equally
harmful activities of deposit banks, he concludes that:
the demand for currency, and the theoretical interests cre-
ated by the problem, did much to foster misconceptions on
the relative importance of notes and deposits. Just as French
diplomats "discovered" the Pyrenees in the diplomatic cri-
sis of the eighteenth century, so banking theorists "discov-
ered" deposits in the mid-nineteenth century.41
Again and again, Usher shows that the modern banking
system arose from fractional-reserve banking (itself the result of
fraud and government complicity, as Usher illustrates in detail
via the example of the late medieval Catalonian banking sys-
tem), and not from banks of issue, which appeared much later.
Usher points out that the first banks in twelfth-century
Genoa made a clear distinction in their books between demand
deposits and "time" deposits, and recorded the latter as loans
or mutuum contracts.42 However, bankers later began gradu-
ally to make self-interested use of demand deposits, giving rise
to expansionary capabilities present in the banking system;
more specifically, the power to create deposits and grant cred-
its out of nowhere. Barcelona's Bank of Deposit is a case in
point. Usher estimates that the bank's cash reserves amounted
to 29 percent of total deposits. This meant their capacity for
credit expansion was 3.3 times their cash reserves.43
41Ibid., pp. 9 and 192.
42"In all these Genoese registers there is also a series of instruments in
which the money received is explicitly described as a loan (mutuum)."
Ibid., p. 63.
43 Against these liabilities, the Bank of Deposit held reserves in
specie amounting to 29 percent of the total. Using the phrase-
ology of the present time, the bank was capable of extending
credit in the ratio of 3.3 times the reserves on hand. (Ibid., p.
181)
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 63
Usher also highlights the failure of public officials at dif-
ferent levels to enforce sound banking practices, particularly a
100-percent reserve requirement on demand deposits. More-
over, the authorities ended up granting banks a government
license (a privilege — ius privilegium) to operate with a frac-
tional reserve. Banks were nevertheless required to guarantee
deposits.44 At any rate, rulers were usually the first to take
advantage of fraudulent banking, finding loans an easy source
of public financing. It is as if bankers were granted the privi-
lege of making gainful use of their depositors' money in
return for their unspoken agreement that most of such use be
in the shape of loans to public officials and funding for the
government. On various occasions, rulers went so far as to
create government banks, in order to directly reap the consid-
erable profits available in banking. As we will see, Barcelona's
Bank of Deposit, the Taula de Canvi, was created with this main
objective.
However, we cannot agree with the statement Usher makes immedi-
ately afterward; he contends that private banks also operating in
Barcelona at the time must have had a much lower reserve ratio. Quite
the opposite must have been true. As private banks were smaller, they
would not have inspired as much confidence in the public as the munic-
ipal bank did, and as they operated in a strictly competitive environ-
ment, their cash reserves must have been higher (see pp. 181-82 of
Usher's book). In any case, Usher concludes that
there was considerable centralization of clearance in the early
period and extensive credit creation. In the absence of com-
prehensive statistical records, we have scarcely any basis for
an estimate of the quantitative importance of credit in the
medieval and early modern periods, though the implications
of our material suggest an extensive use of credit purchasing
power. (Ibid., pp. 8-9)
We will later cite works by C. Cipolla, which fully confirm Usher's main
thesis. In chapter 4 we will examine bank multipliers in depth.
44In fifteenth-century Catalonia, guarantees were not required, though
only bankers who offered them were allowed to spread tablecloths over
their counters. By this system, the public could easily identify the more
solvent businesses. Ibid., p. 17.
64 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Canonical Ban on Usury and the
"Depositum Confessatum"
The ban on usury by the three major monotheistic reli-
gions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) did much to compli-
cate and obscure medieval financial practices. Marjorie Grice-
Hutchinson has carefully studied the medieval prohibition of
interest and its implications.45 She points out that Jews were
not forbidden to loan money at interest to Gentiles, which
explains why, at least during the first half of the medieval
period, most bankers and financiers in the Christian world
were Jewish.46
This canonical ban on interest added greatly to the intrica-
cies of medieval banking, though not (as many theorists have
insisted) because bankers, in their attempt to offer a useful,
necessary service, were forced to constantly search for new
ways to disguise the necessary payment of interest on loans.
When bankers loaned money received from clients as a loan
(or "time" deposit), they were acting as true financial inter-
mediaries and were certainly doing a legitimate business and
significantly contributing to the productive economy of their
time. Still, the belated recognition by the Church of the legiti-
macy of interest should not be regarded as overall approval of
the banking business, but only as authorization for banks to
loan money lent to them by third parties. In other words, to
45Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, Early Economic Thought in Spain 1177-
1740 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978). See "In Concealment of
Usury," chap. 1, pp. 13-60.
46 Until the thirteenth century, the greater part of financial activ-
ity was in the hands of Jews and other non-Christians, usually
from the Near East. For such unbelievers from the Christian
point of view there could be no salvation in any event, and
the economic prohibitions of the Church did not apply to
them. . . . Hatred for the Jews arose on the part of the people
who resented such interest rates, while monarchs and
princes, if less resentful, scented profits from expropriation of
this more or less helpless group. (Harry Elmer Barnes, An Eco-
nomic History of the Western World [New York: Harcourt, Brace
and Company 1940], pp. 192-93)
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 65
act as mere financial intermediaries. The evolution of Church
doctrine on interest in no way implies a sanction of fractional-
reserve banking, i.e., bankers' self-interested use (which usu-
ally means granting loans) of demand deposits.47
To a great extent, the conceptual confusion we are dealing
with arose in the Middle Ages as a result of the canonical ban
on interest. One of the main artifices48 devised by economic
agents to conceal actual interest-paying loans was to disguise
them as demand deposits. Let us see how they did it. First, we
must think back to our discussion of the monetary irregular-
deposit contract in chapter 1. One of the most notable guide-
lines found for this contract in the Corpus Juris Civilis stipu-
lated that, if the depositary were unable to return the deposit
on demand, not only was he guilty of theft for misappropria-
tion, but he was also obliged to pay interest to the depositor
for his delay in repayment (Digest, 16, 3, 25, 1). Hence, it
should come as no surprise that throughout the Middle Ages,
47This is precisely the opinion held by Father Bernard W. Dempsey S.J.,
who concludes in his remarkable book Interest and Usury (Washington,
D.C.: American Council of Public Affairs, 1943) that even if we accept
interest as legitimate, fractional-reserve banking amounts to "institu-
tional usury" and is especially harmful to society, since it repeatedly
generates artificial booms, bank crises and economic recessions (p.
228).
48A clear, concise list of the tricks used to systematically disguise loans
and interest can be found in Imbert's book, Historia economica (de los ori-
genes a 1789), pp. 157-58. Imbert mentions the following methods of
concealing interest-bearing loans: (a) bogus contracts (such as repur-
chase agreements or real estate guarantees); (b) penalty clauses (dis-
guising interest as economic sanctions); (c) lying about the amount of
the loan (the borrower agreed to repay a sum higher than the actual
loan); (d) foreign exchange transactions (which included the interest as
an additional charge); and (e) income or annuities (life annuities includ-
ing a portion of both the interest and the repayment of the principal).
Jean Imbert makes no express mention of the depositum confessatum, one
of the most popular ways of justifying interest. It fits well into the
"penalty clauses" category. See also the reference Henri Pirenne makes
to the "utmost ingenuity" used to conceal "dangerous interest." Eco-
nomic and Social History of Medieval Europe (London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner and Company, 1947), p. 140.
66 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
in order to circumvent the canonical ban on interest, many
bankers and "depositors" expressly declared that they had taken
part in a monetary irregular-deposit contract, when they had
actually formalized a true loan or mutuum contract. The
method of concealment to which this declaration belonged was
aptly named depositum confessatum. It was a simulated deposit
which, despite the declarations of the two parties, was not a
true deposit at all, but rather a mere loan or mutuum contract.
At the end of the agreed-upon term, the supposed depositor
claimed his money. When the professed depositary failed to
return it, he was forced to pay a "penalty" in the shape of inter-
est on his presumed "delay," which had nothing to do with the
actual reason for the "penalty" (the fact that the operation was
a loan). Disguising loans as deposits became an effective way
to get around the canonical ban on interest and escape severe
sanctions, both secular and spiritual.
The depositum confessatum eventually perverted juridical
doctrine on the monetary irregular deposit, robbing these
tenets of the clarity and purity they received in classical Rome
and adding confusion that has persisted almost to the present
day. In fact, regardless of experts' doctrinal stand (either
strictly against, or "in favor" within reasonable limits) on
interest-bearing loans, the different approaches to the deposi-
tum confessatum led theorists to stop distinguishing clearly
between the monetary irregular deposit and the mutuum con-
tract. On one hand, over-zealous canonists, determined to
expose all hidden loans and condemn the corresponding
interest, tended to automatically equate deposit contracts with
mutuum contracts. They believed that by exposing the loan
they assumed was behind every deposit they would put an
end to the pretense of the depositum confessatum. This is pre-
cisely where their error lay: they regarded all deposits, even
actual ones (made with the essential purpose of safeguarding
the tantundem and keeping it always available to the deposi-
tor) as deposita confessata. On the other hand, those experts
who were relatively more supportive of loans and interest and
searched for ways to make them acceptable to the Church,
defended the depositum confessatum as a kind of precarious
loan which, according to the principles embodied in the
Digest, justified the payment of interest.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 67
As a result of both doctrinal stances, scholars came to
believe that the "irregularity" in the monetary irregular
deposit referred not to the deposit of a certain quantity of a
fungible good (the units of which were indistinguishable from
others of the same type and the tantundem of which was to be
kept continually available to the depositor), but rather to the
irregularity of always disguising loans as deposits.49 Further-
more, bankers, who had used the depositum confessatum to dis-
guise loans as deposits and to justify the illegal payment of
interest, eventually realized that the doctrine which held that
deposits always concealed loans could also be extremely prof-
itable to them, because they could employ it to defend even
the misappropriation of money which had actually been
placed into demand deposits and had not been loaned. Thus,
^Canonists' equation of the monetary irregular deposit with the
mutuum or loan contract led experts to search for a common juridical
feature between the two contracts. They soon realized that in the deposit
of a fungible good, "ownership" of the individual units deposited is
"transferred," since the depositary is only obliged to safeguard, main-
tain, and return upon demand the tantundem. This transfer of ownership
appears to coincide with that of the loan or mutuum contract, so it was
natural for scholars to automatically assume that all monetary irregular
deposits were loans, since both include a "transfer" of "ownership" from
the depositor to the depositary. Hence, theorists overlooked the essential
difference (see chapter 1) between the monetary irregular deposit and
the mutuum or loan: the main purpose of the irregular deposit is the cus-
tody and safekeeping of the good, and while "ownership" is in a sense
"transferred," availability is not, and the tantundem must be kept contin-
ually available to the depositor. In contrast, a loan entails the transfer of
full availability, apart from ownership (in fact, present goods are
exchanged for future goods) and involves this fundamental element: a
term during which the goods cease to be available to the lender. Irregu-
lar deposits do not include such a term. In short, since the canonical pro-
hibition of interest gave rise to the fraudulent and spurious institution of
the depositum confessatum, it was indirectly responsible for the loss of clar-
ity in the distinction between the monetary irregular deposit and the
mutuum. This confusion is clearly behind the wrong 1342 final court
decision on the Isabetta Querini vs. The Bank of Marino Vendelino case, men-
tioned by Reinhold C. Mueller in The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Pan-
ics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1997), pp. 12-13.
68 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the canonical ban on interest had the unexpected effect of
obscuring Roman jurists' clear, legal definition of the mone-
tary irregular-deposit contract. Many capitalized on the ensu-
ing confusion in an attempt to legally justify fraudulent bank-
ing and the misappropriation of demand deposits. Experts
failed to clear up the resulting legal chaos until the end of the
nineteenth century50
Let us now examine three particular cases which together
illustrate the development of medieval banking: Florentine
banks in the fourteenth century; Barcelona's Bank of Deposit,
the Taula de Canvi, in the fifteenth century and later; and the
Medici Bank. These banks, like all of the most important
banks in the late Middle Ages, consistently displayed the pat-
tern we saw in Greece and Rome: banks initially respected the
traditional legal principles found in the Corpus juris Civilis,
i.e., they operated with a 100-percent reserve ratio which
guaranteed the safekeeping of the tantundem and its constant
availability to the depositor. Then, gradually, due to bankers'
greed and rulers' complicity, these principles began to be vio-
lated, and bankers started to loan money from demand
50In fact, Pasquale Coppa-Zuccari, whose work we have already cited, was
the first to begin to reconstruct the complete legal theory of the monetary
irregular deposit, starting from the same premise as the classical Roman
scholars and again revealing the illegitimacy of banks' misappropriation of
demand deposits. Regarding the effects of the depositum confessatum on
the theoretical treatment of the juridical institution of irregular deposit,
Coppa-Zuccari concludes that
le condizioni legislative dei tempi rendevano fertile il terreno
in cui il seme della discordia dottrinale cadeva. II divieto
degli interessi nel mutuo non valeva pel deposito irregolare.
Qual meraviglia dunque se chi aveva denaro da impiegare
fruttuosamente lo desse a deposito irregolare, confessatum se
occorreva, e non a mutuo? Quel divieto degli interessi, che
tanto addestro il commercio a frodare la legge e la cui effica-
cia era nulla di fronte ad un mutuo dissimulato, conservo in
vita questo ibrido instituto, e fece si che il nome di deposito
venissi imposto al mutuo, che non poteva chiamarsi col pro-
prio nome, perche esso avrebbe importato la nullita del patto
relativo agli interessi. (Coppa-Zuccari, II deposito irregolare,
pp. 59-60)
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 69
deposits, often, in fact, to rulers. This gave rise to fractional-
reserve banking and artificial credit expansion, which in the
first stage appeared to spur strong economic growth. The
whole process ended in a general economic crisis and the fail-
ure of banks that could not return deposits on demand once
the recession hit and they had lost the trust of the public.
Whenever loans were systematically made from demand
deposits, the historical constant in banking appears to have
been eventual failure.51 Furthermore, bank failures were
accompanied by a strong contraction in the money supply
(specifically, a shortage of loans and deposits) and by the
resulting inevitable economic recession. As we will see in the
following chapters, it took economic scholars nearly five cen-
turies to understand the theoretical causes of all of these
processes.52
5lFor example, Raymond Bogaert mentions that of the 163 known banks
in Venice, documentary evidence exists to show that at least 93 of them
failed. Bogaert, Banques et banquiers dans les cites grecques, note 513, p.
392. A detailed list of 46 failures of deposit banks in Venice can also be
seen in Mueller, The Venetian Money Market, pp. 585-86. This same fate
of failures affected all banks in Seville in the 15th century. Hence, the
systematic failure of fractional-reserve private banks not supported by
a central bank (or equivalent) is a fact of history. Pascal Salin overlooks
this fact in his article "In Defense of Fractional Monetary Reserves," pre-
sented at the Austrian Scholars Conference, March 30-31, 2001.
52As is logical, bankers always carried out their violations of general
legal principles and their misappropriations of money on demand
deposit in a secretive, disgraceful way. Indeed, they were fully aware of
the wrongful nature of their actions and furthermore, knew that if their
clients found out about their activities they would immediately lose
confidence in the bank and it would surely fail. This explains the exces-
sive secrecy traditionally present in banking. Together with the confus-
ing, abstract nature of financial transactions, this lack of openness
largely protects bankers from public accountability even today. It also
keeps most of the public in the dark as to the actual nature of banks.
While they are usually presented as true financial intermediaries, it
would be more accurate to see banks as mere creators of loans and
deposits which come out of nowhere and have an expansionary effect
on the economy. The disgraceful, and therefore secretive, nature of these
banking practices was skillfully revealed by Knut Wicksell in the fol-
lowing words:
70 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Banking in Florence in the Fourteenth Century
Around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thir-
teenth centuries, Florence was the site of an incipient banking
industry which gained great importance in the fourteenth cen-
tury. The following families owned many of the most impor-
tant banks: The Acciaiuolis, the Bonaccorsis, the Cocchis, the
Antellesis, the Corsinis, the Uzzanos, the Perendolis, the
Peruzzis, and the Bardis. Evidence shows that from the begin-
ning of the fourteenth century bankers gradually began to
make fraudulent use of a portion of the money on demand
deposit, creating out of nowhere a significant amount of
expansionary credit.53 Therefore, it is not surprising that an
increase in the money supply (in the form of credit expansion)
caused an artificial economic boom followed by a profound,
inevitable recession. This recession was triggered not only by
Neapolitan princes' massive withdrawal of funds, but also by
England's inability to repay its loans and the drastic fall in the
in effect, and contrary to the original plan, the banks became
credit institutions, instruments for increasing the supplies of
a medium of exchange, or for imparting to the total stock of
money, an increased velocity of circulation, physical or vir-
tual. Giro banking continued as before, though no actual
stock of money existed to correspond with the total of deposit
certificates. So long, however, as people continued to believe
that the existence of money in the banks was a necessary con-
dition of the convertibility of the deposit certificates, these
loans had to remain a profound secret. If they were discov-
ered the bank lost the confidence of the public and was
ruined, especially if the discovery was made at a time when
the Government was not in a position to repay the advances.
(Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy, vol. 2, pp. 74-75)
53Various articles have been written on this topic. See the interesting one
by Reinhold C. Mueller, "The Role of Bank Money in Venice,
1300-1500," in Studi Veneziani n.s. 3 (1979): 47-96, and chapter 5 of his
book, The Venetian Money Market. Carlo M. Cipolla, in his notable publi-
cation, The Monetary Policy of Fourteenth-Century Florence (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1982), p. 13, also affirms: "The banks of that
time had already developed to the point of creating money besides
increasing its velocity of circulation."
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 71
price of Florentine government bonds. In Florence, public
debt had been financed by speculative new loans created out
of nowhere by Florentine banks. A general crisis of confidence
occurred, causing all of the above banks to fail between 1341
and 1346. As could be expected, these bank failures were
detrimental to all deposit-holders, who, after a prolonged
period, received half, a third, or even a fifth of their deposits
at most.54 Fortunately, Villani recorded the economic and
financial events of this period in a chronicle that Carlo M.
Cipolla has resurrected. According to Villani, the recession
was accompanied by a tremendous tightening of credit
(referred to descriptively as a mancamento delta credenza, or
"credit shortage"), which further worsened economic condi-
tions and brought about a deluge of industry, workshop, and
business failures. Cipolla has studied this economic recession
in depth and graphically describes the transition from eco-
nomic boom to crisis and recession in this way: "The age of
'The Canticle of the Sun' gave way to the age of the Danse
macabre."55 In fact, according to Cipolla, the recession lasted
until, "thanks" to the devastating effects of the plague, which
radically diminished the population, the supply of cash and
credit money per capita approached its pre-crisis level and
laid the foundation for a subsequent recovery56
54Cipolla, The Monetary Policy of Fourteenth-Century Florence, p. 9.
55Ibid., p. 1. See also Boccaccio's commentary on the economic effects of
the plague, cited by John Hicks in Capital and Time: A Neo-Austrian The-
ory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 12-13; see footnote 60, chap. 5.
56Carlo M. Cipolla's interpretive analysis of historical events reveals a
greater knowledge and application of economic theory than other
authors have displayed (such as A.P. Usher and Raymond de Roover,
who both express surprise at medieval economic recessions, the origins
of which are often "mysterious and inexplicable" to them). Still, his
analysis, monetarist in nature, focuses on the stages of recession, which
he attributes to a shortage of the money supply resulting in turn from
an overall tightening of credit. Remarkably he ignores the prior eco-
nomic boom, unconsciously lapsing into a "monetarist" interpretation
of history and thus failing to recognize the artificial boom caused by
credit expansion as the true source of the ensuing, inevitable recessions.
Cipolla's thesis that it was the Black Death that eventually resolved the
72 Money, Bank Credit, and 'Economic Cycles
The Medici Bank
The history of the Medici Bank has come to light through
the research and determination of Raymond de Roover, whose
work was in turn advanced by the 1950 discovery of the
Medici Bank's confidential ledgers (libri segreti) in Florence's
Archivio di Stato.57 The secrecy of these ledgers again betrays
the hidden, shameful nature of bankers' activities (see footnote
52), as well as the desire of many customers of Italian banks
(nobles, princes, and even the Pope) to deposit their money in
secret accounts. The discovery of these bank books was indeed
fortunate, as they provide us with an in-depth understanding
of how the Medici Bank operated in the fifteenth century.
We must stress that the Medici Bank did not initially
accept demand deposits. At first it only took time deposits,
which were actually true loans from the customer to the bank.
These mutuum contracts were called depositi a discrezione. The
words a discrezione indicated that, as these supposed
"deposits" were really loans, the bank could make full use
of them and invest them freely, at least for the length of the
stipulated term.58 Discrezione also referred to the interest the
"shortage" of money is highly debatable, since money shortages tend to
correct themselves spontaneously through a general drop in prices (via
a corresponding increase in the value of money) which makes it unnec-
essary for individuals to maintain such high cash balances. There is no
need for a war or plague to decimate the population. Even if there had
been no plague, once the investment errors made during the boom had
been corrected, the process of economic decline would have ended
sooner or later, due to an increase in the value of money and a subse-
quent reduction in cash balances. This process undoubtedly coincided
with, yet occurred independently of the Black Death's effects. Hence,
even the most educated and insightful historians, like Cipolla, clearly
make partial judgement errors in their interpretations when they do not
use the appropriate theoretical tools. At any rate, it is still very signifi-
cant that these defenders of an inflationary interpretation of history con-
tinue to point out the "positive effects" of wars and plagues and con-
sider them the key to recovery from economic crises.
57De Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494.
58 The Medici Bank and its subsidiaries also accepted deposits
from outsiders, especially great nobles, church dignitaries,
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 73
bank paid clients who loaned it money in the form of time
"deposits."
In his book, Raymond de Roover performs a thorough,
detailed study of the development and vicissitudes of the
Medici Bank through the century of its existence. For our
purposes, it is only necessary to emphasize that at some point
the bank began to accept demand deposits and to use a por-
tion of them inappropriately as loans. The libri segreti docu-
ment this fact. The accounts for March 1442 accompany each
demand deposit entry with a note in the margin indicating the
likelihood that each depositor would claim his money59
A balance sheet from the London branch of the Medici
Bank, dated November 12, 1477, shows that a significant
number of the bank's debts corresponded to demand
deposits. Raymond de Roover himself estimates that at one
point, the bank's primary reserves were down to 50 percent
of total demand liabilities.60 If we apply the standard crite-
rion used by A.R Usher, this implies a credit expansion ratio
of twice the demand deposits received by the bank. There is
evidence, however, that this ratio gradually worsened over
the bank's life-span, especially after 1464, a year that marked
the beginning of growing difficulties for the bank. The roots
of the general economic and bank crisis that ruined the
Medici Bank resemble those Carlo M. Cipolla identifies in his
study of fourteenth-century Florence. As a matter of fact,
credit expansion resulting from bankers' misappropriation of
demand deposits gave rise to an artificial boom fed by the
increase in the money supply and its seemingly "beneficial"
short-term effects. Nevertheless, since this process sprang
from an increase in the money supply, namely credit
condottieri, and political figures, such as Philippe de Corn-
mines and Ymbert de Batarnay. Such deposits were not usu-
ally payable on demand but were either explicitly or implic-
itly time deposits on which interest, or rather discrezione,
was paid. (De Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank
1397-1494, p. 101)
59Ibid., p. 213.
60Ibid., p. 245.
74 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
unbacked by growth in real savings, the reversal of the
process was inevitable, as chapters 4 and following will
explain in detail. This is exactly what happened in Italy's large
business centers in the second half of the fifteenth century. In
terms of economic analysis, Raymond de Roover's grasp of
the historical process is unfortunately even shallower than
Cipolla's, and he even goes so far as to state, "what caused
these general crises remains a mystery"61 However, it is not
surprising that the Medici Bank eventually failed, as did the
other banks that depended on fractional-reserve banking for a
large part of their business. Though Raymond de Roover
claims he does not understand what caused the general crisis
at the end of the fifteenth century, his blow-by-blow historical
account of the final stage of the Medici Bank reflects all of the
typical indications of an inescapable recession and credit
squeeze following a process of great artificial credit expan-
sion. De Roover explains that the Medicis were forced to
adopt a policy of credit restriction. They demanded the repay-
ment of loans and attempted to increase the bank's liquidity.
Moreover, it has been demonstrated that in its final stage the
Medici Bank was operating with a very low reserve ratio,
which even dropped below 10 percent of total assets and was
therefore inadequate to meet the bank's obligations during the
recession period.62 The Medici Bank eventually failed and all
61Ibid., p. 239.
62Hence, over the bank's lifespan, its owners gradually increased their
violations of the traditional legal principle requiring them to maintain
possession of 100 percent of demand deposits, and their reserve ratio
continuously decreased:
A perusal of the extant balance sheets reveals another signifi-
cant fact: the Medici Bank operated with tenuous cash
reserves which were usually well below 10 percent of total
assets. It is true that this is a common feature in the financial
statements of medieval merchant-bankers, such as Francesco
Datini and the Borromei of Milan. The extent to which they
made use of money substitutes is always a surprise to mod-
ern historians. Nevertheless, one may raise the question
whether cash reserves were adequate and whether the Medici
Bank was not suffering from lack of liquidity. (Ibid., p. 371)
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 75
of its assets fell into the hands of its creditors. The bank's com-
petitors failed for the same reasons: the unavoidable effects of
the artificial expansion and subsequent economic recession
invariably generated by the violation of the traditional legal
principles governing the monetary irregular deposit.
Banking in Catalonia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries: The Taula de Canvi
The emergence of private banks in Barcelona coincided
with the development of private banking in large Italian busi-
ness centers. During the reign of Jaime I, the Conqueror,
(1213-1276), the Gothic and Roman laws governing business
were repealed and replaced by the Usos de Barcelona. In addi-
tion, a thorough, detailed set of regulations to control banking
was established by the Cortes of 1300-1301. It set down the
powers, rights, and responsibilities of bankers, and stipulated
requirements with respect to guarantors. Some of the rules
adopted are quite relevant to our topic.
For example, on February 13, 1300 it was established that
any banker who went bankrupt would be vilified throughout
Barcelona by a public spokesman and forced to live on a strict
diet of bread and water until he returned to his creditors the
full amount of their deposits.63 Furthermore, on May 16, 1301,
one year later, it was decided that bankers would be obliged
to obtain collateral or guarantees from third parties in order to
operate, and those who did not would not be allowed to
spread a tablecloth over their work counter. The purpose was
to make clear to everyone that these bankers were not as sol-
vent as those using tablecloths, who were backed by collateral.
Any banker who broke this rule (i.e., operated with a table-
cloth but without collateral) would be found guilty of fraud.64
In view of these regulations, Barcelona's banking system must
initially have been quite solvent and banks must have largely
respected the essential legal principles governing the mone-
tary bank deposit.
63Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe, p.
239.
64Ibid., p. 239.
76 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Nevertheless, there are indications to show that, in spite of
everything, private bankers soon began to deceive their
clients, and on August 14, 1321 the regulations pertaining to
bank failures were modified. It was established that those
bankers who did not immediately fulfill their commitments
would be declared bankrupt, and if they did not pay their
debts within one year, they would fall into public disgrace,
which would be proclaimed throughout Catalonia by a town
crier. Immediately afterward, the banker would be beheaded
directly in front of his counter, and his property sold locally to
pay his creditors. In fact, this is one of the few historical
instances in which public authorities have bothered to effec-
tively defend the general principles of property rights with
respect to the monetary bank-deposit contract. While it is
likely that most Catalonian bankers who went bankrupt tried
to escape or pay their debts within a year, documentary evi-
dence shows that at least one banker, a certain Francesch
Castello, was beheaded directly in front of his counter in 1360,
in strict accordance with the law.65
Despite these sanctions, banks' liquid funds did not match
the amount received on demand deposit. As a result, they
eventually failed en masse in the fourteenth century, during
the same economic and credit recession that ravaged the Ital-
ian financial world and was studied by Carlo M. Cipolla.
Though there are signs that Catalonian banks held out a bit
longer than Italian ones (the terrible penalties for fraud
undoubtedly raised reserve ratios), documents show that in
the end, Catalonian banks also generally failed to meet their
obligations. In March 1397, further regulations were intro-
duced when the public began to complain that bankers were
reluctant to return money deposited, offered their clients all
65Ibid., pp. 240 and 242. In light of recent scandals and bank crises in
Spain, one could jokingly wonder if it might not be a good idea to again
punish fraudulent bankers as severely as in fourteenth-century Catalo-
nia. A student of ours, Elena Sousmatzian, says that in the recent bank
crisis that devastated Venezuela, a senator from the Social-Christian
Party Copei even "seriously" suggested such measures in a statement to
the press. Incidentally, her remarks were quite well-received among
depositors affected by the crisis.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 77
sorts of excuses, told them to "come back later" and would
pay them (in the end, if the clients were lucky) only in small
coins of little value and never in the gold which had originally
been deposited.66
The bank crisis of the fourteenth century did not lead to
increased monitoring and protection of the property rights of
depositors. Instead, it resulted in the creation of a municipal
government bank, the Taula de Canvi, Barcelona's Bank of
Deposit. This bank was formed with the purpose of taking in
deposits and using them to finance city expenditures and the
issuance of government bond certificates for the city of
Barcelona. Hence, the Taula de Canvi fits the traditional model
of a bank created by public authorities to take direct advan-
tage of the dishonest profits of banking. A.P. Usher studied the
life of this bank in detail. Predictably, it ended up suspending
payments (in February 1468), because a large portion of its
reserves had been channeled into loans to the city of Barcelona
and the bank was unable to satisfy depositors' demands for
cash withdrawals.67 From that point on, the bank was reor-
ganized and gradually given more and more privileges, such
as a monopoly on all deposits deriving from judicial attach-
ments and seizures. This was an almost guaranteed source of
continuous income and acted as collateral for loans to finance
the city's projects. The Taula was also granted a monopoly on
resources from all administrative deposits, guardianships and
testate proceedings. These funds were deposited and fixed in
the bank.68
66Ibid., p. 244.
67 In February 1468, after a long period of strain, the Bank of
Deposit was obliged to suspend specie payments completely.
For all balances on the books at that date, annuities bearing
interest at 5 percent were issued to depositors willing to
accept them. Those unwilling to accept annuities remained
creditors of the bank, but they were not allowed to withdraw
funds in cash. (Ibid., p. 278)
68Documents show that in 1433, at least 28 percent of deposits in
Barcelona's Taula de Canvi came from compulsory judicial seizures and
were very stable. See Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in
Mediterranean Europe, p. 339, and Kindleberger, A Financial History of
78 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
4
Banking During the Reign of Charles V and the
Doctrine of the School of Salamanca6^
Banking during the reign of Charles V is a good example
of the scenario we have been describing. First, the massive
influx of precious metals from the Americas shifted the eco-
nomic focus, at least temporarily, from the Northern Italian
trading cities to Spain; specifically, Seville and the other Span-
ish business centers. Second, due to his imperial policy,
Charles V was in constant need of funds, and he turned to the
banking system for a continual source of financing. In this
way, he unscrupulously took advantage of the liquidity it pro-
vided him and powerfully reinforced the traditional complic-
ity between authorities and bankers. A more disguised collab-
oration between the two was already the norm at that time.
Furthermore, Charles V was unable to keep the royal treasury
from going bankrupt, which, as could be expected, had very
negative effects on the Spanish economy and on the bankers
who had financed his projects. All of these events motivated
the most brilliant minds of the time, the scholars of the School
of Salamanca, to reflect on the financial and banking activities
they witnessed. These theorists left us with some very valu-
able analyses worthy of being studied in detail. We will now
examine each of the historical events in order.
'Western Europe, p. 49. At any rate, the reserve ratio progressively wors-
ened until the suspension of payments in 1468. Following its reorgani-
zation at that time, Barcelona's Bank of Deposit managed a fragile finan-
cial existence for the next 300 years, due to the privileges it enjoyed with
respect to judicial deposits and the limits established on loans to the city.
Shortly after Barcelona was captured by the Bourbons on September 14,
1714, the bank was taken over by a new institution with statutes drafted
by the Count of Montemar on January 14, 1723. These statutes were the
bank's backbone until its final liquidation in the year 1853.
^Another English version of this section appeared in Jesus Huerta de
Soto, "New Light on the Prehistory of the Theory of Banking and the
School of Salamanca," Review of Austrian Economics 9, no. 2 (1996):
59-81.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 79
The Development of Banking in Seville
Ramon Carande deserves credit for uncovering in some
detail the development of private banking in Seville during
the reign of Charles V.70 According to Carande, his research
was aided by the discovery of a list of bankers compiled prior
to the confiscation of precious metals by Seville's Casa de Con-
tratacion (Trading House) in 1545. An impoverished treasury
prompted Charles V to disregard the most basic legal princi-
ples and seize funds where he could find them: i.e., deposited
in the vaults of Seville's bankers. Granted, these bankers also
violated the basic legal principles governing the monetary
irregular deposit and employed in their own private dealings
a large share of the money deposited. However, the emperor's
policy of directly confiscating whatever funds remained in
their vaults incited bankers to routinely loan to third parties
most money on deposit. If there was ultimately no guarantee
that public authorities would respect bank reserves (and
bankers' own experience taught them that, when short of
money, the emperor had no qualms about forcibly appropriat-
ing those funds in the form of compulsory loans to the
Crown), it seemed wiser to invest most deposited money in
loans to private industry and commerce, thus evading expro-
priation and earning higher profits.
The practice of confiscating deposits is perhaps the most
extreme example of public authorities' traditional tendency to
capitalize on banking profits by expropriating the assets of
those who have a legal duty to better guard the deposits of
others. It is therefore understandable that rulers, being the
main beneficiaries of bankers' dubious activities, ended up
justifying them and granting bankers all kinds of privileges to
allow them to continue operating with a fractional reserve, on
the fringes of legality.
In his chief work, Carlos V y sus banqueros, Ramon Carande
lists the most important bankers in the Seville of Charles V,
namely the Espinosas, Domingo de Lizarrazas, and Pedro de
70Ram6n Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros, 3 vols. (Barcelona and
Madrid: Editorial Critica, 1987).
80 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Morga, along with the less prominent Cristobal Francisquin,
Diego Martinez, Juan Iniguez, and Octavio de Negron. All of
them inexorably went bankrupt, for the most part due to a
lack of liquidity with which to satisfy depositors' withdrawals
of demand deposits. This demonstrates they were operating
with a fractional reserve, aided by a license or privilege
obtained from the city of Seville and from Charles V himself.71
We do not have information on their exact reserve ratio, but
we do know that on many occasions they made personal
investments in the fleet used for trading with the Americas, in
the collection of taxes, etc. Such risky ventures were always
tremendously tempting, because when they went reasonably
well they yielded enormous profits. Moreover, as mentioned
above, the repeated confiscation of bank deposits of precious
metals only further encouraged bankers to carry on their ille-
gitimate activities. Consequently, the Espinosas' bank failed in
1579 and the senior partners were imprisoned. The bank of
Domingo de Lizarrazas failed on March 11, 1553, when he was
unable to make a payment of more than six and a half million
maravedis, while the bank of Pedro de Morga, who began his
operations in 1553, failed in 1575, during the second bank-
ruptcy of Philip II. The less prominent banks suffered the
same fate. Thomas Gresham made an interesting comment on
this issue. He had traveled to Seville with instructions to with-
draw three hundred twenty thousand ducats in cash, for
which he had obtained the necessary license from the emperor
and Queen Mary. Gresham marveled that in the very city that
received the treasures of the Indies money could be so
extremely scarce. The same was true for the markets, and Gre-
sham feared that all the city's banks would suspend payments
71Spanish banks of the seventeenth century had no better luck:
At the beginning of the seventeenth century there were
banks in the court, Seville, Toledo and Granada. Shortly after
1622, Alejandro Lindo complained that not one still existed,
the last one (owned by Jacome Matedo) having failed in
Seville. (M. Colmeiro, Historia de la economia politico espanola
[1863; Madrid: Fundacion Banco Exterior, 1988], vol. 2, p.
342)
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 81
as soon as his withdrawal was completed.72 It is unfortunate
that Ramon Carande uses such inadequate analytical tools
and that his interpretation of these bank failures derives
mainly from anecdotal information, such as the greed for met-
als, which constantly threatened banks' solvency; bankers'
daring personal business ventures (their involvement in the
chartering of vessels, overseas merchant shipping, insurance,
various types of speculation, etc.), which continually placed
them in serious predicaments; and the royal treasury's repeated
confiscation of valuables and its want of liquidity. He never
once mentions the following chain of events: Fractional-reserve
banking led to an artificial credit expansion unsupported by
sufficient real savings; this, along with the inflation of precious
metals from the Americas, generated an artificial boom; the
boom, in turn, produced an economic crisis and inevitable
recession; and this was the true cause of the bank failures.
Fortunately, Ramon Carande's omission of theory has been
at least partially compensated for by Carlo M. Cipolla's inter-
pretative study of the economic and bank crisis of the second
half of the sixteenth century. Though this analysis refers strictly
to Italian banks, it is also directly applicable to the Spanish
financial system, due to the intimate relationship existent at the
time between the financial and trade routes of the two coun-
tries.73 Cipolla explains that in the second half of the sixteenth
century, the money supply (what we refer to today as Ml or
M2) included a large amount of "bank money," or deposits cre-
ated out of nowhere by bankers who did not maintain posses-
sion of 100 percent of the cash on demand deposit. This gave
rise to a period of artificial economic growth, which began to
72Eventually, after much effort, he was able to obtain around 200,000
ducats, writing at the time, "I am afraid I will cause the failure of all the
banks in Seville." See Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros, vol. 1, pp.
299-323, esp. pp. 315-16, which refer to Gresham's visit to Seville.
73See Cipolla's Money in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1989), esp. pp. lOlff. The intimate financial and trade
relationship between Spain and Italy in the sixteenth century is very
well documented in Felipe Ruiz Martin's book, Pequeno capitalismo, gran
capitalismo: Simon Ruiz y sus negocios en Florencia (Barcelona: Editorial
Critica, 1990).
82 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
reverse in the second half of the sixteenth century, when
depositors nervously started to experience economic difficul-
ties and the most important Florentine banks began to fail.
According to Cipolla, this phase of expansion was set in
motion in Italy by the directors of the Ricci Bank, who used a
very large share of their deposits to buy government securities
and grant loans. The other private banks were obliged to
adopt the same policy of credit expansion if their managers
wanted to be competitive and conserve their profits and mar-
ket share. This process gave rise to a credit boom which led to
a phase of great artificial expansion that soon began to
reverse. In 1574, a proclamation accused bankers of refusing to
return deposits in cash and denounced the fact that they only
"paid with ink." It became increasingly more difficult for
them to return deposits in ready cash, and Venetian cities
began to experience a significant money scarcity. Craftsmen
could not withdraw their deposits nor pay their debts and a
severe credit squeeze (i.e., deflation) followed, along with a
serious economic crisis analyzed in detail by Cipolla in his
interesting work. From a theoretical standpoint, Cipolla's
analysis is stronger than Ramon Carande's, although it is not
completely adequate either, as it places more emphasis on the
crisis and credit squeeze than on the prior stage of artificial
credit expansion, wherein lies the true root of the evil. The
credit expansion phase, in turn, is rooted in the failure of
bankers to comply with the obligation to safeguard and main-
tain intact 100 percent of the tantundem.7i
74Cipolla indicates that in the 1570s, the Ricci Bank could no longer
meet demands for cash withdrawals and actually suspended payments,
only paying "in ink" or with bank policies. Florentine authorities
focused on just the symptoms of this worrisome situation and made the
typical attempt to resolve it with mere ordinances. They imposed upon
bankers the obligation to pay their creditors immediately in cash, but
they did not diagnose nor attack the fundamental source of the problem
(the misappropriation of deposits and channeling of them into loans
and the failure to maintain a 100-percent cash reserve). Consequently
the decrees which followed failed to have the desired effect and the cri-
sis gradually worsened until it exploded violently in the mid-1570s. See
Cipolla, Money in Sixteenth-Century Florence, p. 107.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 83
Of international relevance were the long-standing rela-
tions between Charles V and members of the prominent Fug-
ger banking family (known in Spain as the Fucares). The Fug-
gers of Augsburg started out as wool and silver merchants and
also traded spices between their city and Venice. Later they
concentrated on banking, and in their heyday they operated
eighteen branches in different parts of Europe. They granted
loans to help finance the election of Charles V as emperor and
later funded his exploits on many occasions, receiving as col-
lateral both the silver shipments from the Americas and the
authorization to collect taxes. Their business came to a stand-
still and barely escaped bankruptcy in 1557 when Philip II de
facto suspended payments, and in fact they continued to lease
the lands belonging to military orders until 1634. 75
The School of Salamanca and the Banking Business
These financial and banking phenomena did not go unno-
ticed by the illustrious minds of members of the School of
Salamanca who, according to the most reliable research,
paved the way for the modern subjectivist theory of value,
developed by the Austrian School of economics.76
75The best source on the relations between the Fugger Bank and Charles
V is arguably Ramon Carande's Carlos V y sus banqueros. Also deserving
mention is a study by Rafael Termes Carrero, entitled Carlos V y uno de
sus banqueros: Jacobo Fugger (Madrid: Asociacion de Caballeros del
Monasterio de Yuste, 1993). Rafael Termes makes an interesting obser-
vation about the Fuggers' dominance in Spain, pointing out that
there is a street in Madrid named after the Fuggers. Calle de
Fiicar, between Atocha and Moratfn streets, bears the his-
panized version of their last name. In addition, the word
fucar is listed even today as meaning "rich and wealthy per-
son" in the Diccionario of the Spanish Royal Academy, (p. 25)
76The following authors, among others, have recently examined the
contributions of Spanish scholastics to economic theory: Murray N.
Rothbard, "New Light on the Prehistory of the Austrian School," in Fhe
Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics, Edwin G. Dolan, ed. (Kansas
City, Mo.: Sheed and Ward, 1976), pp. 52-74, and Economic Fhought
Before Adam Smith, chap. 4, pp. 97-133; Lucas Beltran, "Sobre los ori-
genes hispanos de la economia de mercado," in Ensayos de economia
84 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Chronologically speaking, the first work to consider,
and perhaps the most relevant to our thesis, is Instruccion de
mercaderes (Instruction to merchants), written by Doctor Luis
politica (Madrid: Union Editorial, 1996), pp. 234-54; Marjorie Grice-
Hutchinson, The School of Salamanca: Readings in Spanish Monetary Theory
1544-1605 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), Early Economic Thought in
Spain 1177-1740 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978), and Economic
Thought in Spain: Selected Essays of Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, Laurence S.
Moss and Christopher K. Ryan, eds. (Aldershot, England: Edward Elgar,
1993); Alejandro A. Chafuen, Christians for Freedom: Late-Scholastic Eco-
nomics (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986); and Huerta de Soto, "New
Light on the Prehistory of the Theory of Banking and the School of Sala-
manca," pp. 59-81. The intellectual influence of the School of Salamanca
on the Austrian School is not a mere coincidence or quirk of history, but
a consequence of the close historical, political and cultural connections
established between Spain and Austria during the time of Charles V and
his brother Ferdinand I. These ties lasted for several centuries, and Italy
played a crucial role in them, acting as a true cultural, economic and
financial link between the two furthermost tips of the Empire (Spain and
Vienna). (On this subject, we recommend lean Berenger's interesting
book, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1273-1700, C.A. Simpson, trans.
[London: Longman, 1994, pp. 133-35]). Nevertheless, the scholastics'
doctrine on banking has been largely overlooked in the above writings.
Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson does touch upon the topic with a near verba-
tim reproduction of Ramon Carande's brief contribution to the matter
(see The School of Salamanca, pp. 7-8). Ramon Carande, in turn, simply
cites (on pp. 297-98 of volume 1 of his book, Carlos V y sus banqueros)
Tomas de Mercado's reflections on banking. A more profound examina-
tion is made by Alejandro A. Chafuen, who at least reports Luis de
Molina's views on banking and considers the extent to which the School
of Salamanca approved or disapproved of fractional-reserve banking.
Another relevant source is Restituto Sierra Bravo 's work, El pensamiento
social y economico de la Escoldstica desde sus origenes al comienzo del catoli-
cismo social (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas,
Instituto de Sociologia "Balmes," 1975). Volume 1, pp. 214-37 includes a
rather biased interpretation of the views of members of the School of
Salamanca on the banking business. According to Sierra Bravo, some
among the School's theorists (including Domingo de Soto, Luis de
Molina, and even Tomas de Mercado) tended to accept fractional-
reserve banking. However, he ignores the writings of other members of
the School who, on firmer theoretical grounds, held a radically oppos-
ing view. The same criticism can be applied to references Francisco G.
Camacho makes in his prefaces to the Spanish translations of Molina's
works, particularly his "Introduction" to La teoria del justo precio
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 85
Saravia de la Calle and published in Medina del Campo in
1544. Saravia de la Calle criticizes bankers harshly, calling
them "voracious gluttons who swallow everything, destroy
everything, confuse everything, steal and soil everything, like
the harpies of Phineus."77 He says bankers "go out into the
street and square with their table and chair and cash-box and
book, like harlots to the brothel with their chair," and having
obtained the necessary license and guarantee required by the
laws of the kingdom, they set about acquiring deposits from
clients, to whom they offer bookkeeping and cashier services,
making payments from clients' accounts as ordered and even
paying interest on such deposits.
With sound legal reasoning, Saravia de la Calle indicates
that interest is incompatible with the nature of the monetary
deposit, and that in any case, the banker should receive a fee
for the custody and safekeeping of the money. He even
severely rebukes customers who enter into such deals with
bankers, and states:
And if you say, merchant, that you do not lend the money,
but that you deposit it, that is a greater mockery; for who
ever saw the depositary pay? He is usually paid for the trou-
ble of safeguarding the deposit. Furthermore, if you now
entrust your money to the profiteer as a loan or deposit, just
as you receive a part of the profit , you also earn a portion of
guilt, even a greater portion.78
In chapter 12 of his book, Saravia de la Calle makes a neat
distinction between the two radically different operations
(Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1981), esp. pp. 33-34. This version of the
doctrine, according to which some members of the School of Salamanca
accepted fractional-reserve banking, has been greatly influenced by an
article by Francisco Belda, S.J., entitled "Etica de la creacion de creditos
segun la doctrina de Molina, Lessio y Lugo," published in Pensamiento
19 (1963): 53-89. For the reasons indicated in the text, we disagree with
the interpretation these authors make of the doctrine of the School of
Salamanca with respect to banking. We will consider these objections in
greater detail in section 1 of chapter 8.
77Saravia de la Calle, Instruction de mercaderes, p. 180.
78Ibid., p. 181.
86 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
bankers carry out: demand deposits and time "deposits." In
the first case, customers entrust their money interest-free to
bankers
so the money will be safer, and more accessible for making
payments, and to avoid the hassle and trouble of counting
and guarding it, and also because, in gratitude for this good
deed they do the moneylender in giving him their money, if
it so happens they have no money left under his charge, he
will also accept some overdrafts without interest.79
The second operation, the time "deposit," is very different
from the first and is in fact a true loan or mutuum which is
granted the banker for a fixed term and yields interest. Saravia
de la Calle, in compliance with the traditional canonical doc-
trine on usury, condemns these transactions. Furthermore, he
clearly states that in the case of the demand-deposit contract,
customers should pay the banker
for if they deposit money, they should pay for the safekeep-
ing and should not derive as much profit as the laws permit
when depositing money or property that requires safe-
guarding.80
Saravia de la Calle goes on to censure those clients who self-
ishly try to capitalize on the illicit activity of bankers, making
deposits and expecting bankers to pay interest. As he vividly
puts it,
He who deposits his money with someone he knows will
not guard it, but will spend it, is not free from sin, at least
venial sin. He acts as one who turns over a virgin to a lecher
or a delicacy to a glutton.81
Moreover, the depositor cannot ease his conscience by
thinking the banker will loan or use other people's money but
not his own.
79Ibid., p. 195.
80Ibid., p. 196.
81Ibid., p. 197.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 87
He believes the banker will probably guard the money he
deposits and not do business with it, when this cannot be
expected of any of these profiteers. On the contrary the
banker will soon invest the deposit for profit and try to earn
money with it. How could bankers who pay 7 and 10 per-
cent interest to those who provide them with money to do
business with possibly refrain from using deposits? Even if
it had been clearly demonstrated that you do not sin (which
is not the case, quite the opposite), the moneylender very
certainly sins when he does business with your money and
he definitely uses your money to steal the property of your
neighbors.82
Saravia de la Calle's doctrine is very coherent, inasmuch
as the self-interested use (via the granting of loans) of money
placed on demand deposit with bankers is illegitimate and
implies a grave sin. This doctrine coincides with the one orig-
inally established by the classical authors of Roman law, a
doctrine which derives naturally from the very essence, pur-
pose, and legal nature of the monetary irregular-deposit con-
tract, which we studied in chapter 1.
Saravia de la Calle also vividly describes the dispropor-
tionate profits bankers obtain through their illegitimate prac-
tice of appropriating deposits instead of being satisfied with
the more modest earnings they would receive for the simple
custody or safekeeping of deposits. His explanation is quite
descriptive:
If you receive a wage, it should be moderate and adequate
for your support, not the excessive loot with which you
build superb houses, buy lavish estates, pay servants and
provide extravagant luxuries for your families, and you give
great feasts and dress so splendidly, especially when you
were poor before you began your dealings, and you left
humble trades.83
In addition, Saravia de la Calle explains that bankers are
quite prone to bankruptcy, and he even carries out a cursory
82Ibid.
83Ibid., p. 186.
88 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
theoretical analysis which demonstrates that the expansionary
phase brought on by the artificial expansion of credit granted
by these "profiteers" is inevitably followed by a period of
recession, during which the non-payment of debts produces a
chain of bank failures. He adds that
the merchant does not pay the profiteer, he causes him to go
bankrupt, and he suspends payments and all is lost. As is
common knowledge, these moneylenders are the beginning,
occasion and even the cause of all this, because if they did not
exist, each person would use his money to the extent he could and
no more, and things would cost what they are worth and more
than a fair cash price would not be charged. Therefore it would
be very worthwhile for princes to stop tolerating these prof-
iteers in Spain, since no other nation in the world tolerates
them, and to banish this pestilence from their court and
kingdom.84
As we know, it is not true that the authorities of other
nations had controlled the activity of bankers more success-
fully than Spanish authorities. Instead, the same thing hap-
pened more or less everywhere, and rulers eventually granted
bankers privileges to allow them to make self-interested use of
their depositors' money, in exchange for the ability to capital-
ize on a banking system which provided much faster and eas-
ier financing than taxes.
To conclude his analysis, Saravia de la Calle affirms that
a Christian should under no circumstances give his money
to these profiteers, because if he sins in doing so, as is
always the case, he should refrain from it to avoid sinning;
and if he does not sin, he should refrain to avoid causing the
moneylender to sin.
Furthermore, he adds that if bankers' services are not used,
the following additional advantage will result: the depositors
will not be shocked if the moneylender suspends payments;
if he goes bankrupt, as we see so often and Our Lord God per-
mits, let him and his masters be lost like dishonest gains.85
84Ibid., p. 190; italics added.
85Ibid., p. 198.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 89
As we see, Saravia de la Calle's analysis, along with his
cleverness and humor, is impeccable and free from contradic-
tions. However, in his criticism of bankers, he perhaps places
too much emphasis on the fact that they charged and paid
interest in violation of the canonical prohibition of usury,
instead of emphasizing that they misappropriated demand
deposits.
Another writer who examines the monetary irregular-
deposit contract is Martin de Azpilcueta, better known as
"Doctor Navarro." In his book, Comentario resolutorio de cam-
bios (Resolutory commentary on exchanges), first published in
Salamanca at the end of 1556, Martin de Azpilcueta expressly
refers to "banking for safekeeping," which consists of the
bank contract of monetary demand-deposit. For Martin de
Azpilcueta, banking for safekeeping, or the irregular deposit
contract, is fully just and means that the banker is
guardian, depositary and guarantor of the money given
him or exchanged for whatever purpose by those who give
or send him money, and that he is obliged to make pay-
ments to merchants or persons to whom depositors want
payments made in such and such a way, [for which] he
may legitimately charge a fair fee to the republic or the
depositors, as this trade and responsibility are useful to the
republic and free from iniquity; for it is fair for a worker to
earn his wages. And it is the moneychanger's job to
receive, safeguard and keep the money of so many mer-
chants ready, and to write and keep their accounts, with
great difficulty and at times risk of error in their records
and in other things. This arrangement could be formalized
in a contract by which a person commits himself to hold
other people's money in deposit, make payments and keep
records as arranged by them, etc., since this is an agree-
ment to hire a person for a job, which is a well-known, just
and blessed contract.86
86Martin de Azpilcueta, Comentario resolutorio de cambios (Madrid: Con-
sejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1965), pp. 57-58. In our
study of Dr. Navarro's doctrines we have used the first Spanish edition,
90 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
As we see, Martin de Azpilcueta regards the monetary
irregular-deposit contract as a completely legitimate contract
by which people entrust the custody of their money to a pro-
fessional (the banker), who must safeguard it like a good par-
ent and keep it constantly available to the depositors, provid-
ing whatever cashier services they ask of him; and he has a
right to charge the depositors a fee for his services. As a mat-
ter of fact, Martin de Azpilcueta feels it is the depositors who
must pay the depositary or banker and never the reverse, so
depositors "pay in compensation for the trouble and worries
the moneychanger has in receiving and safeguarding their
money," and bankers must conduct
their business honestly and be satisfied with a fair wage,
receiving it from those who owe it to them and whose
money they safeguard and whose accounts they keep, and
not from those who are not indebted to them.87
Moreover, in an effort to clarify matters and avoid confu-
sion, Martin de Azpilcueta (using the same reasoning as Doc-
tor Saravia de la Calle) expressly condemns clients who wish
to pay nothing for the custody of their deposits and try to even
earn interest on them. Doctor Navarro concludes that
in this sort of exchange, not only the moneychangers sin, but
also . . . those who entrust their money to them for safe-
keeping as above. They later refuse to pay a fee, claiming the
profits earned with their money and received from those
they pay in cash is enough of a wage. And if the money-
changers request a fee, the customers leave them and take
their business elsewhere. So, to keep these clients, the
bankers renounce their fee and instead take money from
those who owe them nothing.88
published by Andres de Portanarijs in Salamanca in 1556, as well as the
Portuguese edition, published by loam de Barreyra in Coimbra in 1560
and entitled Comentario resolutorio de onzenas. In this edition, the text cor-
responding to the above quotes appears on pp. 77-80.
87Azpilcueta, Comentario resolutorio de cambios, pp. 60-61.
88Ibid., p. 61.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 91
In his book, Suma de tratos y contratos (Compilation of deals
and contracts) (Seville 1571), Tomas de Mercado performs an
analysis of the banking business very much in the same line as
the studies by the preceding authors. He begins by correctly
stating that depositors should pay bankers for the work of
safeguarding their monetary deposits, concluding that
it is a common, general rule among all bankers to be able to
take wages from those who deposit money in their bank, a
certain amount each year or for each thousand, because
bankers serve depositors and safeguard their assets.89
Nevertheless, Tomas de Mercado ironically points out that
bankers in Seville are so "generous" they charge nothing for
guarding deposits: "those of this city, it is true, are so regal and
noble they ask for and take no wage."90 Tomas de Mercado
observes that these bankers have no need to charge anything,
since the large amount of currency they obtain from deposits
earns them substantial profits in personal business deals. We
must emphasize that, in our opinion, Tomas de Mercado sim-
ply verifies a fact here and does not imply that he considers
these actions in any way legitimate, as various modern
authors (among others, Restituto Sierra Bravo and Francisco
G. Camacho) appear to suggest.91 Quite the opposite is true.
From the standpoint of the purest Roman doctrine and the
essential legal nature of the monetary irregular-deposit con-
tract analyzed in chapter 1, Tomas de Mercado is the scholas-
tic writer who most clearly demonstrates that the transfer of
property in the irregular deposit does not imply a concomitant
89We quote the Instituto de Estudios Fiscales edition published in
Madrid in 1977, edited and prefaced by Nicolas Sanchez Albornoz, vol.
2, p. 479. Restituto Sierra Bravo has another edition, published by the
Editora Nacional in 1975. The above excerpt appears on page 401 of this
edition. The original edition was published in Seville in 1571 "en casa de
Hernando Diaz Impresor de Libros, en la calle de la Sierpe."
90Mercado, Suma de tratos y contratos, vol. 2, p. 480 of the Instituto de
Estudios Fiscales edition and p. 401 of the Restituto Sierra Bravo edition.
9lSee the writings by Restituto Sierra Bravo, Francisco Belda, and Fran-
cisco Garcia Camacho cited in footnote 76.
92 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
transfer of availability of the tantundem and therefore, for all
practical purposes, there is no full transfer of property. He
expresses himself quite well: "they [bankers] must under-
stand that the money is not theirs, but belongs to others; and
it is not fair that by using it, they cease to serve its owner."
Tomas de Mercado adds that bankers should obey two funda-
mental principles. First: they should
not strip the bank so bare they cannot then cover the drafts
they receive, because if they become unable to pay them
because they have spent and invested the money in shady
business and other deals, they certainly sin. . . . Second: they
should not become involved in risky business deals, for they
sin even if the deals turn out successfully, because the
bankers chance not being able to fulfill their responsibilities
and doing serious harm to those who have trusted them.92
Though one could take these recommendations as an indi-
cation that Tomas de Mercado resigns to accept a certain frac-
tional reserve, it is important to keep in mind that he is very
emphatic in expressing his legal opinion that deposited
money does not ultimately belong to bankers but to deposi-
tors, and in stating, furthermore, that none of the bankers
complies with his two recommendations:
however, since when business goes well, in affluent circum-
stances, it is very difficult to bridle greed, none of them
takes heed of these warnings nor meets these conditions.93
For this reason, he considers the regulations enacted by the
Emperor Charles V in this respect to be very beneficial. They
prohibited bankers from carrying out personal business deals
and were aimed at eliminating the temptation to finance such
dealings indefinitely with money obtained from depositors.94
92Mercado, Suma de tratos y contratos, vol. 2, p. 480 of the Instituto de
Estudios Fiscales edition and p. 401 of the Restituto Sierra Bravo edition.
93lbid.
V^Nueva Recopilacion, law 12, title 18, book 5, enacted in Zamora on June
6, 1554 by Charles V, Queen Juana, and Prince Philip; it reads:
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 93
Also, at the end of chapter 4 of Suma de tratos y contratos,
Tomas de Mercado states that the bankers of Seville hold
deposits of money and precious metals belonging to merchants
who traded with the New World, and that with such consid-
erable deposits they "make great investments," obtaining
hefty profits. Here he does not openly condemn these prac-
tices, but we must remember that the passage in question is,
again, more a description of a state of affairs than a judgment
on its legitimacy. However, he does consider the issue of legit-
imacy in greater depth in chapter 14, which we have already
covered. Tomas de Mercado concludes as well that bankers
are also involved in exchanging and charging; bankers in
this republic engage in an extremely wide range of activi-
ties, wider than the ocean, but sometimes they spread them-
selves too thin and all is lost.95
The scholastics most misguided in their doctrinal treat-
ment of the monetary irregular-deposit contract are Domingo
de Soto and (especially) Luis de Molina and Juan de Lugo.
Indeed, these theorists allowed themselves to be influenced
Because the public banks in the markets of Medina del
Campo, Rioseco and Villalon, and in the cities, towns and vil-
lages of these kingdoms . . . [have engaged in business other
than their specific task concerning money], they have as a
result suspended payments and failed; [in order to] avoid the
above-mentioned events, we decree that, from now on, they
confine themselves to their specific duty, and that not just one
person but at least two be required to establish these public
banks . . . and that before they . . . [can practice their profes-
sion], they must provide sufficient guarantees, (italics added)
Note that "public banks" refers here not to government banks but to pri-
vate banks which may receive deposits from the public under certain
conditions (at least two owners, sufficient guarantees, etc.). See Jose
Antonio Rubio Sacristan, "La fundacion del Banco de Amsterdam (1609)
y la banca de Sevilla," Moneda y credito (March 1948).
95This is the quotation of Mercado which Ramon Carande includes in
vol. 1 of Carlos V y sus banqueros, in the introduction to his treatment of
bankers in Seville and the crisis that led them all to fail. See Mercado,
Suma de tratos y contratos, vol. 2, pp. 381-82 of the 1977 edition of the
Instituto de Estudios Fiscales and p. 321 of the Sierra Bravo edition.
94 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
by the medieval tradition of the glossators, which we covered
in section 2 of this chapter, and especially by the doctrinal con-
fusion resulting from the depositum confessatum. De Soto and
especially Molina view the irregular deposit as a loan in which
both the ownership and full availability of the tantundem are
transferred to the banker. Therefore, they believe the practice
of loaning deposited funds to third parties is legitimate, as
long as bankers act in a "prudent" manner. Domingo de Soto
could be considered the first to maintain this thesis, though he
did so very indirectly. In fact, in book 6, topic 11 of his work,
La justicia y el derecho (On justice and law) (1556), we read that
bankers have the
custom, it is said, of being liable for a greater amount of
money than that deposited if a merchant makes his deposit
in cash. I gave the moneychanger ten thousand; so he will be
liable to me for twelve, perhaps fifteen; because having cash
is very profitable for the moneychanger. Neither is any evil
seen in it.96
Another typical example of credit creation which
Domingo de Soto appears to accept is a loan in the form of the
discount of bills, financed using clients' deposits.
Nevertheless, the Jesuit Luis de Molina is the scholar who
has most clearly maintained an erroneous doctrine on the
bank contract of monetary irregular deposit.97 Indeed, in
96 Habet autem praeterea istorum usus, ut fertur si mercatorum
quispiam in cambio numeratam pecuniam deponat, campsor
pro maio ri illius gratia respondeat. Numeravi campsori dece
milia: fide habebo apud ipsum & creditu pro duodecim, & for-
fam pro quim decim: qui capsori habere numerata pecuniam
bonum est lucrum. Neq, vero quicq vitij in hoc foedere
apparet. (Domingo de Soto, De iustitia et iure [Salamanca:
Andreas Portonarijs, 1556], book 6, topic 11, the only article,
p. 591. Instituto de Estudios Politicos edition [Madrid, 1968],
vol. 3, p. 591)
Sierra Bravo (El pensamiento social y economico de la Escoldstica, p. 215) is
of the opinion that these words by Domingo de Soto imply his accept-
ance of fractional-reserve banking.
97It is very significant that various authors, including Marjorie Grice-
Hutchinson, hesitate to place Luis de Molina among the theorists of the
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 95
Tratado sobre los cambios (Treatise on exchanges) (1597), he
upholds the medieval doctrine that the irregular deposit is a
loan or mutuum contract in favor of the banker, a contract in
which not only ownership is transferred, but full availability of
the tantundem as well, which means the banker can legitimately
use the money in his own interest, in the form of loans or in any
other manner. Let us see how he presents his argument:
Because these bankers, like all the others, are true owners of
the money deposited in their banks, and they differ greatly in
this way from other depositaries ... so they receive the money
as a precarious loan and hence, at their own risk.
Further on he indicates even more clearly that
such a deposit is really a loan, as has been said, and ownership
of the money deposited is transferred to the banker, so if it is
lost it is lost to the banker.98
This position conflicts with the doctrine Luis de Molina
himself upholds in Tratado sobre los prestamos y la usura (Treatise
on loans and usury), where he indicates that a term is an essen-
tial element of all loan contracts, and that if the duration of a
loan has not been expressly stipulated and a date for its return
set, "it will be necessary to accept the decision of the judge as
to the loan's duration."99 Moreover, Luis de Molina ignores all
of the arguments presented in chapter 1 to demonstrate that
the irregular deposit contract has nothing in common, in
School of Salamanca: "The inclusion of Molina in the School seems to
me now to be more dubious." Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, "The Concept
of the School of Salamanca: Its Origins and Development," chapter 2 of
Economic Thought in Spain: Selected Essays of Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, p.
25. It seems clear that the core members of the School of Salamanca were
Dominican, and at least on banking matters it is necessary to separate
them from Jesuit theologians, a deviationist and much less rigorous
group.
98Luis de Molina, Tratado sobre los cambios, edited and introduced by
Francisco Gomez Camacho (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales,
1991), pp. 137-40. The original edition was published in Cuenca in 1597.
"Luis de Molina, Tratado sobre los prestamos y la usura, edited and intro-
duced by Francisco Gomez Camacho (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fis-
cales, 1989), p. 13. The original edition was published in Cuenca in 1597.
96 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
terms of legal nature and essence, with the loan or mutuum
contract. Therefore, his doctrinal attempt to identify the two
contracts with each other is a clear step backward, not only in
relation to the much more coherent views of Saravia de la
Calle and Martin de Azpilcueta, but also with respect to the
true legal nature of the contract as it had already been devel-
oped by Roman juridical science. Therefore, it is strange that
a mind as bright and penetrating as Luis de Molina did not
realize the extreme danger of accepting the violation of the
general legal principles governing the irregular deposit, and
that he claimed,
it never occurs that all the depositors need their money in
such a way that they do not leave many thousands of ducats
deposited, with which the bankers can do business and
either earn a profit or suffer a loss.100
Molina does not recognize that in this way not only is the
objective or essential purpose of the contract (custody and
safekeeping) violated, but also that an incentive is provided
for all sorts of illicit dealings and abuses which inexorably
generate an economic recession and bank failures. When the
traditional legal principle requiring the continual safekeeping
of the tantundem in favor of the depositor is not respected, there
is no clear guide to avoiding bank failures. Furthermore, it is
obvious that such vague, superficial suggestions as "try to act
prudently" and "do not become involved in risky business
deals" are not sufficient help in preventing the very harmful
economic and social effects of fractional-reserve banking. At
any rate, Luis de Molina does at least bother to state,
It is important to warn that [bankers] commit mortal sin if
they use in their own business dealings so much of the
money they hold on deposit that they are later unable, at the
right time, to hand over the quantities the depositors request
or order to be paid against their deposited funds. ... In
addition, they commit mortal sin if they become involved in
business dealings entailing a risk of not being able to return
deposits. For example, if they send so much merchandise
l°°Molina, Tratado sobre los cambios, p. 137.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 97
overseas that, should the ship sink or be captured by pirates,
they would not be able to repay deposits even after selling all
of their assets. And they are not guilty of mortal sin only when
the deal turns out poorly, but also when it turns out well. This is
due to the chance they take of hurting depositors and the guaran-
tors they themselves supply for the deposits.101
We find this warning of Luis de Molina admirable, but at
the same time we are astonished at his failure to recognize the
profound contradiction that ultimately exists between his
warning and his explicit acceptance of "prudent" fractional-
reserve banking. The fact is, regardless of how prudent
bankers are, the only surefire way to avoid risks and ensure
that deposits are permanently available to depositors is to
maintain a 100-percent reserve ratio at all times.102
101Ibidv pp. 138-39; italics added.
102 After Molina, the leading scholar with a similar viewpoint on bank-
ing issues is Juan de Lugo, also a Jesuit. This suggests that, with regard
to banking, the School of Salamanca comprised two currents of thought:
one which was sound, doctrinally well-supported, close to the future
Currency School, and represented by Saravia de la Calle, Martin de
Azpilcueta, and Tomas de Mercado; and another, one more prone to the
follies of inflationism and to fractional-reserve banking, and close to the
future Banking School. Luis de Molina, Juan de Lugo, and to a much
lesser extent, Domingo de Soto exemplified this current. In chapter 8
we will set out this thesis in greater detail. For now we would just like
to point out that Juan de Lugo followed in Molina's footsteps and gave
an especially clear warning to bankers:
Qui bene advertit, eivsmodi bancarios depositarios peccare
graviter, & damno subsequuto, cum obligatione restituendi
pro damno, quoties ex pecuniis apud se depositis tantam
summam ad suas negotiationes exponunt, ut inhabiles
maneant ad solvendum deposentibus, quando suo tempore
exigent. Et idem est, si negotiationes tales aggrediantur, ex
quibus periculum sit, ne postea ad paupertatem redacti pecu-
nias acceptas reddere non possint, v.g. si euenrus ex naviga-
tione periculosa dependeat, in qua navis hostium, vel
naufragij periculo exposita sit, qua iactura sequunta, ne ex
propio quidem patrimonio solvere possint, sed in creditorum,
vel fideiussorum damnum cedere debet. (R.P. Joannis de
Lugo Hispalensis, S.I., Disputationum de iustitia et iure tomus
secundus, Disp. 28, section 5 [Lyon: Sumptibus Petri Prost,
1642], pp. 406-07)
98 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
5
A New Attempt at Legitimate Banking:
The Bank of Amsterdam. Banking in the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
The Bank of Amsterdam
The last serious attempt to establish a bank based on the
general legal principles governing the monetary irregular
deposit and to set up an efficient system of government con-
trol to adequately define and defend depositors' property
rights took place with the creation of the Municipal Bank of
Amsterdam in 1609. It was founded after a period of great
monetary chaos and fraudulent (fractional-reserve) private
banking. Intended to put an end to this state of affairs and
restore order to financial relations, the Bank of Amsterdam
began operating on January 31, 1609 and was called the Bank
of Exchange.103 The hallmark of the Bank of Amsterdam was
its commitment, from the time of its creation, to the universal
legal principles governing the monetary irregular deposit.
More specifically, it was founded upon the principle that the
obligation of the depository bank in the monetary irregular-
deposit contract consists of maintaining the constant avail-
ability of the tantundem in favor of the depositor; that is,
maintaining at all times a 100-percent reserve ratio with
respect to "demand" deposits. This measure was intended to
ensure legitimate banking and prevent the abuses and bank
failures which had historically occurred in all countries
where the state had not only not bothered to prohibit and
declare illegal the misappropriation of money on demand
deposit in banks, but on the contrary, had usually ended up
granting bankers all sorts of privileges and licenses to allow
their fraudulent operations, in exchange for the opportunity
to take fiscal advantage of them.
103As for the curious reference to the public banks of Seville (and
Venice) as models (!) for the Bank of Amsterdam, included in a petition
from leading Dutch merchants to the Council of Amsterdam, see Jose
Antonio Rubio Sacristan, "La fundacion del Banco de Amsterdam (1609)
y la banca de Sevilla."
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 99
For a very long time, over one hundred fifty years, the
Bank of Amsterdam scrupulously fulfilled the commitment
upon which it was founded. Evidence reflects that during the
first years of its existence, between 1610 and 1616, both the
bank's deposits and its cash reserves came very close to one
million florins. From 1619 to 1635, deposits amounted to
nearly four million florins and cash reserves exceeded three
million, five hundred thousand. After this slight imbalance,
equilibrium was restored in 1645, when deposits equaled
eleven million, two hundred eighty-eight thousand florins and
cash reserves added up to eleven million, eight hundred thou-
sand florins. Equilibrium and growth were more or less stable,
and in the eighteenth century, between 1721 and 1722, the
bank's deposits totaled twenty-eight million florins and its
stock of cash reached nearly that amount, twenty-seven mil-
lion. This great increase in the deposits of the Bank of Amster-
dam stemmed, among other causes, from its role as a refuge for
capital fleeing the crazy inflationist speculation that the system
of John Law produced in France in the 1720s. We will deal with
this more in depth later. This continued until 1772, in which
both deposits and cash reserves totaled twenty-eight to twenty-
nine million florins. As is evident, during this entire period, to
all intents and purposes the Bank of Amsterdam maintained a 100-
percent cash reserve. This allowed it, in all crises, to satisfy each
and every request for cash withdrawal of deposited florins.
Such was true in 1672, when panic caused by the French threat
gave rise to a massive withdrawal of money from Dutch
banks, most of which were forced to suspend payments (as
occurred with the Rotterdam and Middelburg banks). The
Bank of Amsterdam was the exception, and it logically had no
trouble returning deposits. Increasing and lasting confidence
in its soundness resulted, and the Bank of Amsterdam became
an object of admiration for the civilized economic world of the
time. Pierre Vilar indicates that in 1699 the French ambassador
wrote in a report to his king:
Of all the towns of the United Provinces, Amsterdam is
without any doubt the foremost in greatness, wealth and the
extent of her trade. There are few cities even in Europe to
equal her in the two latter respects; her commerce stretches
100 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
over both halves of the globe, and her wealth is so great that
during the war she supplied as much as fifty millions a year
if not more.104
In 1802, when, as we will now see, the Bank of Amsterdam
started to become corrupt and violate the principles on which
it was founded, the bank still enjoyed enormous prestige, to
the point that the French consul in Amsterdam noted:
At the end of a maritime war which has kept the treasures
of the mines pent up in the Spanish and Portuguese
colonies, Europe is suddenly inundated with gold and silver
in quantities far above what is needed, so that they would
decline in value if they were put into circulation all at once.
In such an eventuality, the people of Amsterdam deposited
the metal in ingots in the Bank, where it was kept for them
at a very low cost, and they took it out a little at a time to
send to different countries as the increase in the rate war-
rants it. This money, then, which if allowed to flood in too
rapidly would have driven up the prices of everything
exceedingly, to the great loss of all who live on fixed and
limited incomes, was gradually distributed through many
channels, giving life to industry and encouraging trade. The
Bank of Amsterdam, then, did not act only according to the
special interests of the traders of this city; but the whole of
Europe is in its debt for the greater stability of prices, equi-
librium of exchange and a more constant ratio between the
two metals of which coin is made; and if the bank is not re-
established, it could be said that the great system of the
trade and political economy of the civilised world will be
without an essential part of its machinery105
104Pierre vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920, ludith White,
trans. (London: NLB, 1976), p. 207. The deposit and reserve figures we
have cited in the text are also found here on pp. 208-09. Two other Euro-
pean banks modeled after the Bank of Amsterdam were the Bank of
Venice and the Bank of Hamburg. They were both founded in 1619.
Although the first eventually violated the strict safekeeping obligation
and disappeared in 1797, the Bank of Hamburg operated in a more con-
sistent manner and survived until merging 'with the Reichsbank in 1873.
J.K. Ingram, "Banks, Early European," in Palgrave's Dictionary of Political
Economy, Henry Higgs, ed. (London: Macmillan, 1926), vol. 1, pp. 103-06.
105Vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920, p. 209.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 101
Therefore, we see that the Bank of Amsterdam did not try
to attain disproportionate profits through the fraudulent use
of deposits. Instead, in keeping with the dictates of Saravia de
la Calle and others we have mentioned, it contented itself with
the modest benefits derived from fees for safeguarding
deposits and with the small income obtained though the
exchange of money and the sale of bars of stamped metal.
Nevertheless, this income was more than sufficient to satisfy
the bank's operating and administration costs, to generate
some profit and to maintain an honest institution that fulfilled
all of its commitments.
The great prestige of the Bank of Amsterdam is also evi-
denced by a reference to it found in the incorporation charter
of the Spanish Banco de San Carlos in 1782. Although this
bank, from its very inception, lacked the guarantees of the
Bank of Amsterdam, and it was created with the intention of
using its deposits, authority, and clout to help finance the
Treasury, it could not escape the immense influence of the
Dutch bank. Thus, its article XLIV establishes that private
individuals may hold deposits or
equivalent funds in cash in the bank itself, and whoever
wishes to make deposits shall be allowed to do so, either in
order to draw bills on the money or to withdraw it gradu-
ally, and in this way they will be exempt from having to
make payments themselves, their bills being accepted as
payable at the bank. In their first meeting, the stockholders
will determine the amount per thousand which merchants
must pay the bank in relation to their deposits, as they do in
Holland, and will establish all other provisions concerning
the best dispatch of discounts and reductions.106
l°6We quote directly from a copy of the Real Cedula de S. M. y Senores del
Consejo, por la qual se crea, erige y autoriza un Banco nacional y general para
facilitar las operaciones del Comercio y el beneficio publico de estos Reynos y
los de Indias, con la denomination de Banco de San Carlos baxo las reglas que
se expresan (Royal Charter of H.M. and Members of the Council, by
which a universal, national bank is created, erected and authorized, to
promote trade and the common good of these kingdoms and the New
World), printed by Pedro Marin (Madrid, 1782), pp. 31-32; italics added.
There is an excellent profile on the history of the Banco de San Carlos by
202 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
David Hume and the Bank of Amsterdam
A sign of the enormous prestige of the Bank of Amsterdam
among scholars and intellectuals, as well as merchants, is the
express mention David Hume makes of it in his essay Of
Money. This essay first appeared, with others, in a book called
Political Discourses, published in Edinburgh in 1752. In it
David Hume voices his opposition to paper currency and
argues that the only solvent financial policy is that which
forces banks to maintain a 100-percent reserve ratio, in accor-
dance with traditional legal principles governing the irregular
deposit of money. David Hume concludes that
to endeavour artificially to encrease such a credit, can never
be the interest of any trading nation; but must lay them
under disadvantages, by encreasing money beyond its nat-
ural proportion to labour and commodities, and thereby
heightening their price to the merchant manufacturer. And
in this view, it must be allowed, that no bank could be more
advantageous, than such a one as locked up all the money it
received, and never augmented the circulating coin, as is usual, by
returning part of its treasure into commerce. A public bank, by
this expedient, might cut off much of the dealings of private
bankers and money-jobbers; and though the state bore the charge
of salaries to the directors and tellers of this bank (for, according
to the preceding supposition, it would have no profit from its deal-
ings), the national advantage, resulting from the low price of
labour and the destruction of paper credit, would be a sufficient
compensation.107
Hume is not completely correct when he claims the bank
would not earn a profit, since its safekeeping fees would be
sufficient to cover operating costs, and it might even generate
modest profits, as in fact the Bank of Amsterdam did. How-
ever his analysis is categorical and reveals that, in defending
Pedro Tedde de Lorca, entitled El banco de San Carlos, 1782-1829
(Madrid: Banco de Espafia and Alianza Editorial, 1988).
l°7We quote from pp. 284-85 of the excellent reissue of David Hume's
work, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, edited by Eugene F. Miller and
published by Liberty Fund, Indianapolis 1985; italics added.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 103
the creation of a public bank with these characteristics, he had
in mind the success of the Bank of Amsterdam and the exam-
ple it had already set for over one hundred years. Furthermore
the third edition of his Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects,
published in four volumes in London and Edinburgh,
1753-1754, includes a note by Hume in reference to the
phrase, "no bank could be more advantageous, than such a
one as locked up all the money it received." Footnote number
four contains the following words: "This is the case with the
Bank of Amsterdam." It appears that Hume wrote this foot-
note with the intention of more clearly emphasizing his view
that the Bank of Amsterdam was the ideal model for a bank.
Hume was not the very first to propose a 100-percent reserve
requirement in banking. He was preceded by Jacob Vanderlint
(1734) and especially by the director of the Royal mint, Joseph
Harris, for whom banks were useful as long as they "issued no
bills without an equivalent in real treasure."108
Sir James Steuart, Adam Smith,
and the Bank of Amsterdam
Sir James Steuart offers us an important contemporary
study of the Bank of Amsterdam's operation in his treatise
published in 1767 entitled, An Enquiry into the Principles of
Political Oeconomy: Being an Essay on the Science of Domestic
Policy in Free Nations. In chapter 39 of volume 2, Steuart pres-
ents an analysis of the "circulation of coin through the Bank of
Amsterdam." He maintains that "every shilling written in the
books of the bank is actually locked up, in coin, in the bank
repositories." Still, he states,
Although, by the regulations of the bank, no coin can be
issued to any person who demands it in consequence of his
credit in bank; yet I have not the least doubt, but that both the
credit written in the books of the bank, and the cash in the reposi-
tories which balances it, may suffer alternate augmentations and
l°8Quoted by Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, pp. 332-35
and 462.
104 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
diminutions, according to the greater or less demand for bank
money.109
At any rate, Steuart indicates that the bank's activities "are
conducted with the greatest secrecy," in keeping with the tra-
ditional lack of openness in banking and especially significant
in the case of the Bank of Amsterdam, whose statutes and
operation demanded the maintenance of a continuous 100-
percent reserve ratio. If Steuart is correct and this ratio was at
times violated, it is logical that at the time the Bank of Ams-
terdam tried to hide the fact at all costs.
Although there are signs that at the end of the 1770s the
Bank of Amsterdam began to violate the principles upon
which it had been founded, in 1776 Adam Smith still affirmed
in his book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
of Nations, that
The Bank of Amsterdam professes to lend out no part of
what is deposited with it, but, for every guilder for which
it gives credit in its books, to keep in its repositories the
value of a guilder either in money or bullion. That it keeps
in its repositories all the money or bullion for which there
are receipts in force, for which it is at all times liable to be
called upon, and which, in reality, is continually going from
it and returning to it again, cannot well be doubted. ... At
Amsterdam no point of faith is better established than that
for every guilder, circulated as bank money, there is a corre-
spondant guilder in gold or silver to be found in the treas-
ure of the bank.110
Adam Smith goes on to say that the city itself guaranteed
the operation of the Bank of Amsterdam as described above
109\Ye quote from the original edition, published by A. Miller and T.
Cadell in the Strand (London, 1767), vol. 2, p. 301; italics added. Prior to
Steuart's analysis, we find a more superficial study of the Bank of Ams-
terdam's operation in the Abbot Ferdinando Galiani's famous book,
Delia moneta. The original edition was published by Giuseppe Raimondi
(Naples, 1750), pp. 326-28.
110We quote directly from the original edition of Adam Smith, An
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: W.
Strahan and T. Cadell in the Strand, 1776), vol. 2, pp. 72-73.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 105
and that it was under the direction of four burgomasters
who changed each year. Each burgomaster visited the
vaults, compared their content in cash with deposit entries
in the books and with great solemnity declared under oath
that the two coincided. Adam Smith remarks, tongue-in-
cheek, that "in that sober and religious country oaths are not
yet disregarded."111 He ends his commentary by adding that
all of these practices were sufficient to guarantee the absolute
safety of deposits in the bank, a fact which was demonstrated
in various Dutch political revolutions. No political party was
ever able to accuse the prior of disloyalty in the management
of the bank. By way of example, Adam Smith mentions that
even in 1672, when the king of France marched into Utrecht
and Holland was in danger of being conquered by a foreign
power, the Bank of Amsterdam satisfied every last request for
repayment of demand deposits. As we stated before, this
acted as an even more impressive reinforcement of the pub-
lic's confidence in the absolute solvency of the bank.
As additional evidence that the Bank of Amsterdam main-
tained a 100-percent reserve ratio, Adam Smith offers the
anecdote that some coins removed from the bank appeared to
have been damaged in the building fire that struck the bank
soon after its creation in 1609, which shows those coins had
been kept in the bank for over one hundred fifty years. Finally,
Adam Smith, in strict keeping with the true legal nature of the
irregular-deposit contract, which requires that it be the depos-
itors who pay the bank, indicates that the bank's income
stemmed from safekeeping fees:
The City of Amsterdam derives a considerable revenue from
the bank, besides what may be called the warehouse-rent
above mentioned, each person, upon first opening an
account with the bank, pays a fee of ten guilders, and for
every new account three guilders three stivers; for every
transfer two stivers; and if the transfer is for less than three
hundred guilders, six stivers, in order to discourage the
multiplicity of small transactions.112
mIbid., p. 73.
U2lbid., p. 74.
106 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In addition, Adam Smith refers to other sources of income
we have already mentioned, such as the exchange of money
and the sale of gold and silver bars.
Unfortunately, in the 1780s the Bank of Amsterdam began
to systematically violate the legal principles on which it had
been founded, and evidence shows that from the time of the
fourth Anglo-Dutch war, the reserve ratio decreased drasti-
cally, because the city of Amsterdam demanded the bank loan
it a large portion of its deposits to cover growing public expen-
ditures. Hence, deposits at that time amounted to twenty mil-
lion florins, while there were only four million florins' worth of
precious metals in the vaults; which indicates that, not only did
the bank violate the essential principle of safekeeping on
which it had been founded and its existence based for over one
hundred seventy years, but the reserve ratio had been cut from
100 percent to less than 25 percent. This meant the final loss of
the Bank of Amsterdam's long-standing reputation: deposits
began to gradually decrease at that point, and in 1820 they had
dwindled to less than one hundred forty thousand florins.113
The Bank of Amsterdam was the last bank in history to main-
tain a 100-percent reserve ratio, and its disappearance marked
the end of the last attempts to found banks upon general legal
principles. The financial predominance of Amsterdam was
replaced by the financial system of the United Kingdom, a
much less stable and less solvent system based on the expan-
sion of credit, deposits and paper currency.
The Banks of Sweden and England
The Bank of Amsterdam was a forerunner of the Bank of
Stockholm (Riksbank), which began operating in 1656 and
was divided into two departments: one responsible for the
safekeeping of deposits (using a 100-percent reserve ratio) and
modeled after the Bank of Amsterdam; and another devoted
to loans. Although the departments supposedly functioned
113 Vilar, A History of Gold and Money, 1450-1920, p. 208. On the operation
of the Bank of Amsterdam see also Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy
vol. 2, pp. 75-76.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 107
separately from one another, in practice they were separate
only on paper, and the Bank of Stockholm soon abandoned the
standards set by the Dutch bank.114 The Swedish authorities
nationalized it in 1668, making it the first government bank of
the modern world.115 Not only did it violate the traditional
principles which guided the Bank of Amsterdam, but it also
initiated a new fraudulent and systematic practice: the
issuance of banknotes or deposit receipts for a sum higher than
actual deposits received in cash. This is how banknotes were
born, along with the lucrative practice of issuing them for a
higher amount than the total of deposits. Over time, this activ-
ity would become the banking practice par excellence, especially
in the centuries that followed, during which it deceived schol-
ars, who failed to realize that the issuance of banknotes had the
same repercussions as artificial credit expansion and deposit
creation, two practices which, as A.P. Usher has noted, had
been at the core of the banking business from its origins.
The Bank of England was created in 1694 and was also pat-
terned after the Bank of Amsterdam, due to the considerable
influence Holland exerted on England following the accession
of the House of Orange to the English throne. However, the
bank was not constituted with the same legal guarantees of
safekeeping as the Bank of Amsterdam. Instead, one of its main
aims from the outset was to help finance public expenditures.
For this reason, although the Bank of England was intended to
stop the commonplace, systematic abuses committed by pri-
vate bankers and the government,116 in practice this goal was
114In this sense, as Kindleberger perceptively points out in A Financial
History of Western Europe, pp. 52-53, the Riksbank's system of organiza-
tion was a precursor to the structure which two centuries later the Peel
Act (Bank Charter Act) of 1844 assigned the Bank of England.
115In celebration of the tercentenary of the Bank of Stockholm in 1968,
an endowment was made to fund a yearly Nobel Prize in economics.
116por instance, in 1640, Charles I, echoing the policies pursued in Spain
a hundred years earlier by his namesake the emperor Charles V, seized
the gold and valuables deposited for safekeeping in the Tower of London
and in the process completely ruined the reputation of the mint as a safe
place for valuables. Thirty-two years later, Charles II also failed in his
duty, causing the royal treasury to suspend payments and precipitating
108 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
never achieved. In short, the Bank of England eventually
failed, despite its privileged role as the government's banker,
its monopoly on limited liability in England and its exclusive
authorization to issue banknotes. As a result of its systematic
neglect of the safekeeping obligation and its practice of grant-
ing loans and advances to the Treasury against the bank's
deposits, the Bank of England eventually suspended pay-
ments in 1797 after various colorful vicissitudes, including the
South Sea Bubble.117 Also in 1797, the same year the Bank of
England was forbidden to return deposits in cash, it was
declared that taxes and debts were to be paid in bills issued by
the bankruptcy of many private banks that had extended loans to the
crown or had directly bought treasury bonds with funds from demand
deposits. See Kindleberger, A Financial History of Western Europe, pp.
53-54.
117In 1720 the South Sea Company devised an ambitious plan to take
over Britain's national debt for a sum of money. This company emerged
from the Tory party just like the Bank of England, and was intended to
help finance the war. In return, the government granted privileges to
certain corporations. The actual aim of South Sea Company promoters
was to speculate with company stock, to the extent that government
debt obligations were accepted in payment for new stocks. During that
year the Bank of England extended loans on its own securities to facili-
tate their acquisition, just as the South Sea Company had done. This set
off an inflationary process in which the price of company and bank
stock was driven to great heights, generating huge profits. Specula-
tors, including many company officials, took advantage of these bene-
fits. A portion of profits was invested in land, the price of which also
rose significantly. All of this speculative and inflationist mania came to
an abrupt halt during the summer of 1720, at the same time John Law's
network of speculation began to deteriorate in Paris. Once prices began
to fall it became virtually impossible to stop their plunge. South Sea
Company stock prices plummeted from 775 points in September to 170
in mid-October and Bank of England stocks dropped from 225 points to
135 in just one month. Parliament responded by passing the Bubble Act,
which from that time on severely limited the establishment of corpora-
tions. However, it was not until 1722, and after much difficult negotia-
tion, that the financial problem was alleviated. That year Parliament
approved an agreement between the Bank of England and the South Sea
Company, stipulating that the former was to receive four million
pounds of the latter 's capital through yearly payments of 5 percent,
guaranteed by the Treasury. See also the end of footnote 43 of chapter 7.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 109
the bank, and an attempt was made to limit advances and
loans to the government.118 This was the dawn of the modern
banking system, based on a fractional-reserve ratio and a cen-
tral bank as lender of last resort. In chapter 8 we will analyze
in detail the reasons central banks were created, their role and
theoretical incapability of fulfilling it, as well as the central
banking vs. free banking controversy and its influence on the
different theories of money, banking and economic cycles. The
current chapter would not be complete, however, without a
brief reference to the development of banking and paper
money in eighteenth-century France.
John Law and Eighteenth-Century Banking in France
The history of money and banking in eighteenth-century
France is closely linked to the Scottish financier John Law and
the "system" he concocted and put into practice there. Law
persuaded the French regent, Philippe d'Orleans, that the
ideal bank was one that made use of the deposits it received,
since this increased the amount of money in circulation and
"stimulated" economic growth. Law's system, like economic
118prom tj-uS point on many theorists, especially in the United States,
proclaimed the great threat posed to individual liberty by an implicit or
explicit alliance between bankers and governments. This type of pact
was expressed through the continual, systematic granting of privileges
to allow banks to violate their legal commitments by suspending the
cash repayment of deposits. For example, John Taylor, an American sena-
tor from the second half of the eighteenth century classified this practice
as true fraud, stating that "under our mild policy the banks' crimes may
possibly be numbered, but no figures can record their punishments,
because they are never punished." See John Taylor, Construction Construed
and Constitutions Vindicated (Richmond, Va.: Shepherd and Polland, 1820;
New York: Da Capa Press, 1970), pp. 182-83. Another very interesting
piece on this topic is James P. Philbin's article entitled "An Austrian Per-
spective on Some Leading Jacksonian Monetary Theorists," published in
Journal of Libertarian Studies 10, no. 1 (Fall, 1991): 83-95, esp. 89. Murray N.
Rothbard wrote a magnificent summary of the emergence of fractional-
reserve banking in the early United States: "Inflation and the Creation of
Paper Money," chapter 26 of Conceived in Liberty, vol. 2: "Salutary
Neglect": The American Colonies in the First Half of the 18th Century (New
York: Arlington House, 1975), pp. 123-40; 2nd ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig
von Mises Institute, 1999).
110 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
interventionism in general, arose from three different, though
interconnected factors. First, disregard for traditional legal
and moral principles, particularly the requirement for contin-
ual safekeeping of 100 percent of deposited money. Second, a
reasoning error that appears to justify violating legal princi-
ples to attain seemingly beneficial goals quickly. Third, the
fact that there will always be certain agents who view in pro-
posed reforms an opportunity to make huge profits. The com-
bination of these three factors allowed a political dreamer like
Law to launch his "banking system" in France at the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century. In fact, once the bank had
earned people's trust, it began to issue banknotes far exceed-
ing deposits on hand and to extend loans against deposits.
The quantity of bills in circulation increased very rapidly, and
as is logical, a significant artificial economic boom resulted. In
1718 the bank was nationalized (becoming the royal bank) and
began churning out even more bills and granting more loans.
This encouraged stock market speculation in general, and in
particular speculative buying and selling of shares of Law's
Compagnie de la Lousiane ou d'Occident or Mississippi Trading
Company, aimed at fostering trade and advancing coloniza-
tion of this French territory in America. By 1720 the absurd
proportions of the financial bubble had become clear. Law
tried desperately to stabilize the price of the company's stock
and the value of his bank's paper money: the bank and trad-
ing company were merged, company stock was declared legal
tender, coins lost part of their weight in an attempt to restore
their relationship to bills, etc. However, all was in vain and the
inflationary bubble burst, bringing financial ruin not only to
the bank but also to many French investors who had placed
their trust in it and in the trading company. The losses were so
heavy and the suffering so immense that for over a hundred
years it was even considered a faux pas in France to utter the
word "bank," a term which for a time was synonymous with
"fraud."119 The ravages of inflation plagued France again a
119A detailed account of Law's notorious bank failure in France by a
scholar with first-hand knowledge of the events can be found in the
book Delia moneta by Ferdinando Galiani, pp. 329-34; and in chapter
23 through 35 of volume 2 of An Enquiry into the Principles of Political
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 111
few decades later, as evidenced by the serious monetary chaos
during the revolutionary period and the uncontrolled
issuance of assignats at that time. All these phenomena made a
permanent impression on the collective psyche of the French,
who are still aware today of the grave dangers of paper
money inflation and preserve the custom of storing consider-
able amounts of gold coins and ingots. In fact, France,
together with India, is one of the countries whose people hold
the largest stock of gold on a private basis.
All of the above notwithstanding, and in spite of his ill-
fated banking experiment, John Law made some contribu-
tions to monetary theory. Although we cannot accept his infla-
tionist and proto-Keynesian views, we must acknowledge, as
Carl Menger did, that Law was the first to formulate a sound
theory on the spontaneous, evolutionary origins of money.
Richard Cantillon and the Fraudulent Violation
of the Irregular-Deposit Contract
It is a remarkable fact that three of the most noted mone-
tary theorists of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
were bankers: John Law, Richard Cantillon,120 and Henry
Oeconomy, by Sir James Steuart (pp. 235-91). An enlightening and theo-
retically solid analysis of the financial, monetary and banking systems
in eighteenth-century France is found in EA. Hayek's article "First
Paper Money in Eighteenth Century France," first published as chapter
10 in the book, The Trend of Economic Thinking: Essays on Political Econo-
mists and Economic History, vol. 3 of The Collected Works of P. A. Hayek,
W.W. Bartley III and Stephen Kresge, eds. (London and New York: Rout-
ledge, 1991), pp. 155-76. The best biography of John Law is by Antoin E.
Murphy John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy Maker (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1997).
120Richard Cantillon was the first to maintain that "safe" banking could
be conducted with only a 10 percent reserve ratio: "Dans ce premier
exemple la caisse d'un Banquier ne fait que la dixieme partie de son
commerce." See p. 400 of the original edition of Essai sur la nature du
commerce en general, published anonymously (and falsely) in London,
Fletcher Gyles in Holborn, 1755. Incredibly Murray Rothbard does not
mention this in his brilliant study on Cantillon. See Rothbard, Economic
Thought Before Adam Smith, pp. 345-62.
112 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Thornton. Their banks all failed.121 Cantillon alone escaped
relatively unscathed, not only because he stopped his risky
speculation in time, but also (and most importantly) because
of the large profits he fraudulently obtained by violating the
obligation to safeguard his customers' assets.
Indeed, Cantillon clearly violated the contract of irregular
deposit, however in this case the deposit was not of money,
but shares of stock in the Mississippi Trading Company,
founded by John Law. Cantillon's fraudulent scheme was as
follows: he loaned large amounts of money to his customers to
allow them to buy shares in the company, on the condition
that the stocks act as collateral and remain at Cantillon's bank
as an irregular deposit, in this case of fungible and indistin-
guishable shares. Later Cantillon, unbeknownst to his clients,
misappropriated the deposited securities, selling them when
he thought their market price was high and keeping the
money from the sale. Once the shares had lost practically all of
their value, Cantillon bought them back for a fraction of their
old price and restored deposits, securing a hefty profit.
Finally, he demanded repayment of the loans he had initially
made to his clients, who were unable to return the money,
since the collateral they had at the bank was worth close to
nothing. These fraudulent operations led to multiple criminal
charges and civil suits against Cantillon, who, upon being
arrested and briefly incarcerated, was forced to leave France
in a hurry and flee to England.
Cantillon, in defense, put forward the same argument so
often used throughout the Middle Ages by writers deter-
mined to confuse the irregular deposit with the loan. In fact,
121Admittedly, Thornton's bank did not fail until after his death, in
December 1825. See pp. 34-36 of F. A. Hayek's "Introduction" to Henry
Thornton's book An Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of
Great Britain, originally published in 1802 and reissued by Augustus M.
Kelley, 1978. A.E. Murphy also notes that Law and Cantillon share the
unhappy "distinction" of being the only economists, apart from Antoine
de Montchretien, who were accused of murder and other crimes. See A.E.
Murphy, Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1986), p. 237. Thornton's religious and puritanical reputation at
least protected him from being charged with such atrocities.
Historical Violations of the Legal Principles
Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract 113
Cantillon tried to defend himself by claiming that the stocks
deposited with him as unnumbered fungible goods had not
actually constituted a true deposit, but a loan implying the
full transference of ownership and availability to the banker.
Thus, Cantillon considered his operations perfectly "legiti-
mate." Nevertheless, we know his legal argument was
unsound and even though the deposit of securities was con-
sidered an irregular deposit of fungible goods, the obligation
to safeguard the shares and maintain continual possession of
all of them remained. Therefore, when Cantillon sold the
shares to the detriment of his customers he clearly committed
the criminal act of misappropriation. F.A. Hayek explains
Cantillon's attempt to justify his fraudulent actions:
His point of view was, as he later explained, that the shares
given to him, since their numbers had not been registered,
were not a genuine deposit, but rather — as one would say
today — a block deposit so that none of his customers had
claim to specific securities. The firm actually made an
extraordinary profit in this way, since it could buy back at
reduced prices the shares sold at high prices, and mean-
while the capital, for which they were charging high inter-
est, lost nothing at all but rather was saved and invested in
pounds. When Cantillon, who had partially made these
advances in his own name, asked for repayments of the
loans from the speculators, who had suffered great losses,
and finally took them to court, the latter demanded that the
profits obtained by Cantillon and the firm from their shares
be credited against these advances. They in turn took Can-
tillon to court in London and Paris, charging fraud and usury.
By presenting to the courts correspondence between Cantil-
lon and the firm, they averred that the entire transaction was
carried out under Cantillon's immediate direction and that
he therefore bore personal responsibility.122
In the next chapter we will explain that the violation of the
irregular deposit of securities is just as corrupt from a legal
standpoint as the violation of the irregular deposit of money
and gives rise to very similar economic and social evils. A per-
fect example in the twentieth century was the failure of the
122See Hayek, "Richard Cantillon (1680-1734)/' chapter 13 of The Trend
of Economic Thinking, pp. 245-93, esp. p. 284. And also the report by
114 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Bank of Barcelona and of other Catalonian banks that system-
atically accepted the irregular deposit of securities without
keeping full custody of them.123 Instead, to attain a profit, they
used them in all sorts of speculative operations to the detri-
ment of their true owners, just as Cantillon had done two hun-
dred years earlier. Richard Cantillon was brutally murdered at
his London home in 1734, after twelve years of litigation, two
arrests, and the constant threat of imprisonment. Although the
official version was that he was murdered and his body
burned beyond recognition by an ex-cook who killed him to
rob him, it is also plausible that one of his many creditors
instigated the murder, or even, as suggested by A.E. Murphy,
his most recent biographer, that Cantillon staged his own
death to escape and to avoid more years of lawsuits and legal
action against him.124
Cantillon's lawyer Henry Cochin, Memoire pour Richard Cantillon, intime
& apellant (Paris: Andre Knapen, 1730).
123On the irregular deposit of securities and the type of misappropria-
tion committed by Cantillon and later Catalonian bankers until the start
of the twentieth century see La cuenta corriente de efectos o valores de un
sector de la banca catalana: su repercusion en el credito y en la economia, su cal-
ificacion juridica en el dmbito del derecho penal, civil y mercantil positivos
espanoles segun los dictdmenes emitidos por los letrados senores Rodriguez
Sastre, Garrigues, Sanchez Roman, Goicoechea, Mifiana y Clemente de Diego,
seguidos de un estudio sobre la cuenta de efectos y el mercado libre de valores
de Barcelona por D. Agustin Peldez, Sindico Presidente de la Bolsa de Madrid
(Madrid: Delgado Saez, 1936).
124Antoin E. Murphy Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 209 and 291-97. Murphy mentions
the following facts in support of this last thesis: (1) Cantillon liquidated
a substantial part of his assets the day prior to his murder; (2) The body
was burned beyond recognition; (3) His family displayed a mysterious
indifference following the murder; and (4) The accused behaved
strangely never acting like the typical murderer.
Attempts to
Legally Justify
Fractional-Reserve
Banking
This chapter contains a critical examination of the differ-
ent theoretical attempts to legally justify fractional-
reserve banking. We will consider the proposed argu-
ments intended to legally support a monetary irregular deposit
contract in which the depositary can make self-interested use of
money on demand deposit. In light of the legal doctrine pre-
sented in chapter 1 and the economic analysis to be performed
in the following chapters, we will critique two main lines of
defense.
1
Introduction
The legal doctrines aimed at justifying fractional-reserve
banking have been formulated ex post facto. They have not
been based on preexisting legal principles that have given rise
to certain legal acts. On the contrary, as we explained in the
previous chapter, banking practices have long infringed upon
basic, universal legal principles and have done so in response
to specific circumstances which have conspired to make these
violations possible (human avarice; inadequate regulation; gov-
ernments' financial needs; systematic intervention of the
115
116 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
authorities and confusion arising from the depositum confessa-
tum, a product of the canonical ban on interest). As is logical,
the lack of a legal basis for such a widespread practice soon
prompted bankers and theorists alike to search for a fitting
legal justification. Moreover, this urge was reinforced by the
fact that, on almost all occasions, the government or public
authorities ended up being the main beneficiary of fraudulent
banking practices. Therefore it is not surprising, given the tra-
ditional symbiosis between political authorities and the intel-
ligentsia, that the latter was driven by the former to search for
legal grounds to support the practices it permitted and
encouraged.1
Finding adequate legal grounds was essential to the sur-
vival of the whole network of vested interests which frac-
tional-reserve banking generates. It was clear to any educated
person that these practices should be based on something
sounder than a mere de facto situation. It is not enough to real-
ize and affirm, as Shepard B. Clough does, that
In fact, [goldsmiths] even lent money given them for safe-
keeping on the theory and experience that they needed to
have on hand only enough to meet the expected, current
demand of depositors. This practice led them, at least by the
seventeenth century, to the issuing of "promises to pay"
that is, "goldsmiths' notes," which, like modern banknotes,
circulated from person to person. These "promises to pay"
which could be paid by using the deposits of customers,
came actually to exceed the amount of money on deposit.
When this happened credit had been actually created by
issuing paper — a very major discovery.2
Nevertheless, no matter how "major" one considers the
"discovery" that it is possible to make fraudulent use of
depositors' money or issue deposit receipts for a greater
!See Bertrand de Jouvenel, "The European Intellectuals and Capital-
ism," in Friedrich A. Hayek, ed., Capitalism and the Historians (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1954).
2Shepard B. Clough, The Economic Development of Western Civilization
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 109; italics added.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 117
amount than is actually deposited, it is clear that these acts
share the same characteristic present in all other criminal acts
of misappropriation which have always been the object of doc-
trinal analysis by criminal law experts. The similarity between
the two sets of actions is therefore so obvious that theorists
could not remain impassive in the face of a legal irregularity
such as this in the economy.
Hence it is not surprising that great efforts have been
made to justify what appears completely unjustifiable: that it
is legitimate, from the standpoint of general legal principles,
to misappropriate funds deposited for safekeeping and to
issue deposit receipts for more money than is actually
deposited. However, the interested parties (bankers and gov-
ernments, mostly) have found it so important to find an ade-
quate theoretical justification beyond the easy solution of sim-
ply declaring legal a corrupt, criminal practice (which is what
has ultimately happened, despite all the doctrinal fagades and
constructions), that many jurists are still at work trying to con-
fer legal respectability on a procedure that is commonplace
even now.
Doctrinal attempts to justify the use of a fractional reserve
in the irregular deposit can be classified into two large groups.
The first group of doctrines was intended to settle the issue by
equating the irregular deposit contract with the loan contract.
We will analyze this group of theories in detail and show that,
from a legal point of view, it is impossible to equate these two
contracts. Writers of the second and more recent set of doc-
trines start by acknowledging that there are fundamental dif-
ferences between the loan and irregular deposit contract.
These theorists have focused their efforts on the construction
of a new legal concept of "availability" and hold that this
notion should be taken "loosely," meaning bankers should
only be required to carry out their investments "prudently"
and to comply with regulations and bank legislation at all
times. A detailed study of this second set of theories will
demonstrate that they ultimately entail a return to the failed
attempt of the first group, i.e., to justify the use of a fractional
reserve in the irregular deposit by equating the deposit con-
tract with the loan contract. Thus, the doctrines of the second
118 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
set fall into the same errors and legal contradictions we will
see in those of the first. In addition, in the next chapter we will
explain why the doctrinal essence of the new interpretation of
availability (based on the "law of large numbers") is inadmis-
sible from the standpoint of economic theory.
We therefore conclude that past attempts to legally justify
fractional-reserve banking with respect to demand deposits
have failed. This explains the ambiguity constantly present in
doctrines on this type of bank practice, the desperate efforts to
avoid clarity and openness in its treatment, the generalized
lack of accountability and ultimately (since fractional-reserve
banking cannot possibly survive economically on its own), the
fact that it has been provided with the support of a central
bank which institutes the regulations and supplies the liquid-
ity necessary at all times to prevent the whole set-up from col-
lapsing. In chapter 8 we will discuss central banking and
show, through a theoretical analysis, that the nationalization
of money and the central bank's regulation of the banking sys-
tem and its laws governing it have been incapable of main-
taining a stable financial system that avoids economic cycles
and averts bank crises. Thus, we may conclude that the frac-
tional-reserve banking system has failed as well, even though
it is backed and protected by a central bank.
At the end of this chapter we will examine several new
types of financial contracts, some of which closely resemble
those bankers employ in connection with bank deposits. In
particular, we will consider the different financial operations
involving a "repurchase agreement." We will show that these
entail an evasion of the law; whenever payment of a previ-
ously-established price is guaranteed regardless of the sec-
ondary-market price at the time the agreement is imple-
mented, such operations conceal a true deposit contract.
Finally, we will take a look at the profound, essential differ-
ences between the financial operations related to banking and
those connected with life insurance. The latter represents a
perfected form of true saving, where present goods are
exchanged for future goods. It is an exchange with especially
appealing features, but they in no way involve appropriation
of demand deposits, credit creation, nor issuance of receipts
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 119
without backing. We will also discuss the corrupting influence
exerted on the insurance business by the recent trend (most
apparent in government legislation) toward clouding and
obscuring the traditional legal and technical boundaries between
the two types of institutions (life insurance and banking).
2
Why it is Impossible to Equate the Irregular Deposit
With the Loan or Mutuum Contract
The Roots of the Confusion
The attempts to legally equate the monetary irregular-
deposit contract with the loan or mutuum contract are partic-
ularly attractive to those who most benefit from banking prac-
tices (bankers and authorities). Indeed, in chapter 1, which
contained an explanation of the legal nature of both institu-
tions, we indicated that a loan implies the transfer not only of
ownership of the lent item, but of its full availability as well,
and therefore the borrower can make full use of it, by invest-
ing it, spending it, etc. Considering that this is ultimately what
a banker does when appropriating demand deposit funds, the
ideal legal solution for him is clearly to equate the irregular
deposit contract with the loan contract. Moreover, a worn-out
legal pretext has persistently been used to reinforce the argu-
ment for equating the two. Lax and superficial, it is as follows:
Since the irregular deposit contract consists of the deposit of
fungible goods, the very essence of which implies the
inevitable transfer of ownership of individual items deposited
(because they are indistinguishable from one another), the
deposit and the loan are naturally one and the same, as both
institutions entail the transfer of ownership.
In chapter 1 we saw that this line of reasoning is fallacious,
superficial, and abstruse. In fact, even if ownership is trans-
ferred in both cases, the two contracts still differ radically con-
cerning the availability of the item (an essential feature of the
contracts). Indeed, whereas in the loan contract full availabil-
ity of the item is transferred along with ownership, the very
essence of the irregular deposit contract demands that the
220 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
purpose of safekeeping or custody predominate. Accordingly,
although we might in theory consider that ownership is
transferred, in practice such a transference is negligible, since
the safekeeping or custody of the fungible good requires the
constant availability of the tantundem to the depositor. There-
fore, even if ownership were transferred in the same sense in
both institutions, an essential legal difference would still exist
between them: the contrast in availability.
It may come as a surprise that the jurists who have chosen
to equate the deposit contract with the mutuum or loan con-
tract have overlooked such an obvious difference. The associ-
ation between the contracts is so forced and the arguments so
weak that it is amazing that a certain group of theorists have
tried to defend them. However, their attempt has a historical,
theoretical explanation: the depositum confessatum, a legal arti-
fice which arose in the Middle Ages from attempts to avoid
the canonical ban on interest. Although we have already
shown that the canonical prohibition on interest and the
development of fractional-reserve banking shared very little
direct connection, the depositum confessatum acted as a strong,
indirect link between them. We already know that from the
time of Roman law, if a depositary violated the essence of the
deposit contract, based on safekeeping, and appropriated
deposits and was not able to immediately return the funds
when the depositor demanded them, then the depositary was
obliged to pay interest. Then, irrespective of any other foresee-
able civil or criminal actions (the actio depositi and the actio furti),
as is logical, an additional suit was filed to obtain interest for
late payment and the loss of availability to the depositor up to
the point when the depositary returned his funds.3 Thus, it is
easy to understand how convenient it was in the Middle Ages
3As we know, the fact that the monetary irregular deposit is a deposit
contract means the actio depositi directa applies to it. Roman jurists devel-
oped this concept, which leaves it to the depositor to decide at any
moment when his deposit is to be returned to him. This availability is so
pronounced that the depositor's claim is considered equivalent to the
ownership of the money deposited (since the tantundem of the deposit is
fully and immediately available to him).
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 121
to disguise a loan as a deposit in order to make the payment
of interest legal, legitimate and socially acceptable. For this
reason, bankers started to systematically engage in operations
in which the parties openly declared they were entering into a
deposit contract and not a loan contract. However, as the Latin
saying goes, excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta (an unso-
licited excuse is tantamount to a self-accusation). Indeed, with
a true deposit it was not necessary to make any express decla-
ration, and such a declaration, when made, only revealed an
attempt to conceal a loan or mutuum contract. The purpose of
disguising a loan as a deposit was to evade the strict canoni-
cal prohibitions on interest-bearing loans and to permit many
true credit transactions highly necessary, both economically
and socially.
The depositum confessatum clouded the decidedly clear
legal boundaries between the irregular deposit contract and
the loan or mutuum contract. Whatever a scholar's stance on
the canonical prohibition of usury, the depositum confessatum
almost inevitably led to the "natural" identification of deposit
contracts with mutuum contracts. To a theorist who wished to
discover and expose all violations of the canonical prohibition
and each case of concealment of interest, anything that
sounded like a "deposit" was sure to appear suspicious from
the start, and the most obvious and efficient solution from this
point of view was to automatically equate deposits with loans
and condemn the payment of interest in all cases, regardless of
the operation's outer legal appearance. Paradoxically, the
more "liberal" moralists did not stop at defending the legal
existence of deposits and the consequent legitimacy of interest
for late payment; they went on to indicate that such deposits
were ultimately loans, and hence the banker could use or
invest the money. These authors sought not only to justify the
payment of interest, but also to legitimize an institution that
permitted the same acts of investment, or exchange of present
goods for future goods, that the loan contract had tradition-
ally made possible. Furthermore, this type of exchange was
quite necessary to industry and trade. Throughout the Middle
Ages, most jurists who commented on law texts held this posi-
tion. As we saw in the last chapter, it was also the opinion of
122 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
several members of the School of Salamanca, such as Luis de
Molina, who believed the monetary irregular-deposit contract
to be a "precarious loan" in which ownership of the money is
transferred to the banker (which we have seen is admissible in
the case of a deposit of fungible money), as well as full avail-
ability (which we know is impossible and contrary to the very
essence of the deposit).4
Moreover, as we have already seen, the Irish banker and
economist Richard Cantillon, in the civil and criminal suits
brought against him for misappropriating securities deposited
with him as fungible goods through an irregular deposit con-
tract during the wave of speculation generated in France by
John Law's system, tried to defend himself using the only doc-
trinal justification that had at that point been developed in
favor of his position: that because the contract was for an
"irregular" deposit (i.e., the securities were considered fungi-
ble goods), a complete transfer of both ownership and avail-
ability took place. Thus, he could legitimately appropriate the
shares, sell them, and use them to speculate on the market
without committing any crime nor harming his depositors.5
The same legal line of argument used by Richard Cantil-
lon's defense had been developed by scholars with respect to
the monetary irregular deposit (and not the irregular deposit
of securities). Consequently, if it is considered legally appro-
priate and justified to equate the monetary deposit contract with
the mutuum contract, the same would certainly be applicable,
4See Luis de Molina, Tratado sobre los cambios, edited and prefaced by Fran-
cisco Gomez Camacho, Disputation 408, 1022 d., p. 138. As we have seen,
Juan de Lugo shares Molina's viewpoint, and Domingo de Soto does also,
though to a much lesser degree. All other members of the School of Sala-
manca, particularly Dr. Saravia de la Calle, being wise jurists true to
Roman tradition, were against fractional-reserve banking despite the
pressures they were subjected to and the practices they witnessed.
5See EA. Hayek, "Richard Cantillon (1680-1734)," in The Collected Works
ofF.A. Hayek, vol. 3: The Trend of Economic Thinking: Essays on Political Econ-
omists and Economic History, p. 159. See also the classic article by Henry
Higgs, "Richard Cantillon," in The Economic Journal 1 (June 1891): 276-84.
Finally, A.E. Murphy, Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist; and
the report by Cantillon's lawyer Henri Cochin, Memoire pour Richard Can-
tillan.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 123
mutatis mutandis, to all other deposits of fungible goods; and
in particular, to deposits of securities as goods indistinguish-
able from one another. Hence we must emphasize that any
possible doctrinal analysis against the legality of a complete
transfer of ownership and availability in an irregular deposit of
securities also ultimately constitutes a powerful case against
the use of a fractional reserve in the monetary irregular
deposit. The great Spanish mercantilist Joaquin Garrigues has
recognized this fact. He states:
The reasoning thus far leads us to the affirmation that when
a customer entrusts his shares to the bank he intends to con-
tract a bank deposit; however, immediately after making
this assertion, we become aware of another contract with a
similar financial purpose. This contract also involves the
entrusting to the bank of a fungible good (money) and
cashier services are provided by the bank. This — defenders
of the checking account will say — is another unique con-
tract which is not called a loan nor a deposit in bank docu-
ments and which has the same legal effects as the securities
current account; namely, the transference of ownership to
the bank and the bank's return of the tantundem.6
Despite Garrigues's forced and unconvincing attempt to
persuade us that these two deposits are different, it is obvi-
ous that both contracts of irregular deposits of fungible
goods (of money and of securities) are essentially identical,
and therefore if we accept the transfer of full availability of
the good in one case (the deposit of money), we must also
accept it in the other. Consequently, there is no denying the
legality of one (the deposit of securities) without denying the
6On this topic see pp. 194ff. in the "Dictamen de Joaquin Garrigues,"
included in the book, La cuenta corriente de efectos o valores de un sector de
la banca catalana y el mercado libre de valores de Barcelona, pp. 159-209. In
this remarkable book, many of the arguments against the thesis that full
availability is transferred in the irregular deposit of securities as fungi-
ble goods are therefore also directly applicable to criticism of the same
theory with respect to the irregular deposit of money as a fungible good.
We will incorporate these arguments into our study whenever appro-
priate.
124 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
legality of the other (the deposit of money).7 In conclusion,
the legal arguments used by Cantillon in his defense were
derived from theories regarding the monetary irregular-
deposit contract, and if we consider them valid, then they also
justify Cantillon's obvious swindling of his customers and the
host of irregular and fraudulent activities later performed in
connection with irregular deposits of securities in the other
countries, especially Spain. Catalonian bankers carried out
such fraud well into the twentieth century, and Spanish schol-
ars have correctly and unanimously recognized the dishonest,
criminal nature of their behavior.8
The Mistaken Doctrine of Common Law
The doctrine equating the monetary irregular-deposit con-
tract with the loan or mutuum contract has also prevailed in
Anglo-Saxon common law, via the creation of law in the bind-
ing case system. At the end of the eighteenth century and
throughout the first half of the nineteenth, various lawsuits
were filed by which depositors, upon finding they could not
secure the repayment of their deposits, sued their bankers for
misappropriation and fraud in the exercise of their safekeep-
ing obligations. Unfortunately, however, British case-law
judgments fell prey to pressures exerted by bankers, banking
7The opposite would be an inadmissible logical contradiction; Florencio
Oscariz Marco, however, makes such an error. He maintains that
deposits of bulk goods are not irregular deposits "because there is no
power to use them and even less to take them at will, only power to mix
them," while in the case of deposits of another fungible good (money),
he mysteriously does consider there to be a transfer of power over use
and availability a transfer converting deposits into "loans." In addition
to this conceptual error, Oscariz makes an error in terminology: he cites
the decision of the Spanish Supreme Court regarding a deposit of oil
made by some olive dealers (Spanish Supreme Court decision of July 2,
1948) in an analysis of the "unique case" of deposits of bulk goods. In
actuality the bulk goods deposit is the best model example imaginable
of a deposit of fungible goods or irregular deposit. See Oscariz Marco,
El contrato de deposito: estudio de la obligation de guarda, pp. 110-12.
8See La cuenta corriente de efectos o valores de un sector de la banca catalana
y el mercado libre de valores de Barcelona.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 125
customs, and even the government, and it was ruled that the
monetary irregular-deposit contract was no different from the
loan contract, and therefore that bankers making self-inter-
ested use of their depositors' money did not commit misap-
propriation.9 Of all of these court rulings, it is worthwhile to
consider Judge Lord Cottenham's decision in Foley v. Hill and
others in 1848. Here the judge arrives at the erroneous conclu-
sion that
the money placed in the custody of a banker is, to all intents
and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he
pleases. He is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it. He
is not answerable to the principal if he puts it into jeopardy,
if he engages in a haphazardous speculation; he is not
bound to keep it or deal with it as the property of his prin-
cipal, but he is, of course, answerable for the amount,
because he has contracted, having received that money, to
repay to the principal, when demanded, a sum equivalent to
that paid into his hands.10
9This type of ruling contrasts with the trend of sound judgments estab-
lished by the declaration that American grain depositaries acted fraud-
ulently in the 1860s when they appropriated a portion of the grain
deposits they were to safeguard and speculated with it on the Chicago
market. In response to this disconcerting event, Rothbard wonders:
[W]hy did grain warehouse law, where the conditions — of
depositing fungible goods — are exactly the same . . . develop
in precisely the opposite direction? . . . Could it be that the
bankers conducted a more effective lobbying operation than
did the grain men?
See Murray N. Rothbard, The Case Against the Fed (Auburn, Ala.: Lud-
wig von Mises Institute, 1994), p. 43. The same valid legal doctrine has
been evident in Spanish court decisions regarding bulk deposits of oil in
olive oil mills. (See the Spanish Supreme Court decision of July 2, 1948.)
10See the note on p. 73 of the book by E.T. Powell, Evolution of Money
Markets (London: Cass, 1966), and Mark Skousen's comments on this
decision in his book, The Economics of a Pure Gold Standard (Auburn, Ala.:
Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1977), pp. 22-24. Two precedents of Lord
Cottenham's decision were Sir William Grant's ruling of 1811 in Carr v.
Carr and the judgment delivered five years later in Devaynes v. Noble. See
J. Milnes Holden, The Law and Practice of Banking, vol. 1: Banker and Cus-
tomer (London: Pitman Publishing, 1970), pp. 31-32 and 52-55.
226 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Considering this type of ruling, it is not surprising that
Richard Cantillon fled from France to England, where financial
practices were much more lax, and as we have seen, court rul-
ings ended up defending the same line of argument he used in
his defense. In continental Europe, in contrast, the Roman legal
tradition still exerted great influence. Roman jurists had impec-
cably formulated the nature of the monetary irregular deposit,
basing it on the safekeeping obligation and the unlawfulness of
banks' appropriation of deposited funds. Hence Richard Can-
tillon's fear is understandable. He fled continental Europe at a
time when the Bank of Amsterdam was still operating with its
full prestige and a 100-percent reserve ratio.11 Also, the concept
of irregular deposit began to return to its classical legal roots
(which outlawed fractional-reserve banking). It had already
become clear that all banking systems which had been based on
a fractional reserve had failed (i.e., the systematic failure of
European banks of the late Middle Ages, of banks in Seville and
Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the system
of Law in eighteenth-century France), and judges had regularly
pronounced rulings against bankers' appropriation of funds on
deposit (and as we know, such decisions have even been made
well into the twentieth century in France and Spain).
We must emphasize that, at least with respect to the institu-
tion that concerns us (the irregular deposit), clearly the Anglo-
Saxon common law system has less effectively guaranteed the
defense of property rights and the correct regulation of social
interaction than the legal system of continental Europe. We do
not mean that the continental system in its latest version,
Kelsenian and positivist, is superior to the common law system,
only that the latter has often been inferior to Roman law. By
"Roman law" we refer to the evolutionary, customary system
based on the logical, exegetic, and doctrinal analysis of jurists of
the Roman classical school. To put it another way, in the Anglo-
Saxon common law system, past decisions are too binding,
11Incrediby, Cantillon does not mention in his Essai this then well-
known fact under the pretext that "he could not get the exact informa-
tion about . . . cash kept in the vaults to pay all deposits" (p. 407). It must
be assumed that the Essai was mainly written to facilitate Cantillon's
defense in his lawsuits against his claimants.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 127
judges being often more influenced by the specific details of
each case and by ostensible business activity than by the dis-
passionate, logical, and exegetic analysis which should be car-
ried out based on essential legal principles. In short the Anglo-
Saxon legal system depends excessively on precedents, while
the continental system, based on Roman law, rests on prece-
dents, sound doctrine, and juridical theory.
The Doctrine of Spanish Civil and Commercial Codes
A group of Spanish theorists has also tried to equate the
monetary irregular-deposit contract and the loan contract. Cit-
ing several articles in the Spanish Civil and Commercial Codes,
they claim the irregular deposit is not recognized as a separate
concept in Spanish legislation and therefore is no more than a
simple loan or mutuum contract. Nevertheless, not even Span-
ish positive law guarantees the association between the irregu-
lar deposit contract and the loan contract. On the contrary, such
a connection is very doubtful and uncertain, and in fact, the
majority of modern Spanish theorists have concluded, in keep-
ing with the classical construction, that even from the stand-
point of current Spanish positive law, the loan contract is one
thing and the irregular deposit contract quite another.
To justify equating the two types of contracts, theorists
have frequently referred to Article 1768 of the Spanish Civil
Code. This article states that
when the depositary has permission to use the good
deposited, the contract ceases to be a deposit and becomes a
loan or commodatum. Permission is not assumed, but must
be proven.
According to this article, if we were to understand use in its
most general and lax sense, then as all irregular deposit con-
tracts imply a transfer of ownership of the individual items
deposited and hence of the indistinct "use" of the fungible
good, the irregular deposit contract would always ipso facto
become a loan or mutuum. Although later we will examine the
different instances in which it could be considered that a "trans-
fer of use" takes place, for now it is enough to remember that,
as we saw in chapter 1, a general transfer of ownership and use
128 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
is one thing, but in light of whether or not the tantundem is con-
stantly kept fully available to the depositor, it is quite another.
To the extent that Article 1768 is only intended to distinguish
whether or not the tantundem is kept continuously available to
the depositor, it would be perfectly possible under Spanish pos-
itive law to recognize the existence of an irregular deposit con-
tract that is radically distinct from the loan contract. In fact Arti-
cle 1770 of the very Civil Code seems to suggest this second
interpretation. Indeed, this article stipulates that
the deposited good shall be returned along with all of its
proceeds and accessions. Should the deposit consist of
money, the same provisions established in Article 1724
regarding the representative apply to the depositary.
In other words, it seems the Civil Code itself allows for a
type of monetary deposit which is not a loan. As Jose Luis
Albacar and Jaime Santos Briz correctly point out,
When faced with such a discrepancy — we may even call it
an antinomy — between conflicting statutory provisions [the
"classical" and the "modern"], we should note that nowa-
days the more common idea seems to be that the mutuum
and the irregular deposit are different, to the extent that
some people believe that in these cases we are dealing with
a type of deposit, an atypical and complex concept: the
irregular deposit.12
The treatment the monetary irregular deposit receives in
the Spanish Commercial Code could also appear contradic-
tory and lend itself to both interpretations. In fact Article 309
stipulates that
12Jose Luis Albacar Lopez and Jaime Santos Briz, Codigo Civil: doctrina y
jurisprudencia (Madrid: Editorial Trivium, 1991), vol. 6, p. 1770.
Navarra's civil code, in law 554 at the end of title 12, also makes refer-
ence to the irregular deposit:
When in the deposit of a fungible good the depositary is
either expressly or tacitly granted the power to use the good,
the provisions established for the monetary loan in laws 532,
534 and 535 shall be applied.
As we see, the content of Article 1768 of the Spanish Civil Code is
repeated here almost literally.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 129
whenever the depositary, with the consent of the depositor,
uses the goods deposited, either for himself or his business
activities, or in operations ordered by the depositor, the
rights and obligations of depositor and depositary shall
cease, in favor of the rules and provisions applicable to the
commercial loan, the commission or the contract carried out
instead of the deposit.
It seems, therefore, that some parallels exist between Arti-
cle 309 of the Spanish Commercial Code and Article 1768 of
the Civil Code. However, Article 307 of the Commercial Code,
which regulates cash deposits, states that
when cash deposits are made in unmarked currency or in an
open, unsealed package, the depositary shall be responsible
for their preservation and safety according to the terms
established in paragraph 2 of Article 306.
And Article 306, paragraph 2 reads as follows:
in the safekeeping of deposits, the depositary shall be
accountable for any damage to the deposited goods resulting
from malice or negligence, as well as from the nature of the
goods or defects in them, if in such cases he fails to take nec-
essary measures to avoid or repair the damage, notifying the
depositor as soon as the damage becomes obvious. (Italics added)
Thus, if we consider the last paragraph of Article 307
together with the second paragraph of Article 306, the Spanish
Commercial Code itself fully allows for the concept of the
monetary irregular deposit contract and imposes a very clear
safekeeping obligation on the depositary in the depositor's
favor, and even requires that, should any damage occur to the
fungible money deposited, the depositary immediately notify
the depositor. Nevertheless, Article 310 of the Commercial
Code grants bankers a statutory privilege which legalizes the
appropriation of funds deposited with them. This article spec-
ifies that
regardless of the provisions laid down in the preceding arti-
cles, deposits made in banks, public warehouses, credit asso-
ciations or any other company shall be governed first by that
130 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
company's statutes, then by the prescriptions of this code
and last by common law rules applicable to all deposits.
The nature of the "odious" privilege enjoyed by banks and
other similar associations is obvious. Even from the stand-
point of Spanish positive law, it could be argued that, accord-
ing to Article 306 (cited above) of the Commercial Code, any
person who is not a banker or similar professional and uses
the money entrusted to him through an irregular deposit
would violate the safekeeping obligation and therefore com-
mit the crime of misappropriation. Bankers, however, are
exempt from this possibility if their company's statutes deter-
mine that they may use and appropriate depositors' funds for
their own business activities. Nevertheless bank statutes and
contracts are not at all easy to understand. On the contrary,
documents of this type are usually ambiguous and confus-
ing,13 which explains court decisions stating that Spanish
13Curiously Spanish banks, when specifying the general conditions for
their different checking account contracts, avoid using the word
"deposit" for fear of the legal repercussions of such a contract (espe-
cially charges of misappropriation). They also avoid the words "loan"
and "credit" because, although they would be legally covered if they
called monetary irregular deposits "loans," it is obvious that business-
wise, it would be much harder to attract deposits from customers if
they were generally aware that in opening a checking account they
are actually loaning money to the bank rather than making a deposit.
Consequently, bankers prefer to maintain the current ambiguity and
confusion, since the existing contractual obscurity benefits them as long
as they enjoy the privilege of using a fractional-reserve ratio and are
backed by the central bank in the event of a liquidity crisis. However,
bankers' own legal classifications of their operations sometimes give
them away. For example, the sixth general condition established by the
Banco Bilbao-Vizcaya for draft discounting reads as follows:
Regardless of the different accounts and operations of the
assignor, whether in cash, securities, collateral, guarantees or
another type of document representing them, and notwith-
standing the manner in which they are itemized . . . the bank is
authorized to offset them by the loans it chooses to contract for
any entitlement, including any type of deposit . . . this condi-
tion shall apply even to operations and loans which the
assignor holds against the bank prior to the current transaction.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 131
positive law requires bankers to maintain continuously avail-
able to depositors the entire amount of their deposits (tantun-
dem); that is, to maintain a 100-percent reserve ratio. These
judgments (such as the Spanish Supreme Court decision of
June 21, 1928 and others cited in chapter 1) have been based
on case-law interpretations of Spanish positive law and have
been pronounced well into the twentieth century.
Finally we must mention Articles 7 and 8 of the Bank of
Spain's bylaws, which concern deposits. The first two para-
graphs of Article 7 establish that "authorized offices may
receive deposits of local currency or of notes from the bank
itself." Article 8 states that "the responsibility of the bank as a
depositary is to return the same amount in local currency as is
deposited in cash." Article 10, which relates to checking
accounts, has more or less the same content:
Moreover, whereas the Banco Bilbao-Vizcaya, in reference to the
demand deposit represented by the so-called "savings passbook," clas-
sified the latter as "the justificatory claim representing the right of the
holder to request and obtain full or partial repayment of the balance in
his favor," the Banco Hispano-Americano went even further, establish-
ing that the passbook "constitutes the nominative and non-negotiable
document which is evidence of the holder's ownership." As we see, in
the latter case, the bank, without realizing it, attributes ownership sta-
tus to the deposit contract; incidentally, this classification is much closer
to the true legal nature of the institution (given the continuous avail-
ability in favor of the depositor) than that of a mere loan claim on the
deposited sum. On this subject, see Garrigues, Contratos bancarios, pp.
368-79, footnotes 31 and 36. Garrigues notes that private bankers do not
refer directly to monetary deposit contracts by name, but instead usu-
ally call demand deposits checking accounts, as revealed by an exami-
nation of deposit slips and general terms of accounts, as well as by bank
statements, balance notices, etc. Moreover, this reluctance to speak of
"monetary deposits" is evident even on bank balance sheets where there
is never any mention of such a heading and where monetary irregular
deposits are instead entered under "Checking Accounts" in the corre-
sponding liabilities column under "Creditors." Thus from a legal and
contractual standpoint, with the consent of financial authorities,
bankers purposefully contrive to conceal the true legal nature of their
activities, especially from third parties and clients. The effects of the
confusion created by banks are studied by Jorg Guido Hiilsmann in his
article, "Has Fractional-Reserve Banking Really Passed the Market
Test?" The Independent Review 7, no. 3 (Winter, 2003): 399-422.
132 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the bank may open and manage checking accounts of cash
or securities for individuals or legal entities and duly repre-
sented corporations or organizations whose application is
confidentially reviewed by the institution and accepted. The
following may be deposited in ordinary cash accounts: legal
banknotes and coins, checks and other documents related to
other checking accounts . . . for each type of checking
account the bank will provide the checkbooks needed by the
account holder; and via the duly authorized checks, it will
pay the sums and return the securities to the debit of the cor-
responding balances. Against cash checking accounts the
following are also admissible: bearer, order, personal and
crossed checks.
As we see, these articles of the Bank of Spain's bylaws, and
in general the statutes of all other banks, only regulate the
operation of monetary irregular-deposit accounts and check-
ing accounts from the standpoint of depositors, and they
always maintain the confusion and ambiguity regarding
whether such money is continuously safeguarded and kept
available by the bank or whether the bank is expressly
authorized by the depositor to appropriate funds and invest
them in personal business deals. We must turn to Article 180
of the Commercial Code to see the true original meaning of
Spanish commercial legislation on this point. Indeed, Article
180 specifies that "banks will keep cash in their vaults equiv-
alent to at least one fourth the sum of deposits and checking
accounts in cash and bills in circulation." This ratio, which has
traditionally been used by the Spanish central bank as an
instrument of monetary policy and has been reduced to a cur-
rent 2 percent, is the culmination of the statutory privilege
enjoyed by the banking industry. Banking is the only institu-
tion expressly authorized by Spanish positive law to violate
the safekeeping obligations of the monetary irregular-deposit
contract, thus receiving permission to appropriate depositors'
money for bankers' own use in investments and personal
business activities. Although the reserve requirement alone
keeps bankers from being criminals under the positive law in force in
Spain, it does not in the least compensate for the lack of legal
justification for the bank-deposit contract in its current form,
nor, as is logical, for the damaging economic effects on society
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 133
of the violation of traditional principles of property rights
with respect to the monetary irregular deposit. In the follow-
ing chapters we will examine these effects (the distortion of
the productive structure; the generation of successive, recur-
rent stages of economic boom and recession; the promotion of
widespread malinvestment; the creation of massive unem-
ployment and the perpetuation of a privileged financial sys-
tem incapable of guaranteeing smooth economic develop-
ment).
Criticism of the Attempt to Equate the Monetary
Irregular-Deposit Contract with the Loan or
Mutuum Contract
Even though the doctrinal association between irregular
deposits and monetary loan or mutuum contracts is the per-
fect tool for justifying fractional-reserve banking, this associa-
tion is so awkward that the most prestigious experts in com-
mercial law have failed to accept it. Joaquin Garrigues,
though he seems to want to unreservedly defend the doctrine
of association, ultimately realizes that it is not justifiable, and
he concludes that, despite the possible positive-law arguments
(Article 1768 of the Spanish Civil Code and Article 309 of the
Spanish Commercial Code, both cited earlier) that could be
used to justify the association between the loan or mutuum
contract and the irregular deposit contract,
there are still some factors which lead one to continue consid-
ering the contract a deposit and not a loan (for example, the
free availability to the depositor, the fact that the depositor
initiates the contract, the limited interest, etc.).14
Curiously, Joaquin Garrigues does not expound on these
factors, mentioning them only in passing. Instead he immedi-
ately tries to construct the theory based on the reinterpretation
of the concept of availability, which we will study in the next
section. Nevertheless, considering what we covered in chapter
14Garrigues, Contratos bancarios, p. 363; italics added.
134 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
1, it would have been very interesting to know what Garrigues
could and should have said about the arguments against
equating the two contracts, a matter we will now consider in
greater depth.15
The Distinct Cause or Purpose of Each Contract
The most significant and definitive argument in favor of a
distinction between the irregular deposit contract and the loan
or mutuum contract lies in the essential difference between the
cause or purpose of each. These terms refer to a fundamental,
15Strangely, our top commercial law scholar rushes into an attempted
justification of fractional-reserve banking while preserving the concept
of the irregular deposit through the artifice of a redefinition of avail-
ability, without pausing first to examine the factors that make it impos-
sible to equate the irregular deposit contract and the loan contract. It is
as if Garrigues were ultimately aware that his redefinition implicitly
entails equating deposits and loan contracts — at least from the banker's
(the recipient's) perspective. For this reason it does not behoove him to
advance a detailed argument against equating deposits and loans,
because such an argument would backfire on the doctrine he later
defends. This attitude is quite understandable in a famed scholar whose
chief customers were the country's banks and bankers and who would
therefore think twice before jeopardizing his prestige and academic
standing by questioning the legitimacy of such an influential institution
as fractional-reserve banking, which was rooted in practice and govern-
ment-endorsed. In addition, during the years when Garrigues was
developing his theories, he could only depend for support on an eco-
nomic theory which, paralyzed by Keynesian doctrines (see footnote 20
in ibid.), justified any system of credit expansion, no matter how expe-
dient, on the mistaken assumption that this would benefit "economic
activity." During those years of doctrinal poverty in economics, the only
possible defense for the processes of social interaction against banking
practices would have been strict observance of the basic principles gov-
erning the irregular deposit, which unfortunately received very weak
support from mainstream theorists and were quickly abandoned.
Despite all of these adverse circumstances, the writings of Garrigues
and others who concentrate on the same topic, an unmistakable impres-
sion persists: that in order to justify the unjustifiable, theorists carry out
the most forced legal reasoning and maneuverings to disguise as legal
an activity that results from an unseemly, unlawful privilege granted by
the government.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 135
legal motive (related to the so-called cause16 of contracts)
which is closely connected with the parties' distinct subjective
reason17 for deciding to enter into one contract or another.
Therefore a perfect symbiosis exists between the subjectivist concep-
tion on which modern economic theory is based18 and the legal point
of view that mainly takes into account the different subjective goals
of the parties in entering into one type of contract or another.
In chapter 1 we studied the essential, irreconcilable differ-
ences between the monetary irregular-deposit contract and
the monetary loan or mutuum contract. All of those differ-
ences could ultimately be traced to the distinct cause or pur-
pose of each contract. On one hand, the loan contract always
implies an exchange of present goods, the availability of
which is lost to the lender, for future goods, which the bor-
rower must return along with an added amount in the form of
interest, in payment for the inexorable loss of availability of
the present goods when they are transferred from lender to
borrower. On the other hand, in the monetary irregular
16See, for example, the legal treatment Jean Dabin gives the cause of
contracts in La teoria de la causa.
17For Antonio Gullon,
the equating of the irregular deposit with the mutuum is still an
artifice that conflicts with the true will of the parties. The deposi-
tor of money, for example, does not intend to grant a loan to
the depositary. Just as in the regular deposit, he desires the
safekeeping of the good and to always have it available. He
happens to achieve these objectives more easily with the
irregular deposit than with the regular deposit, since with the
latter he risks the loss of his deposit in the event of an
unavoidable accident, and he would bear the loss instead of
the depositary. Meanwhile, in the irregular deposit, the
depositary is the debtor of a type of good, which as such is
never lost. (Italics added)
Cited by Jose Luis Lacruz Berdejo, Elementos de derecho civil, 3rd ed.
(Barcelona: Jose Maria Bosch, 1995), vol. 2, p. 270.
18This subjectivist conception is the basis of the logic of action on which
all economic theory is constructed, according to the Austrian School of
economics, founded by Carl Menger. On this topic, see our article,
"Genesis, esencia y evolucion de la Escuela Austriaca de Economia,"
published in Huerta de Soto, Estudios de economia politica, pp. 17-55.
136 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
deposit, the objective or cause of the contract is radically dif-
ferent. In this case there is no exchange of present goods for
future goods, nor does the depositor have the faintest desire to
lose the immediate availability of the good deposited. Hence
the essential element in the irregular deposit contract is not, as
in the loan contract, the transfer of availability, but rather the
custody and safekeeping of the tantundem, which constitutes
the legal cause or fundamental purpose motivating the depos-
itor to enter into the contract. For this reason, there is no term,
and the funds are deposited "on demand;" that is, they can be
withdrawn at any time. If the depositor were informed that
the contract he plans to sign is a loan contract by which he
will grant a loan to the bank, and that therefore the money
will no longer be available to him, he would certainly not go
through with the contract as if it were a deposit, and he very
well might decide to keep his money. Thus, there is
absolutely no doubt that the cause or legal purpose of each
contract is radically different from that of the other, and that
attempting to mix them is like trying to mix oil and water,
given the essential difference between them.
Theorists who attempt to equate the irregular deposit con-
tract with the loan contract fail to realize that their doctrinal
stance ignores the true cause or purpose motivating the con-
tracting parties to enter into a contract. And no matter how
many relatively empty statements they make about the equiv-
alence of the two contracts, they inevitably come up against
the same legal wall: the radical, essential difference between
the legal cause behind each contract. Therefore, they can go no
further than to state that each of the parties to the monetary
bank-deposit contract thinks it is entering into a "different"
contract. In other words, depositors hand over money as if mak-
ing a deposit, and hankers receive it as if it were a loan. Yet, what
kind of contract has two essentially distinct legal causes? Or
to put it another way: How is it possible that both parties to
the same contract simultaneously intend to retain the avail-
ability of the same sum?19 Indeed, depositors clearly turn
l^Francisco Belda, following the example of Luis de Molina and Juan de
Lugo, believes he resolves this contradiction with the facile, superficial
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 137
over their money with the desire to retain full availability of
the good turned over (monetary deposit "on demand"),20
while banks accept deposits not with the aim of keeping 100
percent of the tantundem in their possession at all times, but
rather with the intention of using most of what they receive on
deposit to make personal loans and investments. This "dual
availability" could not possibly be ignored by Garrigues, who
logically finds it very disquieting and confusing with respect
to legality21 As a matter of fact, for Garrigues the most out-
standing feature of monetary bank deposits in their current
version (which does not require a 100-percent reserve) is dual
availability: the deposited goods are simultaneously available
to both the bank and the customer. He adds that
assertion that "each of the two has the perfect right to view the opera-
tion from the angle which most behooves him." However, Belda fails to
realize that, as there is an essential difference and a contradiction
between the causes motivating the parties to enter into the contract, the
problem is quite another: it is not that each party views the contract as
most behooves him, but rather that the fulfillment of the aim or cause of
one party (the investment of funds by the banker) prevents the success-
ful fulfillment of the aim or cause of the other (the custody, safekeeping
and continual availability of the money). See Belda, S.J., "Etica de la
creacion de creditos segun la doctrina de Molina, Lesio y Lugo," pp.
64-87. See also Oscariz Marco, El contrato de deposito: estudio de la
obligacion de guarda, footnote 83, p. 48.
20The fact that depositors sometimes receive interest in no way detracts
from the essential purpose of the deposit (the safekeeping of money).
Since interest is attractive, the unsuspecting depositor will jump at the
offer of it if he still trusts the banker. But in the case of a true deposit, the
depositor would enter the contract even if he were not to receive any
interest and had to pay a safekeeping fee. The essential nature of the
contract is not altered by the unnatural payment of interest to deposi-
tors, and only indicates that bankers are making undue use of the
money placed with them.
21Significantly, the only theoretical reference cited by Garrigues in his
book, Contratos bancarios, is Keynes's Treatise on Money, which he expressly
mentions at least twice in the main text (pp. 357 and 358) and twice in the
footnotes (pp. 352 and 357, footnotes 1 and 11, respectively). With such a
theoretical basis, the confusion evident in Garrigues's entire discussion of
the irregular deposit is hardly surprising. It seems as if his remarkable
legal instinct were pointing him in the right direction, while the economic
treatises he was reading on banking were leading him astray.
138 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
this dual availability is precisely the reason it is difficult to
formulate a legal description of the contract, because avail-
ability in favor of the depositor, a key feature of deposits,
harmonizes poorly with availability in favor of the bank.22
Rather than to say it is difficult to formulate a legal
description of the contract, it would be more accurate to say
such a description is legally impossible, given the radical differ-
ence between the cause or purpose of the two types of legal
transactions. Therefore, it is not that one instance of availabil-
ity "harmonizes poorly" with the other, but that the two
instances are mutually exclusive on a fundamental level.23
Joaquin Garrigues's uncertainty is even more obvious when in
a footnote24 he cites the rulings of the Court of Paris which we
covered in chapter 1. These court decisions support a strict
safekeeping obligation and a 100-percent reserve ratio for
banks, which Garrigues calls "surprising assertions." What is
surprising is that Garrigues does not realize that his own analy-
sis leads inevitably to the conclusion that the two contracts are
different and that it is therefore impossible to equate in any
22Garrigues, Contratos bancarios, p. 367; italics added. It is surprising that
Garrigues has not realized that in economic terms, dual availability
means "it becomes possible to create a fictitious supply of a commodity,
that is, to make people believe that a supply exists which does not
exist." See William Stanley Jevons, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange
(New York: D. Appleton, 1875 and London: Kegan Paul, 1905), p. 210.
Convincing the public of the existence of a fictitious stock of fungible
goods is definitive proof of the illegitimacy of all irregular deposits (of
fungible goods) in which a fractional-reserve ratio (any ratio under 100
percent) is allowed.
23Garrigues, demonstrating his characteristic gift of expression, con-
cludes that in this contract "the banker counts on the money as if it were
his, and the customer counts on the money even though it is not his."
The solution to this apparent paradox is very simple, because although
the customer has ceased to own the money, he retains the right to
demand the custody and safekeeping of the tantundem by the banker at
all times; that is, a 100-percent reserve ratio, in keeping with the essen-
tial, ontological legal nature of the monetary irregular-deposit contract,
which we covered in chapter 1. See Garrigues, Contratos bancarios, p.
368.
24Ibid., footnote 31 on pp. 367-68.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 139
way the irregular deposit contract with the loan contract.
Upon reading Garrigues's treatment of monetary bank-
deposit contracts, one inevitably gets the impression that Gar-
rigues himself suffers from a rather "guilty conscience" for
carrying out such a forced legal analysis to try to justify the
unjustifiable: the supposed existence of a monetary irregular-
deposit contract which legally, and in accordance with legal
principles and logic, permits the banker to freely use the
goods deposited; in other words, fractional-reserve banking.
The Notion of the Unspoken or Implicit Agreement
Also inadmissible is the argument that Article 1768 of the
Spanish Civil Code suggests that in irregular deposit contracts
a type of "implicit or unspoken agreement" exists by which
depositors authorize bankers to use money on deposit. This
course of reasoning is unacceptable mainly because Article
1768 speaks of permission "to use the good deposited," and
we know that it is not the power to use the good that makes
the monetary-deposit contract an irregular deposit contract.
This authorization is inherent in all deposits of fungible
goods, the very nature of which prevents them from being
handled individually. In a sense, a transfer of ownership
results, which in turn implies authorization for the depositary
to use the goods. Nevertheless, we have already seen that this
transfer of ownership and of power to use the deposited
goods should be understood in a general sense. If it is not pos-
sible to track the individual units deposited, then we may cer-
tainly consider there to be a transfer of ownership and of
power to use the specific items deposited. However, as is log-
ical, this is perfectly compatible with a continuous 100-percent
reserve requirement; that is, the custody and safekeeping of
the tantundem and its availability to the depositor. This consti-
tutes the banker's essential obligation and is the foundation of
the deposit contract's essential purpose. To put it another way,
the characteristic, essential nature of the irregular deposit con-
tract is not determined by the transfer of authority to use the
goods, but by the fungible nature of the items deposited and
by the contract's purpose. A transfer of authority to use
deposited goods may occur independently of an irregular
deposit, and this is indeed what happens, for example, in the
140 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
mutuum or loan contract. As we know, the legal cause or pur-
pose of this contract is radically different (it entails not only
the transfer of ownership and power to use the goods, but also
the transfer of the availability of the goods, which is simulta-
neously lost to the lender). Therefore, and according to Coppa-
Zuccari, the claim that supposed authorization (express or
tacit) from the depositor converts the irregular deposit contract
into a loan or mutuum is both unnecessary and inaccurate. It is
unnecessary in the sense that all irregular deposit contracts,
due to their very nature, involve the transfer of ownership
and of the power to use the good (which is compatible, as is
logical, with the fundamental obligation to maintain 100 per-
cent of the tantundem in reserve). And it is inaccurate, since even
though the power to use the deposited good is transferred, in
no way does this alter the original purpose of the contract,
which is none other than the custody and safekeeping of the
tantundem.15 In fact, three logical possibilities exist with respect
to the supposed authorization (express or tacit) to use the
deposited good. Let us consider each one separately.
First, we may suppose that the vast majority of depositors
are not aware that by depositing their money in a bank, they at
the same time authorize the banker to use the money for his
own profit in private business deals. It is certain that when the
overwhelming majority of depositors make a demand
deposit, they are under the honest impression that they are in
fact doing just that: entering into an irregular deposit contract,
the essential purpose of which is to transfer the custody or
safekeeping of their money to the banker. In all cases, the
banker simultaneously receives the money as if it were a loan
or mutuum; that is, he considers that the full availability of the
good is transferred to him and that he is therefore authorized
to use it in his own business deals. It is obvious that the cause
or purpose of each party's participation in the contract does
not coincide with the objective of the other party: one enters
into the contract believing it to be a deposit and hands over
the money based on that assumption, and the other receives
the money as if it were a loan or mutuum and based on that
25Coppa-Zuccari, II deposito irregolare, p. 132.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 141
idea invests it. Hence, this is a clear case of error in negotio,
which is an error concerning the nature of the transaction and
renders it completely void.26 To many this conclusion may
appear extreme or disproportionate, but it is difficult to arrive
at any other if we base our analysis on the legal arguments
and principles inherent in the contracts we are studying.27
Second, let us now assume that a certain group of bank cus-
tomers (or for the sake of argument, all of them) enter into a
deposit contract aware and fully accepting that banks will
invest (or loan, etc.) a large portion of the money they deposit.
Even so, this knowledge and hypothetical authorization does
not in any way detract from the essential cause or purpose of
the contract for these customers, whose intention is still to
entrust their money to the banker for safekeeping; that is, to
carry out a monetary irregular-deposit contract. In this case,
the contract the depositors believe they have finalized is
impossible from a technical and legal standpoint. If they allow
the banker to use the money, then it can no longer be available
to them, which is precisely the essential cause or purpose of
the contract. Moreover, in chapter 5 we will see from the per-
spective of economic theory that in a fractional-reserve bank-
ing system the massive signing of contracts and the "law of
large numbers" cannot possibly ensure the fulfillment of all
depositor requests for full repayment of deposits. At this time,
we will delay going into detail on our thesis, except to say that
it rests on the acknowledgment that the current banking sys-
tem generates loans without the backing of real savings. These
loans in turn foster the foolish investment of resources and
give rise to unwisely-invested business assets which are either
26See Hernandez-Tejero Jorge, Lecciones de derecho romano, pp. 107-08.
Hernandez-Tejero himself provides the following example, which is
perfectly applicable to the case we are dealing with: "If one person
entrusts to another a good on deposit, and the person receiving the good
believes the transaction to be a mutuum or loan, then neither a deposit
nor a mutuum exists."
27Furthermore, it is obvious that permission or authorization to use the
good cannot be assumed but must be proven in each case. It seems
unlikely that in most demand deposit contracts entered into by individ-
uals such proof would be possible.
242 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
worthless or of limited value and therefore incapable of bal-
ancing the corresponding deposit accounts on bank balance
sheets. Consequently, bank insolvency tends to recur, banks
being repeatedly unable to meet their obligations (without the
external support of the central bank).
In addition, if for the sake of argument we assume that the
law of large numbers is applicable to banking, then in the
presence of a fractional reserve the deposit contract clearly
becomes an aleatory contract.28 In such a contract, delivery of
services by the bank is in any case an uncertain event which
depends upon circumstances particular to each case. The con-
tract's uncertainty stems precisely from the possibility that
depositors of a percentage of deposits exceeding the reserve
ratio will attempt to withdraw their deposits and hence be
unable to do so. The first to arrive would be able to retrieve
their money, but those arriving after a certain point would not.
Surely not even the depositors of this second hypothesis
intend to enter into an aleatory contract subject to the risk we
have just described. Therefore, the most logical conclusion in
this second case is either that the contract does not exist, since
its purpose is impossible (without a 100-percent reserve ratio,
it is impossible to insure that the banker will always be able to
meet his obligations), or that the supposed authorization from
the depositors lacks legal validity, because the essential objec-
tive is still the safekeeping of the good, and this inevitably and
obligatorily requires the custody of 100 percent of the tantun-
dem.2i)
28On aleatory contracts see Albaladejo, Derecho civil II, Derecho de obliga-
ciones, vol. 1: La obligation y el contrato en general, pp. 350-52. It is impor-
tant to emphasize that the fact that there is an aleatory nature to the
monetary irregular-deposit contract with a fractional reserve in which
the law of large numbers is fulfilled (in fact impossible) is only second-
ary to the other points we raise against such a contract.
2^The popular reaction of Argentinian citizens against the banking cri-
sis of 2001 and the subsequent blockade of all their demand deposits
(known as corralito) is a perfect empirical illustration of the true safe-
keeping purpose of bank deposit contracts and of the impossibility of
fractional-reserve banking (without a lender of last resort).
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 143
A natural incompatibility exists between the legitimate
irregular deposit contract, the purpose of which is the custody
or safekeeping of the deposited goods, and the authorization
for depositaries to use for their own profit the money they
receive. These depositaries (bankers) take in funds they agree
to return as soon as requested by checking-account holders,
but once the bankers have received the money, they make
investments, grant loans and enter into business deals that tie
it up and under various circumstances actually prevent its
immediate return. The supposed authorization, either express
or tacit, for bankers to use money on deposit is of little impor-
tance if the essential purpose of the contract, the deposit of
money for safekeeping, continues intact. In this case the sup-
posed authorization would be irrelevant, due to its incompati-
bility with the contract's purpose, and it would thus be as legally
null and void as any contract in which one of the parties authorizes
the other to deceive him or accepts in writing self-deception to his
own detriment. As the great Spanish expert in civil law, Felipe
Clemente de Diego, so appropriately states, an irregular
deposit contract in which the depositary is allowed to main-
tain a fractional-reserve ratio and hence can make self-inter-
ested use of a portion of deposited funds is a legal aberration,
since at a fundamental level it conflicts with universal legal
principles. For Felipe Clemente de Diego, there is no doubt
that this contract
has the disadvantage of leading us to the discovery of a
monster which, by its very nature, lacks legal viability, like
humans with devastating malformations (monstrua prodi-
gia), whom Roman law did not grant legal status. Article 30
of the Spanish Civil Code expresses a more moderate ver-
sion of the same concept: "For civil purposes, only fetuses
with a human figure will be reported as born. ..." For every
being has its own nature, and when this is not found in the
being itself, but is drawn from others more or less similar to
it, the being's true nature appears to flee and vanish and
ceases to envelop it, reducing it to a monstrous hybrid bor-
dering on a non-being.30
30"Dictamen del seftor de Diego (Felipe Clemente)" in La cuenta corri-
ente de efectos o valores de un sector de la banca catalana y el mercado libre de
144 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
It would be difficult to express more accurately and suc-
cinctly the fundamental incompatibility and the insoluble
logical contradiction between the monetary irregular-deposit
contract and the loan contract. Clemente de Diego concludes
by criticizing
attempts to convert that radical opposition (between the
irregular-deposit contract and the loan contract) into a sin-
gle unit that would make up a new contract, which would
neither be one nor the other, but instead would be both at
the same time; this is impossible, as its terms are mutually
exclusive.
Such a contract is simply ontologically impossible.
To conclude our comments on this second possibility, we
must add that the contradiction is so obvious that bankers, in
their contracts, general conditions, and forms, are always
reluctant to specify the precise nature of the agreement and of
the safekeeping obligation they acquire, and whether or not
they have been authorized by the depositor to invest
deposited funds for their own profit. Everything is expressed
in a vague and confusing manner, and therefore it would not
be rash to claim that depositors' complete and perfect consent
is missing, because the ambiguity, complexity and obscurity
of the contract undoubtedly deceive customers, who in good
faith believe they are entering into a true deposit contract. If
valores de Barcelona, pp. 370-71. It is true that Felipe Clemente de Diego
makes this comment in response to the argument of bankers who
wished to defend the validity of the contract of irregular deposit of secu-
rities, with a fractional-reserve ratio, in which the depositary would be
permitted to freely use the deposited goods, like in the monetary irreg-
ular-deposit contract. Yet as we have already mentioned, the arguments
for and against either institution are identical, as both are contracts of
the irregular deposit of fungible goods, whose legal nature, cause, pur-
pose and circumstances are the same. Pasquale Coppa-Zuccari also
highlights the contradictory nature of the monetary bank-deposit con-
tract which, in the form in which it has been "legalized" by govern-
ments, is neither a deposit nor a loan, "La natura giuridica del deposito
bancario," Archivio giuridico "Filippo Serafini," Modena n.s. 9 (1902):
441-72.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 145
the value and efficacy of surrendering a good depend on the
procedure or document accompanying the action, then it is
clearly important that the procedure or contract be well-
defined and appropriately named, that its conditions be
well-regulated and that both parties be aware of the legal
consequences of these conditions. To fail to clarify or fully
specify these details indicates a remarkable ambiguity on the
part of bankers, and in the event that adverse legal conse-
quences result, their weight should fall on the bankers' shoul-
ders and not on those of the contracting party, who with good
faith enters into the contract believing its essential purpose or
cause to be the simple custody or safekeeping of the money
deposited.
Third and last, we may suppose that, if this is the deposi-
tors' real desire, they could change their original plan to make
an irregular deposit of money and instead enter into a
mutuum or loan contract in which they agree to the loss of
availability of the good and to its transfer to the banker for a set
term in exchange for interest. This would constitute a true nova-
tion of the contract, which would change from an irregular
deposit to a loan. The novation would be subject to general
legal regulations regarding this type of contractual modifica-
tion. This is a fully legitimate legal possibility which is little
used in practice. Moreover, paradoxically, when novations
take place in banking their purpose is usually the opposite. In
other words, what undoubtedly begins as a mutuum or loan
contract, although it is called a "time" deposit because it
involves the real transfer of availability of the good to the
banker for a set term or time period, on many occasions
becomes an irregular deposit contract via the corresponding
novation. This is what happens when bankers, in order to
maintain their resources or attract more, either publicly or pri-
vately, and either verbally or in writing, offer the holder of a
"time" deposit account the possibility of withdrawing his
money at any time with very little or no financial penalty. To
the extent that account holders make these "time" deposits
(which are clearly loans) with the subjective and primary goal
of depositing the money for safekeeping, then a monetary
irregular deposit clearly takes place, regardless of its external
appearance. Furthermore, insofar as the contract's fundamental
146 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
cause or purpose is the exchange of present goods for future
goods plus interest, a true time "deposit" takes place. From a
legal standpoint, this is unquestionably a mutuum or loan
which can later be changed to or substituted for by a monetary
irregular deposit through an express agreement between the
parties.31
In short, whichever way you look at it, the monetary irreg-
ular-deposit contract cannot be equated with the mutuum or
loan contract. The two are essentially incompatible, and the
existence of the demand deposit in fractional-reserve banking,
despite its being a "monster" or "legal aberration," can only
be accounted for insofar as it was initially tolerated and later
deliberately legalized by those exercising political power.32
Nevertheless, the fact that such a "monstrous" (according to
Clemente de Diego) legal institution plays a role in the course
of human interaction inevitably produces damaging economic
and social consequences. In the following chapters we will
explain why fractional-reserve banking is responsible for the
crises and recessions that repetitively grip the economy, and
this will constitute an additional argument against the legiti-
macy of the bank-deposit contract, even when both parties are
in perfect agreement. Furthermore, this explains the impossi-
bility of at all times guaranteeing the repayment of these
deposits without the creation of a whole government super-
structure called the central bank. Once this organization has
31We do not support the doctrine that time "deposits" are not loan or
mutuum contracts from the legal perspective, since both their economic
and legal natures reflect all the fundamental requirements we studied in
chapter 1 for a loan or mutuum. Among the scholars who attempt to jus-
tify the theory that time "deposits" are not loans, Jose Luis Garcia-Pita
y Lastres stands out with his paper, "Los depositos bancarios de dinero
y su documentation," esp. pp. 991ff. The arguments Garcia-Pita y Las-
tres offers here on this topic fail to convince us.
32That is, fractional-reserve banking conflicts with traditional legal prin-
ciples and only survives as a result of an act of coercive intervention
found in a mandate or governmental statutory privilege, something that
other economic agents cannot take advantage of and which expressly
states that it is legal for bankers to maintain a fractional-reserve ratio
(Article 180 of the Spanish Commercial Code).
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 147
established a monopoly on the issue of paper money and
declared it legal tender, it has the function of ensuring the cre-
ation of all the liquid assets necessary to satisfy any immediate
need private banks may have for funds. In chapter 8 we will
study the resulting emergence of a centralized monetary pol-
icy, which like all attempts to coordinate society through coer-
cive measures (socialism and interventionism), and for the
same reasons, is ultimately doomed to failure. Indeed, central
banks and governmental monetary policy are the main cul-
prits in the chronic inflation which in varying degrees affects
western economies, as well as in the successive and recurrent
stages of artificial boom and economic recession which cause
so many social upheavals. But first, let us continue with our
legal analysis.
3
An Inadequate Solution:
The Redefinition of the Concept of Availability
The belief, held by the most qualified theorists, that it is
impossible to reconcile two contracts as incompatible as the
monetary irregular deposit and the loan contract, along with
the fact that the majority of contracts sustaining present-day
banking are demand deposits (monetary irregular-deposit con-
tracts) have led scholars to try to formulate alternative juridi-
cal constructions to harmonize the irregular deposit contract
with "traditional" banking, i.e., fractional-reserve banking.
Some have tried to solve this contradiction by "redefining"
availability. In fact, for subscribers to this line of thought, avail-
ability need not be understood in a strict sense (100-percent
reserve ratio or keeping the tantundem available to the deposi-
tor at all times), but could be interpreted in a "lax" one: for
example, the "general" solvency of the bank by which it meets
its obligations; "prudent" investing; avoidance of high-risk
speculation and the corresponding losses; maintenance of
appropriate liquidity and investment ratios; and in short, com-
pliance with an entire body of rigorous banking laws, which
together with the hypothetical operation of the "law of large
numbers" in the opening of deposit accounts and withdrawal
148 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
of demand deposits, could ultimately guarantee the bank's
ability to return deposits whenever requested by a depositor.
Thus, to Garrigues the obligation to maintain deposits
available to depositors "becomes a duty to work diligently, to
make prudent and sensible use of deposits, so the bank is
always capable of returning them on demand."33 Following
Lalumia's example, Garrigues adds that the depositary is not
"obliged to keep the tantundem, but only to invest it wisely
and keep it liquid so he is always in a position to return it if
necessary"34 The bank would only have to keep in its vaults
enough money to satisfy the "probable" demands of its
clients. Garrigues therefore concludes that
in bank deposits, the element of custody is replaced by the
technical element of calculating the probability of deposit
withdrawals. In turn, this calculation depends on the fact
that bank deposits are made on a large-scale.35
33Garrigues, Contratos bancarios, p. 375.
34Ibid., p. 365.
35Ibid., p. 367. Garcia-Pita y Lastres defends the same theory in his
paper "Los depositos bancarios de dinero y su documentation," where
he concludes that
under the circumstances, instead of regarding "availability"
as the simple right to claim immediate repayment, we should
consider it a combination of behaviors and economic and
financial activities aimed at making repayment possible, (p.
990)
He continues in the same vein in his paper "Depositos bancarios y pro-
tection del depositante," pp. 119-226. Also espousing this view,
Eduardo Maria Valpuesta Gastaminza argues that
the bank is under no obligation to hold the deposited good,
but rather custody becomes a responsibility to prudently
manage both the customers' and the bank's resources, and to
keep these available, which is also ensured by legitimate gov-
ernmental regulations (which set the reserve requirement,
limits to risk-taking, etc.). (pp. 122-23)
See "Depositos bancarios de dinero: libretas de ahorro" in Contratos
bancarios, Enrique de la Torre Saavedra, Rafael Garcia Villaverde, and
Rafael Bonardell Lenzano, eds. (Madrid: Editorial Civitas, 1992). The
same doctrine has been endorsed in Italy by Angela Principe in her
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 149
Quite significantly, Garrigues himself acknowledges that
all of this doctrine involves "the unavoidable replacement of
the traditional concept of custody by an ad hoc concept, the
plausibility of which is highly doubtful."36 Garrigues is right
in considering this reinterpretation by theorists of the concept
of availability "forced" (even though he eventually accepts it).
The theory that in the irregular deposit contract the safekeep-
ing obligation merely consists of using resources "prudently"
so the bank retains the solvency necessary to pay its debts is
actually untenable. The prudent use of resources is advisable
in all human actions; for instance, in all loan (not deposit) con-
tracts which specify that certain resources are to be used and
then returned following a set term. That is, it is advisable if
there is a desire to comply with this obligation (the very mean-
ing of solvency).37 However, as we know, the purpose of the
irregular deposit contract is different from that of the loan
contract and requires something markedly different: the cus-
tody or safekeeping of the good at all times. So if the deposi-
tors try to withdraw their deposits and the bank cannot pay
them, regardless of whether it is solvent overall and can pay
once it converts its investments into cash, the essential obliga-
tion in the deposit contract is clearly violated. This is due to
the fact that some contracting parties (depositors) who have
entered into the contract believing its fundamental purpose to
be the custody and safekeeping of the good and its continuous
availability are compelled to become something radically dif-
ferent: forced lenders. As such, they lose the immediate avail-
ability of their goods and are obliged to wait for a prolonged
book La responsabilita della banca nei contratti di custodia (Milan: Editorial
Giuffre, 1983).
36Garrigues, Contratos bancarios, p. 365.
-^Furthermore, the standard criterion of "prudence" is not applicable in
this case: an imprudent bank may be successful in its speculations and
preserve its solvency. By the same token, a very "prudent" banker may
be seriously affected by the crises of confidence that inevitably follow
artificial booms, which are generated by the fractional-reserve banking
system itself. Hence, prudence is of little use when there is a violation of
the only condition capable of guaranteeing the fulfillment of the bank's
commitments at all times (a 100-percent reserve ratio).
150 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
period of time until the bank has, in a more or less orderly
fashion, converted its assets into cash and can pay.
Though the concepts of solvency and the prudent use of
resources are not sufficient to modify the essential meaning of
availability in the irregular deposit contract, one might at least
think the problem could be resolved by the calculation of
probabilities and the "law of large numbers," to which Gar-
rigues refers. Nevertheless, as we argued above, even if it
were statistically possible to calculate probabilities in this field
(which is certainly not the case, as will be shown in the fol-
lowing chapters), the contract would at any rate cease to be a
deposit and become an aleatory contract in which the possi-
bility of obtaining the immediate repayment of the deposited
good would depend on the greater or lesser probability that a
certain number of depositors would not simultaneously go to
the same bank to withdraw their deposits.
In any case, in chapter 5 we will argue that we cannot
apply the objective calculation of probabilities to human acts in
general, and in particular to those related to the irregular
deposit. This is because the very institution of irregular
deposit with no safekeeping obligation (i.e., with a fractional
reserve), a legally paradoxical contract, triggers economic
processes leading banks to make, on a large scale, unwise
loans and investments with the deposits they appropriate or
create. This is the case because these loans and investments
are ultimately financed by credit expansion which has not
been preceded by an increase in real savings. Economic crises
inevitably result, along with a decrease in banks' solvency and
depositors' confidence in them, which in turn sets off a mas-
sive withdrawal of deposits. Every actuary knows that if the
consequences of an event are not completely independent of
the existence of the insurance policy itself, these consequences
are not technically insurable, due to moral hazard. In the fol-
lowing chapters we will show that the fractional-reserve
banking system (i.e., a system based on the monetary irregu-
lar deposit in which 100 percent of the tantundem is not kept in
reserve and available to depositors) endogenously , inevitably
and repeatedly generates economic recessions, making it reg-
ularly necessary to liquidate investment projects, return loans
and withdraw deposits on a massive scale. Therefore, the
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 151
banking system based on the irregular deposit with a frac-
tional reserve, the institution Clemente de Diego called an
"aberration" or "legal monster," invariably and ultimately
(and this is one of the main contributions made by economic
analysis to this field of law) leads bankers to become insolvent
and unable to honor their commitment to return deposits on
demand, even if they maintain a sufficiently elevated reserve
ratio. This is precisely the reason the overwhelming majority
of private banks that did not fully comply with the safekeep-
ing obligation eventually failed. This state of affairs existed
until bankers demanded the creation of a central bank38 and
their demands were met. The central bank was to act as a
lender of last resort, ready to grant bankers all the liquidity
they needed during the recurrent stages of crisis caused by the
instability of the fractional-reserve system itself.
Hence, the redefinition of the concept of availability is a
leap into the void. First, banks continue to accept deposits as
if they were loans and accordingly invest them in private busi-
ness deals, and depositors still make deposits with the main
intention of transferring the custody and safekeeping of their
money while retaining its full availability. In other words, the
forced attempt to redefine the concept of availability has not
lessened the contradiction in legal logic. Second, from the
strict viewpoint of private law and in keeping with the teach-
ings of economic theory, the general guideline of a "prudent"
use of resources and the application of the "calculation of
probabilities" not only is not sufficient to guarantee that when
38Rothbard, The Case Against the Fed, pp. 90-106. This is how Rothbard
explains the leading role private bankers, especially J.R Morgan, played
in the creation of the American Federal Reserve:
J.R Morgan's fondness for a central bank was heightened by
the memory of the fact that the bank of which his father
Junius was junior partner — the London firm of George
Peabody and Company — was saved from bankruptcy in the
Panic of 1857 by an emergency credit from the Bank of Eng-
land. The elder Morgan took over the firm upon Peabody's
retirement, and its name changed to J.S. Morgan and Com-
pany, (p. 93 footnote 22)
152 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
a fractional reserve is used the bank will always be able to
honor all repayment requests, but it also infallibly starts a
process which, at least every certain number of years, results
in the inevitable loss of confidence in banks and the massive
unforeseen withdrawal of deposits. Conclusive proof of all of the
above is offered by the fact that fractional-reserve banking (i.e., bank-
ing without a strict safekeeping obligation) has not been able to sur-
vive without a government-created central bank, which by imposing
legal-tender regulations and compelling the acceptance of paper
money, could produce out of nowhere the liquidity necessary in
emergencies. Only an institution in conformity with general
legal principles can survive in the marketplace without the
need of privileges and government support, but solely by
virtue of citizens' voluntary use of its services within the
framework of general and abstract civil-law rules.
Availability has also been defined as private banks' com-
pliance with the whole structure of government banking leg-
islation in exchange for the backing of the central bank as
lender of last resort. However, this requirement is also artifi-
cial and shifts the issue of the impossibility of legally defining
the fractional-reserve bank deposit contract from the field of
private law (where the two cannot be reconciled) to the field
of public law; that is, administrative law and pure volun-
tarism by which the authorities can legalize any institution, no mat-
ter how legally monstrous it may seem. It is an odd paradox that
the entire financial system is made to depend on the supervi-
sion of the state (which historically has been the first to bene-
fit from profits obtained through the non-fulfillment of the
safekeeping obligation in the monetary-deposit contract), and,
as RA. Hayek wisely indicates,
The history of government management of money has . . .
been one of incessant fraud and deception. In this respect,
governments have proved far more immoral than any pri-
vate agency supplying distinct kinds of money in competi-
tion possibly could have been.39
39Hayek, The Fatal Conceit, pp. 103-04.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 153
Hayek means that today's banking structure may appear
sustainable despite its juridical inconsistency, due to the sup-
port it currently receives from the state and to an official cen-
tral-banking institution which generates the liquidity neces-
sary to bail out banks in trouble (in exchange for their
compliance with a tangled web of administrative legislation
comprising endless, cryptic and ad hoc directives and memo-
randa). Nevertheless, the violation of the traditional legal
principles governing property rights inescapably results in
negative social consequences. For instance, the return of
deposits may be thus "guaranteed" at least theoretically
(even using a fractional-reserve ratio, assuming the central
bank lends its support). However, what cannot be guaranteed is
that the purchasing power of the monetary units will not vary
greatly with respect to the original deposit. In fact, ever since
the creation of modern monetary systems, each year with
slight differences in degree, we have been plagued by serious
chronic inflation which has significantly decreased the pur-
chasing power of the monetary units returned to depositors.
We must also consider the effects of the intra- and inter-tem-
poral social discoordination inflicted on modern economies
by the current financial system, based on a fractional reserve
for private banks and the conducting of monetary policy by
the central bank. These effects consist of recurrent, successive
phases of artificial boom and economic recession involving
high unemployment rates, which do great harm to the har-
monious, stable development of our societies.
As a result, in the banking and monetary fields we again
observe the validity of Hayek's seminal idea that whenever a
traditional rule of conduct is broken, either through direct
governmental coercion or the granting of special governmen-
tal privileges to certain people or organizations, or a combina-
tion of both (as occurs in the monetary irregular deposit with
a fractional reserve), sooner or later damaging, undesired con-
sequences follow, to the great detriment of the spontaneous
social processes of cooperation. The traditional rule of conduct
broken in banking, as we have studied in detail in these first
three chapters, is the general legal principle that in the mone-
tary irregular-deposit contract, custody and safekeeping (the
essential element or purpose of all deposits) should always
154 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
take the form of a continuous 100-percent reserve require-
ment. Consequently, any use of this money, particularly to
make loans, entails a violation of this principle and an act of
misappropriation. Throughout history, bankers have been
quick to violate this traditional rule of conduct, making self-
interested use of their depositors' money, as demonstrated by
various examples in chapter 2. At first the bankers did this
guiltily and in secret, since they were still aware of the wrong-
ful nature of their actions. Only later, when they obtained the
government privilege of making personal use of their deposi-
tors' money (generally in the form of loans, which at first were
often granted to the government itself), did they gain permis-
sion to openly and legally violate the principle. The legal
orchestration of the privilege is clumsy and usually takes the
form of a simple administrative provision authorizing only
bankers to maintain a reduced reserve ratio.
This marks the beginning of a now traditional relationship
of complicity and symbiosis between governments and banks.
This relationship explains the intimate "comprehension" and
close "cooperation" which is still present today between the
two types of institutions and has almost always existed, with
slight variations, in all western countries. Bankers and author-
ities soon realized that by sacrificing traditional legal princi-
ples in the deposit they could take part in an extremely lucra-
tive financial activity, though a lender of last resort, or central
bank, was required to provide the necessary liquidity in times
of difficulty, and experience showed that sooner or later these
times always returned. However, the damaging social conse-
quences of this privilege granted only to bankers were not fully
understood until the theory of money and capital theory
made sufficient progress in economics and were able to
explain the recurrent emergence of economic cycles. The Aus-
trian School in particular has taught us that the contradictory
(from a legal-contractual as well as a technical-economic
standpoint) objective of offering a contract comprising essen-
tially incompatible elements and aimed at combining the
advantages of loans (especially the possibility of earning inter-
est on "deposits") with those of the traditional monetary
irregular deposit (which by definition must allow the deposi-
tor to withdraw his funds at any time) is sooner or later bound
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 155
to cause inevitable spontaneous adjustments. At first these
adjustments manifest themselves as expansions in the money
supply (via the creation of loans which do not correspond to
an actual increase in voluntary saving), inflation, a general-
ized poor allocation of society's scarce productive resources at
a microeconomic level, and ultimately, recession, the rectifica-
tion of errors caused in the productive structure by credit
expansion, and widespread unemployment. The next chap-
ters will be devoted to examining all these issues from the
standpoint of economic theory. Nevertheless, first we should
wrap up our legal study with the analysis of some other
juridical institutions related to bank deposits.
To conclude this section, the following table displays
seven possible ways to legally classify the bank-deposit con-
tract from the perspective of the logic inherent in the institution
(and naturally, not from the viewpoint of positive law, which
as we know, can give legal force to anything).
4
The Monetary Irregular Deposit,
Transactions With a Repurchase Agreement
and Life Insurance Contracts
In these first three chapters we have undertaken an analy-
sis of the legal nature of the irregular deposit contract, and this
analysis could serve, among other uses, as a reliable guide to
identifying (from among the rich variety of legal contracts in
the fast-changing real world) true loan contracts, irregular
deposits in which the safekeeping obligation is met and con-
tracts of a contradictory or even fraudulent nature. This is an
important guide, as human ingenuity knows no bounds when
it comes to attempting to fraudulently circumvent traditional
legal principles for one's own benefit and to the detriment of
others.
Moreover, this danger is especially acute when legal prin-
ciples are not adequately defined nor defended by public
authorities, especially in a field, like that of finance, which is
very abstract and difficult to understand for most citizens.
156 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table 1
Seven Possible Legal Classifications of the
Bank-Deposit Contract with a Fractional Reserve
1. There is deception or fraud: the crime of misappro-
priation is committed and the contract is null and
void (the historically corrupt origin of fractional-
reserve banking).
2. There is no deception, but there is an error in nego-
tio: contract null and void.
3. There is no error in negotio, but each party pursues
his typical cause in the contract: contract null and
void due to essentially incompatible causes.
4. Even if the incompatible causes are considered
compatible, the contract is null and void because
it is impossible to carry out (without a central
bank).
5. Subsidiary argument: even if the "law of large
numbers" were valid (which is not the case), the
contract would still be an aleatory contract (it
would be neither a deposit nor a loan contract).
6. The implementation of the contract depends on a
government mandate (privilege) and the support
of a central bank that nationalizes money, imposes
legal-tender regulations and creates liquidity.
7. In any case, the contract is null and void because
it does serious harm to third parties (economic
crises aggravated by the central bank), much
greater harm than that caused by a counterfeiter
of money.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 157
Transactions with a Repurchase Agreement
Whenever we observe, as in the monetary deposit, that the
immediate availability of the good is offered to customers in
order to attract their funds40 and then invest their money or
employ it in private transactions, etc., we should be on our
guard, irrespective of the legal appearance of the transaction.
For example, in certain contracts with a repurchase agreement,
one of the parties commits to repurchase from the other,
whenever requested by the second party, a security, right or
financial asset at a prefixed price at least equal to that origi-
nally paid for the good. The intention in these cases, against
legal principles, is to conceal a true monetary irregular-deposit
contract, in which one of the contracting parties pursues the
essential objective of guaranteeing the immediate availability
of the good, and the other pursues the familiar, contradictory
purpose or cause of gathering monetary resources to invest
them in different business deals. In short, these are often even
fraudulent transactions, in which the professional deposit
"gatherer" tries to convince his "customers" to turn over their
available assets easily and without a heavy commitment, in
exchange for the fundamental promise that their money will
remain available to them and be returned to them whenever
they desire (via the "repurchase agreement").
We observe a similar case when, as often happens more or
less explicitly in practice, an institution (for example, a bank)
attempts to systematically maintain or "conserve" the market
value of its stocks by carrying out a series of financial opera-
tions to indicate to the market that the sale of the stocks is
"guaranteed" at a set price. If this is true, and to the extent that
the general public believes it, we witness another transaction
in which a monetary irregular-deposit contract is ultimately
orchestrated via investment in securities, stocks or bonds
40Many "irregular" transactions are accompanied by the "guarantee" of
continuous availability to persuade the customer that there is no need to
relinquish it nor make the sacrifice required by lending. This practice
makes attracting funds much easier, especially when the customer is
naive and can be tempted (as in any sham or swindle) with the possi-
bility of obtaining high profits with no sacrifice nor risk.
158 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
whose liquidity on the market is implicitly "guaranteed" at all
times by a trustworthy institution.41 Therefore, it is not sur-
prising that many bank crises have arisen more from the mas-
sive sale of bank stocks than from a widespread withdrawal of
deposits. These stocks were supposed to constitute a safe
refuge for money while nearly guaranteeing its immediate
availability. When the bank's solvency comes into question, its
securities are the first to be sold on a massive scale, rendering
the bank unable to continue honoring its implicit commitment
to maintain the market value of the stocks. At least in the past,
these massive sales have resulted from the fact that the indis-
criminate assistance supplied by central banks to private
banks in times of need has not reached the point of continual
preservation of shares' current market price. The most recent
bank crises in Spain and other countries have demonstrated
that ultimately, the only "depositors" to lose out have been the
stockholders themselves.
There are many other "borderline" cases. For example,
some finance and holding companies, to encourage the sub-
scription of their stocks, "commit" to repurchase them at the
original price whenever requested by the shareholder. In gen-
eral, we should be suspicious of any transaction with a repur-
chase agreement in which the price of the repurchase is fixed
and is not the current price of the item on the corresponding second-
ary market.42 Hence, it falls to the jurist and the economist to
41If we carry this line of reasoning to extremes, the entire stock market
could be viewed as an orchestrator of true deposits if the state were to
at all times guarantee the creation of the liquidity necessary to maintain
stock market indexes. For reasons of public image, governments and
central banks have insisted on pursuing this objective and policy at least
occasionally during many stock market crises.
42 Another example of a simulated deposit is a temporary assignment
with an agreement of repurchase on demand. This transaction is con-
ducted as a loan from customer to bank: Collateral is offered in the form
of securities, normally national bond certificates, in case of noncompli-
ance by the depositary. The loan bears interest at an agreed-upon rate up
until a specified date and is repayable at the simple request of the
"lender" prior to that date. If he exercises this option of early cancella-
tion, the resulting amount to be paid him is calculated by compounding
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 159
employ their analytical judgment in the study of this eco-
nomic-financial transaction and to decide exactly what type of
operation it is, its true nature and its consequences, in light of
the legal principles examined in these first three chapters and
the economic implications we will now consider.43 Further-
more, this analysis would acquire vital importance if one day
in the future the existent financial system based on the
monopoly of a public central bank were ever completely pri-
vatized and a free-banking system subject to general legal
principles were established. In this case, the current tangled
web of administrative banking regulations would be replaced
the interest on the original amount at the agreed-upon rate up until the
date he exercises the option. For the client, this operation is identical to
a loan backed by securities, combined with an American option. An
option is an agreement conferring the right, not the obligation, to buy or
sell a certain quantity of an asset on a particular date or up until a par-
ticular date. An option to purchase is a call option, and an option to sell,
a put option. If the right granted lasts until a specified date, the option
is called an "American" option; if it refers to a particular date, a "Euro-
pean" option. The acquirer of the right compensates the other party via
the payment of a premium at the moment the contract is finalized. The
client will exercise his option only if the interest rates paid on new time
deposits maturing at the same time as his exceed the rate he originally
negotiated. He will not exercise the option if interest rates fall, even if he
needs the liquidity, because he will normally be able to take out a loan for
the remainder of the term at a lower rate of interest and provide the bond
certificates as collateral. Some institutions even offer these contracts
accompanied by the cashier services typical of checking accounts, so the
customer can issue checks and pay bills by direct debiting. Banks use this
contract as a way to speculate with securities, since the public finances
them and banks keep the profits. We are grateful to Professor Ruben
Manso for providing us with some details of this type of operation.
43Another interesting question is how to determine in practice when
time "deposits" (loans) with a very short term become true deposits.
Although the general rule is clear (the subjective intention of the parties
must prevail, and upon maturity all loans become deposits requiring a
100-percent reserve until withdrawn), for practical purposes a tempo-
rary limit is often needed (a month? a week? a day?), under which loans
granted to the bank should be regarded as actual deposits. As for the so-
called secondary medium of exchange, which are not money but can be
converted into cash very easily, meriting an additional premium for
their purchase on the market, see Mises, Human Action, pp. 464-67.
160 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
by a few clear, simple rules included in the Civil, Commercial
and Penal Codes. The main purpose of these rules would be to
guarantee adherence to the strict safekeeping principle (100-
percent reserve requirement) regarding not only monetary
demand-deposit contracts, but also any other economic-finan-
cial transaction in which the chief goal of the participants is to
obtain custody and safekeeping for their deposits. In this (for
now) hypothetical situation, the analysis we are proposing
would greatly assist judges and jurists in making sense of the
rich, extremely complex variety of contracts and transactions
constantly emerging in the economic-financial world and
would allow them to determine when to classify these trans-
actions as null and void and/or criminal according to general
civil and penal provisions.44
At any rate, we should avoid a selfishly defeatist attitude
common in the financial sector. It is based on the belief that
human ingenuity will be capable of finding ever more sophisti-
cated means of fraudulently evading universal legal principles
and that therefore in practice they will never be obeyed and
defended. We should avoid this defeatist posture, because the
proliferation of ingenious ways to violate these principles stems
precisely from the fact that public authorities have always
defined and defended them in an extremely confusing, ambigu-
ous and contradictory manner, and as a result there is no gen-
eral awareness of the importance of respecting them. Quite the
opposite is true. The prevailing values and ideas have over time
become so corrupted that now people consider the irregular
deposit contract with a fractional reserve to be legitimate. If
general legal principles were again understood and respected,
the number of irregular behaviors would decrease significantly
(especially if public authorities really took care to preserve and
defend the corresponding property rights). At the same time,
the proven fact that human ingenuity continually searches for
44In the model we propose (and which we will consider in greater detail
in the last chapter), the control exerted in the financial sphere by the cen-
tral bank and its officials would be replaced by that of judges, who
would recover their full authority and central role in the application of
general legal principles in the financial area as well.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 161
new ways to break the law and defraud others does not in the
least detract from the fundamental importance of a set of clear
principles to guide citizens and direct authorities in their duty
to define and defend property rights.
The Case of Life Insurance Contracts
Life insurance is a typical time-honored legal institution,
one that has been very well-formulated with respect to its
essence and legal content and well-supported by actuarial,
economic and financial practices. Nevertheless, lately some
have tried to use it to conduct transactions which are very
similar to the monetary irregular deposit with a fractional
reserve. These attempts have been very detrimental to the
development and traditional solvency of life insurance as an
institution and have involved deceiving supposed "policy-
holders-depositors. "
Indeed, above all it is important to understand that the
contract of life insurance bears no relation to the monetary
irregular-deposit contract. Life insurance is an aleatory contract
by which one of the parties, the contracting party or policy-
holder, commits to the payment of the premium or price of the
operation, and in return the other party, the insurance com-
pany, agrees to pay certain benefits in the event that the poli-
cyholder dies or survives at the end of a term specified in the
contract. Therefore, the premiums paid by the policyholder com-
pletely cease to he available to him, and availability is fully trans-
ferred to the insurer.45 Hence, all life insurance contracts
involve an exchange of present, certain goods for future, uncer-
tain goods (since their payment depends on an uncertain
45As life insurance entails disciplined saving over a period of many
years, it is much more difficult to sell than other financial products sold
with the guarantee that the customer's money will remain continuously
available to him (deposits). For this reason life insurance is sold through
a costly network of salespeople, while the public goes willingly and
without prompting to make bank deposits. Life insurance companies
foster and encourage voluntary, long-term saving, whereas banks pro-
duce loans and deposits from nothing and require no one to make the
prior sacrifice of saving.
162 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
event, such as the death or survival of the policyholder). The
life insurance contract is therefore equivalent to a savings
transaction (in which the ownership and availability of pres-
ent goods are relinquished in exchange for the ownership
and availability of future goods), but it is a form of perfected
savings, because it makes it possible to receive a considerable
sum from the very moment the contract takes effect, given the
anticipated, uncertain event takes place (for example, the pol-
icyholder dies). Any other traditional savings method (tradi-
tional mutuum or loan operation) would require a prolonged
period of many years of saving to accumulate the capital paid
by an insurance company in case of death. In other words, life
insurance contracts, the calculation of probabilities based on
mortality and survival tables, and the principle of mutualism
or dividing loss among all policyholders sustaining an insti-
tution make it possible from the first moment to receive, should the
anticipated event occur, a significant sum of money which, using
other methods, could only be accumulated after a period of many
years.
Moreover life insurance is a long-term contract which
incorporates complex financial and actuarial components and
requires the prudent investment of significant resources. The
availability of these resources is transferred to the mutual or
life insurance company, which must collect and invest the
mathematically-calculated reserves necessary to make the
future payments it will be obliged to make. These amounts are
called "mathematical," because they result from the calcula-
tion of probabilities of death and survival according to mor-
tality tables, which are extremely reliable and highly constant
for most western populations. It is possible to calculate, with
as small a probability of ruin as is desired, the amount of
money necessary to pay all guaranteed benefits. Later we will
examine the radical differences which from an economic-
financial standpoint exist between life insurance and the irreg-
ular deposit contract with a fractional reserve. As opposed to
life insurance, the irregular deposit contract does not permit
the calculation of probabilities, since the institution (frac-
tional-reserve banking) does not exist completely independ-
ently of the recurrent massive withdrawal of deposits.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 163
An added complexity emerges because some types of life
insurance include the right of surrender. This means policy-
holders can cancel their contract and obtain in cash the math-
ematical liquidation value of their policy. Some theorists have
defended the position that insurance policies which include
this "surrender value" are very similar to monetary irregular-
deposit contracts with fractional reserves.46 Against this view,
it is important to point out that whether or not a covert irreg-
ular deposit exists depends ultimately on the true motive,
purpose or subjective cause with which the contract is carried
out. If, as is usual with traditional life insurance policies, the
client intends to keep the policy until the end of its term and
is not aware that he can redeem the funds at any time, then the
transaction is clearly not an irregular deposit but a traditional
life insurance contract. This type of insurance is sold with the
idea that surrender is a "last resort," a solution to be applied
only in situations of pressing need when a family is com-
pletely unable to continue making payments on a policy
which is so necessary for the peace of mind of all of its mem-
bers.47
However, we must acknowledge that (for the most part)
recently banks and other financial institutions have exerted
constant pressure to erase the fundamental, traditional dis-
tinctions and blur the boundaries between life insurance and
bank-deposit contracts.48
46Murray N. Rothbard, "Austrian Definitions of the Supply of Money,"
in New Directions in Austrian Economics, Louis M. Spadaro, ed. (Kansas
City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1978), pp. 143-56, esp. pp. 150-51.
Rothbard's position is fully justified, however, with respect to all the
new "life insurance" operations conceived to simulate deposit contracts.
47Furthermore the surrender of the insurance policy traditionally entails
a significant financial penalty for the policyholder. This penalty results
from the company's need to amortize the high acquisition costs it incurs
during the first year of the contract. The tendency to reduce these penal-
ties is a clear indication that the operation has ceased to be a traditional
life insurance policy and has become a simulated bank deposit.
48As we will see at the end of chapter 7, from 1921 to 1938, while chair-
man of the National Mutual Life Assurance Society, a leading British life
164 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
True monetary-deposit operations have begun to appear
on the market disguised as life insurance policies. The main
selling point presented to customers is that with these trans-
actions they need not commit to a long-term savings opera-
tion involving regular payments, since the funds handed over
to the insurance company may be recovered at any time with
no penalty and no expense whatsoever (and may even include
interest). One reason companies disguise these operations as
life insurance policies is to take advantage of the customary
tax incentives almost every government in the developed
world grants insurance companies in recognition of their ben-
eficial influence on society at all levels as promoters of volun-
tary saving and foresight, and hence on the sustained, non-
inflationary economic growth and development of the nation.
Thus, bogus "life insurance" operations have been negotiated
en masse and have really been nothing but camouflaged
deposits made effortlessly by the public, who have held the
idea that at any time their money could be recovered penalty-
free if they needed it or simply wished to place it in another
financial institution. This has generated a good deal of confu-
sion. For instance, figures corresponding to bank deposits
insurance firm, John Maynard Keynes played a key role in the corrup-
tion of traditional principles governing life insurance. During his chair-
manship, he not only promoted an "active" investment policy strongly
oriented toward variable-yield securities (abandoning the tradition of
investing in bonds), but he also defended unorthodox criteria for the
valuation of assets (at market value) and even the distribution of profits
to policyholders through bonuses financed by unrealized stock market
"earnings." All these typical Keynesian assaults on traditional insurance
principles put his company in desperate straits when the stock market
crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression hit. As a result, Keynes's col-
leagues on the Board of Directors began to question his strategy and
decisions. Disagreements arose between them and led to Keynes's res-
ignation in 1938, since, as he put it, he did not think "it lies in my power
to cure the faults of the management and I am reluctant to continue to
take responsibility for them." See John Maynard Keynes, The Collected
Writings (London: Macmillan, 1983), vol. 12, pp. 47 and 114-54. See also
Nicholas Davenport, "Keynes in the City," in Essays on John Maynard
Keynes, Milo Keynes, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1975), pp. 224-25. See also footnote 108 of chapter 7.
Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking 165
(operations completely unrelated to life insurance) have been
included in the official statistics of life insurance premiums,
and in the midst of the great confusion in the market, tradi-
tional life insurance policies have become discredited and
their definition blurred.49
Fortunately, normality is being restored, and both tradi-
tional private insurers and public authorities are beginning to
realize that nothing hurts life insurance more than blurring
the distinctions between it and bank deposits. This confusion
has been detrimental to everyone: traditional life insurance,
which has lost many of its tax incentives and faced increasing
intervention and control by the central bank and monetary
authorities; clients, who have taken out life insurance thinking
they were making bank deposits and vice versa; banks, which
on many occasions have attracted funds from true deposits
(disguised as life insurance) and tried to make long-term
investments with them, endangering their solvency; and
finally, supervising public authorities, who have gradually
lost control over the institution of life insurance, which has
become blurred in its definition and to a great extent taken
over by another institution (the central bank). Banks are a
completely separate type of institution, whose financial and
legal foundations leave much to be desired, as we are seeing.
49In short, the apparent boom in life insurance sales was an illusion,
since the figures actually corresponded to radically different operations,
i.e., fractional-reserve bank deposits. These figures completely lose their
splendor if, instead of contrasting them with traditional life insurance
sales (much more modest, since abnegation and a long-term commit-
ment to saving and foresight are required), we compare them to the total
of a country's bank deposits, of which they make up only a small per-
centage. When only genuine life insurance sales are included in sector
statistics, the situation is put back in perspective, and the mirage every-
one (especially the government) strained to see vanishes.
The Credit
Expansion Process
This chapter and the following five comprise an analysis
of the economic consequences of violating the general
legal principles inherent in the irregular deposit con-
tract. We examined the legal and historical consequences of
such violations in chapters 1, 2, and 3 and will now focus on
the process by which banks create loans and deposits from
nothing and on the different implications this process has for
society. The most serious consequence of banks' creation of
loans is the following: to the extent loans are granted without
the corresponding backing of voluntary saving, the real pro-
ductive structure is inevitably distorted and recurrent eco-
nomic crises and recessions result. We will explain the circula-
tion credit theory of the business cycle and then critically
analyze the macroeconomic theories of monetarism and Key-
nesian economics. In addition we will carry out a brief review
of the recurring economic crises which have thus far assailed
the world. The first of the two final chapters contains a theo-
retical study of central banking and free banking, and the sec-
ond consists of an examination of the proposal of a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement for banking.
1
Introduction
The economic theory of money, banking, and business cycles
is a relatively recent development in the history of economic
167
168 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
thought. This body of economic knowledge has followed the
relevant events (the development of fractional-reserve bank-
ing and the recurring cycles of boom and recession) and cor-
responding legal formulations with great delay. As we have
seen, the study of legal principles, the analysis of their loop-
holes and contradictions, the search for and correction of their
logical defects, etc. took place much earlier in history and can
even be traced back to classical Roman legal doctrine. In any
case, in keeping with the evolutionary theory of institutions
(legal, linguistic, and economic), according to which institu-
tions emerge through a lengthy historical process and incor-
porate a huge amount of information, knowledge, and experi-
ence, the conclusions we will reach through our economic
analysis of the monetary bank-deposit contract in its current
form are hardly surprising. They largely coincide with and
support inferences the reader may have already drawn (from
a purely legal standpoint) in preceding chapters.
Our analysis of banking will be limited to the study of the
monetary deposit contract, which in practice applies to so-
called demand checking accounts, savings accounts and time
deposits, whenever the last two permit the de facto withdrawal
of the balance by the customer at any time. Hence, our study
excludes numerous activities private banks presently engage
in which are in no way related to the monetary irregular-
deposit contract. For example, modern banks offer their cus-
tomers bookkeeping and cashier services. They also buy and sell
foreign currencies, following a money-changing tradition that
dates back to the appearance of the first monetary units. In
addition, banks accept deposits of securities and on behalf of
their clients collect dividends and interest from the issuers,
informing customers of increases in owner's equity, stock-
holders' meetings, etc. Moreover, banks buy and sett securities
for their clients through discount houses and offer safe deposit
box services at their branches. Likewise, on many occasions
banks act as true financial intermediaries, attracting loans from
their customers (that is, when customers are aware they are
providing a loan to the bank, as holders of bonds, certificates,
or true time "deposits") and then lending those funds to third
parties. In this way, banks derive a profit from the interest rate
The Credit Expansion Process 1 69
differential between the rate they receive on loans they grant
and the one they agree to pay to customers who initially give
loans to them. None of these operations constitutes a mone-
tary bank-deposit, a transaction we will examine in the fol-
lowing sections. As we will see, this contract undoubtedly
represents the most significant operation banks carry out
today and the most important from an economic and social
standpoint.
As we have already pointed out, an economic analysis of
the monetary bank-deposit contract provides one more illus-
tration of Hayek's profound insight: whenever a universal
legal principle is violated, either through systematic state
coercion or governmental privileges or advantages conferred
on certain groups or individuals, the spontaneous process of
social interaction is inevitably and seriously obstructed. This
idea was refined in parallel with the theory of the impossibil-
ity of socialism and has spread. Whereas at one point it was
only applied to systems of so-called real socialism, it has now
also come to be associated with all parts or sectors of mixed
economies in which systematic state coercion or the "odious"
granting of privileges prevails.
Although the economic analysis of interventionism
appears to pertain more to coercive governmental measures, it
is no less relevant and illuminating with respect to those areas
in which traditional legal principles are infringed via the
granting of favors or privileges to certain pressure groups. In
modern economies there are two main areas where this
occurs. Labor legislation, which thoroughly regulates employ-
ment contracts and labor relations, is the first. Not only are
these laws the basis for coercive measures (preventing parties
from negotiating the terms of an employment contract as they
see fit), they also confer important privileges upon pressure
groups, in many ways allowing them to act on the fringes of
traditional legal principles (as unions do, for instance). The
second area in which both privileges and institutional coer-
cion are preponderant is the general field of money, banking,
and finance, which constitutes the main focus of this book.
Although both areas are very important, and thus it is urgent
that both be theoretically examined in order to introduce and
170 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
carry through the necessary reforms, the theoretical analysis
of institutional coercion and the granting of privileges in the
labor field is clearly less complex. As a result, the awareness it
arouses has spread faster and penetrated deeper at all levels of
society. Related theories have been significantly developed
and broad social consensus has even been reached regarding
the need for reforms and the direction they should take. In
contrast, the sphere of money, bank credit and financial markets
remains a formidable challenge to theorists and a mystery to most
citizens. Social relationships in which money is directly or
indirectly involved are by far the most abstract and difficult to
understand, and as a result the related knowledge is the most
vast, complex, and elusive. For this reason, systematic coer-
cion in this area by governments and central banks is by far
the most harmful and pernicious.1 Furthermore, the insuffi-
cient formulation of monetary and banking theory adversely
affects the development of the world economy. This is evi-
denced by the fact that, despite theoretical advances and gov-
ernment efforts, modern economies have yet to be freed of
recurring booms and recessions. Only a few years ago, despite
all the sacrifices made to stabilize western economies follow-
ing the crisis of the 1970s, the financial, banking and monetary
field was invariably again plagued by the same reckless errors.
As a result, the beginning of the 1990s marked the inevitable
appearance of a new worldwide economic recession of consid-
erable severity, and the western economic world has only
The operation of the money and credit structure has, . . . with
language and morals, been one of the spontaneous orders
most resistant to efforts at adequate theoretical explanation,
and it remains the object of serious disagreement among spe-
cialists. . . . [Selective processes are interfered with here more
than anywhere else: selection by evolution is prevented by
government monopolies that make competitive experimenta-
tion impossible. . . . The history of government management
of money has . . . been one of incessant fraud and deception.
In this respect, governments have proved far more immoral
than any private agency supplying distinct kinds of money in
competition possibly could have been. (Hayek, The Fatal Con-
ceit, pp. 102-04)
The Credit Expansion Process 1 71
recently managed to recover from it.2 And once again, more
recently (in the summer of 1997), an acute financial crisis dev-
astated the chief Asian markets, threatening to spread to the
rest of the world. A few years later (since 2001) the three main
economic areas of the world (the United States, Europe, and
Japan) have simultaneously entered into a recession.
The purpose of the economic analysis of law and legal reg-
ulations is to examine the role the latter play in the sponta-
neous processes of social interaction. Our economic analysis
of the monetary bank-deposit contract will reveal the results
of applying traditional legal principles (including a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement) to the monetary irregular-deposit
contract. At the same time, it will bring to light the damaging,
unforeseen consequences that follow from the fact that, in vio-
lation of these principles, bankers have been permitted to
make self-interested use of demand deposits. Until now these
effects have gone mainly unnoticed.
We will now see how bankers' use of demand deposits
enables them to create bank deposits (that is, money) and in
turn, loans (purchasing power transferred to borrowers,
whether businessmen or consumers) from nothing. These
deposits and loans do not result from any real increase in volun-
tary saving by social agents. In this chapter we will concentrate
2It is also interesting to note that the monetary and financial excesses
which provoked this crisis stemmed mainly from the policies applied in
the latter 1980s by the supposedly neoliberal administrations of the
United States and the United Kingdom. For example, Margaret Thatcher
recently acknowledged that the key economic problem of her term in
office originated "on the 'demand side' as money and credit expanded
too rapidly and sent the prices of assets soaring." See Margaret
Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p.
668. In addition, in the field of money and credit, the United Kingdom
merely followed the process of irresponsibility that had been initiated in
the United States during the second Reagan administration. If possible,
these events indicate even more plainly the importance of advancing
theory to prevent other political authorities (even those with pro free-
market views) from committing the same errors as Reagan and Thatcher
and to allow them to clearly identify the type of monetary and banking
system appropriate for a free society, something many people with a
laissez-faire stance remain distinctly unsure about.
272 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
on substantiating this assertion and some of its implications and
in subsequent chapters will undertake the study of the eco-
nomic effects of credit expansion (the analysis of economic
crises and recessions).
To continue the pattern set in the first chapters, we will
first consider the effects from an economic and accounting
perspective in the case of the loan or mutuum contract. In this
way by comparison, we will be better able to understand the
economic effects of the essentially distinct monetary bank-
deposit contract.
2
The Bank's Role as a True
Intermediary in the Loan Contract
Let us begin by supposing a banker receives a loan of
1,000,000 monetary units (m.u.) from a customer. A true legal
loan contract exists, stipulating that the customer is to give up
the availability of 1,000,000 m.u. in the form of present goods
(money) he could have spent or keep it for himself, and that
he is to do so for a period of time or term (the essential ele-
ment of any loan contract) lasting one year. In exchange for
these present goods, the banker agrees to return after one year
a larger quantity than that originally received. If the agreed-
upon interest rate is 10 percent, at the end of one year the
banker will have to return 1,100,000 monetary units. The fol-
lowing book entry is made when the loan is received:
(1) Bank A
Debit Credit
1,000,000 m.u. Cash Loan received 1,000,000 m.u.
(Input in the bank's (Increase in liabilities)
cash asset account)
The Credit Expansion Process 1 73
Economically speaking, this contract clearly involves a
simple exchange of present goods (the availability of which is
transferred from the lender to the bank) for future goods
(which Bank A agrees to turn over to the lender at the end of
one year). Therefore, from a monetary standpoint there is no
change. A certain number of monetary units simply cease to be
available to the lender and become available to the bank (for a
predetermined period of time). A mere transfer of 1,000,000
m.u. takes place, without any resulting variation in the total
number of preexisting monetary units.
We could view entry (1) as the journal entry made the day
the contract is signed and 1,000,000 m.u. are handed over to
the bank by the lender. We could also see it as Bank A's bal-
ance sheet, drawn up immediately following the transaction
and registering on the left side (the asset side) 1,000,000 m.u.
in the cash account and on the right side (the liability side) the
debt of 1,000,000 m.u. contracted with the lender.
Let us also suppose that Bank A carries out this operation
because its managers plan in turn to loan 1,000,000 m.u. to
Business Z, which urgently needs the money to finance its
operations and is willing to pay 15 percent interest per year
for the loan of 1,000,000 m.u. from Bank A.3
When Bank A loans the money to Business Z, an entry in
Bank A's journal is made to reflect the output of 1,000,000 m.u.
from the cash account and Business Z's debt to the bank,
replacing the original cash asset. The entry is as follows:
(2) Bank A
Debit Credit
1,000,000 Loan granted Cash 1,000,000
(Accounts receivable) (Output from cash
account)
3We could likewise have assumed that Bank A used the money to grant
consumer loans or short-term loans to trade, as occurs when bills are
discounted three, six, nine and twelve months before maturity. The con-
sideration of these uses is irrelevant to our analysis, however.
174 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In this case Bank A clearly acts as a true financial intermedi-
ary. Its managers recognize and take advantage of a business
opportunity.4 Indeed, they see a chance to make a profit, since
at one place in the market there is a lender willing to loan
them money at 10 percent interest, and at another Business Z
is willing to take out a loan at 15 percent, leaving a profit dif-
ferential of 5 percent. Therefore, the bank acts as intermediary
between the original lender and Business Z, and its social func-
tion consists precisely of recognizing the existing disparity or lack of
coordination (the original lender wished to loan his money but
could not find a creditworthy borrower willing to take it,
while Business Z urgently needed a loan of 1,000,000 m.u. and
its managers did not know where to find a suitable lender).
The bank, by obtaining a loan from one and granting a loan to
the other, satisfies the subjective needs of both and derives a
sheer entrepreneurial profit in the form of the interest differential
of 5 percent.
At the end of a year, Business Z will return the 1,000,000
m.u. to Bank A, together with the agreed-upon 15 percent
interest. The entries are as follows:
(3) Bank A
Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Loan granted 1,000,000
(Repayment)
150,000 Cash Interest received
from Business Z
(Revenue for the year) 150,000
4On the essence of entrepreneurship, consisting of discovering and tak-
ing advantage of opportunities for profit, and on the sheer entrepre-
neurial profit that results, see chapter 2 of Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdl-
culo economico yfuncion empresarial, pp. 41-86.
The Credit Expansion Process 175
Soon afterward, Bank A must in turn honor the contract it
entered into with the original lender, returning to him the
1,000,000 m.u. its managers had committed to pay at the end
of one year, along with 10 percent interest. The entries are as
follows:
(4)
Bank A
Debit
1,000,000 Loan received
(Repayment)
Credit
Cash
$1,000,000
100,000 Interest payment Cash
(Expenses for the
year)
$100,000
In other words, the bank repays the loan, records the out-
put from its cash account of the 1,000,000 m.u. received from
Business Z and adds to that sum the 100,000 m.u. (also
charged to the cash account) in agreed-upon interest it pays
the original lender. On the bank's income statement, this inter-
est is registered as a charge in the form of interest payments
made during the year.
After these entries, at the end of the year, the bank's
income statement would appear as follows:
(5)
Expenses
Bank A
Income Statement
(During the Year)
Revenues
Interest paid
Net income
100,000
50,000
Interest Received
150,000
Total Debit
150,000
Total Credit
150,000
1 76 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
This income statement reflects an entrepreneurial profit
for the year of 50,000 m.u., a net income derived from the dif-
ference between the year's revenue (150,000 m.u. in interest
received) and the year's expenses (100,000 m.u. in interest
paid).
At the end of the year, Bank A's balance sheet would
appear as follows:
(6) Bank A
Balance Sheet
(End of the year)
Assets Liabilities
Cash 50,000 Owner's equity 50,000
(Profit for the year)
Total Assets 50,000 Total Liabilities 50,000
If we look at the balance sheet drawn up at the very end of
the year, we see that the bank's assets include 50,000 m.u. avail-
able in the cash account that correspond to the year's profit,
which has been placed in the corresponding owner's equity
account (capital and retained earnings) under Liabilities.
The following points recapitulate our description in
accounting terms of a banking activity based on receiving and
granting a loan or mutuum: one, for one year the original
lender relinquished the availability of 1,000,000 m.u, present
goods; two, the availability of this money was transferred to
Bank A for exactly the same time period; three, Bank A discov-
ered an opportunity to make a profit, since its managers knew
of a borrower, Business Z, which was willing to pay a higher
interest rate than the one the bank had agreed to pay; four, the
bank granted a loan to Business Z, relinquishing in turn the
availability of 1,000,000 m.u. for one year; five, Business Z
obtained the availability of the 1,000,000 m.u. for one year in
order to expand its activities; six, therefore, for the period of
one year, the number of m.u. did not vary, as they were sim-
ply transferred from the original lender to Business Z via the
The Credit Expansion Process 1 77
intermediary — Bank A — ; seven, in the course of its activities,
Business Z brought in a profit enabling it to make the interest
payment of 150,000 m.u. (these 150,000 m.u. do not represent
any money creation, but are simply obtained by Business Z as
the result of its sales and purchases); eight, at the end of one
year, Business Z returned 1,000,000 m.u. to Bank A, and Bank
A paid the same amount back to the original lender, along
with 100,000 m.u. in interest; nine, as a result, Bank A obtained
an entrepreneurial profit of 50,000 m.u. (the difference
between the interest it paid the original lender and the inter-
est it received from Business Z), a sheer entrepreneurial profit
resulting from its legitimate business activity as intermediary.
As is logical, Bank A could have been mistaken in its
choice of Business Z. It could have miscalculated the risk
involved, or the ability of Business Z to return the loan and
pay the interest. Therefore, the success of the bank's activity in
this case depends not only upon its bringing the operation
with Business Z to a successful conclusion, but also on its own
obligation (to return to the original lender 1,000,000 m.u. plus
10-percent interest) falling due after Business Z repays the loan
to the bank, along with 15-percent interest. In this way the
bank can maintain its solvency and avoid any unfortunate
incidents. Nevertheless, like any other business, banks are
subject to possible entrepreneurial error. For example, Busi-
ness Z could be unable to return on time the amount it owes
the bank, or it could even suspend payments or go bankrupt,
which would render Bank A insolvent as well, since it would
be unable to in turn pay back the loan it received from the
original lender. However, this risk is no different from that
inherent in any other business activity and can be easily
reduced through the use of prudence and deliberation by the
bank in its business activities. Moreover, for the length of the
operation (throughout the year), the bank remains fully sol-
vent and faces no liquidity problems, since it has no obligation
to make any cash payments for as long as its loan contract with the
original lender remains in force.5
5Murray N. Rothbard, in reference to banks' role as true intermediaries
between original lenders and final borrowers, states:
178 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
3
The Bank's Role
in the Monetary
Bank-Deposit Contract
The economic events and accounting procedures involved
in the monetary bank-deposit contract are substantially differ-
ent from those examined in the preceding section, on the loan
or mutuum. (We covered the loan contract first in order to bet-
ter illustrate by comparison the essential differences between
the two contracts.)
In the case of a regular (or sealed) deposit of a certain num-
ber of perfectly and individually marked monetary units, the
person receiving the deposit need not record anything under
Assets or Liabilities, because no transfer of ownership occurs.
However, as revealed by our study of the legal essence of the
irregular (or open) deposit contract, this second contract repre-
sents a deposit of fungible goods, in which it is impossible to
distinguish between the individual units deposited, and
therefore a certain transfer of "ownership" does take place.
This occurs in the strict sense that the depositary is not obliged
to return the very same units received (which would be
impossible, given the difficulty of specifically identifying the
units of a fungible good received), but others of equal quantity
and quality (the tantundem). Nevertheless, even though a
[t]he bank is expert on where its loans should be made and to
whom, and reaps the reward of this service. Note that there
has still been no inflationary action by the loan bank. No mat-
ter how large it grows, it is still only tapping savings from the
existing money stock and lending that money to others. If the
bank makes unsound loans and goes bankrupt, then, as in any
kind of insolvency, its shareholders and creditors will suffer
losses. This sort of bankruptcy is little different from any
other: unwise management or poor entrepreneurship will
have caused harm to owners and creditors. Factors, invest-
ment banks, finance companies, and money-lenders are just
some of the institutions that have engaged in loan banking.
(Murray N. Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking [New York:
Richardson and Snyder, 1983], pp. 84-85)
The Credit Expansion Process 179
transfer of ownership may be established, availability is not
transferred to the depositary, because in the irregular deposit
contract he is obliged to continuously safeguard the tantundem
of the deposit and therefore must always maintain available to
the depositor units of an equal quantity and quality as those
originally received (though they may not be the same specific
units). Hence, the only justification a depositary has for enter-
ing a deposit contract in his account books lies precisely in the
transfer of ownership entailed by the irregular deposit; how-
ever, it is important to point out that given the extremely lim-
ited sense in which this transfer of ownership occurs (it is not
at all equal to a transfer of availability), at most the information
should be recorded in mere "memorandum accounts" with
purely informative purposes. Let us imagine that we have
traveled back in time to the dawn of fractional-reserve banking
and that a depositor, Mr. X, decides to deposit 1,000,000 m.u. in
Bank A (or if you prefer, any person today decides to open a
checking account in a bank and deposit 1,000,000 m.u.). This
second case involves a true deposit contract, though an irreg-
ular one, given the fungible nature of money. In other words,
the essential cause or purpose of the deposit contract is the
desire of Depositor X that Bank A safeguard the 1,000,000 m.u.
for him. Mr. X believes that, despite having opened the check-
ing account, he retains the immediate availability of 1,000,000
m.u. and can withdraw them at any time for whatever use he
pleases, since he has made a "demand" deposit. From an eco-
nomic standpoint, for Mr. X the 1,000,000 m.u. are fully available to
him at all times and therefore contribute to his cash balances: that is,
even though the monetary units were deposited in Bank A,
from a subjective viewpoint they remain as available to Mr. X
as if he carried them in his pocket. The entry corresponding to
this irregular deposit is as follows:
Bank A
(7) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposit 1,000,000
(made by Mr. X)
(This should be a mere memorandum entry.)
180 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
We see that, although Bank A is justified in making this
book entry, since it becomes owner of the monetary units and
stores them in its safe without distinguishing them from oth-
ers, the reference entries should only affect information or
memorandum accounts. This is due to the fact that, though
the ownership of the monetary units has been transferred to
the bank, it has not been completely transferred, but remains
totally restricted, in the sense that Depositor X still possesses
the full availability of the monetary units.
Apart from this last observation, nothing unusual has yet
happened from an economic or accounting standpoint. A Mr.
X has made an irregular deposit of money in Bank A. Up to
now this contract has not resulted in any modification of the
quantity of money in existence, which continues to be
1,000,000 m.u. and remains available to Mr. X who, for his
own convenience, has deposited it in Bank A. Perhaps
depositing the money is convenient for Mr. X because he
wishes to better safeguard his money, avoiding the dangers
that await it in his own home (theft and losses), and to receive
cashier and payment services from the bank. In this way Mr.
X avoids having to carry money in his pocket and can make
payments by simply writing a sum down on a check and
instructing the bank to send him a summary each month of all
the operations carried out. These banking services are all very
valuable and warrant the decision of Mr. X to deposit his
money in Bank A. Furthermore, Bank A is fully justified in
charging the depositor for these services. Let us suppose the
agreed-upon price for the services is 3 percent per year of the
quantity deposited (the bank could also charge a flat rate
unrelated to the amount deposited, but for the purpose of
illustration we will assume the cost of the services depends on
the entire amount deposited), a sum with which the bank can
cover its operating costs and also achieve a small profit mar-
gin. If we suppose the operating costs are equivalent to 2 per-
cent of the amount deposited, the bank will obtain a profit of
1 percent per year, or 10,000 m.u. If Mr. X pays this annual fee
(30,000 m.u.) in cash, the following book entries would result
from the rendering of the above-mentioned services:
The Credit Expansion Process 181
Bank A
(8) Debit Credit
30,000 Cash Income from
Client X in payment
for services 30,000
20,000 Operating expenses Cash 20,000
paid by the bank in
order to offer its
services
At the end of the year, Bank A's income statement and balance
sheet would be as follows:
(9) Bank A
Income Statement
(During the year)
Expenses Revenues
Operating costs 20,000 Income from services
rendered 30,000
Net Income 10,000
Total Debit 30,000 Total Credit 30,000
Balance Sheet
(End of the year)
Assets Liabilities
Cash 1,010,000 Owner's equity
(Profit for the year) 10,000
Demand deposit 1,000,000
Total Assets 1,010,000 Total Liabilities 1,010,000
182 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
As we see, up to now there has been nothing unusual or
surprising about the economic events or accounting processes
resulting from the monetary irregular-deposit contract. The
bank has made a small legitimate profit, derived from its role
as a renderer of services valued by its customer at 30,000 m.u.
Moreover, there has been no change in the quantity of money,
and after all of the transactions, the bank's cash account has
only increased by 10,000 m.u. This sum corresponds to the
pure entrepreneurial profit derived by the bank from the dif-
ference between the price paid by the client for services (30,000
m.u.) and the operating cost of providing them (20,000 m.u.).
Finally, given that the depositor believes the money he
deposited in Bank A remains constantly available to him, a sit-
uation equal to or even better than his keeping the money in
his own pocket or at home, he need not demand any addi-
tional compensation, as in the case of the loan contract, which
is radically different. The loan contract required the lender to
relinquish the availability of 1,000,000 m.u. of present goods
(in other words, to lend) and to transfer the availability to the
borrower in exchange for the corresponding interest and the
repayment of the principal one year later.6
4
The Effects Produced by
Bankers' Use of Demand Deposits:
The Case of an Individual Bank
Nevertheless, as we saw in chapter 2, bankers were soon
tempted to violate the traditional rule of conduct requiring
6Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit offers this explanation:
Therefore the claim obtained in exchange for the sum of
money is equally valuable to him whether he converts it
sooner or later, or even not at all; and because of this it is pos-
sible for him, without damaging his economic interests, to
acquire such claims in return for the surrender of money with-
out demanding compensation for any difference in value arising
from the difference in time between payment and repayment, such,
of course, as does not in fact exist, (p. 301; italics added)
The Credit Expansion Process 183
them to maintain the tantundem of monetary irregular
deposits continuously available to depositors, and they ended
up using at least a portion of demand deposits for their own
benefit. In chapter 3 we covered the comments of Saravia de la
Calle with respect to this human temptation. Now we must
stress how overwhelming and nearly irresistible it is, given
the huge profits that result from yielding to it. When bankers first
began using their depositors' money, they did so shame-
facedly and in secret, as shown by chapter 2's analysis of dif-
ferent historical cases. At this time bankers were still keenly
aware of the wrongful nature of their actions. It was only later,
after many centuries and vicissitudes, that bankers were suc-
cessful in their aim to openly and legally violate the tradi-
tional legal principle, since they happily obtained the govern-
mental privilege necessary to use their depositors' money
(generally by granting loans, which initially were often given
to the government itself.)7 We will now consider the way
7Stephen Horwitz states that bankers' misappropriation of depositors'
money began as "an act of true entrepreneurship as the imaginative
powers of individual bankers recognized the gains to be made through
financial intermediation." For reasons given in the main text, we find
this assertion dangerously erroneous. Furthermore, as we will see, in the
appropriation of demand deposits no financial intermediation takes
place: only an awkward creation of new deposits from nothing. As for
the supposedly "commendable" act of "entrepreneurial creativity" we
do not see how it could possibly be distinguished from the "creative
entrepreneurship" of any other criminal act, in which the criminal's
powers of imagination lead him to the "entrepreneurial discovery" that
he benefits from swindling others or forcibly taking their property. See
Stephen Horwitz, Monetary Evolution, Free Banking, and Economic Order
(Oxford and San Francisco: Westview Press, 1992), p. 117. See also Ger-
ald P. O'Driscoll, "An Evolutionary Approach to Banking and Money,"
chap. 6 of Hayek, Co-ordination and Evolution: His Legacy in Philosophy,
Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, Jack Birner and Rudy van Zijp,
eds. (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 126-37. Perhaps Murray N. Roth-
bard has been the strongest, most articulate critic of Horwitz's idea.
Rothbard states:
[a]ll men are subject to the temptation to commit theft or
fraud. . . . Short of this thievery the warehouseman is subject
to a more subtle form of the same temptation: to steal or "bor-
row" the valuables "temporarily" and to profit by speculation
184 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
bankers record the appropriation of demand deposits in their
account books. Our study will begin with the case of an indi-
vidual bank and will later extend to the banking system as a
whole.
The Continental Accounting System
Two accounting systems, the continental and the Anglo-
Saxon, have traditionally been used to document the phe-
nomenon we are studying. The continental system is based on
the false notion that for the depositor, the irregular deposit
contract is a true deposit contract, while for the banker it is a
loan or mutuum contract. In this case, Mr. X makes a
"demand" deposit of 1,000,000 m.u. in Bank A, and Bank A
receives the money not as a deposit, but as a loan it can freely
use, considering the depositor will not be aware of this use nor
be affected by it. Moreover, while keeping only a portion of
deposits on hand as a security reserve, the bank estimates it will
be able to comply with depositors' withdrawal requests.
These expectations are especially strong, given that under nor-
mal circumstances it is highly unlikely customers will attempt
to withdraw an amount exceeding the security margin or
reserve ratio. Experience appears to show this is true, and the
trust the bank has earned through years of properly safe-
guarding clients' deposits contributes to the unlikelihood of
such a predicament, as does the fact that many withdrawals
are offset by new deposits. If we suppose the banker considers
a 10-percent security reserve (also called a "reserve ratio") suf-
ficient to satisfy possible demands for deposit withdrawals,
then the other 90 percent of demand deposits, or 900,000 m.u.,
would be available to him to use to his own benefit. Using the
or whatever, returning the valuables before they are
redeemed so that no one will be the wiser. This form of theft
is known as embezzlement, which the dictionary defines as
"appropriating fraudulently to one's own use, as money or
property entrusted to one's care." (Rothbard, The Mystery of
Banking, p. 90)
For more on why the above activity should be legally classified as a
criminal act of misappropriation, see chapter 1.
The Credit Expansion Process 185
European accounting system, this economic event would be
represented in the following way:8
When Mr. X makes the demand deposit, a book entry
identical to number (7) is made, though this time it is not con-
sidered a memorandum entry.
Bank A
(10) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposit 1,000,000
(made by Mr. X)
Once the bank yields to the temptation to appropriate
most of the tantundem, which it should keep on hand and
available to the depositor, the following entry is made:
Bank A
(11) Debit Credit
900,000 Loan to Z Cash 900,000
At the moment the banker appropriates the money and
loans it to Z, an economic event of great significance occurs:
900,000 m.u. are created ex nihilo, or out of nothing. Indeed, Mr.
X's essential motive for making a demand deposit of 1,000,000
m.u. was the custody and safekeeping of the money, and with
good reason he subjectively believes he retains the complete
availability of it, just as if he had it in his pocket, and in a sense
better. To all intents and purposes, Mr. X still has 1,000,000 m.u.
8The description of the different accounting systems (the English and
the continental) and how they ultimately bring about identical eco-
nomic results is found in EA. Hayek, Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle
(Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley, [1933] 1975), pp. 154ff.
186 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
in cash as if the money were physically "in his possession,"
since according to his contract it remains fully available to him.
From an economic standpoint, there is no doubt the 1,000,000
m.u. Mr. X deposited in Bank A continue to contribute to his
cash balances. However, when the bank appropriates 900,000
m.u. from deposits and loans them to Z, it simultaneously gen-
erates additional purchasing power from nothing and transfers
it to Z, the borrower, who receives 900,000 m.u. It is clear that,
both subjectively and objectively, Z enjoys the full availability
of 900,000 m.u. beginning at that point and that these mone-
tary units are transferred to him.9 Therefore, there has been an
increase in the amount of money in circulation in the market, due to
beliefs held simultaneously and with good reason by two different
economic agents: one thinks he has 1,000,000 m.u. at his disposal,
and the other believes he has 900,000 m.u. at his disposal. In other
words, the bank's appropriation of 900,000 m.u. from a demand
deposit results in an increase equal to 900,000 m.u. in the aggregate
balances of money existing in the market. In contrast, the loan or
mutuum contract covered earlier involves no such occurrence.
We should also consider the location of the existing
money in the market from the time the banker appropriates
the deposit. The number of monetary units in the market has
clearly grown to 1,900,000, though these units exist in differ-
ent forms. We say there are 1,900,000 m.u. because different
economic agents subjectively believe they have at their dis-
posal 1,900,000 m.u. to exchange in the market, and money
consists of all generally-accepted mediums of exchange.
9Money is the only perfectly liquid asset. The bank's failure to comply
with a 100-percent reserve ratio on demand deposits brings about a seri-
ous economic situation in which two people (the original depositor and
the borrower) simultaneously believe they are free to use the same per-
fectly liquid sum of 900,000 m.u. It is logically impossible for two peo-
ple to simultaneously own (or have fully available to them) the same
perfectly liquid good (money). This is the fundamental economic argu-
ment behind the legal impracticability of the monetary irregular-deposit
contract with fractional reserves. It also explains that when this "legal
aberration" (in the words of Clemente de Diego) is imposed by the state
(in the form of a privilege — ius privilegium — given to the bank), it entails
the creation of new money (900,000 m.u.).
The Credit Expansion Process 187
Nevertheless the form of the money varies: Borrower Z pos-
sesses it in a different form from Mr. X, who made the deposit.
Indeed, Z has available to him 900,000 physical monetary units
(which we could call commodity money or, nowadays, paper
money or fiat money), while Depositor X has a checking account
containing a deposit of 1,000,000 m.u. Considering the bank has
kept 100,000 m.u. in its vault as a security reserve or reserve
ratio, the difference between 1,900,000 m.u. and the 1,000,000
m.u. existing in physical form is equal to the amount of money
the bank created from nothing. (A total money supply of
1,900,000 m.u. minus 900,000 physical m.u. in Z's possession
and 100,000 physical m.u. in the bank's vault equals 900,000
m.u. which do not physically exist anywhere.) As this money
lacks the corresponding backing and exists due to the confi-
dence Depositor X has in Bank A, it is called fiduciary money (or,
better, fiduciary media). It is important to emphasize that to all
intents and purposes demand deposits are like physical units;
that is, they are perfect money substitutes. The depositor can use
them to make payments at any time by issuing a check on
which he writes the sum he wishes to pay and giving instruc-
tions to the bank to make the payment. The portion of these
perfect money substitutes, or demand deposits, which is not
fully backed by physical monetary units in the bank's vault
(the 900,000 m.u. not backed by reserves in the present exam-
ple) is called fiduciary media. w
Demand deposits backed by cash reserves at the bank
(100,000 m.u. in our example) are also called primary deposits,
while the portion of demand deposits not backed by the
l°"If the money reserve kept by the debtor against the money-substi-
tutes issued is less than the total amount of such substitutes, we call that
amount of substitutes which exceeds the reserve fiduciary media." Mises,
Human Action, p. 430. Mises clarifies that it is not generally possible to
declare whether a particular money substitute is or is not a fiduciary
medium. When we write a check, we do not know (because the bank
does not directly inform us) what portion of the check's sum is backed
by physical monetary units. As a result, from an economic standpoint,
we do not know what portion of the money we are paying is a fiduciary
medium and what portion corresponds to physical monetary units.
188 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
bank's reserves (fiduciary media) is also called a secondary
deposit or derivative deposit. ,n
Once banks had violated the legal principle that no one may
appropriate a deposit made with them for safekeeping, and had
ceased to guard 100 percent of the tantundem, it was natural for
them to try to justify their activity and defend themselves with
the argument that they had actually received the money as if 'it
were a loan. In fact, if a banker considers the money received a
loan, then there is nothing improper in his conduct, and from
the economic and accounting viewpoint described in the previ-
ous section, he is only playing the legitimate, necessary role of
intermediary between lenders and borrowers. Nonetheless, an
essential difference arises here: the money is not handed over to
the bank as a loan, but as a deposit. In other words, when Mr. X
made his deposit, he did not have the slightest intention of
relinquishing the availability of present goods in exchange for a
somewhat higher figure (considering interest) of future goods.
Instead, his only desire was to improve the custody and safe-
keeping of his money and to receive other peripheral services
(cashier and bookkeeping services), while at all times retaining
the full, unaltered availability of the tantundem. This absence of
an exchange of present goods for future goods is precisely what
UThis terminology has become the most widespread, as a result of
Chester Arthur Phillips's now classic work. Phillips states:
a primary deposit is one growing out of a lodgement of cash
or its equivalent and not out of credit extended by the bank in
question . . . derivative deposits have their origins in loans
extended to depositors . . . they arise directly from a loan, or
are accumulated by a borrower in anticipation of the repay-
ment of a loan. (Bank Credit: A Study of the Principles and Fac-
tors Underlying Advances Made by Banks to Borrowers [New
York: Macmillan, (1920) 1931], pp. 34 and 40)
Nonetheless, we have a small objection to Phillips's definition of "deriv-
ative deposits" as deposits originating from loans. Though loans are
their most common source, derivative deposits are created the very
moment the bank uses, either for granting loans or any other purpose, a
portion of the deposits received, converting them ipso facto into fiduci-
ary media or derivative deposits. On this topic, see Richard H. Timber-
lake, "A Reassessment of C.A. Phillips's Theory of Bank Credit," History
of Political Economy 20 no. 2 (1988): 299-308.
The Credit Expansion Process 189
indicates we are faced with a radically different economic
event, one that involves the creation ex nihilo of 900,000 m.u. of
fiduciary media or derivative deposits when the bank loans 90
percent of the money it has in its vault.
In addition it is important to understand clearly that if the
bank uses the money to grant a loan to Z, as we have sup-
posed in our example and is usually the case, this loan does
entail the exchange of present goods for future goods, though
it is not hacked anywhere in the market by a necessary, previous
increase of 900,000 m.u. in voluntary saving. Indeed, the bank
creates from nothing money it loans to Z in the form of pres-
ent goods, while no one has been first obliged to increase his
savings by the amount of the loan. Mr. X, the original deposi-
tor, continues to subjectively believe he possesses the full
availability of the 1,000,000 m.u. he deposited in the bank; that
is, he thinks he has at his disposal 1,000,000 m.u. of a com-
pletely liquid asset (money). At the same time, Borrower Z
receives for his investments 900,000 m.u. of new liquidity
which has not come from anyone's savings. In short, two dif-
ferent people simultaneously believe they have at their full
disposal the same liquid asset of 900,000 m.u., which corre-
spond to the portion of the deposit of 1,000,000 m.u. which the
bank loaned to Z (derivative deposit). At this point it is obvi-
ous banks generate liquidity which is invested without any
prior saving. This phenomenon constitutes the main cause of
recurring economic crises and recessions, and we will exam-
ine its crucial economic importance in the following chapters.
Once the bank has given the loan to Z, the bank's balance
sheet appears as follows:
(12) Bank A
Balance Sheet
(End of the year)
Assets Liabilities
Cash 100,000 Demand deposit 1,000,000
Loans granted 900,000
Total Assets 1,000,000 Total Liabilities 1,000,000
190 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Clearly, the banker will tend to deceive himself, thinking
he has received his depositors' money as a loan. Furthermore,
it will never occur to him that by granting the loan to Business
Z he has created 900,000 m.u. ex nihilo, nor much less that he
has granted a loan without the prior backing of an actual
increase in saving by anyone. Moreover, the banker will con-
sider the natural counteraction between withdrawals and new
deposits, and in accordance with his "experience," he will
deem his decision to maintain a cash or security reserve of 10
percent adequate and the resulting cash reserve of 100,000
m.u. more than sufficient to satisfy requests for normal deposit
withdrawals by customers.12 The whole structure is made
possible by customers' faith that the bank will honor its future
commitments. The bank must build up this faith through the
impeccable custody and safekeeping of the money for an
extended period of time, without any misappropriation.13 It is
understandable that a banker may not be familiar with eco-
nomic theory and therefore not recognize the fundamental
economic events we have just described. It is more difficult to
excuse the fact that his misappropriation of deposits consti-
tutes a violation of traditional legal principles which, in the
absence of a theory to explain the social processes involved,
serve as the only safe guide to follow in order to avoid severe
social damage. However, any intelligent person, banker or not,
would surely be able to see some signs of what is really hap-
pening. Why is it necessary for the banker to maintain any
reserve ratio? Does he not realize that when he acts legitimately
as true intermediary between lenders and borrowers he need
not maintain any? Does he not understand, as Ropke states,
that his bank is "an institution which, finding it possible to hold
less cash than it promises to pay and living on the difference,
12Nevertheless we will demonstrate that the fractional-reserve banking
system itself regularly generates abnormal (massive) withdrawals of
deposits and cannot with a fractional-reserve ratio fulfill at all times
depositors' demands for these withdrawals.
13We are, of course, referring to the different historical stages in which
fractional-reserve banking emerged (prior to the existence of central
banks); we covered these in chapter 2.
The Credit Expansion Process 191
regularly promises more than it could actually pay should the
worse come to the worst"?14 In any case, these are simply indi-
cations which any practical person could understandably inter-
pret in a wide variety of ways. Legal principles exist for pre-
cisely this reason. They act as an "automatic pilot" for behavior
and facilitate cooperation between people, though given the
abstract nature of these principles, we may not be able to iden-
tify their exact role in the processes of social interaction.
As Mises correctly indicates, as long as confidence in the
bank is preserved, the bank will be able to continue using the
majority of deposited funds, and customers will remain
unaware that the bank lacks the necessary liquidity to meet all
of its commitments. It is as if the bank had found a permanent
source of financing in the creation of new money, a source it
will continue to tap as long as the public retains its faith in the
bank's ability to fulfill its commitments. In fact, as long as
these circumstances last, the bank will even be able to use its
newly created liquidity for covering its own expenses or for
any other purpose besides granting loans. In short, the ability
to create money ex nihilo generates wealth the banker can eas-
ily appropriate, provided customers do not doubt his good
conduct. The generation of this wealth is detrimental to many
third parties, each of whom suffers a share of the damage
caused by the banker's activities. It is impossible to identify
these individuals, and they are unlikely to recognize the harm
they suffer or to discover the identity of the perpetrator.15
14Wilhelm Ropke, Economics of the Free Society, trans. Patrick M. Boar-
man (Grove City, Pa.: Libertarian Press, 1994), p. 97.
15We will examine the process of loan creation and the resulting trans-
fer of wealth to bankers in our analysis of the effects fractional-reserve
banking has from the perspective of the entire banking system. Regard-
ing the fact that it is not necessary for fiduciary media to be lent (though
in practice this is always or almost always the case), Ludwig von Mises
states:
[i]t is known that some deposit banks sometimes open
deposit accounts without a money cover not only for the pur-
pose of granting loans, but also for the purpose of directly
procuring resources for production on their own behalf. More
than one of the modern credit and commercial banks has
192 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Though private bankers may often be unaware that their
ability to create new money ex nihilo (by using customers'
deposits to grant loans) constitutes a source of huge profits, and
although they may naively believe they are merely loaning a
part of what they receive, the majority of their profits still derive
from a general process in which they are immersed and the
implications of which they do not completely comprehend. We
will see this point confirmed later when we study the effects of
fractional-reserve banking in terms of the entire banking system.
One thing bankers understand perfectly, however, is that by
loaning most of the funds clients deposit, they make a much
larger profit than they would if they acted only as legitimate
intermediaries between lenders and borrowers — entries (1) to
(6) — or as mere providers of bookkeeping and cashier services —
entries (8) and (9). In fact on the loan made to Z, Bank A will earn
an interest rate of 15 percent of the amount of the loan (900.000
m.u.); that is, 135,000 m.u. The entry is as follows:
Bank A
(13) Debit Credit
135,000 Cash Revenue from interest
on loans 135,000
invested a part of its capital in this manner . . . the issuer of
fiduciary media may, however, regard the value of the fiduci-
ary media put into circulation as an addition to his income or cap-
ital. If he does this he will not take the trouble to cover the
increase in his obligations due to the issue by setting aside a
special credit fund out of his capital. He will pocket the prof-
its of the issue, which in the case of token coinage is called
seigniorage, as composedly as any other sort of income.
(Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 312; italics added)
In light of these considerations, it is not surprising that of all economic
institutions, banks generally display to the public the most spectacular,
luxurious buildings and spend the most disproportionate amount on
offices, payroll, etc. It is no less surprising that governments have been the
first to take advantage of banks' great power to create money.
The Credit Expansion Process
193
If we suppose the bank performs the cashier and book-
keeping services described earlier, which are typical of check-
ing accounts and generate an operating cost of 20,000 m.u. in
our example, then by covering these costs with interest
income it is even able to provide these services free of charge.
The following entry is made to record the operating costs:
Bank A
(14)
Debit
Credit
20,000 Operating costs
of services
Cash
20,000
Although the bank would be completely justified in continu-
ing to charge 30,000 m.u. (3 percent of the amount deposited) for
its services, and although it may offer these services free to its
depositors to attract more deposits and to pursue the more or
less covert objective of using these deposits to grant loans, it still
makes a very large profit, equal to the 135,000 m.u. it receives in
interest, minus the 20,000 m.u. it pays in operating costs.
In fact the bank's profit of 115,000 m.u. is more than double
the legitimate profit it would make as a mere financial inter-
mediary between lenders and borrowers and more than ten
times what it would bring in by charging its customers for
cashier and bookkeeping services.16 The bank's income state-
ment would hence appear as follows:
(15)
Expenses
Ban]
Income '
(During
<A
5tati
the
sment
year)
Revenues
Operating costs
Net Income
20,000
115,000
Interest received 135,000
Total Debit
135,000
Total Credit 135,000
16See footnote number 25.
194 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
After carrying out all of the operations, the bank's balance
sheet would appear as follows:
(16)
Assets
Bank A
Balance Sheet
(End of the year)
Liabilities
Cash
Loans granted
215,000
900,000
Owner's Equity
(Profit for the year) 115,000
Demand deposits 1,000,000
Total Assets
1,115,000
Total Liabilities 1,115,000
Accounting Practices in the English-speaking World
English banking practices reflect fewer reservations about
plainly recording in the accounts the creation ex nihilo of fiduci-
ary media. Indeed, as Hayek states, "English banking practice
credits the account of the customer with the amount borrowed
before the latter is actually utilized."17
In English-speaking countries, when a customer makes a
demand deposit of 1,000,000 m.u. at a bank, the first account
entry made corresponds exactly to that made in the continen-
tal system:
Bank A
(17) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposits 1,000,000
17Hayek, Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle, p. 154. Hayek goes on to
say: "Granted this assumption, the process leading to an increase of cir-
culating media is comparatively easy to survey and therefore hardly
ever disputed."
The Credit Expansion Process 195
The difference between the Anglo-Saxon and the conti-
nental system lies in the entry the English-speaking banker
makes upon deciding to grant a loan to Z, and hence to make
self-interested use of 900,000 m.u. the banker holds in his
vault in excess of his security reserve. In Anglo-Saxon banking
practices, an entry is made to record the loan under Assets,
and at the same time a checking account in favor of the bor-
rower is opened under Liabilities for the sum of the loan
(900,000 m.u.). The entry looks like this:
Bank A
(18) Debit Credit
900,000 Loans granted Demand deposits 900,000
Thus, in this respect the English custom is much more
straightforward and appropriate to the actual economic events
than the continental custom. Anglo-Saxon accounting practices
distinctly reflect the ex nihilo creation of 900,000 m.u. which
results when demand deposit funds are loaned to Z. After the
loan is granted, the bank's balance sheet appears as follows:
Bank A
Balance Sheet
(19) Assets
Liabilities
Cash 1,000,000
Demand deposits 1,900,000
Loans 900,000
Total Assets 1,900,000
Total Liabilities 1,900,000
In keeping with the English custom, this balance sheet
clearly reveals that the moment the bank grants a loan of
196 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
900,000 m.u., it simultaneously generates deposits ex nihilo for
the sum of 900,000 m.u. In other words, the bank places at the
disposal of the borrower up to 900,000 m.u., which raises the
balance of demand deposits to 1,900,000 m.u. Of this amount,
1,000,000 m.u. correspond to physical monetary units; that is,
to primary deposits. The other 900,000 m.u. reflect fiduciary
media created from nothing; in other words, derivative or sec-
ondary deposits.
If we again suppose for the sake of argument that the
banker regards as a loan the money placed with him on
demand deposit, then because this loan derives from a mone-
tary irregular-deposit contract, which by definition stipulates
no term for the return of the money (as it is "on demand"), the
"loan" in question would clearly have no term. Furthermore,
if the depositors trust the bank, the banker will rightly expect
them to withdraw only a small fraction of their deposits under
normal conditions. As a result, even though the "loan" he has
supposedly received from his depositors is "on demand," the
banker may with good reason consider it a "loan" he will never
have to return, since it ultimately lacks a term. Obviously if the
banker receives a loan believing he will never have to return it
(and in most cases he does not even have to pay interest on it,
though this is not fundamental to our argument), then rather
than a loan, we are dealing with a de facto gift the banker gives
himself and charges to the funds of his depositors. This
means that although for accounting purposes the bank recog-
nizes a debt (parallel to the loan granted) in the form of
"demand deposits" (derivative or secondary deposits for the
sum of 900,000 m.u.), under ordinary circumstances what the
bank actually does is to create from nothing a perennial
source of financing which the banker supposes he will never
have to return. Therefore, despite the impression the account
books give, the banker ultimately appropriates these funds
and considers them his property. In short, banks amass
tremendous wealth, mainly by generating means of payment
to the detriment of third parties. The harm done is very gen-
eralized and diluted, however, and takes the form of a grad-
ual relative loss of purchasing power. This phenomenon
occurs constantly and stems from the banking system's ex
nihilo creation of means of payment. This continuous transfer
The Credit Expansion Process 197
of wealth to bankers persists as long as the banking business
suffers no disruptions and assets keep increasing bankers' bal-
ances in the form of loans and investments backed by the cor-
responding deposits created from nothing. The full recogni-
tion of this never-ending source of financing and of the
enormous wealth banks have accumulated to the detriment of
other citizens (which still contribute to the banks' balances,
disguised as active investments backed by "deposits") will
prove very important in the last chapter, when we propose a
model for changing and reforming the current banking sys-
tem. Though these funds in fact only benefit banks and gov-
ernments, and though from an economic and accounting
standpoint they belong to alleged depositors, in all reality they
do not belong to anyone, since these depositors view their
deposits as perfect money substitutes. Therefore, as we will
see when we study the process of banking reform, these
resources could be used to pursue important goals in the pub-
lic interest. Such goals might include eliminating the remain-
ing public debt or even financing a process of social-security
reform to accomplish a transition from a pay-as-you-go public
system to an entirely private system based on investment.
Let us return now to our example. As Borrower Z gradu-
ally uses his money by writing checks on the account opened
for him by the bank, the two banking systems, the Anglo-
Saxon and the Continental, would begin to reflect the bank's
account records in an increasingly similar way. Let us suppose
the borrower withdraws his loan in two portions, one on each
of two separate, consecutive occasions. On the first occasion
(tx) he withdraws 500,000 m.u., and on the second (t2), 400,000
m.u. The accounting entries would appear as follows:
Bank A (t2)
(20) Debit Credit
500,000 Demand deposits Cash 500,000
(part of the loan
withdrawn by Z)
198 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Bank A (t2)
(21) Debit Credit
400,000 Demand deposits Cash 400,000
(the remainder of the loan)
After the borrower withdraws the entire loan, the bank's
balance sheet looks like this:
(22) Bank A
Balance Sheet
Assets Liabilities
Cash 100,000 Demand deposits 1,000,000
Loans 900,000
Total Assets 1,000,000 Total Liabilities 1,000,000
This balance sheet corresponds exactly with balance sheet
(12), which we obtained using continental accounting meth-
ods and which comprises demand deposits of 1,000,000 m.u.
made by customers and backed by 100,000 m.u. in cash (the
reserve ratio or requirement) and 900,000 m.u. in loans granted
to Z. Therefore once the borrower withdraws his entire loan,
the accounting records of both systems are identical: 1,900,000
m.u. exist in the market, of which 900,000 m.u. correspond to
fiduciary media (the portion of demand deposits which are not
backed by cash balances at the bank, in this case 1,000,000 m.u.
minus 100,000 m.u.) and 1,000,000 m.u. are physical monetary
units (the 100,000 m.u. in the bank's vault and the 900,000 m.u.
that have been handed over to Borrower Z and which he has
already used for his own purposes).18
18The banking practices of the English-speaking world have been
adopted in Spain as well, as evidenced, among other sources, by Pedro
The Credit Expansion Process 199
The main advantage of the Anglo-Saxon accounting sys-
tem is that it demonstrates, as Herbert J. Davenport pointed
out in 1913, that banks "do not lend their deposits, but rather,
by their own extensions of credit, create the deposits."19 In
other words, banks do not act as financial intermediaries when
they loan money from demand deposits, since this activity
does not constitute mediation between lenders and borrowers.
Pedraja Garcia's book, Contabilidad y andlisis de balances de la banca, vol. 1:
Principios generates y contabilizacion de operaciones (Madrid: Centro de For-
macion del Banco de Espana, 1992), esp. pp. 116-209.
19Herbert J. Davenport, The Economics of Enterprise (New York: Augus-
tus M. Kelley, [1913] 1968), p. 263. Fourteen years later, W.F Crick
expressed the same idea in his article, "The Genesis of Bank Deposits,"
Economica (June 1927): 191-202. Most of the public and even some schol-
ars as distinguished as Joaquin Garrigues fail to understand that banks
are mainly creators of loans and deposits, rather than mediators
between lenders and borrowers. In his book Contratos bancarios (pp.
31-32 and 355), Garrigues continues to insist that banks are primarily
credit mediators that "loan money which has been lent to them" (p. 355)
and also that bankers
loan what they are lent. They are credit mediators, business-
men who mediate between those who need money for busi-
ness deals and those who wish to invest their money prof-
itably. Banks, however, may engage in two different types of
activities: they may act as mere mediators who bring together
contracting parties (direct credit mediation) or they may carry
out a double operation consisting of borrowing money in
order to later lend it (indirect credit mediation), (p. 32)
Garrigues clearly does not realize that, with respect to banks' most
important enterprise (accepting deposits while maintaining a fractional
reserve), banks actually grant loans from nothing and back them with
deposits they also create from nothing. Therefore, rather than credit
mediators, they are ex nihilo creators of credit. Garrigues also subscribes
to the popular misconception that "from an economic standpoint," the
bank's profit consists of "the difference between the amount of interest it
pays on the deposit operation and the amount it earns on the loan oper-
ation" (p. 31). Though banks appear to derive their profit mainly from an
interest rate differential, we know that in practice the chief source of their
profit is the ex nihilo creation of money, which provides banks with
financing indefinitely. Banks appropriate these funds for their own ben-
efit and charge interest on them to boot. In short, bankers create money
from nothing, loan it and require that it be returned with interest.
200 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Instead banks simply grant loans against deposits they create
from nothing {fiduciary media) and which therefore have not
first been entrusted to them by any third party as deposits of
physical monetary units. Not even under the continental
accounting system are banks financial intermediaries, since
true original depositors turn their money over for custody
and safekeeping, not as a loan to the bank. Furthermore we
have already shown that by reducing to a fraction the num-
ber of monetary units they keep on hand (reserve ratio),
banks create fiduciary media in proportion to the total sum of
their unbacked deposits. Thus, by a somewhat more abstract
analysis, the continental accounting system leads us to the
same conclusion as the Anglo-Saxon system: rather than
credit intermediaries, banks are creators of loans and
deposits, or fiduciary media. Nevertheless, the process is
much more obvious and easier to understand when evalu-
ated according to Anglo-Saxon accounting criteria, because
from the beginning this method reflects the fact that the bank
creates deposits ex nihilo and grants loans against them.
Therefore, no abstract intellectual exercise is required to
understand the process.
From the perspective of economic theory, the chief disad-
vantage of both accounting systems is that they reflect a much
lower volume of deposit creation and loan concession than
truly exists. That is, they reveal only a fraction of the total vol-
ume of deposits and loans which the banking system as a
whole is capable of creating. Only when we consider the effects
of fractional-reserve banking from the standpoint of the overall
banking system will this important fact be confirmed. However,
first it is necessary to identify the limits to deposit creation
and loan concession by an isolated bank.
An Isolated Bank's Capacity for Credit Expansion and
Deposit Creation
We will now consider the limits to an isolated bank's
capacity to create loans and expand deposits from nothing.
The following variables are involved:
d: the money originally deposited in the bank's vault;
The Credit Expansion Process 201
dx: the money or reserves which leave the bank as a result
of loans it grants;
x: the bank's maximum possible credit expansion start-
ing from d;
c: the cash or reserves ratio maintained by the bank,
in keeping with the banker's experience and his care-
ful judgment on how much money he needs to honor
his commitments; and
k: the proportion of loans granted which, on average,
remain unused by borrowers at any given time.
From the above definitions it is clear that the reserves
which leave the bank, dx, will be equal to the loans granted
multiplied by the percentage of these loans which is used by
borrowers; that is:
[1] <*! = (!- fyx
In addition, if we consider that the money which leaves
the bank, dv is equal to the amount originally deposited, d,
minus the minimum amount kept on reserve, cd, in relation to
the money originally deposited, plus ckx, in relation to the
percentage of loans which on average remains unused, then
we have:
[2] dx = d- (cd + ckx)
If we now replace dx in formula [2] with the value of dx in
[1], we have:
(1 -k)x = d- (cd + ckx)
Next we work to solve the equation, factor out common
factors and isolate x:
(1 - k)x = d - cd - ckx
202 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(1 - k)x + ckx = d-cd
x(l-k + ck) = d(l - c)
Therefore the maximum credit expansion, x, an isolated
bank could bring about ex nihilo would be:20
T_ d(l-c)
l-k(l- c)
20Significantly however, Ludwig von Mises, in his important theoretical
treatises on money, credit and economic cycles, has always resisted bas-
ing his analysis on the study of the credit expansion multiplier we have
just worked out in the text. These writings of Mises all focus on the dis-
ruptive effects of creating loans unbacked by an increase in actual sav-
ing, and the fractional-reserve banking system which carries out such
loan creation by generating deposits or fiduciary media. Mises's resist-
ance to the multiplier is perfectly understandable, considering the aver-
sion the great Austrian economist felt to the use of mathematics in eco-
nomics and more specifically to the application of concepts which, like
the bank multiplier, may be justly labeled "mechanistic," often inexact
and even deceptive, mainly because they do not take into account the
process of entrepreneurial creativity and the evolution of subjective time.
Furthermore, from the strict viewpoint of economic theory, it is unneces-
sary to work out the multiplier mathematically to grasp the basic concept
of credit and deposit expansion and how this process inexorably pro-
vokes economic crises and recessions. (Ludwig von Mises's chief theo-
retical goal was to arrive at such an understanding.) Nevertheless the
bank multiplier offers the advantage of simplifying and clarifying the
explanation of the continual process of credit and deposit expansion.
Therefore, for the purpose of illustration, the multiplier reinforces our
theoretical argument. The first to employ the bank multiplier in a theo-
retical analysis of economic crises was Herbert J. Davenport in his book,
The Economics of Enterprise, (esp. chap. 17, pp. 254-331) a work we have
already cited. Nonetheless RA. Hayek deserves recognition for incorpo-
rating the theory of the bank credit expansion multiplier to the Austrian
theory of economic cycles (Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle, pp.
152ff.). See also note 28, in which Marshall, in 1887, provides a detailed
description of how to arrive at the most simplified version of the bank
multiplier formula.
The Credit Expansion Process 203
Or to put it another way:
[3] x= d^~C^
1 + k(c - 1)
As formula [3] makes clear, the reserve ratio, c, and the
average percentage of loans which remain unused, k, have
opposite effects on an isolated bank's capacity to create loans
and deposits. That is, the lower c is and the higher k is, the
higher x will be. The economic logic of formula [3] is therefore
very plain: the higher the reserve ratio estimated necessary by
the bank, the fewer the loans it will be able to grant; in con-
trast, if the reserve ratio or requirement remains unchanged,
the fewer the loaned funds the bank believes, on average, will
be withdrawn by borrowers, the more money it will have
available for expanding loans.
Up until now we have assumed k to be the average per-
centage of loans unused by borrowers. However, according to
C.A. Phillips, k can include other phenomena which have the
same ultimate effect.21 For instance, k can stand for the very
great likelihood that, in a market where few banks operate, a
borrower will make payments to some other customers of his
own bank. It is assumed that when this happens, these cus-
tomers will deposit their checks in their own accounts at the
same bank, thus keeping money from leaving the bank. This
phenomenon has the same ultimate effect as an increase in the
average percentage of loans unused by borrowers. The fewer
the banks operating in the market, the higher k will be; the
higher k is, the less money will leave the bank; the less money
leaves the bank, the greater the bank's capacity for expanding
loans. One of the strongest motivations behind the trend
toward bank mergers and acquisitions which has always been
obvious in fractional-reserve banking systems is precisely the
desire to increase k.22 In fact, the more banks merge and the
21Phillips, Bank Credit, pp. 57-59.
22Other forces exist to explain the process of bank mergers. They all
stem from banks' attempt to minimize the undesirable consequences
204 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
larger their subsequent market share, the greater the possibil-
ity that the citizens who receive the banks' fiduciary media
will be their own customers. Therefore both k and the corre-
sponding capacity to create loans and deposits from nothing
will be increased and the resulting profit much greater. The
value of k is also increased when monetary deposits are made
in other banks, which in turn expand their loans, and their
borrowers ultimately deposit in the original bank a significant
portion of the new money they receive. This phenomenon also
causes an increase in the bank's monetary reserves and there-
fore in its capacity for credit expansion.
For example, if we suppose that the reserve ratio or
requirement, c, is 10 percent; that the proportion of loans
which remain unused, k (which also includes the effects of a
larger number of bank customers, as well as other factors), is
they suffer as a result of their violation, via the corresponding state priv-
ilege, of the essential principles behind the monetary irregular-deposit
contract. One advantage banks gain from mergers and acquisitions is
the ability to establish centralized cash reserves, which are kept avail-
able for fulfilling withdrawal requests at any location where a higher
than average number of them may be made. In a market where many
banks operate, this benefit is lost, since each bank is then obliged to
maintain separate, relatively higher cash reserves. Public authorities
also urge rapid mergers, because they hope it will make it easier for
them to prevent liquidity crises, implement monetary policy and regu-
late the banking industry. We will later analyze bankers' persistent
desire to increase the volume of their deposits, since as the formula
shows, the sum of deposits forms the basis for the multiple expansion of
loans and deposits, which banks create ex nihilo and from which they
derive so many benefits. On bank mergers, see Costantino Bresciani-
Turroni, Curso de economia politica, vol. 2: Problemas de economia politica
(Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1961), pp. 144-45. In any case, it
is important to recognize that the irresistible bank-merger process
results from state interventionism in the field of finance and banking, as
well as from the privilege that allows banks to operate 'with fractional
reserves on demand deposits, against traditional legal principles. In a
free-market economy with no government intervention, where eco-
nomic agents are subject to legal principles, this continual trend toward
bank mergers would disappear, banks' size would be practically imma-
terial and there would be a tendency toward a very high number of
entirely solvent banks.
The Credit Expansion Process 205
20 percent; and that the sum of the original deposits, d, made
in the bank is equal to 1,000,000 m.u.; then, by substituting
these values into formula [3] we obtain:
1,000,000 (1 - 0.1)
[4] x = — = 1,097,560 m.u.
1 + 0.2 (0.1 - 1)
Therefore we see that a bank which accepts 1,000,000 m.u.
in demand deposits, and which maintains a reserve ratio of 10
percent and a A; of 20 percent will be able to grant loans not
only for the sum of 900,000 m.u., as we assumed for the pur-
pose of illustration in entries (18) and following, but for a con-
siderably larger amount, 1,097,560 m.u. Hence, even in the
case of an isolated bank, the capacity for credit expansion and
ex nihilo deposit creation is 22 percent greater than we initially
supposed in entries (18) and following.23 As a result, we
should modify our earlier accounting entries to reflect that, in
keeping with the Anglo-Saxon accounting system, when c=0.1
and k-0.2, the bank will be able to expand its credit by
1,097,560 m.u., instead of the 900,000 we assumed before (that
is, the bank's capacity for credit expansion is 22 percent
greater). The modified journal entries and corresponding bal-
ance sheet would appear as follows (compare with initial
entries 18 and 19):
23Even though, from the standpoint of an isolated bank, it appears as if
the bank were loaning a portion of its deposits, the reality is that even
an isolated bank creates loans ex nihilo for a sum larger than that origi-
nally deposited. This demonstrates that the principal source of deposits
is not depositors, but rather loans banks create from nothing. (Deposits
are a secondary result of these loans.) This will be even clearer when we
study the overall banking system. C.A. Phillips expresses this fact by
stating, "It follows that for the banking system, deposits are chiefly the
offspring of loans." See Phillips, Bank Credit, p. 64, and the quotation
from Taussig in note 63, chapter 5.
206 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Bank A
(23) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposits 1,000,000
(checking accounts)
1,097,560 Loans granted Demand deposits 1,097,560
(newly-created deposits)
These entries correspond to an original deposit of
1,000,000 m.u. and an isolated bank's ex nihilo creation of loans
and deposits for the sum of 1,097,560 m.u. The value of k (0.2)
indicates that, on average, borrowers only withdraw 80 per-
cent of the funds they are lent. When this withdrawal is made
(and even if a greater amount is withdrawn, when some of the
final recipients of the money are also customers of the original
bank and deposit their money there), the following entry is
recorded:24
24Former continental accounting methods are more complex. However,
it is possible to arrive at balance sheet (25) by supposing that the state-
ment k=0.2, instead of referring to the percentage of loan funds unused
(which, as we know, this system does not reflect), represents the pro-
portion of the public which does business regularly with the bank and
therefore will deposit funds back into it. In this case, the entries would
appear as follows:
Bank A
(26) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposits 1,000,000
Upon loaning 900,000 m.u., the bank would make the following entry:
Bank A
Debit Credit
900,000 Loans Cash 900,000
The Credit Expansion Process 207
Bank A
(24) Debit Credit
878,048 Demand deposits Cash 878,048
(80% of 1,097,560)
The bank's balance sheet would appear as follows:
If we suppose that 20 percent of the 900,000 m.u. which leave the bank's
vault will again be deposited in the same bank, and that 90 percent of
that amount will then be loaned, etc., the entries appear as follows:
(27) Debit Credit
180,000 Cash Demand deposits 180,000
When 90 percent of this amount is loaned:
Bank A
(28) Debit Credit
162,000
Loans
32,400
Cash
29,160
Loans
5,832
Cash
5,248
Loans
Cash
162,000
Demand deposits
32,400
Cash
29,160
Demand deposits
5,832
Cash
5,248
We have supposed that 20 percent of each loan granted has returned
to the bank's vault, given that the final recipients of that proportion of
funds loaned are customers of the bank.
Therefore, a balance sheet drawn up according to the continental sys-
tem would look like this:
208
(25)
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
c
Assets
Bank A
Balance Sheet
=0.1 and k=0.2
Liabilities
Cash 121,952
Loans 1,097,560
Demand deposits 1,219,512
Total Assets 1,219,512
Total Liabilities 1,219,512
The Case of a Very Small Bank
Let us now consider a particular type of isolated bank: a
very small or "Lilliputian" bank; that is, one in which k-0.
(29)
Assets
Cash
Bank A
Balance Sheet
(By the continental system)
c=0.1 k=0.2
Liabilities
121,824 Demand deposits 1,218,232
Loans
1,096,408
Total Assets 1,218,232
Total Liabilities 1,218,232
These figures are practically identical to those in balance sheet (25).
They do not match exactly because our example stops at the third repe-
tition of the loan-deposit process. If we had continued to follow the
process, the numbers in balance sheet (29) would have become more
and more similar to those in (25), and they eventually would have
matched exactly.
The Credit Expansion Process 209
This means borrowers immediately withdraw the entire
amount of their loans, and those to whom they make payments
are not customers of the same bank as the borrowers. If k=0,
then by substituting this value into formula [3] we obtain for-
mula [5]:
[5] x = d(l- c)
And since in our example d - 1,000,000 m.u. and c - 0.1,
then:
x = 1,000,000(1 - 0.1) = 1,000,000 • 0.9 = 900,000 m.u.
This is precisely the sum of deposits or fiduciary media
created ex nihilo which appears in entries (11) and (18). Never-
theless, we saw in the last section that in practice, even if k is
only slightly larger than 0, an isolated bank can create a con-
siderably larger amount of fiduciary media. (If k-0.2, it can
create 22 percent more, or 1,097,560 m.u. instead of the 900,000
m.u. in the first example.) This is true whether the bank uses
the continental accounting system or the Anglo-Saxon system,
and the sum created may even exceed the total of original
deposits in the isolated bank.
With this in mind, it is easy to understand why banks com-
pete as fiercely as they do to attract the largest possible num-
ber of deposits and customers. Bankers try to obtain as much
money as possible in the form of deposits, because they are
capable of expanding credit for an even greater amount than
the volume of their deposits. Thus, the greater the volume, the
more the bank will be able to expand the corresponding credit.
Bankers try to attract as many customers as they can, because
the more customers they have, the larger k will be; and the
larger k is, the greater their capacity to expand loans and gen-
erate deposits. Most importantly, bankers are technically
unable to discern whether their growth policies lead to a
broadening of their individual spheres of activity at the
expense of other banks, or whether their policies ultimately
result in a generalized increase in credit expansion involving
the entire banking system, or whether both occur at once.
210 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Banks expand credit and deposits on their own and also par-
ticipate in processes which bring about even greater credit
and deposit expansion in the banking system as a whole.
Moreover, in this process banks strive to play an increasingly
important role with respect to other banks, and as a result they
continually provide fresh impetus to credit expansion on the
level of individual banks and in the banking system as a
whole. In any case, A; is a crucial factor in determining a bank's
earning power. Competition between banks keeps k signifi-
cantly below 1, however each bank fights to continually raise
the value of its k factor. To do so banks take advantage of their
opportunities (with respect to geographic expansion, the abil-
ity to exclude or take over competitors and the development
of competitive advantages).25 Though a k factor equal to one is
impossible for an isolated bank (except in the case of a monop-
olistic bank), k values significantly greater than zero are very
common, and under almost all circumstances, banks make a
supreme effort to increase k. Among other phenomena, this
explains the constant pressure they face to merge with other
banks.
For illustrative purposes, we have compiled the following
table of different combinations of reserve ratios, c, and per-
centages of loans unused or customers banking with the same
institution, k, which allow an isolated bank to alone double its
money supply (by substituting these values into formula [3],
we obtain x-d).
Reserve ratio "c" Percentage of loans unused "k"
k= — ^— (x = d = l)
1 - c
25In some cases banks even pay interest to their checking-account hold-
ers in order to attract and keep new deposits. As a result, they ultimately
reduce the large profit margins reflected in entry (15). This does not
affect our essential argument nor banks' capacity to create deposits,
their main source of profit. In the words of Mises, in this competitive
process "some banks have gone too far and endangered their solvency."
Mises, Human Action, p. 464.
The Credit Expansion Process 211
2 percent 2.04 percent
5 percent 5.26 percent
7 percent 7.52 percent
13 percent 14.94 percent
15 percent 17.64 percent
17 percent 20.48 percent
20 percent 25.00 percent
Credit Expansion and Ex Nihilo Deposit
Creation by a Sole, Monopolistic Bank
Let us now suppose that k-1. We are dealing either with a
sole, monopolistic bank in which borrowers are obliged,
because there is no other, to maintain as deposits all funds
they are lent; or a situation exists in which all final recipients
of payments made by borrowers of the bank are also clients of
the bank. (This "ideal" goal would be reached at the merger of
all remaining megabanks.) When we substitute the value k=\
into formula [3], we obtain:
_ d(l-c)
[6] x = —
Returning to our example in which d=l,000,000 m.u. and
c=0.1, if we substitute these values into the formula, we
obtain:
1,000,000(1-0.1) 1,000,000-0.9 900,000
[7] x = - ■ = - = = 9,000,000 m.u.
0.1 0.1 0.1
In this case, the bank could alone create ex nihilo loans and
deposits or fiduciary media for the sum of 9,000,000 m.u.,
which means it could multiply its total money supply by ten
(1,000,000 m.u. originally deposited, plus 9,000,000 m.u. in the
form of fiduciary media or deposits created from nothing to
back the loans granted by the bank).
212 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Following the example of Bresciani-Turroni,26 and assum-
ing all payment transactions are carried out between cus-
tomers of the same bank (given that it is monopolistic, or
because certain circumstances exist which produce this situa-
tion), we will now use accounting records to show the process
leading to this result.
We will now follow the traditional continental system (as
opposed to the Anglo-Saxon) in which all payments are regis-
tered in the cash account. The following represents the journal
at moments ti, t2, t3, . . . t9, etc., and reflects the bank's practice
of repetitively granting its own clients loans for an amount
equal to 90 percent of the funds it receives in cash. The clients
withdraw the full amount of the loan, but because they have
no account in any other bank (or there is no other bank in soci-
ety), they ultimately deposit the money they receive back into
the same bank. This permits the bank, in turn, to grant new
loans and generate new deposits, and the process is repeated
again and again:
(30)
Bank A
(Journal of the year's operations)
Debit Credit
tj 1,000,000 Cash Demand deposits
made by Mr. X 1,000,000
t2 900,000 Loans to U Cash 900,000
Let us suppose that U withdraws the entire amount of his
loan and pays his creditor, A. A is also a customer of U's bank
and deposits the 900,000 m.u. he receives. The following
entries result:
26Bresciani-Turroni, Curso de economia, vol. 2: Problemas de economia
politica, pp. 133-38.
The Credit Expansion Process
213
t3 900,000 Cash
t4 810,000 Loans to V
Demand deposits
made by A
900,000
Cash
810,000
We will assume that Borrower V withdraws his money
and pays Creditor B, who is also a customer of the bank and
deposits his money back into it. This repetitive process con-
tinues, producing the following journal entries:
t5 810,000 Cash
t6 729,000 Loans to Y
t7 729,000 Cash
t8 656,000 Loans to Z
t9 656,000 Cash
Demand deposits
made by B
810,000
Cash
729,000
Demand deposits
made by C
729,000
Cash
656,000
Demand deposits
made by D
656,000
This occurs again and again, until at the end of the year the
bank's total deposits equal:
[8]
1,000,000 + 1,000,000 x 0.9 + 1,000,000 x 0.92 + 1,000,000 x 0.93 +
1,000,000 x 0.94 + ... = 1,000,000(1 + 0.9 + 0.92 + 0.93 + 0.94 + ...)
214 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The above expression represents the sum of the terms in a
geometrical progression. The terms increase and have a com-
mon ratio of 0.9. 27
In our example, r=0.9 and a=l,000,000 m.u., and hence the
sum of the terms would be equal to:
[13] _^_ = 1,000,000 = 1,000,000 = 10,000,000 m.u.
\-r 1-0.9 0.1
27The sum of the sequence:
[9] Sn = a + ar + ar1 ... + arn~^; if multiplied by the common ratio r,
is:
[10] rSn = ar + ar2- + ar3 ... + arn'^ + arn; by subtracting [10] from [9],
we obtain:
Sn - rSn = a - arn; and factoring out the common factor on both
sides:
Sn(\ - r) = a(l - rn); then we isolate Sn:
n(l - rn)
[11] Sn = ; and when r <\, rn approaches 0
1 -r
fl(l - rn) a
and the Lim Sn = Lim = -if \r\ < 1
1 - r 1 - r
Therefore we may conclude that:
[12] Sn= a ;if \r\ <1
\-r
The Greek sophist Zeno was the first to pose the problem of adding the
terms in a sequence with a common ratio less than one. He addressed
the problem in the fifth century B.C., posing the well-known question of
whether or not the athlete Achilles would be able to catch the turtle. The
problem was not satisfactorily solved, however, because Zeno failed to
realize that infinite series with a common ratio less than one have a con-
vergent sum (not a divergent sum, like he believed). See The Concise
Encyclopedia of Mathematics, W. Gellert, H. Kustner, M. Hellwich and H.
Kastner, eds. (New York: Van Nostrand, 1975), p. 388.
The Credit Expansion Process 215
If we keep in mind that d represents the 1,000,000 m.u.
originally deposited, and that r-l-c; that is, r= 1-0. 1=0.9, then
clearly the sum of all the bank's deposits (original and sec-
ondary) would be:
[14] d _ _d_
1 - (1 - c) ' c
Thus, the total volume of deposits in a monopolistic bank
(or in a bank where all those who receive money from the
bank's borrowers also ultimately have their accounts) would
be equal to the value of the original deposits, d, divided by the
reserve ratio, c.
Formula [14] is the simplest version of the so-called bank
multiplier, and it is identical to formula [27], which yields the
same result for a banking system of multiple small banks and
appears to have been worked out for the first time by Alfred
Marshall in 1887.28
We could use the following formula to calculate the net
credit expansion the bank brings about ex nikilo (in other
28This is how Marshall describes the procedure which led him to this
formula:
I should consider what part of its deposits a bank could lend,
and then I should consider what part of its loans would be
redeposited with it and with other banks and, vice versa,
what part of the loans made by other banks would be
received by it as deposits. Thus I should get a geometrical
progression; the effect being that if each bank could lend two-
thirds of its deposits, the total amount of loaning power got
by the banks would amount to three times what it otherwise
would be. If it could lend four-fifths, it will then be five times;
and so on. The question how large a part of its deposits a
bank can lend depends in a great measure on the extent on
which the different banks directly or indirectly pool their
reserves. But this reasoning, I think, has never been worked
out in public, and it is very complex. (Alfred Marshall, "Mem-
oranda and Evidence before the Gold and Silver Commis-
sion," December 19, 1887, in Official Papers by Alfred Marshall
[London: Royal Economic Society, Macmillan, 1926], p. 37)
216
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
words, the deposits or fiduciary media generated from noth-
ing to make the credit expansion possible):
[15]
A
c
d
A.
c
dc
c
Now we factor out common factors:
[16] x = rf(! ~ c)
c
The above formula coincides with [6].
In fact, when <i=i,000,000 m.u. and c-0.1, in the case of a
monopolistic bank, the net credit expansion would be equal
to:
[17] x = i,ooo,ooo(i-o.i) = 9/000/000 mu.
0.1
Therefore the balance sheet of Bank A, a monopolistic
bank, would ultimately appear as follows:
(31)
I
Sank A
(Monopolist)
Balance Sheet
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
1,000,000
Demand deposits
Loans to U
900,000
ByX
1,000,000
Loans to V
810,000
By A
900,000
Loans to Y
729,000
ByB
810,000
Loans to Z
656,000
ByC
729,000
ByD
656,000
Total Assets 10,000,000
Total Liabilities 10,000,000
The Credit Expansion Process 217
With only 1,000,000 m.u. in original deposits safeguarded
in its vault, Bank A, a monopolist, has expanded credit by
granting loans for the sum of 9,000,000 m.u. and creating from
nothing 9,000,000 m.u. in new deposits or fiduciary media to
back these loans.29
5
Credit Expansion and New Deposit Creation
by the Entire Banking System
We have already observed the great capacity isolated
banks have for creating fiduciary loans and deposits. In fact,
they are normally able to double their money supply on their
own. We will now see how the fractional-reserve banking sys-
tem as a whole generates ex nihilo a much larger volume of
29Also relevant is the formula for the maximum credit expansion an iso-
lated bank can bring about based not on the money it receives in origi-
nal deposits, but on the reserves it holds, r, in excess of the required
amount, cd. In this case, the decrease in reserves which results from the
new expansion x(l - k) must be equal to the excess reserves, r, minus the
reserve ratio corresponding to the portion of loans unused, k ■ c ■ x. In
other words:
[18] (l-k)x = r-k-c-x
k ■ c ■ x + (1 - k)x = r
x(kc + 1 - k) = r
[19]
kc + 1 - k
It, as in our example, we suppose that an original deposit of 1,000,000
m.u. is made, c=0.1 and k=0.2, the excess of reserves is precisely
r=900,000, and therefore:
[20] x= 90O000 = 900,000 = 900,000 = 1/097/560 m.M.
0.2-0.1 + 1-0.2 1.02-0.2 0.82
This, of course, is exactly the same result we obtained with formula [4].
218 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
deposits and brings about much greater credit expansion.
Indeed, in this respect the fractional-reserve system produces
effects resembling those of a monopolistic bank. We will base
our demonstration on the most general case, a banking system
comprised of a group of normal banks, each of which main-
tains cash reserves, c, of 10 percent. Also, on average, the cus-
tomers of each fail to withdraw 20 percent of loans granted (or
20 percent of fiduciary media return to the bank because a sig-
nificant number of the final recipients are also clients of the
bank). Hence, A:=20 percent.
Let us suppose that Mr. X deposits 1,000,000 m.u. in Bank
A. The bank would then make the following entry in its jour-
nal:
Bank A
(32) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposits 1,000,000
(made by X)
Bank A would then be able to create and grant loans to Z
for a sum determined by the formula in [3]. The following
entry would result:
Bank A
(33) Debit Credit
1,097,560 Loans to Z Demand deposits 1,097,560
And since k-0.2, 80 percent of loans granted would be
withdrawn, resulting in the following entry:
The Credit Expansion Process 219
Bank A
(34) Debit Credit
878,048 Demand deposits Cash 878,048
The balance sheet of Bank A following these entries would
look like this:
(35)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0.2
Assets Liabilities
Cash 121,952 Demand deposits 1,219,512
Loans 1,097,560
Total Assets 1,219,512 Total Liabilities 1,219,512
Let us suppose that when Z withdraws his deposit he pays
Y, who is a customer of Bank B and deposits the money there.
Three entries parallel to the above three would result. For-
mula [3] would again be used to determine the amounts.
BankB
(36) Debit Credit
878,048 Cash Demand deposits 878,048
(made by Y)
963,710 Loans to V Demand deposits 963,710
770,969 Demand deposits Cash 770,969
220 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
After these operations, Bank B's balance sheet would
appear as follows:
(37) Bank B
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0.2
Assets
Liabilities
Cash 107,079
Loans 963,710
Demand deposits
1,070,789
Total Assets 1,070,789
Total Liabilities
1,070,789
If we imagine that V pays his debts to U, who in turn
deposits the money he receives in his bank, Bank C, then the
following journal entries would result:
BankC
(38) Debit Credit
770,969 Cash Demand deposits 770,969
(made by U)
846,185 Loans to R Demand deposits 846,185
676,948 Demand deposits Cash 676,948
The bank would make this last entry when R withdraws
80 percent (k-0.2) of his loan from Bank C to pay his creditors
(T, for example).
Once these operations have been completed, Bank C's bal-
ance sheet would appear as follows:
The Credit Expansion Process 221
(39)
BankC
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0.2
Assets Liabilities
Cash 94,021 Demand deposits 940,206
Loans 846,185
Total Assets 940,206 Total Liabilities 940,206
And if Creditor T, upon receiving the money he was owed,
deposits it in his own bank, Bank D, these entries would
result:
(40)
BankD
Debit Credit
676,948 Cash Demand deposits 676,948
(made by T)
742,992 Loans to S Demand deposits 742,992
594,393 Demand deposits Cash 594,393
The bank would make this last entry in its journal when S
pays his creditors.
At this point, Bank D's balance sheet would appear as fol-
lows:
222
(41)
Assets
Cash
Loans
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
BankD
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0.2
Liabilities
82,555 Demand deposits 825,547
742,992
Total Assets 825,547 Total Liabilities
825,547
The process continues in this way, and the chain of
deposits and loans extends to all banks in the system. Once
the effects of the original deposit of 1,000,000 m.u. have com-
pletely disappeared, the total deposits created by the banking
system would be the sum of the following sequence:
[21]
1,219,512 + 1,219,512 x 0.878 + 1,219,512 x 0.8782 + ...
oo
= a + ar + ar2 + ... = X arn; where a - 1,219,512
« = o
and the common ratio r - (1 - k)
1 + k(c - 1)
This is due to the fact that, in our example, r would be
equal to 80 percent (1 - k) of the proportion of deposits newly
created by each bank at each stage. This proportion comes
from formula [3] and is equal to:
tt-c)
1 + k(c - 1)
Therefore: [22]
r = (1 - 0.2) hzM
1 + 0.2(0.1 - 1)
0.8
0.9
0.72
1 + 0.2(0.1-1) 1-0.18
The Credit Expansion Process 223
r= 0^2 =0.87804878
0.82
And since I r I <1, we apply formulas [11] and [12].
oo
[23] £ ar" = _JL_ = 1/219,512 _ 10 ,000,000 m.u.
» = o 1-r 0.1219512
Thus the sum of the deposits in the banking system, D,
would be equal to:
[24] D = f*!l = 10,000,000 m.u.
(l-fc)(l-c)
1 + Jfc(c - 1)
In this example, dsa represents Bank A's secondary
deposits and equals 1,219,512 m.u.
The net credit expansion, x, brought about by the entire
banking system would equal:
[25] x = D - d = 10,000,000 - 1,000,000 = 9,000,000
A summary of these results appears in Table IV-1 and
Chart IV-1. Details are given for each member bank in the
banking system.
Creation of Loans in a System of Small Banks
Let us now suppose that all the banks in the system are
very small. They each have a k equal to zero and a c equal to
0.1. If we follow the pattern of past entries, the journal entries
for this banking system would look like this:
224
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table IV-1
System of '
'Normal"-Sized Banks
(k--
--0.2 and c=0.1)
1
Money remaining
Credit expansion
in each bank's vault
(Loans created
ex nihilo)
Deposits
Bank A
122,000
1,098,000
1,220,000
BankB
107,100
964,000
1,071,000
BankC
94,000
846,000
940,000
BankD
82,600
743,000
826,000
BankE
72,500
652,000
725,000
BankF
63,700
573,000
637,000
BankG
55,900
503,000
559,000
BankH
49,100
442,000
491,000
Bank I
43,000
387,000
430,000
Bank J
37,800
340,000
378,000
Banking System
totals
d=l,000,000
x=D-d=9,000,000 D--
=10,000,000
Note: The last three digits
, have been rounded.
When a demand deposit of 1,000,000 m.u. is made at Bank A:
Bank A
(42)
Debit
Credit
1,000,000 Cash
Demand deposits 1,000,000
900,000 Loans to Z
Demand deposits 900,000
900,000 Demand deposits Cash
900,000
224
The Credit Expansion Process
225
w w
ND
Loans created by
the banking system
Cash reserves
maintained by
the banks
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226 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
When Z withdraws 900,000 m.u. to pay Y, Bank A's bal-
ance sheet would appear as follows:
(43) Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0
Assets Liabilities
Cash 100,000 Demand deposits 1,000,000
Loans to Z 900,000
Total Assets 1,000,000 Total Liabilities 1,000,000
If Y, in turn, deposits the 900,000 m.u. in his bank, Bank B,
also a small bank with a k equal to zero and a c equal to 0.1,
the following journal entries would result:
BankB
(44) Debit Credit
900,000 Cash Demand deposits 900,000
810,000 Loans to V Demand deposits 810,000
810,000 Demand deposit Cash 810,000
And Bank B's balance sheet would look like this:
(45)
BankB
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
90,000
Demand deposits
900,000
Loans to V
810,000
900,000
Total Assets
Total Liabilities
900,000
The Credit Expansion Process
227
Now, if V withdraws the loan from his bank to pay U, and
U deposits the money in his bank, Bank C, also a small bank
with a k equal to zero and a c equal to 0.1, these would be Bank
C's entries:
BankC
(46)
Debit
810,000 Cash
Credit
729,000 Loans to T
Demand deposits 810,000
Demand deposits 729,000
729,000 Demand deposits Cash
729,000
And Bank C's balance sheet would look like this:
(47)
Assets
BankC
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0
Liabilities
Cash
Loans to T
81,000 Demand deposits 810,000
729,000
Total Assets
810,000 Total Liabilities 810,000
When T pays his creditor, S, and S deposits the money in
his bank, Bank D, also small, with a k equal to zero and a c
equal to 0.1, the following entries would result:
228 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
BankD
(48) Debit Credit
729,000 Cash Demand deposits 729,000
656,100 Loans Demand deposits 656,100
656,100 Demand deposits Cash 656,100
In turn, Bank D's balance sheet would appear as follows:
(49) Bank D
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0
Assets Liabilities
Cash 72,900 Demand deposits 729,000
Loans to T 656,100
Total Assets 729,000 Total Liabilities 729,000
The total deposits in a system of very small banks is equal
to the sum of a sequence identical to the one in formula [8],
which referred to a monopolistic bank:
[26] 1,000,000 + 1,000,000 x 0.9 + 1,000,000 x 0.92 +
oo
1,000,000 x 0.93 + ... = £ ar»;
n = 0
where a=l,000,000 and r=0.9.
As shown in footnote 27, this sum is in turn equal to:
The Credit Expansion Process 229
a a a 1,000,000
= 10,000,000 m.u.
1-r l-(l-c) c 0.1
As fl=d=l,000,000 m.u. originally deposited, the total
deposits would be indicated by the formula:
[27] i = J-
1 - (1 - c) c
This formula is identical to the deposit multiplier in the
case of a single, monopolistic bank [14].
Let us also remember that:
[28] r = (1 - Jfc) l ~ c
\ + k{c- 1)
In view of the fact that the banking system is in this case
composed of small banks and k-0, if we substitute this value for
k in formula [28], we obtain r=l-c=0.9, which we already knew.
Therefore, an entire banking system comprised of small
banks brings about a volume of deposits (10,000,000 m.u.) and
a net credit expansion (9,000,000 m.u.) identical to those of a
monopolistic bank for which k-\. These results are summa-
rized in Table IV-2.
A system of small banks (where k-0) is clearly an excep-
tion within the overall banking system (where k is less than 1
but greater than 0). However, it is an easy example to under-
stand and therefore in textbooks is generally the model used
to explain the creation of credit money by the financial sys-
tem^
30See, for example, Juan Torres Lopez, Introduction a la economia politica
(Madrid: Editorial Civitas, 1992), pp. 236-39; and Jose Casas Pardo,
Curso de economia, 5th ed. (Madrid, 1985), pp. 864-66.
230 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table IV-2
Systeiv
i of Small Banks
(k--
--0 and c=0.1)
Money remaining
Credit expansion
in each bank's vault
(Loans created
ex nihilo)
Deposits
Bank A
100,000
900,000
1,000,000
BankB
90,000
810,000
900,000
BankC
81,000
729,000
810,000
BankD
72,900
656,000
729,000
BankE
65,600
590,000
656,000
BankF
59,000
531,000
590,000
BankG
53,100
478,000
531,000
BankH
47,800
430,000
478,000
Bank I
43,000
387,000
430,000
Bank J
38,700
348,000
387,000
Banking
System totals d=l,000,000 x --
. d(l - c) _ 9 ooo,000
c t
— = 10,000,000
Note: The last three digits have been rounded.
It is also true that a banking system composed of one
monopolistic bank (when k-\) is a unique instance within the
broader category of isolated banks which expand deposits
and loans.
To conclude, two particular cases lead to identical results
regarding new loans created (9,000,000 m.u.) and the total vol-
ume of deposits (10,000,000 m.u.). The first case is a banking
system made up of tiny banks, each with a k equal to zero. The
second is an isolated bank with a k equal to one. Given that
both cases are easy to comprehend, they are generally chosen
as examples in textbooks to explain the creation of loans and
the volume of deposits generated by the banking system.
The Credit Expansion Process 231
Depending upon the text, the author refers either to a system
of tiny banks or to a single, monopolistic bank (or one whose
customers are the final recipients of the loans it grants).31
6
A Few Additional Difficulties
When Expansion is Initiated Simultaneously by All Banks
In light of the fact that in this context we are forced to offer
a simplified view of the processes of credit expansion, it is
now necessary to make a few supplementary points and clar-
ifications. To begin with, the expansion process we have
described originates entirely from an increase in money
deposited at the original bank (in our example, d represents
1,000,000 m.u. deposited in Bank A). Nevertheless, both his-
torically, as banking developed, and currently, all processes of
credit expansion have been characterized by the fact that the
new money reaches the banking system not through one sin-
gle bank, but through many (if not, to a larger or smaller
extent, through all the banks in the system). As Richard G.
Lipsey reveals,32 credit expansion such as we have
described, which takes place ex nihilo and is backed by the
creation of the necessary bank deposits, will recur as often as
1,000,000 m.u. are deposited in any of the different banks. There-
fore, the widespread expansion process is, in practice, much more
substantial and qualitatively more complicated, since it originates
simultaneously at many banks and from many deposits. In our
example alone, which involved a reserve ratio of 10 percent,
loans for the sum of 9,000,000 m.u. were ultimately created,
an amount nine times larger than the original deposit, and as
a result the total money supply was multiplied by ten. The
main conclusion to be drawn is that if all banks simultane-
ously receive new deposits of money, they will be able to
3lThis is the example Bresciani-Turroni prefers to follow in his book,
Curso de economia, vol. 2, pp. 133-38.
32Richard G. Lipsey, An Introduction to Positive Economics, 2nd ed. (Lon-
don: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966), pp. 682-83.
232 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
expand credit without having to decrease their cash reserves,
because although they grant loans which could lead to a with-
drawal of cash (as we have supposed up until now in the
accounting entries), they simultaneously receive the deposit
of a portion of the money loaned by other banks. Hence in
practice, significant decreases in each bank's reserves will not neces-
sarily occur, and each bank, while maintaining its reserves practi-
cally intact, will be able to make loans and therefore create deposits
without serious risk.
This theoretical argument has prompted various authors,
among them Murray N. Rothbard,33 to write about the process
of credit expansion in the banking system from the viewpoint
that an isolated bank does not lose reserves when it grants
new loans. Instead, while maintaining the volume of its
reserves intact, it makes every attempt to make new loans for
a multiple determined by the inverse of the reserve ratio. The
argument for explaining the bank multiplier in this way, even
in the case of an isolated bank, is that the bank will attempt to
avoid reducing its reserves in the process of granting loans
(i.e., the banker will not wish to keep 100,000 m.u. and loan
900,000). Instead, it is much more advantageous for the bank
to maintain its reserve ratio by loaning a much larger amount
of money and keeping the initial cash reserves unaltered (that
is, by holding 1,000,000 m.u. in cash and creating ex nihilo
9,000,000 m.u. in new loans). In practice, the level of cash
reserves can be ensured if the credit expansion process takes
place simultaneously at all banks. This is because the decrease
in cash a bank experiences upon granting loans will tend to be
compensated for by the reception of new deposits originating
in loans made by other banks.
When the expansion process is presented in this way, it is
not often easily understood by nonspecialists, nor even by
professionals in the banking sector, who are accustomed to
considering their "business" mere intermediation between
depositors and borrowers. However, clear evidence that the
33Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking, chap. 8, pp. 111-24.
The Credit Expansion Process 233
approach of Rothbard and others is totally correct lies in the
fact that for our purposes it makes no difference whether we
study the case examined up to this point (an original deposit,
extended throughout the banking system, of 1,000,000 m.u. in
Bank A), or we consider a banking system comprised of ten
banks, each of which simultaneously receives a deposit of
100,000 m.u. (i.e., a total of 1,000,000 m.u. divided among ten
banks). In the latter case, each bank will keep unaltered
100,000 m.u. in cash, making it possible for the banks to
expand their loans and create ex nihilo new fiduciary media for
the sum of 900,000 m.u. Each bank will be able to maintain sta-
ble cash reserves of 100,000 m.u. if possible reductions in these
reserves as the result of loans granted are offset by new
deposits originating from loans made by other banks. There-
fore if all of the banks bring about expansion simultaneously,
each one is able to maintain its cash reserves unaltered, and
with a reserve ratio of 0.1, create from nothing, in the form of
loans backed by new fiduciary media, up to nine times its ini-
tial deposits. Let us examine this process of simultaneous
expansion in terms of accounting entries.
We will assume that each of ten banks receives 1,000,000
m.u. in new, original deposits of money. The ten banks are all
of the same size, and each has a reserve ratio, c, of 10 percent,
and (to keep it simple) a k equal to zero. Let us also suppose
that each bank has a market share of 10 percent. In other
words, each bank receives the business of 10 percent of all
the customers in the market in which it operates. Moreover,
these customers are randomly distributed. If these banks
simultaneously begin to expand credit according to the
process described in entries (42) and following, it is obvious
that any one of them, for example Bank A, will eventually
receive deposits coming from loans granted by the other
banks, as shown in Table IV-2. If all of the banks expand
credit simultaneously, Bank A's journal entries would appear
as follows:
234
(50)
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Bank A
Debit
1,000,000 Cash
900,000 Loans
Credit
Demand deposits 1,000,000
Demand deposits 900,000
900,000 Demand deposits Cash
900,000
This decrease in cash would be counteracted by a demand
deposit from a final recipient of a loan granted, for example,
by Bank B, resulting in the following entries:
(51)
Bank A
Debit
900,000 Cash
810,000 Loans
Credit
Demand deposits
from loans granted
by Bank B 900,000
Demand deposits 810,000
810,000 Demand deposits Cash
810,000
Bank A would eventually recuperate these 810,000 m.u.
in the form of a deposit originating from loans granted, for
example, by Bank C. The journal entries would look like
this:
The Credit Expansion Process
(52) Bank A
Debit
810,000 Cash
729,000 Loans
729,000 Demand deposits
235
Credit
Demand deposits
from loans granted
by Bank C
810,000
Demand deposits
729,000
Cash
729,000
As this process continues, Bank A would receive deposits
from the recipients of loans granted by Banks D, E, F, G, H, I,
and J. We have greatly simplified the process in our explana-
tion. In reality, the bank receives, on average, 10 percent of the
ten loans of 900,000 m.u. granted in the first stage by each
bank in the system. It then receives 10 percent of the ten loans
of 810,000 m.u. made by each of the banks in the second phase,
10 percent of the ten loans of 729,000 m.u. made by each in the
third phase, etc.
Hence, if we suppose that each of ten banks receives
1,000,000 m.u. in original deposits, and the banks expand
credit simultaneously, the balance sheet of any of them, Bank
A, for instance, would appear as follows:
(53)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1 and k=0
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
Loans
1,000,000
),000,000
Demand deposits
(primary) 1,000,000
Demand deposits
(secondary)
2,000,000
Total Assets 10,000,000
Total Liabilities 10,000,000
236 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Therefore, the balance sheet of each bank would coincide
with the one we discovered when we assumed k was equal to
one (a monopolistic bank or one whose clients are the ultimate
recipients of the loans it grants). This is due to the fact that
although in this case there is no monopoly, the loss of cash
each bank initially experiences upon expanding credit is even-
tually offset by deposits originating in loans expanded by the
other banks.
We may conclude from balance sheet (53) that each banker
need not reduce his cash reserves to expand his bank's credit;
instead, if the rest of his colleagues expand their credit at the
same time, he can maintain his level of cash reserves unaltered
and proceed directly to grant loans for a sum equal to a mul-
tiple of his reserves. (In our case, each banker holds 1,000,000
m.u. in cash reserves and creates from nothing 9,000,000 m.u.
in loans backed by 9,000,000 m.u. in secondary deposits.)
Therefore Rothbard's interpretation of the process is correct
even in the case of an isolated bank, when each of the other
banks in the system also receive original deposits (that is, a
proportional amount of the new money created in the system)
and all expand their credit simultaneously. The cash each
bank would theoretically lose by granting loans is counter-
acted by deposits received from recipients of loans expanded
by the banker's colleagues. Thus each bank can alone expand
its credit for the sum of 9,000,000 m.u. In turn, the system's
total expansion would be equal to 90,000,000 m.u., and the
amount of total deposits or the money supply would be
100,000,000 m.u.
We can achieve numerical results identical to those in
Table IV-2 simply by supposing that an original deposit of
1,000,000 m.u. is made at Bank A and is divided equally
among the ten banks in the system, each of which receives
100,000 m.u. Those 100,000 m.u. would remain unaltered in
each bank's vault. Each bank could expand its credit by
900,000 m.u., and therefore the entire banking system could
generate 9,000,000 m.u. in new loans and a total of 10,000,000
m.u. in primary and secondary deposits.
Obviously this last example, which wraps up our account-
ing analysis of the expansion of loans and deposits by isolated
The Credit Expansion Process 237
banks and banking systems, is the most realistic. In the current
monetary system, increases in the money supply filter
throughout the system and reach practically all banks, per-
mitting them to expand their credit simultaneously according
to the processes we have studied. In addition, there are clear
historical indications that banks have never emerged alone,
but in groups. Even Saravia de la Calle mentions that bankers
established themselves in groups, offering "guarantors and
acting as guarantors for each other."34 This means that by the
time of the sixteenth-century Castilian markets, bankers were
already aware of the intimate relationship and strong commu-
nity of interests uniting them in terms of the success or failure
of their businesses, and they realized they needed to support
one another mutually.
With respect to the gold standard and a money supply
based on the discovery of new gold mines and on the devel-
opment of extraction techniques, we can assume that new
money originating from substantial, new discoveries would
initially reach only a few bankers, and from there it would
extend throughout the rest of the banking system. Therefore,
it would not set off a process of simultaneous expansion, but
a gradual process by which the money would filter through-
out the entire system.
We can conclude that if there are many banks and many
new deposits, and the banks expand their credit simultane-
ously following the processes we have studied, even an iso-
lated bank will be able to maintain a stable level of reserves
and by itself expand loans and deposits for a multiple of this
level, an amount determined by the inverse of the reserve
ratio (when A;=0).35 Therefore it is obviously only in the
34Saravia de la Calle, Instruction de mercaderes, p. 180.
35Under these circumstances, which most closely resemble actual mar-
ket conditions, Phillips's statement loses credibility. In his words (Credit
Banking, p. 64), "It follows for the banking system that deposits are
chiefly the offspring of loans. For an individual bank, loans are the off-
spring of deposits." This second affirmation is the incorrect one under
true conditions. This is due to the fact that, given the existence of many
238 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
account books that deposits back the wealth bankers appro-
priate upon expanding their credit. From an accounting (but
not a legal) standpoint, the formal ownership of these loans
corresponds to the deposit-holders, since under normal cir-
cumstances they consider their deposits money (perfect
money substitutes) they can use in their transactions without
ever having to withdraw them in physical monetary units.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the assets generated by the bank-
ing system do not actually belong to anyone. To a large extent,
however, they could be considered the property of banks'
shareholders, directors and administrators, the people who
actually take advantage of many of the economic benefits of
this wealth, with the additional advantage of not appearing as
the owners, since the account books indicate that the deposi-
tors own the wealth.
In other words, under normal conditions, deposits come
from loans and are merely a secondary result, reflected in the
account books, of the wealth banks accumulate and retain
indefinitely. We will return to this topic later in the book, in a
discussion on banknotes and in the last chapter, where we
present our proposal for a process of banking reform.
banks and many original deposits, and considering that these banks
expand credit simultaneously, the deposits of each individual bank are
also a result of the credit expansion carried out by all of the banks in uni-
son. In chapter 8 we will examine the distinct possibility (denied by Sel-
gin) that, even in a free-banking system, all banks might simultaneously
initiate credit expansion, even when the volume of primary deposits
does not increase in all of them (that is, through a generalized decrease
in their cash or reserve ratio). In the same chapter, we will explain, as
Mises has done, that in a free-banking system, any bank which unilat-
erally expands its credit by reducing its cash reserves beyond a prudent
level will endanger its own solvency. These two phenomena account for
the universal tendency of bankers to agree among themselves to jointly
orchestrate (usually through the central bank) a uniform rate of credit
expansion.
The Credit Expansion Process 239
Filtering Out the Money Supply
From the Banking System
Another complexity derives from the fact that in reality, each
time loans are granted and deposits are created and withdrawn,
a certain percentage of the money supply "filters" out of the
system and is kept by individuals who do not wish to deposit
it in a bank. The larger the percentage which physically "fil-
ters" into the pockets of individuals at each stage and remains
outside the banking system, the smaller the bank's expansive
capacity to generate new loans.
In a system of small banks (in which k = 0) with a reserve
requirement of 10 percent (c = 0.1), if/refers to the proportion
of the money supply that filters out of the banking system and
/= 0.15, then when Bank A loans 900,000 m.u., the amount of
money which would return to the banking system would be
equal to (1 - f) 900,000 = (1 - 0.15) 900,000 = 0.85 x 900,000 =
765,000 m.u. Therefore if we are dealing with a system of
small banks and we assume that k=0, c=0.1 and f=0.15, we can
use the following formulas:
If DN refers to the total net deposits, which are comprised
of gross deposits, DG, minus the total sum of money, F, that fil-
ters out of the banking system, then:
[29] DN = DG-F
The total sum of money that filters out of the banking sys-
tem will logically be equal to / times the total sum of gross
deposits, DG, where /is the percentage of money which filters
out of the system. That is:
[30] F=fDG
In turn, the amount of money initially deposited is equal
to the sum of net deposits multiplied by the corresponding
reserve ratio plus the total sum which has filtered out of the
system:
[31] d = DN- c + F
240 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
If we substitute into this equation the value of DN in for-
mula [29] and the value of F in [30], we obtain:
[32] d = (DG-F)-c+fDG
If we replace F in the equation with fDG, we obtain:
[33] d = (DG -fDG)c +fDG
Then we factor out DG:
[34] d = DG (c-cf+f)
And therefore:
[35] DG - d
c-cf + f
As DN = DG(l-f),
[36] DN = DG(1 -f) = W ~f) = d^~f) =
d
c-cf + f c(l-f)+f f
c+
1-/
This would be the formula for the net deposits created by
the banking system. The credit expansion brought about by a
banking system out of which some money filters would be
equal to:
[37] x = DN-d = i d
f
c+
1-/
If we substitute a value of zero for /in the preceding for-
mulas, we are left with the same equations we have used until
The Credit Expansion Process 241
now to determine the total volume of deposits and the total
credit expansion:
[38] DN = d = ^OO'OOO
c 0.1
- = 10,000,000
and
[39] d A d(l-c)
X — CL — —
C C
1,000,000(0.9)
0.1
2,000,000
Let us see to what value credit expansion is reduced if, as
before, d = 1,000,000 m.u. and c = 0.1, while in addition 15 per-
cent of the money supply filters out of the banking system (f =
0.15).
[40]
DN
1,000,000 1,000,000 0.85 x 1,000,000
0 1 + °-15 0 1 + °-^ o-085 + o-15
1-0.15 ' 0.85
850,000
0.235
3,617,021
Hence, in a banking system where 15 percent of the money
supply filters out of the system, the total sum of deposits
would be 3,617,021 m.u., instead of 10,000,000 m.u., as is the
case when/= 0.
The net credit expansion would be equal to x - 3,617,021 -
1,000,000 = 2,617,021, instead of the 9,000,000 m.u. which are
created when no money filters out of the system. Therefore,
when the percentage of money which filters out is greater than
zero, the capacity of the banking system to create loans and
generate deposits ex nihilo decreases noticeably36
36We have arrived at these formulas following the process described by
Armen A. Alchian and William R. Allen in University Economics (Bel-
mont, Ca.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1964), pp. 675-76. If the legal reserve
requirement were reduced to zero, as is increasingly demanded, the
total sum of net deposits, DN, would be:
242 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Maintenance of Reserves Exceeding the Minimum
Requirement
Another complication which produces effects similar to
those covered in the preceding section takes place when banks
hold cash reserves exceeding the minimum requirement. This
tends to occur at certain stages in the economic cycle in which
banks behave relatively more prudently, or they are obliged to
increase their reserves due to difficulties in finding enough
creditworthy borrowers willing to request loans, or both. This
occurs, for example, in the phases of economic recession that
follow credit expansion. At any rate, the maintenance of cash
reserves exceeding the necessary level reduces the system's
capacity for credit expansion in the same way as /, a percent-
age of the money supply which filters out of the banking sys-
tem.37
„ d d(l-f) 1,000,000(0.85) -<■„„„
DN = = — s "- = — s ' = 5,666,667 m.u.
_±_ f 0.15
I"/
And the net credit expansion, x:
x = DN - d = 4,666,667 m.u.
Therefore we must conclude that if no portion of the money supply
were to filter out of the system (f= 0), and the banking authorities were
to eliminate the reserve requirement (c = 0), these authorities could
drive the volume of credit expansion as high as they chose, since:
DN= =00
(This expansion would bring about numerous disruptive effects on the
real productive structure, on which its impact would be severe. See
chapter 5.)
37To illustrate how significantly the above factors can contribute to a
decrease in the bank expansion multiplier, we must first note that in
Spain, for instance, the total money supply consists of about 50 trillion
pesetas (166.386 pesetas = 1 euro), which includes cash held by the
The Credit Expansion Process 243
Different Reserve Requirements for Different
Types of Deposits
Finally, another complication we could consider derives
from the fact that in many countries the reserve requirement
for demand deposits differs from the requirement for time
deposits, even though as we know, in practice the latter are
often true demand deposits. Although the formulas we have
considered up until now could be worked out again for both
deposit types, the degree of complexity involved would not be
worth the slight additional value the analysis could afford, so
we have chosen not to do so here.38
public, demand deposits, savings deposits and time deposits. (In the
Spanish banking system, despite their name, time deposits are usually
true demand deposits, because they can be withdrawn at any time with-
out penalty or with a very small penalty). Of the total money supply,
only about 6.6 trillion pesetas are in the form of cash in the hands of the
public. This means that a little over 13.2 percent of the total corresponds
to this cash held by the public, and therefore the bank expansion multi-
plier in Spain would be greater than 7.5 times (which would be equal to
a reserve ratio of 13.2 percent). Since the current reserve requirement in
Spain is 2 percent (from the Bank of Spain's monetary circular 1/1996,
October 11, and confirmed afterward by European Central Bank regula-
tions), the difference between that and 13.2 percent can be attributed to
the influence of/, the percentage of money which filters out of the sys-
tem and into the pockets of private citizens. Perhaps the past economic
recession has played a role by increasing the volume of cash and
deposits held by banks and temporarily reducing their potential for
boosting credit expansion. Our comments are based on provisional data
from June published in August 1994 in the Boletin Estadistico del Banco de
Espana, kindly supplied by Luis Alfonso Lopez Garcia, an inspector
from the Bank of Spain.
38Nevertheless, the relevant formulas are devised in Laurence S. Ritter
and William L. Silber, Principles of Money, Banking and Financial Markets,
3rd rev., updated ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 44-46. Other
writings which cover in detail the formulation of the bank multiplier
theory are: John D. Boorman and Thomas M. Havrilesky Money Supply,
Money Demand and Macroeconomic Models (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
1972), esp. pp. 10-41; Dorothy M. Nichols, Modern Money Mechanics: A
Workbook on Deposits, Currency and Bank Reserves, published by the Fed-
eral Reserve Bank of Chicago, pp. 29-31; and the interesting book by
244 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
7
The Parallels Between the Creation of Deposits
and the Issuance of Unbacked Banknotes
The economic analysis of the issuance of unbacked bank-
notes, an operation which emerged long after the discovery of
fractional-reserve banking, is not one of the main purposes of
this book.39 However it could be useful at this point to con-
sider in some detail the accounting and legal aspects of the
issuance of unbacked banknotes, since as we will demon-
strate, its effects are identical to those produced by banks' cre-
ation of loans and deposits from nothing.
Let us imagine that banking is just beginning to emerge, and
banks act as true depositaries of money as stipulated in an irreg-
ular deposit contract. As long as the general legal principles we
studied in chapters 1 through 3 are upheld, banks will accept
monetary units (usually gold or any other type of commodity
money) and keep them in their vaults, and in return they will
give depositors deposit certificates, receipts or banknotes for
the entire sum deposited. A bank which correctly honors its
commitments will make the following entry in its journal:
Bank A
(54) Debit Credit
Cash 1,000,000 Deposit receipts 1,000,000
or banknotes
Phillip Cagan, Determinance and Effects of Changes in the Stock of Money,
1875-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965). Also, Jose
Miguel Andreu Garcia has written extensively on the topic of bank mul-
tipliers and reserve requirements. For example, see his articles, "En
torno a la neutralidad del coeficiente de caja: el caso espanol," in Revista
de Economia, no. 9, and "El coeficiente de caja optimo y su posible vin-
culacion con el deficit publico," Boletin Economico de Information Comer-
cial Espanola (June 29-July 5, 1987): 2425ff.
39Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe, pp.
9 and 192.
The Credit Expansion Process 245
If the bank fulfills its commitments for a lengthy period of
time and people completely trust it, it is certain that the pub-
lic will gradually begin to use the banknotes (or the deposit
slips or receipts the bank issues in exchange for monetary
units deposited) as if they were the units of commodity
money themselves, thus converting the banknotes into mone-
tary units (perfect money substitutes, to use Mises's terminol-
ogy). Given that money is a present good people need and use
only as a medium of exchange and not for their own con-
sumption, if depositors trust the bank, their use of banknotes
as money could be prolonged indefinitely (they would not
need to go to the bank and withdraw the monetary units they
originally deposited). When this situation arises, bankers may
start to feel tempted to issue deposit receipts for an amount
exceeding the sum of monetary units actually deposited.
Clearly if bankers succumb to this temptation, they violate
universal legal principles and commit not only the crime of
counterfeiting (by issuing a false receipt unbacked by a corre-
sponding deposit), but the crime of fraud as well, by present-
ing as a means of payment a document that in reality lacks all
backing.40 Nevertheless, if people place enough trust in the
bank and the banker knows from experience that a reserve
ratio, c, of 0.1 will permit him to honor his commitments
under ordinary circumstances, he will be able to issue up to
nine times more in new false deposit receipts or banknotes.
His corresponding journal entry will appear as follows:
Bank A
(55) Debit Credit
9,000,000 Loans Banknotes 9,000,000
40 \\e who has made a special promise to give definite parcels of
goods in return for particular individual papers, cannot issue
any such promissory papers without holding corresponding
goods. If he does so, he will be continually liable to be convicted
of fraud or default by the presentation of a particular document.
(Jevons, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange, p. 209)
246 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
We have assumed the bank uses the counterfeit bills to
grant loans, but it could use them for any purpose, for exam-
ple to purchase any other asset (like lavish buildings) or sim-
ply to pay day-to-day expenses. If the bank uses the bills to
grant loans, its balance sheet will appear as follows:
(56)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
1,000,000 Banknotes 10,000,000
Loans
9,000,000
Total Assets 10,000,000 Total Liabilities 10,000,000
If people trust the bank, borrowers will agree to receive
their loans in bills, which will circulate as if they were money.
Under these conditions the banker may even believe, with
good reason, that no one will ever return these bills to the
bank to withdraw the original money deposited. The moment
the banker decides this is the case, his judgment may manifest
itself as an accounting entry identifying the 9,000,000 false
bills put into circulation by the bank as part of the year's
profit, which the banker may freely appropriate. The follow-
ing journal entries will be made:
Bank A
(57) Debit
1,000,000
Cash
9,000,000
Loans
9,000,000
Banknotes
Credil
t
Banknotes
1,000,000
Banknotes
9,000,000
Profit
9,000,000
The Credit Expansion Process 247
These accounting entries reflect the fact that the banker is
sure he will never have to return the sum of the bills, since his
bills circulate as money. The bank's balance sheet will look like
this:
(58)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
1,000,000
Banknotes 1,000,000
Loans
9,000,000
Profit (equity) 9,000,000
Total Assets 10,000,000 Total Liabilities 10,000,000
From this balance sheet we can conclude that once the
banknotes have acquired the nature of monetary units, no one
will ever return them to the bank to withdraw the money
deposited, since the bills circulate freely and are considered
money themselves. Only 1,000,000 of the banknotes issued are
recorded in the Liabilities column, because 10 percent is suffi-
cient to comply with ordinary requests for conversion. Hence
this balance sheet amounts to an acknowledgment of the
fraud the bank commits when it issues bills for an amount
exceeding the sum of money deposited. Bankers have never
thus recorded in their account books the issuance of unbacked
banknotes, as it would fully reveal the fraud they commit. By
their deceitful actions they harm third parties, whose money
drops in value due to the increase in the money supply, not to
mention economic crises and recessions, an effect we will con-
sider later. Nonetheless this last balance sheet is clearly more
honest, in the sense that at least it demonstrates the banker's
maneuver and the fact that the issuance of unbacked bills con-
stitutes an endless source of financing which permits bankers
to appropriate a very large volume of wealth.
The reader will surely have noticed that records (54)
through (56) are identical to ones we studied with respect to
248 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
deposits. In fact the nature of unbacked banknotes is identical
to that of secondary deposits and both produce the same eco-
nomic effects. They actually represent the same operation and
result in identical accounting records.
Both activities generate considerable assets for banks, who
gradually take this wealth from all economic agents in the
market through a process the agents cannot understand or
identify, one which leads to small decreases in the purchasing
power of the monetary units all use in society. Credit expan-
sion is backed by the creation of new deposits or bills, and
since these are considered money in themselves, from the sub-
jective point of view of the public, they will never be with-
drawn under normal conditions. In this way banks appropri-
ate a large volume of wealth, which from an accounting
standpoint they guarantee with deposits or bills that permit
them to disguise the fact that economically speaking they are
the only beneficiaries who completely take advantage de facto
of these assets. Thus they have found a perennial source of
financing which will probably not be demanded from them, a
"loan" they will never have to return (which is ultimately the
same as a "gift"). From an economic point of view, bankers
and other related economic agents are the ones who take
advantage of these extraordinary circumstances. They possess
the enormous power to create money, and they use this power
continually to expand their assets, open new offices, hire new
employees, etc. Furthermore they have managed to keep their
activities relatively hidden from most of the public, including
economists, by backing their created loans with liability
accounts (deposit accounts or banknote accounts) that do not
coincide with their actual equity. In short, bankers have dis-
covered their Philosopher's Stone (much like the one sought-
after in the Middle Ages), which enables them to create new
monetary units from nothing, and thus to generate hidden
wealth, harming and deceiving third parties in the process. In
account books depositors are formally recognized as the own-
ers of such wealth, but in practice it does not belong to anyone
(however, economically speaking, it belongs to the bankers
themselves). As we mentioned before, the recognition of this
fact is fundamental to our arguments in the last chapter,
where we propose a plan for reforming the banking system.
The Credit Expansion Process 249
The wealth banks have gradually accumulated can and must
be returned to the citizens. Through a process of privatization,
it should become available for different uses of great impor-
tance to society (for example, to help pay off the national debt,
or make a transition to a private Social Security system based
on investment).
The parallels between the issuance of unbacked banknotes
and credit expansion backed by secondary deposits created ex
nihilo are now evident. Indeed all of the arguments offered in
the preceding pages hold true for banknotes as well as for
demand deposits. With that in mind, let us briefly consider a
few entries. For example, when loans are granted against the
issuance of banknotes:
Bank A
(59) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Banknotes 1,000,000
900,000 Loans Banknotes 900,000
In this case the bank grants loans from nothing by simply
issuing "false" bills and giving them to borrowers. In the
worst of cases, if these borrowers return the bills to the bank
to withdraw units of commodity money from the vault, the
bank's balance sheet will look like this:
(60)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
100,000
Banknotes 1,000,000
Loans
900,000
Total Assets 1,000,000 Total Liabilities 1,000,000
250
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
If we suppose that the borrowers pay this money to other
people, who eventually take it to another bank, for instance
Bank B, which also issues banknotes without backing, Bank B
would make the following journal entries:
BankB
(61) Debit
900,000 Cash
810,000 Loans
Credit
Banknotes
Banknotes
900,000
810,000
Bank B's balance sheet would appear as follows:
(62)
BankB
Balance Sheet
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
90,000
Banknotes 900,000
Loans
810,000
Total Assets
900,000
Total Liabilities 900,000
The process continues in this manner and spreads
throughout the system. If we suppose that the reserve ratio, c,
for banknotes is equal to 0.1 and k = 0, we know the system
will be able to create from nothing:
[41] d(l-c) _ 1,000,000(0.9)
c Oil
= 9,000,000
The Credit Expansion Process 251
monetary units in the form of bills unbacked by original
money (gold or any other type of commodity money).
We would have obtained the same result in the case of a
monopolistic bank, one that enjoys the trust and business of
everyone, with a reserve ratio, c, of 0.1 and a A: of 1. In this case
the credit expansion, x, would be equal to:
d(l - c)
[42] x
1 + k(c - 1)
and when k=l,x equals: __ _ banknotes created ex nihilo.
c
If we suppose that all the banks issue bills simultaneously
and receive new original monetary units at the same rate, then
by maintaining its cash reserves unaltered, a single bank will
be able to generate banknotes equal to:
d{\ - c)
This is the same formula we applied to deposits. The fol-
lowing entries will be made:
Bank A
(63) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Banknotes 1,000,000
9,000,000 Loans and Unbacked banknotes 9,000,000
other uses
We could also reproduce all of the accounting entries for
the more general case in which k > 0 (in our previous example
k = 0.2). If c = 0.1, then for each 1,000,000 m.u. a bank receives,
it will be able to create from nothing new banknotes for a sum
equal to:
[43] d(l - c)
1 + k(c - 1)
252 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
That is, the bank will have the capacity to create 1,097,560
m.u. in the form of unbacked bills. One by one we could
duplicate for banknotes all of the results we obtained for bank
deposits, which shows that there is no economic difference
between the issuance of unbacked bills and the ex nihilo
expansion of bank-credit backed by deposits generated from
nothing. The only substantial difference is of a legal nature,
since according to universal legal principles, the issuance of
unbacked bills implies counterfeiting and the crime of fraud,
while the monetary bank-deposit contract only involves mis-
appropriation.
Nonetheless there are some differences regarding the way
the operation is carried out. Banknotes take the form of bearer
bonds and each has a particular face value, allowing the notes
to be transferred from one person to another without it being
necessary for the bank to make any accounting entry in its
books (and as a result the cost of bank transactions decreases).
In contrast deposits offer customers the advantage of being
able to write an exact figure on a check without needing to
hand over a specific number of bills of a set value. However
the fact that the banker must follow the transactions conducted
and record them in his books constitutes a disadvantage.
Still, apart from these legal differences and differences in
form, from an economic standpoint the two operations are
essentially identical and produce the same effects. As we will
see later, however, when the theory of money was first being
developed, theorists only recognized the immorality of the cre-
ation of unbacked banknotes and the serious harm it causes.
They did not initially realize nor respond to the fact that the
expansive creation of loans backed by deposits generated from
nothing has exactly the same effects. This explains why the
Peel Act of July 19, 1844, the foundation of all modern banking
systems, prohibited the issuance of unbacked bills yet failed
miserably to achieve its objectives of monetary stability and an
adequate definition and defense of citizens' property rights
with respect to banking. Its failure was due to legislators'
inability to comprehend that bank deposits with a fractional
reserve have exactly the same nature and economic effects
The Credit Expansion Process 253
as unbacked banknotes. As a result, the Act did not outlaw
fractional-reserve banking and allowed the age-old practice of
"issuing" unbacked (secondary) deposits to continue. In real-
ity secondary deposits predated the fiduciary issue of ban-
knotes, but because the former proved much more complex,
only the latter was (very belatedly) prohibited. The monetary
bank-deposit contract with a fractional reserve is still legal
today, even though it has exactly the same economic nature
and produces the same damaging effects as the issuance of
unbacked banknotes prohibited in 1844 by the Peel Act.41
41As chapter 8 will reveal in greater detail (pp. 605 ff. and 625 ff.), the
first theorist to realize that bank deposits are money and that fractional-
reserve banking increases the money supply was the Spanish scholastic
Luis de Molina, Tratado sobre los cambios, edited and prefaced by Fran-
cisco Gomez Camacho (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, 1991;
first edition was published in Cuenca in 1597). See esp. Disputation 409,
pp. 145-56, esp. p. 147. Nevertheless, Luis de Molina did not observe the
parallels between secondary deposits and unbacked bills, since in his
time banks had still not begun to exploit the possibility of issuing bank-
notes. It would not be until 1797 that Henry Thornton would for the first
time refer to the equivalence of bills and deposits (see his Response of
March 30, 1797 in "Evidence given before the Lords' Committee of
Secrecy appointed to inquire into the courses which produced the Order
of Council of the 27th February 1797," reproduced in An Inquiry into the
Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, F. A. Hayek, ed. (Fair-
field, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley, 1978), p. 303. Several years later the same
conclusion was reached by Walter Boyd, James Pennington, and the
Pennsylvania senator Condy Raguet, who believed that deposits and
banknotes both constituted part of the money supply and that any bank
which failed to immediately and on demand pay the value of banknotes
issued by it should lose its license to operate, as should any bank which
failed to immediately and in cash honor requests for withdrawals of
deposits the bank had issued [see the "Report on Bank Charters" by
Condy Raguet, included in the journal of the Senate, 1820-1921, Pennsyl-
vania Legislature, pp. 252-68 and Murray N. Rothbard's related com-
ments included in his book, The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies (New
York and London: Columbia University Press, 1962), p. 148]. Quite sig-
nificantly, Banking School theorists themselves were the first to rightly
insist that it was very paradoxical to try to limit the issuance of unbacked
bills while not advocating the same measure regarding deposits, given
that bills and deposits had exactly the same economic nature. See, for
example, James Wilson's book, Capital, Currency and Banking (London:
254 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
8
The Credit Tightening Process
One of the central problems posed by the process of
credit expansion and ex nihilo deposit creation, and thus by
the bank deposit contract involving a fractional reserve, is
that just as this process inevitably unleashes forces that
reverse the effects of credit expansion on the real economy, it
also looses forces which lead to a parallel process of credit
tightening or contraction. Ceteris paribus, any of the following
The Economist, 1847), p. 282; see also Vera C. Smith's comments in her
book, The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative, p.
89. Smith makes a most perceptive observation when referring to Wil-
son and to the grave error of the Currency School, which was incapable
of recognizing the economic parallels between bills and deposits. She
states:
The reason the currency school usually gave for this distinc-
tion was that bank notes increased the circulation and
deposits did not. Such an argument was not, of course,
acceptable to Wilson as a member of the banking school of
thought which both denied that the issue of notes could be
increased to any undesirable extent so long as convertibility
was strictly maintained, and pointed out that the difference
claimed between notes and deposit liabilities was invalid. But
it was still denied in many quarters that demand deposits
formed part of the circulation, and it was probably by no
means generally admitted right up to the time of MacLeod,
(p. 89)
Wilson was completely justified in pointing out this contradiction;
given the economic equivalence of banknotes and deposits, the argu-
ments in favor of regulating the issuance of one unbacked form are
directly applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the other. Moreover this is the
same inconsistency manifested nearly a century later by defenders of
the contract of irregular deposit of securities in which the bank is
allowed to make use of deposits. This controversy arose at the begin-
ning of the twentieth century with respect to banking practices in
Barcelona, and at that time the use of a fractional reserve in connection
with irregular deposits of securities was called into question and
harshly condemned. As defenders of this contract correctly argued at
the time, the reasons put forward against this practice should also be
applied to monetary bank deposits with a fractional reserve (see related
observations in chapter 3).
The Credit Expansion Process 255
events serve to establish that such a process has been set in
motion: (a) a decrease in original deposits; (b) an increase in
the desire of the public to hold monetary units outside the
banking system (i.e., an increase in/); (c) a rise in banks' "pru-
dence," leading them to boost their reserve ratio, c, in order
to be able to comply with the higher average number of pos-
sible withdrawal requests; (d) a sudden rise in loan repay-
ment not offset by an increase in loans granted; and (e) an
escalation in the number of borrowers unable to return their
loans, i.e., many more defaulters.
First, it is clear that if a certain sum in original deposits is
withdrawn from a bank (for instance, the 1,000,000 m.u.
deposited in past illustrations), all created loans and deposits
such as we referred to in preceding examples would disap-
pear in a chain reaction, resulting in fewer loans and deposits.
If we suppose that c = 0.1 and k = f= 0, then the decrease in
loans and deposits would equal 9,000,000 m.u., implying a
significant drop in the money sup-ply, which would fall to one-
tenth of its prior sum. The result is severe deflation, or a
decline in the amount of money in circulation, leading to a
reduction in the prices of goods and services, which, in the
short and medium term, further aggravates the recession ulti-
mately caused in the market by all processes of credit expan-
sion.
Second, a desire of the public to keep more money outside
the banking system produces the same effects. It provokes an
increase in/ and a decline in banks' capacity for credit expan-
sion, which in turn brings about a recession and a monetary
squeeze.
Third, a decision by banks to be more "prudent" and to
increase their reserve ratio leads to a contraction as well.
Fourth, the repayment of loans produces equally deflation-
ary effects (when enough new loans are not granted to at least
offset the ones returned). Let us consider this possibility in
greater detail. We will begin by imagining a bank with c = 0.1,
k = 0 and / = 0, whose borrowers pay back their loans. The
accounting entries and balance sheet prepared when the loans
are granted are as follows:
256 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Bank A
(64) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposits 1,000,000
900,000 Loans Demand deposits 900,000
900,000 Demand deposits Cash 900,000
(65)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1,k=0 and f=0
Assets Liabilities
Cash 100,000 Demand deposits 1,000,000
Loans 900,000
Total Assets 1,000,000 Total Liabilities 1,000,000
In previous examples we observed the creation through
the banking system of new loans and deposits for the sum of
9,000,000 m.u. In this instance, when borrowers return the
loans the last two accounting entries are canceled as follows:
Bank A
(66) Debit Credit
900,000 Cash Demand deposits 900,000
900,000 Demand deposits Loans 900,000
The balance sheet of Bank A now looks like this:
The Credit Expansion Process 257
(67)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1,k=0 and f=0
Assets Liabilities
Cash 1,000,000 Demand deposits 1,000,000
Total Assets 1,000,000 Total Liabilities 1,000,000
Economically speaking, this means that from the point of
view of an individual bank, there has been a 900,000 m.u.
decrease in the money supply, which has gone from 1,900,000
m.u. at the time the loans were given (1,000,000 in deposits
and 900,000 in money handed over to the borrowers) to
1,000,000 m.u., the only money left once the loans are repaid.
Therefore from the standpoint of an isolated bank the money
supply clearly contracts.
Given that all banks expand credit and receive original
deposits simultaneously, we already know each bank is able to
maintain its cash reserves constant and grant loans for a mul-
tiple of its reserves. Hence the balance sheet of any bank, Bank
A for instance, would appear as follows:
(68)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1,k=0 and f=0
Assets Liabilities
Cash 1,000,000 Demand deposits 10,000,000
Loans 9,000,000
Total Assets 10,000,000 Total Liabilities 10,000,000
258
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
If all the bank's borrowers return their loans paying with
checks, the bank's balance sheet will look like this:
(69)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1,k=0 and f=0
Assets
Liabilities
Cash
1,000,000 Demand deposits 1,000,000
Total Assets 1,000,000 Total Liabilities 1,000,000
This balance sheet clearly reflects the 9,000,000 m.u. reduc-
tion in the money supply or tightening of credit. An identical
decline would result from the simultaneous repayment of
loans in isolated banks, as in entries (66) and (67), through
a process identical to the inverse of the one shown in Table
IV-2.
Fifth, if the loans lose their value due to the failure of the
economic activity for which they were employed, the corre-
sponding bank must record this fact as a loss, as shown
here:
(70) Debit
Bank A
Credit
Losses due to 9,000,000 Loans
defaulters
(expenses)
2,000,000
The bank's balance sheet would then look like this:
The Credit Expansion Process 259
(71)
Bank A
Balance Sheet
c=0.1,k=0 and f=0
Assets Liabilities
Cash 1,000,000 Deposits 10,000,000
Losses for the 9,000,000
year
Total Assets 10,000,000 Total Liabilities 10,000,000
If we compare this balance sheet with (69), we see the bank
holds the same amount in cash reserves in each instance, yet a
very significant difference exists: in (71) the Liabilities column
reflects 10,000,000 m.u. in deposits, as opposed to 1,000,000
m.u. in (69). In other words, the bank has technically failed. Nev-
ertheless as long as depositors continue to trust it, no decrease
in the money supply will take place. In fact, since no one will
claim the 9,000,000 m.u. of secondary deposits the bankers
created from nothing, they may even consider this amount
part of the year's profits, a sum to compensate for the
9,000,000 m.u. lost to defaulters, leaving the balance sheet as it
appears in (69).42 However in terms of deflation this situation
is obviously even more dangerous than that following the
repayment of a loan: before arriving at this situation, banks
will heavily restrict new loans (they will be much more rigor-
ous in their criteria for granting them), accelerating the defla-
tionary process; and if the measures they take do not prove
sufficient to avoid defaulters and the risk of failure, they will
42It is interesting to note how bankers involved in crises invariably
complain that with just a little assistance from someone (the state or the
central bank) in restoring their customers' confidence, they could con-
tinue to function with no problem and quickly reestablish their "sol-
vency."
260 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
be one step away from losing the confidence of their deposi-
tors, who may force them to suspend payments and/or
declare bankruptcy, and in this case even the 1,000,000 m.u.
originally deposited in cash would be withdrawn, threatening
the existence of the entire banking system.
Under ordinary conditions the contraction or deflation we
are describing does not occur, because when a customer of one
bank returns a loan, the sum is compensated for by another
loan granted by another bank; in fact even within the same
bank the attempt is always made to replace the repaid loan
with a new one. In addition under normal circumstances the
bank may consider payment arrears just one more operating
cost. The crucial problem posed by credit tightening (as we
will examine in the following chapters) consists of the fact that
the very process of credit expansion based on a fractional
reserve inevitably triggers the granting of loans unsupported
by voluntary saving, resulting in a process of intertemporal
discoordination, which in turn stems from the distorted infor-
mation the banking system imparts to businessmen who
receive loans generated ex nihilo by the system. Hence busi-
nessmen rush out to launch investment projects as if society's
real saving had increased, when in fact this has not happened. The
result is artificial economic expansion or a "boom," which by
processes we will later study in detail, inevitably provokes an adjust-
ment in the form of a crisis and economic recession. This sums up
the negative effects exerted on the real economy by the finan-
cial practice of expanding credit through the issuance of fidu-
ciary media (deposits).
The crisis and economic recession reveal that a highly sig-
nificant number of investment projects financed under new
loans created by banks are not profitable because they do not
correspond to the true desires of consumers. Therefore many
investment processes fail, which ultimately has a profound
effect on the banking system. The harmful consequences are
evidenced by a widespread repayment of loans by many demor-
alized businessmen assessing their losses and liquidating
unsound investment projects (thus provoking deflation and
the tightening of credit); they are also demonstrated by an
alarming and atypical rise in payment arrears on loans
The Credit Expansion Process 261
(adversely affecting the banks' solvency). Just as the money
supply was expanded according to the bank multiplier, artifi-
cial economic expansion fostered by the ex nihilo creation of
loans eventually triggers an endogenous recession, which in
the form of a widespread repayment of loans and an increase
in arrears, reduces the money supply substantially. Therefore
the fractional-reserve banking system generates an extremely elastic
money supply, which "stretches" with ease but then must contract
just as effortlessly, producing the corresponding effects on economic
activity, which is repeatedly buffeted by successive stages of boom
and recession. "Manic-depressive" economic activity, with all
of its heavy, painful social costs, is undoubtedly the most
severe, damaging effect the current banking system (based on
a fractional reserve, in violation of universal legal principles)
has on society.
In short, bank customers' economic difficulties, one of the
inevitable consequences of all credit expansion, render many
loans irrecoverable, accelerating even more the credit tighten-
ing process (the inverse of the expansion process). In fact, as in
our accounting example, the bank may completely fail as a
result, in which case the bills and deposits issued by it (which
we know are economically equivalent) will lose all value, fur-
ther aggravating the monetary squeeze (instead of the
9,000,000 m.u. decrease in the money supply caused by the
return of a loan, here the money supply would drop by
10,000,000 m.u.; that is, including the 1,000,000 m.u. in pri-
mary deposits held by the bank). Furthermore, one bank's sol-
vency problems are enough to sow panic among the customers
of all other banks, leading them to suspend payments one by
one, with tragic economic and financial consequences.
Moreover we must point out that, even if the public con-
tinues to trust banks (despite their insolvency), and even if a
central bank created ad hoc for such situations provides all the
liquidity necessary to assure depositors their deposits are
fully protected, the inability to recover loans initiates a process
of credit tightening that is spontaneously set off when loans
are repaid and cannot be replaced by new ones at the same
rate. This phenomenon is typical of periods of recession.
When customers default on their loans, banks become more
262 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
cautious about granting more. Hence the natural reluctance of
the demoralized public to request loans is reinforced by
banks' greater prudence and rigor when it comes to giving
them. In addition, as bankers see their profitability fall along
with the value of their assets as a result of irrecoverable loans,
they will attempt to be more careful, and other things being
equal, to increase their cash on hand by raising their reserve
ratio, which will have an even greater tightening effect.
Finally business failures and frustration arising from the
inability to honor commitments to banks will contribute even
more to the demoralization of economic agents and to their
determination to avoid new investment projects financed with
bank loans. In fact many businessmen eventually realize they
allowed themselves to be carried away by unjustified opti-
mism in the phases of expansion, largely due to the excessively
generous credit terms bankers initially offered, and the business-
men correctly attribute their errors in judgment to these easy
terms.43 As a result they resolve not to commit the same errors
again. (Whether or not their attempt at rectification is success-
ful and in the future the businessmen remember their
unpleasant experiences during the stage of recession is a dif-
ferent issue we will confront later.)
In conclusion, we have seen that the fractional-reserve
banking system can contract and drastically reduce the money
supply just as easily as it expands credit and increases the
money supply. In other words, the system generates an elastic
and extremely fragile stock of money which is subject to great
43See also chapter 5, sec. 4. The serious harm bankers do those cus-
tomers they urge to "enjoy" new loans and get involved in business
deals requiring bank financing should theoretically be admitted in legal
cases in which banks would be sued for damages with respect to the
injury they inflict upon borrowers in this way. If until now such suits
have not been brought before the court, it is because economic theory
had not been advanced enough to clearly identify the cause and nature
of the injury. However nowadays theoretical developments make it pos-
sible to apply theory in court. A very similar, parallel case would be the
use of breakthroughs in biology to facilitate judicial declarations of
paternity which were impossible a few years ago.
The Credit Expansion Process 263
convulsions that are very difficult, if not impossible, to miti-
gate or stop. This monetary and banking system contrasts
with inelastic systems (for example, the one that combines the
classic gold standard with a 100-percent reserve requirement),
which do not permit disproportionate expansion of the money
supply (the worldwide production of gold has been growing
in recent centuries at the rate of 1 to 2 percent per year). More-
over they offer the following advantage: due to the fact that
these systems are inelastic (gold is indestructible and through-
out history the world has accumulated a very inflexible stock
of it), they do not permit any abrupt decline, nor (logically)
any credit or monetary squeezes which exert debilitating
effects on the economy, as opposed to the current situation for
which the existing banking system is responsible.44
44In the last chapter we will examine the comparative advantages of the
classic gold standard based on a free banking system subject to legal
principles; that is, with a 100-percent reserve requirement.
Bank Credit Expansion
and Its Effects on the
Economic System
In the previous chapter we explained how the monetary
bank-deposit contract with a fractional reserve leads to the
creation of new money (deposits) and its infusion into the
economic system in the form of new loans unbacked by a nat-
ural increase in voluntary saving (credit expansion). In this
chapter we will focus on the effects of credit expansion on the
economic system. We will analyze the distortions the expan-
sion process causes: investment errors, credit squeezes, bank
crises and eventually, unemployment and economic reces-
sions. First, however, we must examine in detail both the the-
ory of capital and the productive structure of a real economy,
since a clear grasp of both is essential to understanding the
processes triggered in the market by banks' concession of
loans not derived from a previous increase in voluntary sav-
ing. Our analysis will reveal that the legal concept which con-
cerns us (the monetary bank-deposit contract with a fractional
reserve) does great harm to many economic agents (and to
society in general) inasmuch as it is the principal root of recur-
ring economic recessions. Moreover we will show that because
credit expansion precipitates economic and bank crises, it ren-
ders the "law of large numbers" inapplicable in banking and
therefore makes it technically impossible to ensure the com-
pletion of banks' fractional-reserve operations. This fact
acquires great significance in light of the inevitable emergence
of the central bank as a lender of last resort, which we will
explore in depth in a later chapter. We will begin by explaining
265
266 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the processes spontaneously set in motion in an economic system
when new loans originate from a voluntary increase in society's
real saving; then in contrast and by comparison it will be easier
to understand what happens when banks create loans ex nihilo
through a process of credit expansion.
1
The Foundations of Capital Theory
In this section we will examine the basic tenets of capital
theory which are essential to understanding the effects credit
expansion exerts on the economic system.1 We will begin by
considering the subjectivist conception of human action as a
series of productive stages intended to achieve an end.
Human Action as a Series of Subjective Stages
We may begin by defining human action as any deliberate
behavior or conduct.2 A person acts to attain certain goals
he/she feels are important. Value refers to the degree of sub-
jective appreciation the actor assigns his goal, and the means is
anything the actor subjectively considers adequate to accom-
plish it. Utility represents the subjective appraisal the actor
makes of the means, in terms of the value of the goal he
iThe capital theory we will expound is the key to understanding how
bank credit expansion distorts the economy's real productive structure.
In fact the usual error of the critics of the Austrian theory of the business
cycle (also called the circulation credit theory), which we present here,
is that they fail to take capital theory into account. This is the case, for
example, with Hans-Michael Trautwein and his two papers: "Money,
Equilibrium, and the Business Cycle: Hayek's Wicksellian Dichotomy,"
History of Political Economy 28, no. 1 (Spring, 1996): 27-55, and "Hayek's
Double Failure in Business Cycle Theory: A Note," chapter 4 of Money
and Business Cycles: The Economics of F.A. Hayek, M. Colonna and H.
Hagemann, eds. (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 74-81.
2On the concepts of human action, plans of action, the subjective con-
ception of time, and action understood as a set of successive stages, see
Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico y funcion empresarial, pp.
43 ff.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 267
believes it will help him to achieve. Means must be scarce by
definition: if the actor did not regard them as such in light of
his objectives, he would not even take them into account
before acting. Ends and means are not "given" (i.e., data) but
instead result from the fundamental entrepreneurial activity
of human beings, an activity which consists of creating, dis-
covering or simply realizing which ends and means are rele-
vant for the actor in each set of specific circumstances of time
and place he encounters. Once the actor believes he has dis-
covered which ends are worth accomplishing, he forms an
idea of the means available to assist him. He then incorporates
them, almost always tacitly, into a plan of action which he
embarks upon through an act of will.
Consequently the plan is a mental picture, conjured up by
the actor, of the different future stages, elements and circum-
stances his action may involve. The plan is the actor's personal
evaluation of the practical information he possesses and grad-
ually discovers within the context of each action. Moreover
each action implies a continuous process of individual or per-
sonal planning through which the actor continually conceives,
revises and modifies his plans, as he discovers and creates
new subjective information on the goals he sets himself and
the means he believes are available to assist him in reaching
these goals.3
3The development of economics as a science which is always based on
human beings, the creative actors and protagonists in all social
processes and events (the subjectivist conception), is undoubtedly the
most significant and characteristic contribution made by the Austrian
School of economics, founded by Carl Menger. In fact Menger felt it vital
to abandon the sterile objectivism of the classical (Anglo-Saxon) school
whose members were obsessed with the supposed existence of external
objective entities (social classes, aggregates, material factors of produc-
tion, etc.). Menger held that economists should instead always adopt the
subjectivist view of human beings who act, and that this perspective
should invariably exert a decisive influence on the way all economic
theories are formulated, in terms of their scientific content and their
practical conclusions and results. On this topic see Huerta de Soto,
"Genesis, esencia y evolucion de la Escuela Austriaca de Economia," in
Estudios de economia politica, chap. 1, pp. 17-55.
268 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
All human action is directed toward the attainment of an
end, or consumer good, which can be defined as a good that
directly and subjectively satisfies the needs of the human
actor. The term first-order economic goods has traditionally
referred to those consumer goods which, in the specific, sub-
jective context of each action, constitute the goal pursued by
the actor in performing the action.4 The achievement of these
goals, consumer goods, or first-order economic goods, is nec-
essarily preceded by a series of intermediate stages represented
by "higher-order economic goods" (second, third, fourth,
etc.). The higher the order of each stage, the further the good
is from the final consumer good.
Furthermore all human action takes place in time, and we
are not referring here to the deterministic or Newtonian sense
of the word (i.e., merely physical or analogical), but to the sub-
jective sense; that is, the actor's subjective perception of time
within the context of his action. According to this subjectivist
conception, the actor experiences the passage of time as he
acts; in other words, as he realizes new ends and means,
designs plans of action and completes the different stages
which compose each action.
When human beings act, they inevitably synthesize mem-
ories of the past into new expectations and mental images for
the future, regarding the different stages in the action process
they will follow. This future is never predetermined, but
instead the actor imagines, creates and builds it step by step.
Therefore the future is always uncertain, since it has yet to be
built, and the only part of it the actor possesses consists of spe-
cific ideas, mental images or expectations he hopes to realize
through the completion of the stages he imagines will make
4This classification and terminology were conceived by Carl Menger,
whose theory on economic goods of different order is one of the most
important logical consequences of his subjectivist conception of eco-
nomics. Carl Menger, Grundsdtze der Volksivirthschaftslehre (Vienna: Wil-
helm Braumuller, 1871). Menger uses the expression "Giiter der ersten
Ordnung" (p. 8) to refer to consumer goods or first-order goods. English
translation by J. Dingwall and B. Hoselitz, Principles of Economics (New
York: New York University Press, 1981).
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 269
up his personal action process. Furthermore the future is open
to man's every creative possibility, and at any point the actor
may modify his objectives or vary, rearrange and revise the
stages of the action processes in which he is involved.
Hence in economics time is inseparable from human
action. It is impossible to conceive of an action which does not
take place in time, one that does not take time. Moreover the
actor perceives the passage of time as he acts and goes
through the different stages in his action process. Human
action, which is always directed toward the attainment of a
goal or the alleviation of a discomfort, invariably takes time,
in the sense that it requires the realization and completion of
a series of successive stages. Therefore what separates the
actor from the achievement of his goal is the period of time
required by the series of successive stages that compose his
action process.5
The following tendency always exists with respect to the
actor's subjective view of the future: as the time period
required by an action increases (i.e., as the number and com-
plexity of the successive stages which constitute the action
increase), the result or aim of the action becomes more valu-
able. An action can acquire a greater subjective value — in
terms of the number, duration, and complexity of stages
involved — in two ways: by enabling the actor to achieve
results he subjectively values more and could not achieve via
shorter human actions; or by facilitating the attainment of
more results than would be possible through shorter action
processes.6 It is easy to understand the economic principle
5On the subjective, experimental and dynamic conception of time as the
only conception applicable to human action in economics, see chapter 4
of the book by Gerald P. O'Driscoll and Mario J. Rizzo, The Economics of
Time and Ignorance (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), pp. 52-70.
6 As Ludwig M. Lachmann has correctly stated, economic development
entails not only an increase in the number of productive stages, but also
an increase in their complexity and therefore a change in their compo-
sition. Ludwig M. Lachmann, Capital and its Structure (Kansas City:
Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1978), p. 83. See also Peter Lewin, "Capital
in Disequilibrium: A Reexamination of the Capital Theory of Ludwig M.
270 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
that human action processes tend to achieve aims of greater
value the longer the processes last. Indeed if this were not the
case, i.e., if the actor did not attach greater value to the results
of longer actions, he would never undertake them and would
opt for shorter actions instead. In other words, an actor is sep-
arated from his goal precisely by a certain length of time (i.e.,
by the time necessary to complete the set of stages in his action
process). Thus, other things being equal, it is evident that
human beings will always try to accomplish their goals as
soon as possible, and they will only be willing to postpone the
attainment of their ends when they subjectively believe that
by doing so they will achieve more valuable objectives.7
We are now ready to discuss the logical notion of time pref-
erence, which establishes that, other things being equal, the
actor prefers to satisfy his needs or reach his objectives as soon
as possible. In other words, when the actor is faced with two
goals of equal subjective value to him, he will always prefer
the one he can attain in less time. Or to put it even more
briefly, other things being equal, "present goods" are always
preferable to "future goods." The law of time preference is just
another way of expressing the following essential principle:
any actor, in the course of his action, tries to achieve the
results of the action as soon as possible, and he is separated
from his ends by a series of intermediate stages involving a cer-
tain time period. Hence time preference is not a psychological
Lachmann," History of Political Economy 29, no. 3 (Fall, 1997): 523-48; and
Roger W. Garrison, Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Struc-
ture (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 25-26.
7Jose Castaneda eloquently states:
As more auxiliary means are introduced into the production
process, the process becomes more lengthy and in general,
more productive. Of course more indirect processes may
exist; that is, ones that are longer or more drawn-out, yet no
more productive. Nevertheless these are not taken into
account since they are not applied, and a longer process is
only introduced when it improves productivity.
Jose Castaneda Chornet, Lecciones de teoria economica (Madrid: Editorial
Aguilar, 1972), p. 385.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 271
or physiological concept, but necessarily follows from the log-
ical structure of action present in the mind of all human
beings. In short, human action is directed toward certain ends
and the actor chooses the means to accomplish them. The goal
is the actor's purpose in performing any action, and in any
action, time is what separates the actor from the goal. There-
fore the closer the actor is in time to his goal, the closer he is
to achieving the objectives he values. The tendency described
above and the time preference we have just explained are sim-
ply two different ways of expressing the same reality. Accord-
ing to the former, actors undertake time-consuming actions
because they expect to thus achieve more valuable ends;
according to the latter, other things being equal, actors always
prefer the goods closer to them in time.8
Hence it is impossible to imagine a human action to which
the principle of time preference does not apply. A world with-
out time preference is inconceivable and would be absurd: it
would mean people always preferred the future to the pres-
ent, and objectives would be postponed, one after the other,
8The law of time preference may even date back to Saint Thomas
Aquinas, and it was expressly stated in 1285 by one of his most brilliant
disciples, Giles Lessines, who maintained that
res futurae per tempora non sunt tantae existimationis, sicut
eadem collectae in instanti nee tantam utilitatem inferunt pos-
sidentibus, propter quod oportet quod sint minoris existima-
tionis secundum iustitiam.
In other words,
future goods are not valued as highly as goods available
immediately, nor are they as useful to their owners, and there-
fore justice dictates they should be considered less valuable.
Aegidius Lessines, De usuris in communi et de usurarum contractibus,
opuscule 66, 1285, p. 426; quoted by Dempsey, Interest and Usury, note
31 on p. 214. This idea was later presented by Saint Bernardine of Siena,
Conrad Summenhart, and Martin Azpilcueta in 1431, 1499, and 1556
respectively (see Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, pp. 85,
92, 106-07 and 399-400). The implications this concept has for economic
theory were later worked out by Turgot, Rae, Bohm-Bawerk, Jevons,
Wicksell, Fisher, and especially Frank Albert Fetter and Ludwig von
Mises.
272 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
just before they were reached, and therefore no end would
ever be achieved and human action would be senseless.9
Capital and Capital Goods
We may use the term capital goods to designate the inter-
mediate stages of each action process, subjectively regarded as
such by the actor. Or to put it another way, each of the inter-
mediate stages in an actor's production process is a capital
good. Hence this definition of capital goods fits in perfectly
with the subjectivist conception of economics presented
above. The economic nature of a capital good does not depend
on its physical properties, but on the opinion of an actor, who
believes the good will enable him to reach or complete a stage
in his action process. Therefore capital goods, as we have
defined them, are simply the intermediate stages the actor
believes he needs to go through before achieving the purpose
of his action. Capital goods should always be placed in a tele-
ological context, in which the essential defining elements are
the aim pursued and the actor's subjective view on the stages
necessary to fulfill it.10
9In a world without time preference people would consume nothing
and save everything, and eventually humans would die of starvation
and civilization would disappear. "Exceptions" to the law of time pref-
erence are merely apparent and invariably result from a disregard for
the ceteris paribus condition inherent in the law. Thus a careful examina-
tion of any supposed "counter-example" suffices to reveal that refuta-
tions of time preference do not involve identical circumstances. This is
the case with goods that cannot be simultaneously enjoyed, or those
which, although they appear physically equivalent, are not identical
from the actor's subjective viewpoint (for instance, ice cream, which we
prefer in summer, even when winter is closer). On the theory of time
preference, see Mises, Human Action, pp. 483-90 (pp. 480-87 of the
Scholar's Edition).
10
The principal point to be emphasized is that capital goods,
thus defined, are distinguished in that they fall neatly into
place in a teleological framework. They are the interim goals
aimed at in earlier plans; they are the means toward the
attainment of still further ends envisaged by the earlier plans.
It is here maintained that the perception of this aspect of tan-
gible things now available provides the key to the unravelling
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 273
Hence capital goods are "higher-order economic goods,"
or factors of production which subjectively materialize at each
intermediate stage in a particular action process. Moreover
capital goods arise from the union of three essential elements:
natural resources, labor and time, all of which are combined in
entrepreneurial action conceived and processed by human
beings.11
The sine qua non for producing capital goods is saving, or
the relinquishment or postponement of immediate consump-
tion. Indeed in an action process the actor will only be able to
of the problems generally attempted to be elucidated by cap-
ital theory.
Israel M. Kirzner, An Essay on Capital (New York: Augustus M. Kelley
1966), p. 38; reproduced in Israel M. Kirzner's book, Essays on Capital and
Interest: An Austrian Perspective (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1996),
pp. 13-122.
11This explains the traditional notion of three factors of production: land
or natural resources, labor, and capital goods or higher-order economic
goods. In each process of action or production, the actor, using his entre-
preneurial sense, generates and combines these factors or resources. The
processes culminate in the market in four different types of income:
pure entrepreneurial profit, stemming from the actor's alertness and
creativity; rent from land or natural resources, in terms of their produc-
tive capacity; labor income or wages; and rent derived from the use of
capital goods. Even though all capital goods ultimately consist of com-
binations of natural resources and labor, they also incorporate (apart
from the entrepreneurial alertness and creativity necessary to conceive
and generate them), the time required to produce them. Furthermore
from an economic standpoint capital goods cannot be differentiated
from natural resources solely in terms of their distinct physical form.
Only purely economic criteria, such as the unaltered permanence of a
good with respect to the achievement of goals and the fact that no fur-
ther action is required of the actor, enable us from an economic stand-
point to clearly distinguish between land (or a natural resource), which
is always permanent, and capital goods, which strictly speaking, are not
permanent and are spent or "consumed" during the production process,
making it necessary to take their depreciation into account. This is why
Hayek has affirmed that, despite appearances, "Permanent improve-
ments in land is land." EA. Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, [1941] 1976), p. 57; reedited by Lawrence H.
White, as vol. XII of The Collected Works ofT.A. Hayek (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 2007). See also p. 298 and footnote 31.
274 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
reach successive and increasingly time-consuming intermedi-
ate stages if he has first sacrificed the chance to undertake
actions which would produce a more immediate result. In
other words, he must give up the achievement of immediate
ends which would satisfy current human needs (consump-
tion). To illustrate this important concept, we will use the
example given by Bohm-Bawerk to explain the process of sav-
ing and investment in capital goods carried out by an indi-
vidual actor in an isolated situation, such as Robinson Crusoe
on his island.12
Let us suppose that Robinson Crusoe has just arrived on
his island and spends his time picking berries by hand, his
only means of subsistence. Each day he devotes all of his
efforts to gathering berries, and he picks enough to survive
and can even eat a few extra daily. After several weeks on this
diet, Robinson Crusoe makes the entrepreneurial discovery
that with a wooden stick several meters long, he could reach
higher and further, strike the bushes with force and gather the
necessary berries much quicker. The only problem is that he
estimates it could take him five whole days to find a suitable
tree from which to take the stick and then to prepare it by
pulling off its branches, leaves, and imperfections. During this
time he will be compelled to interrupt his berry picking. If he
wants to produce the stick, he will have to reduce his con-
sumption of berries for a time and store the remainder in a
basket until he has enough to survive for five days, the pre-
dicted duration of the production process of the wooden
stick. After planning his action, Robinson Crusoe decides to
undertake it, and therefore he must first save a portion of the
berries he picks by hand each day, reducing his consumption
by that amount. This clearly means he must make an
inevitable sacrifice, which he nevertheless deems well worth
12This is the classic example given by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, Kapital
und Kapitalzins: Positive Theorie des Kapitales (Innsbruck: Verlag der Wag-
ner'schen Universitats-Buchhandlung, 1889), pp. 107-35. This work has
been translated into English by Hans F. Sennholz, Capital and Interest,
vol. 2: Positive Theory of Capital (South Holland, 111.: Libertarian Press,
1959), pp. 102-18.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 275
his effort in relation to the goal he longs to achieve. So he
decides to reduce his consumption (in other words, to save)
for several weeks while storing his leftover berries in a basket
until he has accumulated an amount he believes will be suffi-
cient to sustain him while he produces the stick.
This example shows that each process of investment in
capital goods requires prior saving; that is, a decrease in con-
sumption, which must fall below its potential level.13 Once
Robinson Crusoe has saved enough berries, he spends five
days searching for a branch from which to make his wooden
stick, separating it from the tree and perfecting it. What does
he eat during the five days it takes him to prepare the stick, a
production process which forces him to interrupt his daily
harvest of berries? He simply consumes the berries he accu-
mulated in the basket over the preceding several-week period
during which he saved the necessary portion from his hand-
picked berries and experienced some hunger. In this way, if
Robinson Crusoe's calculations were correct, at the end of five
days he will have the stick (a capital good), which represents
an intermediate stage removed in time (by five days of saving)
from the immediate processes of the berry production (by
hand) which up to that point had occupied him. With the fin-
ished stick Robinson Crusoe can reach places inaccessible to
him by hand and strike the bushes with force, multiplying his
production of berries by ten. As a result, from that point on his
stick enables him to gather in one-tenth of a day the berries he
13Saving always results in capital goods, even when initially these
merely consist of the consumer goods (in our example the "berries")
which remain unsold (or are not consumed). Then gradually some cap-
ital goods (the berries) are replaced by others (the wooden stick), as the
workers (Robinson Crusoe) combine their labor with natural resources
through a process which takes time and which humans are able to go
through due to their reliance on the unsold consumer goods (the saved
berries). Hence saving produces capital goods first (the unsold con-
sumer goods that remain in stock) which are gradually used up and
replaced by another capital good (the wooden stick). On this important
point, see Richard von Strigl, Capital and Production, edited with an
introduction by Jorg Guido Hiilsmann (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute,
2000), pp. 27 and 62.
276 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
needs to survive, and he can spend the rest of his time resting
or pursuing subsequent goals that are much more important
to him (like building a hut or hunting animals to vary his diet
and make clothes).
Robinson Crusoe's production process, like any other,
clearly arises from an act of entrepreneurial creativity, the
actor's realization that he stands to benefit, i.e., he can accom-
plish ends more valuable to him, by employing action
processes which require a longer period of time (because they
include more stages). Thus action or production processes
yield capital goods, which are simply intermediate economic
goods in an action process whose aim has not yet been
reached. The actor is only willing to sacrifice his immediate
consumption (i.e., to save) if he thinks that by doing so he will
achieve goals he values more (in this case, the production of
ten times more berries than he could gather by hand). Fur-
thermore Robinson Crusoe must attempt to coordinate as well as
possible his present behavior with his foreseeable future behavior.
More specifically, he must avoid initiating action processes
that are excessively long in relation to his savings: it would be
tragic for him to run out of berries (that is, to consume all he
has saved) halfway through the process of producing a capi-
tal good and without reaching his goal. He must also refrain
from saving too much with respect to his future investment
needs, since by doing so he would only unnecessarily sacri-
fice his immediate consumption. Robinson Crusoe's subjec-
tive assessment of his time preference is precisely what
enables him to adequately coordinate or adjust his present
behavior in relation to his future needs and behavior. On the
one hand, the fact that his time preference is not absolute
makes it possible for him to forfeit some of his present con-
sumption over a period of several weeks with the hope of
thus being able to produce the stick. On the other hand, the
fact that he does have a time preference explains why he only
devotes his efforts to creating a capital good he can produce
in a limited period of time and which requires sacrificing and
saving for a limited number of days. If Robinson Crusoe had
no time preference, nothing would stop him from dedicating
all of his efforts to building a hut right away (which, for
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 277
example, might take him a month minimum), a plan he
would not be able to carry out without first having saved a
large quantity of berries. Therefore he would either starve to
death or the project, out of all proportion to his potential sav-
ing, would soon be interrupted and abandoned. At any rate, it
is important to understand that the real saved resources (the
berries in the basket) are precisely the ones which enable
Robinson Crusoe to survive during the time period he spends
producing the capital good and during which he ceases to
gather berries directly. Even though Robinson Crusoe is
undoubtedly much more productive harvesting berries with
his wooden stick than he is with his bare hands, there is also
no doubt that the process of berry production using the stick
is a more lengthy one in terms of time (it includes more stages)
than the production process of berry picking by hand. Pro-
duction processes tend to increase in length and duration (i.e.,
to become more complex and include more stages) as a result
of the saving and entrepreneurial activity of humans; and the
longer and more time-consuming these processes become, the
more productive they tend to be.
In a modern economy, in which many economic agents
simultaneously perform different functions, we will use the
term capitalist to denote that economic agent whose function is
precisely to save; in other words, to consume less than he cre-
ates or produces and to make available to workers the
resources they need to live for the duration of the production
process in which they participate. (Robinson Crusoe also
behaved like a capitalist when he saved berries that later
enabled him to survive while he produced his wooden stick.)
Thus when the capitalist saves, he frees up resources (con-
sumer goods) which can be used to sustain workers who
direct their energies to productive stages further removed
from final consumption, i.e., the production of capital goods.
Unlike in the example of Robinson Crusoe, production
processes in a modern economy are extremely complex, and
in terms of time, very lengthy. They incorporate a multitude of
stages, all of which are interrelated and divide into numerous
secondary processes that humans employ in the innumerable
action projects they constantly launch.
278 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
For instance the process of producing a car consists of
hundreds or even thousands of productive stages requiring a
very prolonged period of time (even several years) from the
moment the car company begins to design the vehicle (the
stage furthest from final consumption), orders the correspon-
ding materials from its suppliers, runs these materials through
the different assembly lines, orders the different parts for the
motor and all accessories, etc., until it arrives at the stages
closest to consumption, such as transport and distribution to
dealers, the development of advertising campaigns and the
presentation and sale of the car to the public. So although
when we visit the factory we see a finished vehicle emerge
every minute, we must not deceive ourselves by thinking the
production process of each car lasts one minute. Instead we
should be aware that each car calls for a process of production
lasting several years, a process comprised of numerous stages,
beginning when the model is conceived and designed and
ending when the car is presented to its proud owner as a con-
sumer good. In addition, in modern societies humans have a
tendency to specialize in different stages of the production
process. An increasing division of labor (or to be more precise,
of knowledge), both horizontal and vertical, causes the stages
in the production process to be continuously broken down
into other stages as the division of knowledge spreads and
deepens. Specific companies and economic agents tend to spe-
cialize in each one of these stages. Apart from a stage-by-stage
analysis, we can also examine the process by considering the
many phases which occur at once. At all times each of the
stages coexists with the others and therefore some people
spend their time designing vehicles (the cars which will be
available to the public in ten years), while others simultane-
ously order materials from suppliers, others work on assem-
bly lines, and others devote their efforts to the commercial
field (very close to final consumption), promoting the sale of
vehicles that have already been produced.14
14Mark Skousen, in his book The Structure of Production (London and
New York: New York University Press, 1990), reproduces a simplified
outline of the stages in the production process used in the textile and oil
industries in the United States (pp. 168-69). He illustrates in detail the
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 279
Therefore it is clear that, just as the difference between the
"rich" Robinson Crusoe with the stick and the "poor" Robin-
son Crusoe without it lay in the capital good the former had
obtained through prior saving, the essential difference
between rich societies and poor societies does not stem from
any greater effort the former devote to work, nor even from
any greater technological knowledge the former hold. Instead
it arises mainly from the fact that rich nations possess a more
extensive network of capital goods wisely invested from an entrepre-
neurial standpoint. These goods consist of machines, tools, comput-
ers, buildings, semi-manufactured goods, software, etc., and they
exist due to prior savings of the nation's citizens. In other words,
comparatively rich societies possess more wealth because
they have more time accumulated in the form of capital goods,
which places them closer in time to the achievement of much
more valuable goals. There is no doubt that an American
worker earns a much higher wage than an Indian worker, but
this is chiefly because the former has at his disposal and uses
many more capital goods (tractors, computers, machines, etc.)
than the Indian worker, and the goods he uses are of much
higher quality. To put it another way, the longer the produc-
tion process, the more productive it tends to be, as we have
seen. The modern tractor plows the earth much more produc-
tively than the Roman plow. Nevertheless the tractor is a cap-
ital good whose production requires a set of stages much more
numerous, complex and lengthy than those necessary to pro-
duce a Roman plow.
Capital goods in the extremely complex network which
composes the real productive structure of a modern economy
are not perpetual, but are always temporary in the sense that
they are physically used up or consumed during the produc-
tion process, or they become obsolete. In other words, wear on
complexity of both processes as well as the significant number of stages
they comprise and the very prolonged time period they require. This
type of flow chart can be used to provide a simplified description of the
activity in any other sector or industry. Skousen takes the diagrams of
the above-mentioned industries from the book by E.B. Alderfer and H.E.
Michel, Economics of American Industry, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1957).
280 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
capital equipment is not only physical, but technological and
economic as well (obsolescence). Hence capital goods must be
preserved and maintained (in Robinson Crusoe's case, he
must take care of his stick and protect it from wear). This
means entrepreneurs must repair existing capital goods; and,
even more importantly, they must constantly produce new
capital goods to replace the old ones they are in the process of
consuming. Depreciation refers to the wear capital goods
undergo during the production process. A certain minimum
level of saving is essential in order to compensate for depreci-
ation by producing the capital goods necessary to replace ones
that have worn out or depreciated. This is the only way for the
actor to maintain his productive capacity intact. Moreover if
he wishes to further increase the number of stages, lengthen
the processes and make them more productive, he will have to
accumulate even more than the minimum savings required to coun-
teract the strict amortization rate, the accounting term for the
depreciation of capital goods. To save, the actor must reduce
consumption in relation to production. If his output is con-
stant, he must curtail his actual consumption; however if his
output is growing, he will be able to save (to accumulate capi-
tal goods) by keeping his volume of consumption relatively
constant. Nevertheless even in this last case saving requires the
sacrifice (as always) of the increasing volumes of potential con-
sumption which a growing output would permit.
In every production process (i.e., series of successive
stages or capital goods) it is possible to distinguish the stages
which are relatively closer in time to the final consumer good
from those which are relatively further from it. As a general
rule capital goods are difficult to convert, and the closer they
are to the final stage of consumption, the more difficult is
their convertibility. Nonetheless the fact that capital goods
are difficult to adapt does not mean the actor, in his action
process, is not often forced to modify the objectives of his
action, and consequently, to review and convert the stages he
has already completed (i.e., to convert his capital goods as far
as is practicable). In any case, when circumstances change or
the actor changes his mind and modifies the aim of his action,
the capital goods he has produced up to that point may
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 281
become utterly useless or they may be useful only after a
costly conversion. The actor could also find a way to use the
goods, yet still feel that had he known in advance they would
eventually be needed in a different production process, he
would have made them in quite a different way. Finally, it is
very rare for a capital good to be so removed from consump-
tion, or for the circumstances to be such, that the good is per-
fectly useful in any alternative project.
Thus we see the influence of the past on actions carried out
today. Action, as we have defined it, is always prospective,
never retrospective; and an actor considers a good a capital
good based on a planned future action, not on the good's
material properties nor on former action projects.15 Neverthe-
less the past undoubtedly influences future action, to the extent
that it determines the current starting point. Humans commit
countless entrepreneurial errors when conceiving, undertak-
ing, and completing their actions; and consequently, they
embark on subsequent actions from a present position they
would have attempted to make different had they known
about it in advance. However once events have unfolded in a
certain way, humans always strive to make the best of their
present circumstances with a view to accomplishing their goals
for the future. While capital goods are difficult to convert,
15For this reason Hayek is especially critical of the traditional definition
of a capital good as an intermediate good produced by humans, a defi-
nition he considers
a remnant of the cost of production theories of value, of the
old views which sought the explanation of the economic
attributes of a thing in the forces embodied in it. . . . Bygones
are bygones in the theory of capital no less than elsewhere in
economics. And the use of concepts which see the significance
of a good in past expenditure on it can only be misleading.
Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 89. Hayek concludes that
For the problems connected with the demand for capital, the
possibility of producing new equipment is fundamental. And
all the time concepts used in the theory of capital, particularly
those of the various investment periods, refer to prospective
periods, and are always "forward-looking" and never "back-
ward-looking." (Ibid., p. 90)
282 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
investors manage to provide them with considerable "mobil-
ity" through the juridical institutions of property and contract
law, which regulate the different forms of transferring such
goods. Thus the (extremely complex and prolonged) produc-
tive structure permits the constant mobility of investors,
through the exchange and sale of capital goods in the market.16
We are now ready to consider the concept of capital, which
from an economic viewpoint differs from the concept of "cap-
ital goods." In fact we will define "capital" as the market value
of capital goods, a value estimated by the individual actors who
buy and sell capital goods in a free market.17 Thus we see that
capital is simply an abstract concept or instrument of eco-
nomic calculation; in other words, a subjective valuation of or
judgment on the market value entrepreneurs attribute to cap-
ital goods and on the basis of which they continually buy and
sell them, attempting to make a pure entrepreneurial profit
with each transaction. Therefore in a socialist economy in
which neither free markets nor market prices exist, it is per-
haps feasible to speak of capital goods, but not of capital: the
latter always requires a market and prices which are freely
determined by the economic agents who participate in it. If it
were not for market prices and the subjective estimation of the
capital value of goods that compose the intermediate stages
in production processes, in a modern society it would be
impossible to estimate or calculate whether or not the final
value of the goods to be produced using capital goods offsets
16A demoralized entrepreneur who wishes to abandon his business and
settle elsewhere can find sure, constant mobility in the market: legal
contracts permit him to put his business up for sale, liquidate it and use
his new liquidity to acquire another company. In this way he achieves
real, effective mobility that is much greater than the mere physical or
technical mobility of the capital good (which, as we have seen, is usu-
ally rather limited).
17Nonetheless on various occasions we will be forced to use the term cap-
ital less strictly to refer to the set of capital goods which make up the pro-
ductive structure. This loose sense of "capital" is the one intended by
among others, Hayek in The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 54; it is also the mean-
ing intended by Lachmann in Capital and its Structure, where on page 11
"capital" is defined as "the heterogeneous stock of material resources."
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 283
the cost involved in the production processes, neither would
it be possible to direct in a coordinated way the efforts of peo-
ple who contribute to the different action processes.18
We have attempted elsewhere to demonstrate that all sys-
tematic coercion which impedes the free exercise of entrepre-
neurship prevents humans from discovering the information
they need to carry out their actions.19 It also keeps them from
spontaneously transmitting this information and coordinating
their behavior with respect to the needs of others. This means
that the coercive intervention which is characteristic of social-
ism, of state interventionism in the economy, and of the grant-
ing of privileges to certain groups against traditional legal
principles, prevents to a greater or lesser extent the exercise of
entrepreneurship, and hence the coordinated action of human
beings; it also tends to generate systematic maladjustments in
the framework of society. Systematic discoordination can be
intratemporal; or, as in the case of human actions related to dif-
ferent stages of production processes or capital goods, intertem-
poral, such that human beings who cannot act freely tend to adjust
their present behavior poorly to their future behavior and needs.
As we saw from Robinson Crusoe's isolated production
process, intertemporal coordination is fundamental to all
human action which takes time and especially to those actions
related to capital goods; thus the great importance of permit-
ting the free exercise of entrepreneurship in this area. In this
way entrepreneurs constantly discover profit opportunities in
the market, believing they see new possible combinations of
capital goods, and considering these combinations to be
undervalued with respect to the market price they estimate
they will be able to obtain in the future for the consumer
goods they produce. In short we are referring to a process of
continual buying and selling, "recombination" and produc-
tion of new kinds of capital goods, a process which generates
18This is precisely the fundamental argument Mises raises concerning
the impossibility of economic calculation in a socialist economy. See
Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico y funcion empresarial, chaps.
3-7.
19Ibid., chaps. 2 and 3, pp. 41-155.
284 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
a dynamic and very complex productive structure which
always tends to expand horizontally and vertically20 Without
free entrepreneurship, nor free markets for capital goods and
money it is impossible to make the necessary economic calcu-
lation regarding the horizontal and vertical extension of the
different stages in the production process, resulting in wide-
spread discoordinated behavior that throws society off bal-
ance and prevents its harmonious development. In entrepre-
neurial processes of intertemporal coordination, a leading role
is played by an important market price: the price of present
goods in relation to future goods, more commonly known as
the interest rate, which regulates the relationship between
consumption, saving and investment in modern societies, and
which we will study in detail in the next section.
The Interest Rate
As we have seen, other things being equal, humans
always place present goods higher than future goods on their
scale of value. However the relative intensity of this difference
in subjective valuation varies substantially from one person to
another; and it can even vary greatly throughout the life of
one person based on changes in his circumstances. Some peo-
ple have a high time preference and value the present greatly
in relation to the future; thus they are only willing to sacrifice
the immediate achievement of their ends if they expect or
believe they will accomplish in the future goals they subjec-
tively value very highly. Other people have a more limited
time preference, and although they also value present goods
more than future goods, they are more predisposed to relin-
quish the immediate achievement of their aims in exchange
for objectives which they value only a little more and which
will be reached tomorrow. This difference in the psychic inten-
sity of the subjective valuation of present goods in relation to
future goods, a difference reflected on each human actor's
20This is the terminology used, for example, by Knut Wicksell in Lectures
on Political Economy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951), vol. 1,
p. 164, where Wicksell expressly mentions a "horizontal-dimension"
and a "vertical-dimension" to the structure of capital goods.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 285
scale of value, means that in a market comprising many eco-
nomic agents, each of which has his own distinct and variable
time preference, multiple opportunities arise for mutually
beneficial exchanges.
Hence people with a low time preference will be willing to
give up present goods in exchange for future goods valued
only a bit higher, and they will perform exchanges in which
they will hand over their present goods to people with a
higher time preference, i.e., people who value the present
more intensely than they do. The creativity and alertness
inherent in entrepreneurship give rise to a market process that
tends to establish a market price for present goods with respect
to future goods. We will use the term "interest rate" to denote the
market price of present goods in relation to future goods. Given that
in the market many actions are carried out using money as a
generally-accepted medium of exchange, the interest rate is
the price one must pay to obtain a certain number of m.u.
immediately; this price reflects the number of units one must
return in exchange at the end of the set term or time period.
Generally, for reasons of custom, the price is expressed as a
certain yearly percentage. For instance, an interest rate of 9
percent indicates that market transactions are conducted in
such a way that it is possible to obtain 100 m.u. immediately
(present good) in exchange for a promise to turn over 109 m.u.
at the end of one year (future good).21
Therefore the interest rate is the price established in a
market in which the suppliers or sellers of present goods are
2lThe interest rate can actually be interpreted in two different ways. It
can be seen as a ratio of today's prices (of which one corresponds to the
good available today and the other corresponds to the same good
available tomorrow); or it can be considered the price of present goods
in terms of future goods. Both ideas yield the same result. The former is
the one advocated by Ludwig von Mises, for whom the interest rate "is
a ratio of commodity prices, not a price in itself" {Human Action, p. 526).
We prefer to favor the latter here, following Murray N. Rothbard. A
detailed analysis of how the interest rate is determined as the market
price of present goods in terms of future goods, along with other stud-
ies, can be found in Murray N. Rothbard's book, Man, Economy, and
286 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
precisely the savers; that is, all those relatively more willing to
relinquish immediate consumption in exchange for goods of
greater value in the future. The buyers of present goods are all
those who consume immediate goods and services (be they
workers, owners of natural resources or capital goods, or any
combination of these). Indeed the market of present and
future goods, in which the interest rate is determined, consists
of society's entire structure of productive stages, in which savers or
capitalists give up immediate consumption and offer present
goods to owners of the primary or original factors of produc-
tion (workers and owners of natural resources) and to own-
ers of capital goods, in exchange for the full ownership of
consumer (and capital) goods of a supposedly higher value
once the production of these goods has been completed in the
future. If we eliminate the positive (or negative) effect of pure
entrepreneurial profits (or losses), this difference in value
tends to coincide with the interest rate.
State: A Treatise on Economic Principles, 3rd ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig
von Mises Institute, 1993), chaps. 5-6, pp. 273-387. In any case the inter-
est rate is determined in the same way as any other market price. The
only difference lies in the fact that, rather than reflect an established
price for each good or service in terms of m.u., the interest rate is based
on the sale of present goods in exchange for future goods, each in the
form of m.u. Although we defend the idea that the interest rate is deter-
mined exclusively by time preference (i.e., by the subjective valuations
of utility which time preference entails), the acceptance of another the-
ory (for example, that to a greater or lesser degree the interest rate is set
by the marginal productivity of capital) does not affect this book's
essential argument concerning the disruptive effects which banks'
expansive creation of loans has on the productive structure. In this
regard, Charles E. Wainhouse states:
Hayek establishes that his monetary theory of economic fluc-
tuations is consistent with any of the "modern interest theo-
ries" and need not be based on any particular one. The key is
the monetary causes of deviations of the current from the
equilibrium rate of interest.
"Empirical Evidence for Hayek's Theory of Economic Fluctuations,"
chapter 2 in Money in Crisis: The Federal Reserve, the Economy and Mone-
tary Reform, Barry N. Siegel, ed. (San Francisco: Pacific Institute for Pub-
lic Policy Research, 1984), p. 40.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 287
From a legal standpoint, exchanges of present goods for
future goods can take many forms. For instance, in a coopera-
tive the workers themselves simultaneously act as capitalists,
waiting until the end of the entire production process to
acquire the ownership of the final good and its full value.
Nevertheless in most cases workers are not willing to wait
until the production process ends nor to take on the risks and
uncertainties it entails. Thus instead of forming cooperatives,
they prefer to sell the services of their productive effort in
exchange for immediate present goods. They agree on a labor
contract (an employment contract for another's account)
according to which the person who advances them the present
goods (the capitalist, saver or supplier of present goods)
receives the full ownership of the final good once it has been
produced. Combinations of these two different types of con-
tract are also possible. This is not the proper place to analyze
the different legal forms which the exchange of present goods
for future goods takes in a modern society. Furthermore these
forms do not affect the fundamental argument we advance in
this book, though they are undoubtedly of great interest from
a theoretical and practical standpoint.
It is worth noting that the "loan market," in which one
may obtain a loan by agreeing to pay the corresponding inter-
est rate, constitutes a relatively small part of the general
market, in which present goods are exchanged for future
goods and which encompasses the entire productive structure
of society. Here owners of the original means of production
(labor and natural resources) and capital goods act as deman-
ders of present goods, and savers act as suppliers of them.
Therefore the short-, medium-, and long-term loan market is
simply a subset of that much broader market in which present
goods are exchanged for future goods and with respect to
which it plays a mere secondary and dependent role, despite
the fact that the loan market is the most visible and obvious to
the general public.22 In fact it is entirely possible to conceive
22What we colloquially refer to as the "money market" is actually just a
short-term loan market. The true money market encompasses the entire
288 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
of a society in which no loan market exists, and all economic
agents invest their savings in production directly (via internal
financing and retained earnings through partnerships, corpo-
rations, and cooperatives). Although in this case no interest
rate would be established in a (nonexistent) loan market, an
interest rate would still be determined by the ratio at which
present goods are exchanged for future goods in the different
intermediate stages in production processes. Under these cir-
cumstances the interest rate would be determined by the "rate
of profit" which would tend to equal the net income at each
stage in the production process, per unit of value and time
period. Although this interest rate is not directly observable in
the market, and even though in each company and in each spe-
cific production process it incorporates important external fac-
tors (such as the components of pure entrepreneurial profits or
losses, and the risk premium), the profit generated in each
stage of the entire economic system would tend to correspond
to the interest rate, due to the typical entrepreneurial process of
equalizing accounting profits over the different stages of the
productive structure, assuming no further changes occur and
all creative possibilities and opportunities for entrepreneurial
profit have already been discovered and exploited.23
market in which goods and services are exchanged for m.u. and in
which the price or purchasing power of money, and the monetary price
of each good and service are simultaneously determined. This is why
the following affirmation, made by Marshall, is wholly misleading:
"The 'money market' is the market for command over money: 'the value
of money' in it at any time is the rate of discount, or of interest for short
period loans charged in it." Alfred Marshall, Money Credit and Commerce
(London: Macmillan, 1924), p. 14. Mises, in Human Action, p. 403, com-
pletely clears up Marshall's confusion of terms.
23However, strictly speaking, the concept of a "rate of profit" makes no
sense in real life, and we have only introduced it by way of illustration
and to aid the reader in understanding the theory of the cycle. As Mises
states:
[I]t becomes evident that it is absurd to speak of a "rate of
profit" or a "normal rate of profit" or an "average rate of
profit." . . . There is nothing "normal" in profits and there can
never be an "equilibrium" with regard to them. (Mises,
Human Action, p. 297)
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 289
In the outside world, the only directly-observable fig-
ures are what we could call the gross interest rate or market
rate of interest (which coincides with the interest rate in the
credit market) and the gross accounting profits generated by
each production activity (i.e., net income). The first consists
of the interest rate as we have defined it (also sometimes
called the originary or natural rate of interest), plus the risk
premium corresponding to the operation in question, plus or
minus a premium for expected inflation or deflation; that is, for
the expected decrease or increase in the purchasing power
of the monetary unit used in exchanges of present goods for
future goods and in calculations regarding such transac-
tions.
The second figure, which is also directly observable in the
market, represents gross accounting profits (i.e., net income)
derived from the specific productive activity carried out at
each stage of the production process. These profits tend to
match the gross interest rate (or market rate of interest) as we
have defined it in the preceding paragraph, plus or minus
pure entrepreneurial profits or losses.24 As in all markets
entrepreneurial profits and losses tend to disappear as a result
of competition between entrepreneurs, the accounting profits
of each productive activity by time period tend to match the
gross market interest rate. Indeed the accounting profits
reported by each company for a financial year could be con-
sidered to include an implicit interest-rate component, with
respect to the resources saved and invested by the capitalists
24In fact the interest rate at which loans are negotiated in the credit mar-
ket also includes an entrepreneurial component we have not mentioned
in the text. This arises from the inescapable uncertainty (not "risk")
regarding, for instance, the possibility that systematic changes could
occur in society's rate of time preference or other disturbances impossi-
ble to insure against:
The granting of credit is necessarily always an entrepreneur-
ial speculation which can possibly result in failure and the
loss of a part of the total amount lent. Every interest stipu-
lated and paid in loans includes not only originary interest
but also entrepreneurial profit. (Mises, Human Action, p. 536)
290 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
who own the company. This implicit component, together
with the risk factor and entrepreneurial profits or losses which
result from the purely entrepreneurial activity of the business,
give rise to accounting profits. From this perspective it is pos-
sible for a company to report accounting profits (i.e., net
income) when it has actually suffered entrepreneurial losses, if
accounting profits fail to reach the amount necessary to
exceed the implicit gross-market-interest-rate component that
applies to resources capitalists invest in their businesses
throughout the financial year.
In any case, regardless of the external form interest takes,
the key is to remember that as a market price or social rate of
time preference, interest plays a vital role in the coordination
of the behavior of consumers, savers, investors, and producers
in a modern society. Just as it was crucial for Robinson Crusoe
to coordinate his actions and refrain from dedicating to future
goals an effort disproportionate to his stock of saved present
goods, the same issue, intertemporal coordination, arises con-
stantly in society.
In a modern economy, present and future behaviors are
reconciled through entrepreneurial activity in the market
where present goods are exchanged for future goods and the
interest rate, the market price of one type of goods in terms of
the other, is established. Thus the more plentiful the savings,
i.e., the greater the quantity of present goods sold or offered for
sale, other things being equal, the lower their price in terms of
future goods; and consequently, the lower the market rate of
interest. This indicates to entrepreneurs that more present
goods are available, which enables them to increase the length
and complexity of the stages in their production processes,
making these stages more productive. In contrast, the fewer
the savings, i.e., other things being equal, the less economic
agents are willing to give up immediate consumption of pres-
ent goods, the higher the market rate of interest. Thus a high
market rate of interest shows that savings are relatively scarce,
an unmistakable sign entrepreneurs should heed to avoid
unduly lengthening the different stages in the production
process and generating as a result discoordination or malad-
justments which pose a great danger to the sustained, healthy
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 291
and harmonious development of society.25 In short the inter-
est rate conveys to entrepreneurs which new productive
stages or investment projects they can and should embark on
and which they should not, in order to keep coordinated, as
much as humanly possible, the behavior of savers, consumers,
and investors, and to prevent the different productive stages
from remaining unnecessarily short or becoming too long.
Finally we must point out that the market rate of interest
tends to be the same throughout the entire time market or
productive structure in society, not only intratemporally, i.e., in
different areas of the market, but also inter temporally, i.e., in
some productive stages relatively close to consumption as in
other productive stages further from it. Indeed if the interest
rate one can obtain by advancing present goods in some
stages (for example, those closest to consumption) is higher
than that one can obtain in other stages (for example, those
furthest from consumption), then the entrepreneurial force
itself, driven by a desire for profit, will lead people to disinvest
in stages in which the interest rate or "rate of profit" is lower,
relatively speaking, and to invest in stages in which the
expected interest rate or "rate of profit" is higher.
The Structure of Production
Although it is nearly impossible to illustrate with charts
the extremely complex structure of productive stages that
make up a modern economy, Chart V-l represents a simplified
version of this structure, and we include it with the purpose of
clarifying the theoretical arguments we will later develop.
25This same idea is focal in Roger Garrison's latest book, which we read
after the first edition of our book had been published in Spanish. Garri-
son states:
[T]he intertemporal allocation may be internally consistent
and hence sustainable, or it may involve some systematic
internal inconsistency, in which case its sustainability is
threatened. The distinction between sustainable and unsus-
tainable patterns of resource allocation is, or should be, a
major focus of macroeconomic theorizing. (Garrison, Time and
Money, pp. 33-34)
292 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Moreover although this chart is not strictly necessary for
explaining the essential theoretical arguments, and in fact,
authors of the stature of Ludwig von Mises never used it in
their presentation of the theory of capital and of business
cycles,26 traditionally many theorists have considered it help-
ful to use simplified charts of the stages in real production
processes (like Chart V-l) in order to clarify their arguments.27
26Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit and also Human Action.
27The first theorist to propose an illustration basically identical to that of
Chart V-l was William Stanley Jevons in his book The Theory of Political
Economy, the 1st edition of which was published in 1871. We have used
a reprint of the 5th edition (Kelley and Millman, eds.), published in 1957
in New York; page 230 includes a diagram where, according to Jevons,
"line ox indicates the duration of investment and the height attained at
any point, i, is the amount of capital invested." Later, in 1889, Eugen von
Bohm-Bawerk gave more in-depth consideration to the theoretical issue
of the structure of successive stages of capital goods and to using charts
to illustrate this structure. He proposed to represent it by successive
annual concentric circles (the expression Bohm-Bawerk uses is konzen-
trische jahresringe) , each of which depicts a productive stage; the circles
overlap other larger ones. This type of chart appears, along with Bohm-
Bawerk's explanation of it, on pp. 114-15 of his book, Kapital und Kapi-
talzins, vol. 2: Positive Theorie des Kapitales; the corresponding pages of
the English edition, Capital and Interest, are pp. 106-07, vol. 2. The chief
problem with Bohm-Bawerk's chart is that it depicts the passage of time
in a very clumsy way and therefore reveals the need for a second dimen-
sion (vertical). Bohm-Bawerk could easily have gotten around this diffi-
culty by replacing his "concentric rings" with a number of cylinders
placed one on top of the other, so that each cylinder has a base smaller
than the one below it (like a circular wedding cake whose layers are
smaller in diameter the higher their position). Hayek later overcame this
difficulty, in 1931, in the first edition of his now classic book, Prices and
Production, foreword by Lionel Robbins (London: Routledge, 1931; 2nd
rev. ed., in 1935); p. 36 of the first edition and p. 39 of the second. From
this point on, unless we indicate otherwise, all quotations taken from
this book will come from the 2nd edition. The book contains a chart very
similar to Chart V-l. Hayek used this type of illustration again in 1941
(but this time in continuous terms) in his book, The Pure Theory of Capi-
tal (see, for example, p. 109). Moreover in 1941 Hayek also developed a
prospective three-dimensional chart of the different stages in the pro-
duction process. What this chart gains in accuracy, precision, and ele-
gance, it loses in comprehensibility (p. 117 of the 1941 English edition).
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System
293
The stages of the productive structure reflected in Chart V-l
do not represent the production of capital goods and consumer
goods in physical terms, but rather their value in monetary
units (m.u.)- To the left of the chart we assume that the pro-
ductive structure is composed of five stages whose "order
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294 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
number," in keeping with Menger's classic contribution,
increases with the distance from the final stage of consumption.
Thus the first stage comprises "first-order economic goods" or
consumer goods which, in our chart, are exchanged for the
value of one hundred m.u. The second stage is composed of "sec-
ond-order economic goods," or the capital goods closest to con-
sumption. The third, fourth, and fifth stages continue this pat-
tern, and the fifth stage is the furthest from consumption. In
order to simplify the explanation, we have supposed that each
stage requires the time period of one year, and therefore the
production process in Chart V-l would last five years from its
beginning in the fifth stage (the furthest from consumption) to
the final consumer goods in the first stage. There are two ways
to consider the stages in our outline: we can regard them as con-
secutive, as the set of productive stages which must be gone
through before arriving at the final consumer good after five
years (the diachronic point of view); or we can view them as
simultaneous, as a "photograph" of the stages taking place at
one time in the same financial year (the synchronic point of
view). As Bohm-Bawerk indicates, this second interpretation of
the chart (as a representation of the production process in the
form of a set of synchronized stages) bears a strong resemblance
to the age pyramids formulated with data from the census.
In 1962 Murray Rothbard (Man, Economy, and State, chaps. 6-7) pro-
posed a depiction similar and in many aspects even superior to Hayek's.
Mark Skousen follows Rothbard's illustration very closely in his book,
The Structure of Production. In Spanish we first introduced the chart of
the stages in the productive structure over twenty years ago in the arti-
cle, "La teoria austriaca del ciclo economico," originally published in
Moneda y credito, no. 152 (March 1980): 37-55 (republished in our book,
Estudios de economia politica, chap. 13, pp. 160-76). Although the triangu-
lar charts Knut Wicksell proposes in Lectures on Political Economy (vol. 1,
p. 159) could also be interpreted as an illustration of the productive
structure, we have deliberately left them out of this brief outline of the
history of charts depicting the stages in the production process. See also
Alonso Neira, M.A., "Hayek's Triangle," An Eponymeus Dictionary of
Economics: A Guide to Laws and Theorems Named after Economists, Julio
Segura and Carlos Rodriquez Braun, eds. (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward
Elgar, 2004). Finally a critical analysis of Hayekian triangles from the
Austrian point of view can be seen in Walter Block and William Barnett,
"Hayekian Triangles," Procesos de Mercado 3, no. 2 (2006).
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 295
These pyramids represent cross-sections of the real population,
which is classified by ages. In them we can also see the change
in the number of people of each age who remain alive (mortal-
ity table); this second interpretation means viewing the stages
as consecutive.28
The arrows in our diagram represent the flows of monetary
income which at each stage in the production process reach
the owners of the original means of production (labor and nat-
ural resources) in the form of wages and rents, and the own-
ers of capital goods (capitalists or savers) in the form of inter-
est (or accounting profit). Indeed if we begin at the first stage
in our example, consumers spend 100 m.u. on consumer
goods, and this money becomes the property of the capitalists
who own the consumer goods industries. One year earlier,
these capitalists had advanced from their savings 80 m.u. cor-
responding to the services of fixed capital goods and to circu-
lating capital goods produced by other capitalists in the sec-
ond stage of the production process. The first capitalists also
pay 10 m.u. to the owners of the original means of production
(labor and natural resources) which they hire directly in the
last stage, corresponding to the production of consumer goods
(this payment to the owners of the original means of produc-
tion is represented on our chart by the vertical arrow that
begins to the right of the last step [100 m.u.] and extends to
the upper right-hand box containing 10 m.u.). Since the capi-
talists of the consumer goods stage advanced eighty m.u. to
the owners of the capital goods of the second stage, and ten
m.u. to workers and owners of natural resources (a total of 90
m.u.), at the end of one year when these capitalists sell the
28 The inventory of capital constitutes, so to speak, a cross sec-
tion of the many processes of production which are of vary-
ing length and which began at different times. It therefore
cuts across them at very widely differing stages of develop-
ment. We might compare it to the census which is a cross sec-
tion through the paths of human life and which encounters
and which arrests the individual members of society at
widely varying ages and stages. (Bohm-Bawerk, Capital and
Interest, vol. 2: Positive Theory of Capital, p. 106)
In the original edition, this quotation appears on p. 115.
296 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
consumer goods for 100 units, they obtain an accounting
profit or interest derived from having advanced 90 m.u. from
savings a year earlier. This difference between the total
amount they advanced, 90 m.u. (which they could have con-
sumed, yet they saved and invested it), and the amount they
receive at the end of a year, 100 m.u., is equal to an interest rate
of approximately 11 percent per year (10:90 = 0.11). From an
accounting standpoint, this sum appears as profit on the
income statement drawn up to reflect the entrepreneurial
activity of capitalists of the consumer goods stage (repre-
sented by the box at the lower right-hand corner of Chart V-l).
We can follow the same reasoning with respect to the rest
of the stages. Hence for example, the capitalists who own the
intermediate goods of the third stage advanced at the begin-
ning of the period 40 m.u. in payment for capital goods pro-
duced in the fourth stage, as well as 14 m.u. to owners of the
original means of production (labor and natural resources). In
exchange for the 54 m.u. they have advanced, the capitalists
become owners of the product which, once it is finished, they
sell to capitalists of the second stage for 60 m.u., earning a dif-
ferential of six m.u., which is their accounting profit or inter-
est; it is also close to 11 percent. This pattern repeats itself in
each stage.
The upper portion of the chart shows the amounts which
the capitalists advance at each stage to the original means of
production (workers and owners of natural resources) and
which add up to a total of 70 m.u. (18+16+14+12+10=70 m.u.).
In a column on the right-hand side, we indicate the monetary
sums obtained as accounting profits at each stage. These prof-
its reflect the accounting difference between the m.u.
advanced by the capitalists of each stage and those they
receive for the sale of their product in the following stage. As
we know, this accounting profit tends to coincide with the
interest derived from the amount the capitalists of each stage
save and advance to capitalists of earlier stages and to the
owners of the original means of production. The total of the
accounting differences between income and expenses at each
stage adds up to 30 m.u., which when added to the 70 m.u.
received by the original means of production, equals 100 m.u.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 297
of net income, which coincides exactly with the amount spent
on final consumer goods during the period.
Some Additional Considerations
We must now discuss some important additional consid-
erations regarding our outline of the stages in the production
process:
1. The arbitrary selection of the time period of each stage.
First we must state that the decision to make each stage
last one year was purely arbitrary, and any other time period
could have been chosen. We decided on one year because that
is the business and accounting period most commonly used,
and therefore it makes the proposed illustrative outline of pro-
ductive stages easier to understand.
2. The avoidance of the erroneous concept of "average period of
production."
Second, we should indicate that the five-year duration of
the production process in our example is also purely arbitrary.
Modern production processes are highly complex, as we
know, and they vary greatly from one sector or business to
another, with respect to the number and duration of stages. At
any rate, it is unnecessary and pointless to refer to an "aver-
age period of production," since a priori estimates of the length
of any particular production process depend on the specific
process itself. We know that capital goods are actually the
intermediate stages in a production process initiated by an
entrepreneur. From a subjective point of view, a production
process always has a beginning, the specific moment at which
the actor first perceives that a particular goal is worthwhile to
him, and a certain set of intermediate stages which he con-
ceives in advance and later attempts to carry out as he acts.
Hence our analysis is not based on the idea of an "average
period of production" and is therefore immune to criticism of
that concept.29 In fact all production periods have a specific
29John B. Clark, "The Genesis of Capital," Yale Review 2 (November
1893): 302-15; and "Concerning the Nature of Capital: A Reply," Quarterly
298 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
origin and cannot be traced back indefinitely in time; instead
each stops at the very moment a certain entrepreneur took up
the pursuit of an aim which constituted the imagined final
stage in his process.30 Thus the first stage of production begins
precisely at the moment the entrepreneur conceives of the
final stage in the process (a consumer good or a capital good).
In identifying the beginning of the first stage, it is totally irrel-
evant whether or not the production process in question
involves the use of capital goods or factors of production com-
pleted in advance, yet which no one had ever imagined would
eventually be used in such a process. Moreover it is unneces-
sary to trace back indefinitely in time the conception of a set
of stages in a production process because any capital good
produced in advance which nevertheless remains unused for
a specific purpose for any length of time, ultimately becomes
another "original" resource, so to speak, similar in this respect
to all other natural resources that generate income, yet are
viewed by the actor as just another initial factor in his course
of action.31 In short all production processes are invariably
prospective, they have an identifiable beginning and a fore-
seeable end, and their duration varies according to the process
in question yet is never infinite nor undetermined. Therefore
the retrospective calculation of supposed, phantasmagoric
average periods of production is meaningless.
journal of Economics (May 1907). Frank H. Knight, "Capitalist Produc-
tion, Time and the Rate of Return," in Economic Essays in Honour ofGus-
tav Cassel (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1933).
30Ludwig von Mises very clearly states that
The length of time expended in the past for the production of
capital goods available today does not count at all. These cap-
ital goods are valued only with regard to their usefulness for
future satisfaction. The "average period of production" is an
empty concept. (Mises, Human Action, p. 489)
Rothbard expresses a similar opinion in his book, Man, Economy, and
State, pp. 412-13.
•^Furthermore Rothbard points out that
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 299
3. Fixed and circulating capital goods.
A third pertinent observation about our portrayal of pro-
ductive stages is that it includes not only fixed capital goods,
but also circulating capital goods and durable consumer
goods. From a human actor's prospective point of view, the
distinction between fixed and circulating capital goods is irrel-
evant, since it is largely based on the physical characteristics of
the goods in question and depends especially upon whether
or not these goods are considered to have been "completed."
Indeed when fixed capital goods are incorporated into a pro-
duction process, they are considered "completed," while cir-
culating capital goods are thought to be semi-manufactured or
in an "intermediate" process of production. However accord-
ing to the subjectivist view on production processes aimed at
consumption, both fixed and circulating capital goods constitute
intermediate stages in an action process which only concludes when
the final consumer good satisfies the desires of consumers; there-
fore, economically speaking, it is senseless to distinguish
between the two.
The same can be said for "inventories" or stocks of inter-
mediate goods held on hand at each of the productive stages.
These stocks, which are considered a part of circulating capi-
tal, constitute one of the most significant components of the
value of each stage in a process of production. Furthermore it
has been demonstrated that as the economy evolves and pros-
pers, these stocks become more important because they enable
different businesses to minimize the ever-latent risk of unex-
pected shortages or "bottlenecks" which prolong delivery
[l]and that has been irrigated by canals or altered through the
chopping down of forests has become a present, permanent
given. Because it is a present given, not worn out in the
process of production, and not needing to be replaced, it
becomes a land factor under our definition. (Italics in original)
Rothbard concludes that once
the permanent are separated from the nonpermanent alter-
ations, we see that the structure of production no longer stretches
back infinitely in time, but comes to a close within a relatively brief
span of time. (Man, Economy and State, p. 414; italics added)
300 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
periods. In this way, inventories make it possible for clients at
all levels (not only at the level of consumption, but also at the
level of intermediate goods) to have at their disposal a grow-
ing variety of products to choose from and acquire immedi-
ately. Hence one manifestation of the lengthening of produc-
tion processes is precisely a continual increase in inventories
or stocks of intermediate goods.
4. The role of durable consumer goods.
Fourth, durable consumer goods satisfy human needs
over a very prolonged period of time. Therefore they simulta-
neously form a part of several stages at once: the final stage of
consumption and various preceding stages, according to their
duration. In any case, for our purposes it is irrelevant whether
the consumer himself must wait a certain number of years or
stages before taking advantage of the latest services his durable
consumer good can perform. Only when these services are
directly received do we reach the last stage of Chart V-l, the
stage of consumption. The years the owner spends caring for
and maintaining his durable consumer good so that it will con-
tinue to perform consumer services for him in the future cor-
respond to the stages which appear above and are increasingly
distant from consumption: stage two, three, four, etc.32 Thus
one of the manifestations of the lengthening of production
32 As EA. Hayek has explained,
The different installments of future services which such
goods are expected to render will in that case have to be
imagined to belong to different "stages" of production cor-
responding to the time interval which will elapse before
these services mature.
Prices and Production, p. 40; footnote on p. 2. In this respect the equiv-
alence between durable consumer goods and capital goods had already
been revealed by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, according to whom, "The
value of the remoter installments of the renditions of service is subject to
the same fate as is the value of future goods." Capital and Interest, vol. 2:
Positive Theory of Capital, pp. 325-37, esp. p. 337. In the German edition
see the chapter dedicated to "Der Zins aus ausdauernden Giitern," on
pp. 361-82 of the 1889 edition already cited. Bohm-Bawerk expresses
this principle in German in the following way: "In Folge davon verfallt
der Werth der entlegeneren Nutzleistungsraten demselben Schicksale,
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 301
processes and of the increase in their number of stages con-
sists precisely of the production of a larger number of durable
consumer goods of increasing quality and durability33
5. The trend toward the equalization of the rate of accounting
profit or interest at each stage.
The fifth fundamental point we must emphasize is the fol-
lowing: In the market there exists a trend (driven by the force
of entrepreneurship) toward the equalization of the "rate of
profit" in all economic activities. This occurs not only hori-
zontally, within each production stage, but also vertically,
between stages. Indeed when there are disparities in profits,
businessmen will devote their effort, creative capacity and
investment to those activities which generate relatively
higher profits, and they will stop devoting these things to
activities which yield lower profits. Significantly, in the exam-
ple from Chart V-l, the rate of accounting profit, or relative
difference between income and expenses, is the same at each
stage, i.e., approximately 11 percent per year. If the situation
wie der Werth kunftiger Giiter." See Kapital und Kapitalzins, vol. 2: Posi-
tive Theorie des Kapitales, p. 365. In Spain Jose Castaneda Chornet reveals
that perhaps he has been the one who has best understood this essential
idea when he affirms that
Durable consumer goods, which generate a flow of consumer
services over time, may be included in an economy's fixed
capital. In a strict sense they constitute fixed consumer capital,
not productive capital. So capital, in a broad sense, comprises
productive or true capital as well as consumer capital, or cap-
ital for use. (Castaneda, Lecciones de teoria economica, p. 686)
33Roger W. Garrison has put forward the additional argument that all
consumer goods for which a secondhand market exists should be clas-
sified, from an economic standpoint, as investment goods. In fact con-
sumer goods classified as "durable" simultaneously form a part of con-
secutive stages in the production process, although they legally belong
to "consumers," since consumers take care of, protect and maintain
them in their productive capacity so they will render direct consumer
services over a period of many years. Roger Garrison, "The Austrian-
Neoclassical Relation: A Study in Monetary Dynamics," doctoral thesis
presented at the University of Virginia, 1981, p. 45. On the possibility
and convenience of representing consumer durables in our chart, see
Garrison, Time and Money, pp. 47-48.
302 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
were otherwise; that is, if in one of the stages the rate of
accounting profit or interest were higher, then disinvestment
would take place, and productive resources would be with-
drawn from the stages with a lower rate of profit and directed
to those with a higher rate of accounting profit. This redirec-
tion of resources takes place until the greater demand for cap-
ital goods and original means of production in the receiving
stage results in an increase in spending on these components
in that stage; and the greater influx of its final goods tends to
reduce their prices, until the differential between income and
expenses decreases, giving rise to a rate of profit equal to that
of other productive stages. This microeconomic reasoning is key
to understanding modifications made to the number and length of
productive stages; we will later examine these changes.
6. Gross and net investment and saving.
Sixth, although in the example from Chart V-l the total net
income received by owners of the original means of production
and by capitalists in the form of profit or interest (100 m.u.)
coincides exactly with the sum spent over the period in con-
sumer goods (and thus net saving is equal to zero), there is a
significant volume of gross saving and investment. In fact
gross saving and investment are reflected in Table V-l, which
indicates for each stage, at the left-hand side of the table, the
supply of present goods offered by savers in exchange for
future goods. At the right-hand side, we find the correspon-
ding demand for present goods experienced by the providers
of future goods, mainly owners of the original means of pro-
duction (labor and natural resources) and the capitalists of
earlier stages. We can observe from the table that gross saving,
or the total supply of present goods, equals 270 m.u.: overall
gross saving which takes place in the economic system and is
2.7 times greater than the amount spent during the year on
final consumer goods. This gross saving is identical to the gross
investment of the financial year in the form of spending by the
capitalists on natural resources, labor, and capital goods from
prior stages in the production process.34
34Tables such as Table V-l have been constructed for the same purpose
by Bohm-Bawerk (Capital and Interest, vol. 2, pp. 108-09, where in 1889
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 303
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304 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
7. Gross and net income for the year.
Seventh, we could view Chart V-l, our outline of the dif-
ferent stages in the production process, as an illustration of the
flow of both capital goods and money. Indeed capital goods
"flow downward," i.e., from the stages furthest from con-
sumption to the stages closest to it, and money "flows" in the
opposite direction. In other words, m.u. are first used to pay
for final consumer goods, and from that point they gradually
move up the scale of productive stages until they reach those
stages furthest from consumption. Therefore to obtain the
gross monetary income for the period, we total, from bottom
to top, all of the transactions (in terms of m.u.) conducted dur-
ing the period. Details appear in Table V-2.
We see from this table that the gross income for the period
is equal to 370 m.u. Of this amount, 100 m.u. correspond to net
income, which is spent entirely on final consumer goods; and
270 m.u. correspond to the total supply of present goods or
gross saving, which coincides with the total gross demand for
present goods during the period. The following relationship
exists between gross income and net income for the period,
according to the calculation made in Table V-2: gross income
is equal to 3.7 times the net income for the period. That is, a
relationship exists between the number of m.u. spent on con-
sumer goods and the much larger number spent on capital
goods. This proportion is represented in Chart V-l by the
he first recorded for each stage of production the value in "years of
labor" of the products of the corresponding stage). Later, in 1929, EA.
Hayek performed the same task with greater precision in his article
"Gibt es einen 'Widersinn des Sparens'?" (Zeitschrift Fur Nation-
alokonomie, Bd. 1, Heft 3, 1929), which was translated with the title "The
'Paradox' of Saving" and published in English in Economica (May 1931)
and later included as an appendix to the book, Profits, Interest and Invest-
ment and Other Essays on the Theory of Industrial Fluctuations, 1st ed. (Lon-
don: George Routledge and Sons, 1939 and Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M.
Kelley, Clifton 1975), pp. 199-263, esp. pp. 229-31. As Hayek himself
admits, it was precisely the desire to simplify the awkward presentation
of these tables that led him to introduce the chart of production stages
we have displayed in Chart V-l (see Prices and Production, p. 38, note 1).
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 305
unshaded area corresponding to the final stage, that of con-
sumer goods, versus the shaded areas pertaining to the other
stages (including the net monetary income of the factors of
production, shown at the top). Hence it is an unquestionable
fact that the amount of money spent on intermediate goods during
any time period is much larger by far than the amount spent during
the same period on consumer goods and services. It is interesting to
note that even minds as brilliant as Adam Smith committed
unfortunate errors when it came to recognizing this funda-
mental economic fact. Indeed, according to Adam Smith,
the value of the goods circulated between the different deal-
ers, never can exceed the value of those circulated between
the dealers and the consumers; whatever is bought by the
dealers, being ultimately destined to be sold to the con-
Criticism of the Measures used in National
Income Accounting
The sum of gross income, as we have defined and calcu-
lated it, along with its distribution over the different stages in
the production process, is crucial for a correct understanding
of the economic process which takes place in society. In fact the
structure of the stages of capital goods and their value in m.u.
are not measures which, once obtained, can be automatically
and indefinitely maintained regardless of human decisions
made by entrepreneurs who must deliberately and continually
choose whether to increase, hold steady or reduce the produc-
tive stages undertaken in the past. In other words, whether a
35Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, book 2, chap. 2, p. 390 of vol. 1 of
the original 1776 edition cited earlier, p. 306 of the E. Carman edition
(New York: Modern Library, 1937 and 1965); and p. 322 of vol. 1 of the
Glasgow edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976). As Hayek
points out (Prices and Production, p. 47), it is important to note that Adam
Smith's authority on this subject has misled many authors. For example,
Thomas Tooke, in his book, An Inquiry into the Currency Principle (Lon-
don 1844, p. 71), and others have used Smith's argument to justify the
erroneous doctrines of the Banking School.
306
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table V-2
Gross Output and Net Income for the Year
Gross Output for the Year
100 m.u. of final consumption +270 m.u. of total
supply of present goods
(Gross Saving and Investment as shown
in detail in Table V-l)
Total Gross Output: 370 m.u.
Net Income for the Year
a) Net Income Received Capitalists 1st stage: 100-90:
= 10
by Capitalists (the Capitalists 2nd stage: 80-72:
= 8
accounting profit or Capitalists 3rd stage: 60-54:
= 6
interest at each stage) Capitalists 4th stage: 40-36:
= 4
Capitalists 5th stage: 20-18:
= 2
Total accounting profits
(interest), or net income
received by capitalists at
all stages:
30 m.u.
b) Net income Received From stage 1:
10
by Owners of the From stage 2
12
Original Means of From stage 3
14
Production From stage 4
16
From stage 5
18
Total net income received
by owners of the original
means of production:
70 m.u.
Total Net Income = Total Consumption
100 m.u.
Conclusion: The Gross Output for the Year is equal to 3.7 times
the Net Income.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 307
certain structure of productive stages remains the same or
changes, becoming narrower or broader, depends solely upon
whether the entrepreneurs of each stage subjectively decide it
is worthwhile to reinvest the same percentage of the monetary
income they have received, or instead, they believe it is more
beneficial to them to modify this proportion by increasing or
decreasing it. In the words of Hayek:
The money stream which the entrepreneur representing any
stage of production receives at any given moment is always
composed of net income which he may use for consumption
without disturbing the existing method of production, and
of parts which he must continuously re-invest. But it
depends entirely upon him whether he re-distributes his
total money receipts in the same proportions as before. And
the main factor influencing his decisions will be the magni-
tude of the profits he hopes to derive from the production of
his particular intermediate product.36
Therefore no natural law forces entrepreneurs to rein-
vest their income in the same proportion in which they
have invested in capital goods in the past. Instead, this pro-
portion depends on the specific circumstances present at each
moment, and in particular on the entrepreneurs' expectations
regarding the profit they hope to obtain at each stage of the
production process. This means that, from an analytical stand-
point, it is very important to focus on the evolution of the
amounts of gross income as reflected in our diagram, and to
avoid concentrating exclusively on net values, as is the cus-
tom. So we see that even when net saving equals zero, a pro-
ductive structure is maintained by considerable gross saving
and investment, the sum of which is several times larger than
36Hayek, Prices and Production, p. 49. This is precisely why the concep-
tion of capital as a homogeneous fund that reproduces by itself is mean-
ingless. This view of capital is defended by J.B. Clark and F.H. Knight
and is the theoretical basis (along with the concept of general equilib-
rium) for the extremely stale model of the "circular flow of income" that
appears in almost all economics textbooks, despite the fact that it is mis-
leading, as it does not reflect the temporal structure by stages in the pro-
duction process, as in Chart V-l (see also footnote 39).
308 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
even the amount spent on consumer goods and services dur-
ing each productive period. Therefore the key is to study gross
saving and investment, i.e., the aggregated value, in monetary
terms, spent in the stages of intermediate goods prior to final
consumption, an amount which remains hidden if we focus
exclusively on the evolution of accounting figures in net terms.
This is precisely why we should be especially critical of tra-
ditional national income accounting measures. For example,
the traditional definition of "gross national product" (GNP)
contains the word "gross," yet in no way reflects the true gross
income spent during the year on the entire productive struc-
ture. On the one hand, GNP figures hide the existence of dif-
ferent stages in the production process. On the other hand,
what is even more serious and consequential is that the gross
national product, despite the "gross" in its name, does not reflect
the total gross monetary spending which takes place in all productive
stages and sectors of the economy. This is because it is based solely
on the production of goods and services delivered to final
users. In fact it rests on a narrow accounting criterion of added
value which is foreign to the fundamental truths of the econ-
omy; it only adds the value of consumer goods and services
and of the final capital goods completed during the year. It
does not incorporate the other intermediate products which make up
the stages in the production process and which pass from one stage
to another during the financial year.2,7 Hence gross national
product figures only include a small percentage of the total
37For instance as Ramon Tamames indicates, the gross national product
at market prices
can be defined as the sum of the value of all the final goods
and services produced in a nation in one year. I speak of final
goods and services because intermediate ones are excluded to
avoid the double computation of any value.
Fundamentos de estructura economica, 10th revised ed. (Madrid: Alianza
Universidad, 1992), p. 304. Also see the book by Enrique Viaha Remis,
Lecciones de contabilidad nacional (Madrid: Editorial Civitas, 1993), in
which he states that
the distinction between intermediate inputs and depreciation
has given rise to the convention of excluding the former and
including the latter in the value added. Therefore we distin-
guish between gross value added, which includes depreciation,
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 309
production of capital goods. Indeed GNP incorporates the value
of the sales of fixed or durable capital goods, such as real estate,
industrial vehicles, machinery, tools, computers, etc., which are
finished and sold to their final users during the year, and thus
are considered final goods. However it in no way includes the
value of circulating capital goods, intermediate non-durable
products, nor of capital goods which are not yet finished or if so,
pass from one stage to another during the process of production.
These intermediate goods are obviously different from the simi-
lar ones included in final goods (for instance, the carburator pro-
duced as an intermediate product is not the same carburator
included in the car sold as a final product.) In contrast, our gross
output figure from Table V-2 incorporates the gross production
of all capital goods, whether completed or not, fixed, durable or
circulating, as well as all consumer goods and services pro-
duced during the financial year.
and net value added, which excludes it. Consequently both
product and income can be gross or net, depending upon
whether they include or exclude depreciation, (p. 39)
As we see, the label "gross" is used to describe a figure that continues to
be net, given that it excludes the entire value of intermediate inputs.
National income accounting textbooks have not always ignored the fun-
damental importance of intermediate products. The classic work, The
Social Framework of the American Economy: An Introduction to Economics, by
J.R. Hicks and Albert G. Hart (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945),
includes an explicit reference to the great importance of the time span in
any process of production of consumer goods (the concrete example used
is that of the production of a loaf of bread). The authors give a detailed
explanation of the different stages of intermediate products necessary to
arrive at the final consumer good. Hicks and Hart conclude (pp. 33-34):
The products which result from these early stages are useful
products, but not products which are directly useful for satis-
fying the wants of consumers. Their use is to be found in their
employment in the further stages, at the end of which a prod-
uct which is directly wanted by consumers will emerge. ... A
producers' good may be technically finished, in the sense that
the particular operation needed to produce it is completed. . . .
Or it may not be technically finished, but still in process, even
so far as its own stage is concerned. In either case it is a pro-
ducers' good, because further stages are needed before the
result of the whole process can pass into the consumers'
hands. The consumers' good is the end of the whole process; pro-
ducers' goods are stages on the road toward it. (Italics added)
310 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In short the Gross National Product is an aggregate figure
representing added values, and it excludes intermediate
goods. The only reason national accounting theorists offer for
using this figure is that with this criterion they avoid the prob-
lem of "double counting." Yet from the standpoint of macro-
economic theory, this argument rests on a narrow accounting
concept applicable to individual companies and is very dan-
gerous, as it excludes from the computation the enormous vol-
ume of entrepreneurial effort which each year is dedicated to
the production of intermediate capital goods, the bulk of eco-
nomic activity but not at all worth evaluating, according to
GNP figures. To get an idea of the amounts involved, it suf-
fices to consider that the gross output (calculated according to
our criterion) of an advanced country like the United States is
equal to more than twice the country's official GNP.38
Therefore traditional national income accounting figures
tend to eliminate at a stroke the central role intermediate stages
play in the process of production; specifically, these measures
ignore the undeniable fact that the continuance of intermediate
38Skousen, in his book, The Structure of Production, pp. 191-92, proposes
the introduction of "gross national output," a new measure in national
income accounting. With respect to the possible gross national output of
the United States, Skousen concludes the following:
First, Gross National Output (GNO) was nearly double
[Gross National Product] (GNP), thus indicating the degree to
which GNP underestimates total spending in the economy.
Second, consumption represents only 34 percent of total
national output, far less than what GNP figures suggest (66
percent). Third, business outlays, including intermediate
inputs and gross private investment, is the largest sector of
the economy, 56 percent larger than the consumer-goods
industry. GNP figures suggest that the capital-goods industry
represents a minuscule 14 percent of the economy.
All of these figures refer to 1982 national income accounting data for the
United States. As we will later see when we focus on business cycles,
traditional gross national product figures have the glaring theoretical
defect of hiding the important oscillations which take place in the inter-
mediate stages of the production process throughout the cycle. Gross
national output, however, would reflect all of these fluctuations. See
also the data for 1986, found at the end of footnote 20, chapter 6.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 311
stages is not guaranteed, but results from a constant, uncertain
series of concrete entrepreneurial decisions which depend on
expected accounting profits and on the social rate of time pref-
erence or interest rate. The use of GNP in national income
accounting almost inevitably implies that production is instan-
taneous and requires no time, i.e., that there are no intermedi-
ate stages in the production process and that time preference is
irrelevant with respect to determining the interest rate. In short
the standard measures of national income completely do away
with the largest, most significant part of the production process,
and moreover they do so in a disguised manner, since, para-
doxically and despite the label "gross," they cause non-experts
(and even most experts) in the field to overlook the most sig-
nificant part of each country's productive structure.39
If national income accounting measures were modified
and made truly "gross," they would include all intermediate
39As Murray Rothbard indicates, the net quality of GNP invariably
leads one to identify capital with a perpetual fund that reproduces by
itself without the need for any particular decision-making on the part of
entrepreneurs. This is the "mythological" doctrine defended by J.B.
Clark and Frank H. Knight, and it constitutes the conceptual basis for
the current national income accounting system. Thus this system is sim-
ply the statistical, accounting manifestation of the mistaken under-
standing of capital theory promoted by these two authors. Rothbard
concludes: "To maintain this doctrine it is necessary to deny the stage
analysis of production and, indeed, to deny the very influence of time in
production" (Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, p. 343). Furthermore
the current method of calculating GNP also strongly reflects Keynes's
influence, enormously exaggerating the importance of consumption in
the economy and conveying the false impression that the most signifi-
cant portion of the national product exists in the form of consumer
goods and services, instead of investment goods. In addition this
explains why most agents involved (economists, businessmen,
investors, politicians, journalists, and civil servants) have a distorted
idea of the way the economy functions. Since they believe the sector of
final consumption to be the largest in the economy, they very easily con-
clude that the best way to foster the economic development of a coun-
try is to stimulate consumption and not investment. On this point see
Hayek, Prices and Production, pp. 47-49, esp. note 2 on p. 48, Skousen,
The Structure of Production, p. 190, and also George Reisman, "The Value
of 'Final Products' Counts Only Itself," American Journal of Economics and
Sociology 63, no. 3 (July 2004): 609- 25, and Capitalism (Ottawa, 111.: Jame-
son Book, 1996), pp. 674ff. See also next footnote 55.
312 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
products, and it would be possible to follow the proportion of
the amount spent each year on consumer goods and services
to the amount spent at all intermediate stages. This ratio is
ultimately determined by the social rate of time preference,
which establishes the proportion of gross saving and invest-
ment to consumption. Clearly the weaker the time preference,
and therefore the more savings generated in society, the larger
the proportion of gross saving and investment to final con-
sumption. At the same time, a strong time preference means
interest rates will be high, and the ratio of gross saving and
investment to consumption will decrease. Adequate intertem-
poral coordination of the decisions of economic agents in a
modern society requires that the productive structure adapt to
different social rates of time preference quickly and efficiently,
something the entrepreneurial spirit itself, driven by the
search for profit, tends to guarantee, as entrepreneurs try to
equalize profit over all stages. If we wish to find a statistical
measure which, instead of concealing, sheds as much light as
possible on this important intertemporal coordination
process, we must replace the current gross national product
estimate with another such as gross national output, as
defined here.40
40Input-output tables partially escape the inadequacies of traditional
national income accounting by permitting the calculation of the amount
corresponding to all intermediate products. However even though
input-output analysis is a step in the right direction, it also has very seri-
ous limitations. In particular, it reflects only two dimensions: it relates
the different industrial sectors with the factors of production used
directly in them, but not with the factors of production which are used
but correspond to more distant stages. In other words, input-output
analysis does not reflect the set of consecutive intermediate stages lead-
ing up to any intermediate stage or capital good or to the final consumer
good. Instead it only relates each sector with its direct provider. Fur-
thermore due to the great cost and complexity of input-output tables,
they are only compiled every certain number of years (in the United
States, every five years), and therefore the statistics they contain are of
very slight value with respect to calculating the gross national output
for each year. See Skousen, The Structure of Production, pp. 4-5.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 313
2
The Effect on the Productive Structure
of an Increase in Credit Financed Under
a Prior Increase in Voluntary Saving
The Three Different Manifestations of the
Process of Voluntary Saving
In this section we will examine what happens within the
structure of production when, for whatever reason, economic
agents reduce their rate of time preference; that is, when they
decide to increase their saving or supply of present goods to
others. This can take place in any of the following ways:
First, capitalists of the different stages in the productive
structure may decide, beginning at a certain point, to modify
the proportion in which they had been reinvesting the gross
income derived from their productive activity. In other words,
nothing guarantees the continuity, from one period to the
next, of the ratio in which the capitalists of one productive
stage spend the income they receive from that stage on the
purchase of capital goods from earlier stages and on labor and
natural resources. Capitalists may very possibly decide to
increase their supply of present goods to others. That is, they
may decide to reinvest a greater percentage of the income they
receive per period, acquiring capital goods and services as
well as original means of production (labor and natural
resources). In that case, in the short run, their accounting
profit margin will decrease, which is equivalent to a down-
ward trend in the market interest rate. The profit margin falls
as a result of an increase in monetary costs in relation to
income. The capitalists are willing to temporarily accept this
drop in accounting profits, since they expect to generate in
this way, in a more or less distant future, total profits larger
than those they would have earned had they not modified
their behavior.41 Given that the market in which present goods
4lThe expected increase in profit is considered in absolute, not relative,
terms. Indeed profits representing, for example, 10 percent of 100 m.u.
314 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
are exchanged for future goods encompasses society's entire
structure of productive stages, such increases in saving and
their manifestation in new investments are often the most
important in society.
Second, owners of the original means of production (work-
ers and owners of natural resources) may decide not to con-
sume, as in the past, the entire sum of their social net income
(which in Chart V-l was 70 m.u.). They may instead decide to
reduce their consumption beginning at a certain point and to
invest the m.u. they no longer spend on final consumer goods
and services, in the productive stages they decide to launch
directly as capitalists (a category which includes members of
cooperatives). Though this procedure takes place in the mar-
ket, the resulting savings are not normally very substantial in
real life.
Third, it could occur that both the owners of the original
means of production (workers and the owners of natural
resources) as well as capitalists (to the extent they receive net
income in the form of accounting profits or market interest)
decide beginning at a certain point not to consume their entire
net income, but to loan a portion of it to capitalists of the dif-
ferent stages in the production process, enabling them to
broaden their activities by purchasing more capital goods
from prior stages and more natural resources, and by hiring
more labor. This third procedure is carried out through the
credit market, which, despite being the most visible and con-
spicuous in real economic life, is of secondary importance and
plays a subsidiary role in relation to the more general market in
(10 m.u.) are smaller than profits representing 8 percent of 150 m.u. (12
m.u.). Even though the interest rate or rate of accounting profit
decreases as the result of the weaker time preference which causes an
increase in saving and investment, in absolute terms the accounting
profits rise by 20 percent, i.e., from 10 to 12 m.u. This is what generally
occurs in the stages furthest from consumption during the process we
are considering. Regarding the stages closest to consumption, it is
important to remember that, as we will indicate in the main text, the
comparison is not drawn with past profits, but with an estimate of those
which would have been produced had the entrepreneurial investment
strategy not been modified.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 315
which present goods are exchanged for future goods through
self-financing or capitalists' direct reinvestment of present
goods in their productive stages (the first and second proce-
dures of saving-investment mentioned above). Though this
system of saving is important, it is usually secondary to the
first two procedures for increasing saving we described
above. Nevertheless a very strong connection exists between
the flows of saving and investment of both procedures, and
in fact both sectors of the "time market" — the general sector
of the productive structure and the particular sector of the
credit market — behave as if they were communicating ves-
sels.
Account Records of Savings Channelled into Loans
From an economic standpoint, all three of these proce-
dures for increasing saving invariably entail the following: an
increase in the supply of present goods by savers, who trans-
fer these present goods to the owners of original resources and
material means of production (capital goods) from previous
productive stages. For instance, if we follow the accounting
example from chapter 4, which involves the third procedure
described above, the following journal entries result:
The saver who loans his resources in the form of present
goods records this entry in his journal:
(72) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Loan granted Cash 1,000,000
This entry is clearly the accounting record of the fact that
the saver offers 1,000,000 m.u. of present goods, which he
relinquishes. In doing so he loses the complete availability of
the goods and transfers it to a third person; for instance, the
entrepreneur of a certain productive stage. The entrepreneur
receives the m.u. as a loan, which he records in his journal via
the following entry:
316 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(73) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Loan received 1,000,000
The entrepreneur who receives these present goods uses
them to acquire: (1) capital goods from prior productive
stages; (2) labor services; (3) natural resources. Through this
third procedure, savers who do not wish to involve them-
selves directly in the activity of any of the productive stages
can save and invest through the credit market by entering into
a loan contract. Although this method is indirect, it ultimately
produces a result identical to that of the first two procedures
for voluntarily increasing saving.
The Issue of Consumer Loans
It could be argued that sometimes loans are not granted to
entrepreneurs of productive stages, to enable them to
lengthen their production processes through investment, but
are instead granted to consumers who purchase final goods. First,
we must note that the very nature of the initial two saving
procedures described above precludes the use of the saved
resources for consumption. It is only possible to conceive of a
consumer loan in the credit market, which as we know plays
a subsidiary role and is secondary to the total market where
present goods are offered and purchased in exchange for
future goods. Second, in most cases consumer loans are
granted to finance the purchase of durable consumer goods,
which as we saw in previous sections,42 are ultimately compara-
ble to capital goods maintained over a number of consecutive stages
of production, while the durable consumer good's capacity to provide
services to its owner lasts. Under these circumstances, by far the
most common, the economic effects of consumer loans, with
respect to encouraging investment and lengthening produc-
tive stages, are identical to and indistinguishable from the effects
of any increase in savings directly invested in the capital
42See pages 300-01 and footnotes 32 and 33.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 317
goods of any stage in the productive structure. Therefore only
a hypothetical consumer loan allocated for financing a house-
hold's current expenditure on non-durable consumer goods
would have the effect of immediately and directly increasing
final current consumption. Nonetheless despite the fact that
relatively little credit is allotted to final current consumption,
the existence of such consumer loans in the market indicates
a certain latent consumer demand for them. Given the con-
nection between all sectors of the market of present and
future goods, once this residual demand for loans for current
consumption is satisfied, most real resources saved are freed
to be invested in the productive stages furthest from con-
sumption.
The Effects of Voluntary Saving on the
Productive Structure
We will now explain how the price system and the coordi-
nating role of entrepreneurs in a free market spontaneously
channel decreases in the social rate of time preference and the
resulting increases in saving into modifications of society's
structure of productive stages, making this structure more
complex and lasting, and in the long run, appreciably more
productive. In short we will explain one of the most signifi-
cant coordinating processes which exist in all economies.
Unfortunately, as a result of monetarist and Keynesian eco-
nomic theories (which we will examine critically in chapter 7),
for at least two generations of economists the majority of eco-
nomics textbooks and study programs have almost com-
pletely ignored this process. Consequently most of today's
economists are unfamiliar with the functioning of one of the
most important processes of coordination present in all mar-
ket economies.43
43While studying economics in the late seventies, we noticed that in no
Economic Theory course did the instructor explain how an increase in
saving affects the productive structure; professors described only the
Keynesian model of the "paradox of thrift," which as is widely known,
outright condemns increases in social saving, because they reduce effec-
tive demand. Although Keynes did not expressly refer to the "paradox
318 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
For analytical purposes we will begin by considering an
extreme situation which nevertheless will be of great assis-
tance in graphically illustrating and better understanding the
processes involved. We will suppose that economic agents
suddenly decide to save 25 percent of their net income. Our
starting point will be the clear, numerical example of the last
section, in which we assumed net income was equal to 100
m.u., which corresponded to the original means of production
and the interest capitalists received, and which was spent
entirely on consumer goods. We will now suppose that, as a
result of a fall in time preference, economic agents decide to
relinquish 25 percent (i.e., one-fourth) of their consumption
and to save the corresponding resources, offering this excess
of present goods to potential demanders of them. Three effects
simultaneously follow from this increase in voluntary saving.
Given their great importance, we will now consider them sep-
arately44
of thrift," this concept follows when Keynes's economic principles are
carried to their "logical" conclusion:
If governments should increase their spending during reces-
sions, why should not households? If there were no principles
of "sound finance" for public finance, from where would
such principles come for family finance? Eat, drink and be
merry for in the long-run all are dead. (Clifford F. Thies, "The
Paradox of Thrift: RIP," Cato Journal 16, no. 1 [Spring-Sum-
mer, 1996]: 125)
See also our comments in footnote 58 on the treatment this subject
receives in different editions of Samuelson's textbook.
44Following Turgot, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk was the first to confront
and resolve this issue. His analysis was rudimentary, yet contained all
the essential elements of a definitive explanation. It is found in volume
2 of his magnum opus, Capital and Interest, published in 1889 (Kapital und
Kapitalzins: Positive Theorie des Kapitales, pp. 124-25). Due to its signifi-
cance, we include here the passage from Capital and Interest in which
Bohm-Bawerk poses the question of growth in voluntary saving in a
market economy and the forces involved which lead to a lengthening of
the productive structure: let us suppose, says Bohm-Bawerk, that
each individual consumes, on the average, only three-quar-
ters of his income and saves the other quarter, then obviously
there will be a falling off in the desire to buy consumption
goods and in the demand for them. Only three-quarters as
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 319
First: The Effect Produced by the New Disparity in Profits
Between the Different Productive Stages
If there is an increase in social saving of one-fourth of net
income, clearly the total monetary demand for consumer
goods will decrease by the same proportion. Chart V-2 illus-
trates the effect this has on the final stage, that of consumption,
and on the accounting profits of companies devoted to that
stage.
great a quantity of consumption goods as in the preceding
case will become the subject of demand and of sale. If the
entrepreneurs were nevertheless to continue for a time to fol-
low the previous disposition of production and go on bring-
ing consumption goods to the market at a rate of a full 10 mil-
lion labor-years annually, the oversupply would soon depress
the prices of those goods, render them unprofitable and hence
induce the entrepreneurs to adjust their production to the
changed demand. They will see to it that in one year only the
product of 7.5 million labor-years is converted into consump-
tion goods, be it through maturation of the first annual ring
or be it through additional present production. The remaining
2.5 million labor-years left over from the current annual allot-
ment can be used for increasing capital. And it will be so used.
... In this way it is added to the nation's productive credit,
increases the producer's purchasing power for productive
purposes, and so becomes the cause of an increase in the
demand for production goods, which is to say intermediate
products. And that demand is, in the last analysis, what
induces the managers of business enterprises to invest avail-
able productive forces in desired intermediate product. . . . [I]f
individuals do save, then the change in demand, once more
through the agency of price, forces the entrepreneurs into a
changed disposition of productive forces. In that case fewer
productive powers are enlisted during the course of the year
for the service of the present as consumption goods, and there
is a correspondingly greater quantity of productive forces tied up in
the transitional stage of intermediate products. In other words,
there is an increase in capital, which redounds to the benefit
of an enhanced enjoyment of consumption goods in the
future. (Bohm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, vol. 2: Positive The-
ory of Capital, pp. 112-13; italics added)
320
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
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Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 321
Chart V-2 shows that before the increase in saving, 100
m.u. of net income were spent on final consumer goods pro-
duced by companies which first incurred expenses totaling 90
m.u. Of this amount, 80 m.u. corresponded to the purchase of
capital goods from the stage immediately preceding, and 10
m.u. were paid for original means of production hired or pur-
chased in the last stage (labor and natural resources). This
determined an accounting profit of 10 m.u., roughly equal to an
interest rate of 11 percent, which as we saw in the last section,
was the market rate of interest which accounting profits of all pro-
ductive stages, both those closest to and those furthest from final
consumption, tended to match.
If we suppose there is an increase in saving equal to 25
percent of net income, the situation in the final stage (con-
sumption) is reflected in Chart V-2 at period of time t+1.
Immediately following the rise in saving, we see that the mon-
etary demand for final consumer goods decreases from 100 to
75 m.u. in each time period. Nevertheless a reduction in
expenditures does not immediately accompany this fall in
cash income which businesses devoted to the final stage of
production experience. On the contrary, in their account books
these companies record unchanged expenditures of 90 m.u. Just
as in the previous case, 80 m.u. of this amount is spent on cap-
ital goods from the preceding stage (machinery, suppliers,
intermediate products, etc.) and 10 m.u. are paid to the own-
ers of the original means of production (workers and the own-
ers of natural resources). As a result of this increase in saving,
companies devoted to the final stage (consumption) suffer an
accounting loss of 15 m.u. This sum becomes 25 m.u. when we
consider the opportunity cost derived from the fact that the
entrepreneurs not only experience the above accounting loss,
but also fail to earn the 10 m.u. which capital invested in other
productive stages generates as interest. Therefore we could
conclude that all increases in saving cause considerable relative
losses to or decreases in the accounting profits of the companies
which operate closest to final consumption.
However let us now remember that the sector of consump-
tion constitutes only a relatively small part of society's total pro-
ductive structure and that the sum of the m.u. spent on final
consumption makes up only a fraction of the value of the gross
322 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
national output, which encompasses all stages of the production
process. Therefore the fact that accounting losses occur in the final
stage does not immediately affect the stages prior to consump-
tion, in which a positive difference continues to exist between
income and expenditures, a difference similar to the one which
preceded the increase in saving. Only after a prolonged period of
time will the depressive effect which the rise in saving exerts upon
the final stage (that of consumer goods) begin to be felt in the
stages closest to it, and this negative influence will increasingly
weaken as we "climb" to productive stages relatively more dis-
tant from final consumption. At any rate the accounting profits of
the stages furthest from consumption will tend to remain con-
stant, as shown in Chart V-2, stage five, period of time t. Here we
observe that activity in this stage continues to yield an accounting
profit of 11 percent, the result of a total income of 20 m.u. and total
expenses of 18 m.u. Hence the increase in saving clearly gives rise
to a great disparity between the accounting profits received by
companies devoted to the first stage, that of consumer goods,
and those earned by companies operating in the stages furthest
from final consumption (in our example, the fifth stage in the
productive structure). In the consumer goods sector an account-
ing loss follows from the upsurge in saving, while the industries
of the fifth stage, which are further from consumption (now are
helping to produce consumer goods that only will be available
five years from now), continue to enjoy profits roughly equal to 11
percent of the capital invested (the current decrease in consump-
tion does not affect consumption five years from now).
This disparity in profits acts as a warning sign and an incen-
tive for entrepreneurs to restrict their investments in the stages
close to consumption and to channel these resources into other
stages which still offer relatively higher profits and which are,
given the circumstances, the stages furthest from final con-
sumption. Therefore entrepreneurs will tend to transfer a por-
tion of their demand for productive resources, in the form of
capital goods and primary factors of production, from the final
stage (consumption) and those closest to it, to the stages furthest
from consumption, where they discover they can still obtain
comparatively much higher profits. The increased investment
or demand for more productive resources in the stages fur-
thest from consumption produces the effect shown in Chart
V-2 for stage five, period of time t+1. Indeed entrepreneurs
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 323
from the fifth stage increase their investment in original factors
and productive resources from 18 m.u. to 31.71 m.u., a figure
nearly double their initial outlay. (Of this amount 21.5 m.u. are
spent on the productive services of capital goods and 10.21 m.u.
are spent on labor services and natural resources).45 This leads
to a rise in the production of goods in the fifth stage, which in
monetary terms, increases from 20 m.u. to 32.35 m.u., resulting
in an accounting profit of 0.54 m.u. Although in terms of per-
centage this amount is lower than former profits (1.70 percent
as opposed to the 11 percent earned previously), it is compara-
tively a much higher profit than that which the industries pro-
ducing final consumer goods obtain (industries which, as we
saw, are sustaining absolute losses of 15 m.u.).
Consequently growth in saving gives rise to a disparity
between the rates of profit in the different stages of the pro-
ductive structure. This leads entrepreneurs to reduce immedi-
ate production of consumer goods and to increase production
in the stages furthest from consumption. A temporary lengthen-
ing of production processes tends to ensue, lasting until the
new social rate of time preference or interest rate, in the form
of differentials between accounting income and expenditures
in each stage, now appreciably lower as a result of the sub-
stantial increase in saving, spreads uniformly, throughout the
entire productive structure.
The entrepreneurs of the fifth stage have been able to
increase their supply of present goods to others from 18 m.u.
during period t to 31.71 m.u. in period t+1. This has been pos-
sible due to greater social saving, or a greater supply of present
goods in society. The entrepreneurs finance this larger invest-
ment in part through the increase in their own saving, i.e., by
investing a portion of the money which in the past they earned
as interest and spent on consumption, and in part through new
saving they receive from the credit market in the form of loans
fully backed by a prior rise in voluntary saving. In other words, the
increase in investment in the fifth stage materializes by any of
the three procedures described in the last section.
45These amounts correspond to the numerical example in Chart V-3.
324 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Moreover the increase one might expect to observe in the
prices of the factors of production (capital goods, labor and
natural resources) as a result of the greater demand for them
in the fifth stage does not necessarily occur (with the possible
exception of very specific means of production). In fact each
increase in the demand for productive resources in the stages
furthest from consumption is mostly or even completely neu-
tralized or offset by a parallel increase in the supply of these
inputs which takes place as they are gradually freed from the
stages closest to consumption, where entrepreneurs are incur-
ring considerable accounting losses and are consequently
obliged to restrict their investment expenditure on these fac-
tors. Thus for entrepreneurial coordination to exist between the
stages in the productive structure of a society which is
immersed in a process of increased saving and economic
growth, it is particularly important that the corresponding fac-
tor markets, especially the markets for original means of pro-
duction (labor and natural resources), be very flexible and per-
mit at a minimum economic and social cost the gradual
transfer of these factors from certain stages of production to
others.
Finally the drop in investment in the consumer goods sec-
tor, which tends to stem from accounting losses generated by
the increase in voluntary saving, normally accounts for a cer-
tain slowdown in the arrival of new consumer goods to the
market (regardless of the increase in the stock of them). This
slowdown lasts until the rise in the complexity and number of
stages in the production process unquestionably improves
productivity, which in turn brings a significantly larger quan-
tity of consumer goods to the market. One might expect the
temporary reduction in the supply of consumer goods to push
up their price, other things being equal. However this rise in
prices does not materialize, precisely because from the outset
the decrease in supply is more than compensated for by the
parallel fall in the demand for consumer goods, a result of the
prior increase in voluntary saving.
To sum up, the increase in voluntary saving is invested in
the productive structure, either through direct investments or
through loans granted to the entrepreneurs of the productive
stages relatively distant from consumption. These loans are
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 325
backed by real voluntary saving and lead to an increase in the
monetary demand for original means of production and capi-
tal goods used in such stages. As we saw at the beginning of
this chapter, production processes tend to be more productive
the more stages distant from consumption they contain, and
the more complex these stages are. Therefore this more capital-
intensive structure will eventually bring about a considerable
increase in the final production of consumer goods, once the
newly-initiated processes come to an end. Hence growth in
saving and the free exercise of entrepreneurship are the neces-
sary conditions for and the motor which drives all processes
of economic growth and development.
Second: The Effect of the Decrease in the
Interest Rate on the Market Price of Capital Goods
The increase in voluntary saving, i.e., in the supply of
present goods, gives rise, other things being equal, to a
decrease in the market rate of interest. As we know, this inter-
est rate tends to manifest itself as the accounting difference
between income and expenses in the different productive
stages and is also visible in the interest rate at which loans are
granted in the credit market. It is important to note that the
fall in the interest rate caused by all rises in voluntary saving
greatly affects the value of capital goods, especially all of
those used in the stages furthest from final consumption,
goods which, relatively speaking, have a long life and make a
large contribution to the production process.
Let us consider a capital good with a long life, such as a
building owned by a company, an industrial plant, a ship or
airplane used for transport, a blast furnace, a computer or
high-tech communications device, etc., which has been pro-
duced and performs its services in different stages of the pro-
ductive structure, all of which are relatively distant from con-
sumption. The market value of this capital good tends to equal
the value of its expected future flow of rents, discounted by
the interest rate. An inverse relationship exists between the
present (discounted) value and the interest rate. By way of
illustration, a decrease in the interest rate from 11 to 5 percent,
326 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
brought about by an increase in saving, causes the present
value of a capital good with a very long life to more than dou-
ble (the present value of a perpetual unitary rent at 11 percent
interest is equal to 1/0.11 = 9.09; and the present value of a
perpetual rent at 5 percent interest is equal to 1/0.05 = 20). If
the capital good lasts, for example, twenty years, a drop in
the interest rate from 11 to 5 percent produces an increase of
56 percent in the market or capitalized value of the good.46
Therefore if people begin to value present goods less in
relative terms, then the market price of capital goods and
durable consumer goods will tend to increase. Moreover it
will tend to increase in proportion to the duration of a good;
i.e., to the number of productive stages in which it is used and
to the distance of these stages from consumption. Capital
goods already in use will undergo a significant rise in price as
a result of the drop in the interest rate and will be produced in
greater quantities, bringing about a horizontal widening of the
capital goods structure (that is, an increase in the production of
pre-existing capital goods). At the same time, the fall in the
interest rate will reveal that many production processes or
capital goods which until then were not considered profitable
begin to be so, and consequently entrepreneurs will start to
introduce them. In fact in the past entrepreneurs refrained
from adopting many technological innovations and new proj-
ects because they expected the cost involved to be higher than
the resulting market value (which tends to equal the value of
the estimated future rent of each capital good, discounted by
the interest rate). However when the interest rate falls, the
46T, ( , . \-{l + i)-« (l+i)»-l
^Dl he formula is an= = ,
i z'(l + i)n
which in terms of compound capitalization at interest i, corresponds to
the present value of a temporary annuity, payable in arrears, of n peri-
ods, where the capitalization period coincides with the rent period. It is
clear that as period n becomes longer and approaches infinity the value of
the rent will approach 1 /i, which as a mnemonic rule, is applicable in prac-
tice to all capital goods with a very long life (and to land, due to its per-
manence). See Lorenzo Gil Pelaez, Tablas financieras, estadisticas y actuari-
ales, 6th revised updated ed. (Madrid: Editorial Dossat, 1977), pp. 205-37.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 327
market value of projects for lengthening the productive struc-
ture through new, more modern stages further from con-
sumption begins to rise and may even come to exceed the cost
of production, rendering these projects worthwhile. Hence the
second effect of a decrease in the interest rate caused by an
increase in voluntary saving is the deepening of the invest-
ment goods structure, in the form of a vertical lengthening
involving new stages of capital goods increasingly distant
from consumption.47
Both the widening and deepening of the capital goods
structure follow from the role of entrepreneurs and their col-
lective capacity for creativity and coordination. They are able
to recognize an opportunity and a potential profit margin
when a difference arises between the market price of capital
goods (determined by the present value of their expected
future rent, which increases appreciably when the interest rate
falls) and the cost necessary to produce them (a cost which
remains constant or may even decrease, given the greater mar-
ket supply of original means of production coming from the
stage of final consumption, which initially shrank when sav-
ing increased).
Thus this second effect also entails a lengthening of the cap-
ital goods structure, just as we saw with the first effect.
Fluctuations in the value of capital goods, which arise
from variations in saving and the interest rate, also tend to
spread to the securities which represent these goods, and thus
to the stock markets where they are traded. Hence an increase
in voluntary saving, which leads to a drop in the interest rate,
will further boost the price of stocks of companies which oper-
ate in the capital goods stages furthest from consumption, and
in general, the price of all securities representing capital
47It should be noted that technological innovations which boost pro-
ductivity (in the form of a greater quantity and/or quality of goods and
services) by reducing the length of production processes will be intro-
duced in any case, whether or not society's net saving increases. How-
ever such an increase makes possible the application of new technolo-
gies which, due to a marginal lack of resources, cannot be adopted prior
to the rise in saving.
328 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
goods. Only securities which represent the property of the
companies closest to consumption will undergo a temporary
relative decline in price, as a result of the immediate, negative
impact of the decrease in the demand for consumer goods that
is generated by the upsurge in saving. Therefore it is clear
that, contrary to popular opinion, and in the absence of other
monetary distortions we have not yet touched on, the stock
market does not necessarily reflect mainly companies' profits.
In fact, in relative terms with the capital invested, the account-
ing profits earned by the companies of the different stages
tend to match the interest rate. Thus an environment of high
saving and low relative profits (i.e., with a low interest rate)
constitutes the setting for the greatest growth in the market
value of securities representing capital goods. Moreover the
further the capital goods are from final consumption, the
higher the market price of the corresponding securities.48 In
contrast, growth in relative accounting profits throughout the
productive structure, and thus in the market rate of interest,
other things being equal, will manifest itself in a drop in the
value of securities and a consequent fall in their market value.
This theoretical explanation sheds light on many general
stock-market reactions which ordinary people and many
"experts" in finance and economics fail to understand, since
they simply apply the naive theory that the stock market must
merely reflect, automatically and faithfully, the level of
accounting profits earned by all companies participating in
the production process, without considering the stages in
which the profits are earned nor the evolution of the social
time preference (interest rates).
48The ceiling price will be reached when the effect of the reduction in
the interest rate subsides and is counteracted by the larger number and
volume of securities issued in the primary stock and bond market,
which will tend to cause the market price per security to stabilize at a
lower level. In the next chapter we will see that all prolonged market
buoyancy and in general, all sustained, constant rises in stock-market
indexes, far from indicating a very healthy underlying economic situa-
tion, stem from an inflationary process of credit expansion which sooner
or later will provoke a stock-market crisis and an economic recession.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 329
Third: The Ricardo Effect
All increases in voluntary saving exert a particularly
important, immediate effect on the level of real wages. Chart
V-2 shows how the monetary demand for consumer goods
falls by one-fourth (from 100 m.u. to 75 m.u.), due to the rise
in saving. Hence it is easy to understand why increases in sav-
ing are generally followed by decreases in the prices of final
consumer goods.49 If, as generally occurs, the wages or rents
of the original factor labor are initially held constant in nomi-
nal terms, a decline in the prices of final consumer goods will
be followed by a rise in the real wages of workers employed in
all stages of the productive structure. With the same money
income in nominal terms, workers will be able to acquire a
greater quantity and quality of final consumer goods and
services at consumer goods' new, more reduced prices.
This increase in real wages, which arises from the growth
in voluntary saving, means that, relatively speaking, it is in
the interest of entrepreneurs of all stages in the production
process to replace labor with capital goods. To put it another
way, via an increase in real wages, the rise in voluntary saving
sets a trend throughout the economic system toward longer
and more capital-intensive productive stages. In other words,
entrepreneurs now find it more attractive to use, relatively
speaking, more capital goods than labor. This constitutes a
third powerful, additional effect tending toward the lengthen-
ing of the stages in the productive structure. It adds to and
overlaps the other two effects mentioned previously.
49As Hayek indicates, these reductions in prices may take some time,
depending upon the rigidity of each market, and at any rate, they will
be less than proportional to the fall in demand that accompanies saving.
If this were not the case, saving would not entail any actual sacrifice and
the stock of consumer goods necessary to sustain economic agents while
more capital-intensive processes are completed would not be left
unsold. See EA. Hayek, "Reflections on the Pure Theory of Money of
Mr. J.M. Keynes (continued)," Economica 12, no. 35 (February 1932):
22-44, republished in The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, vol. 9: Contra
Keynes and Cambridge: Essays, Correspondence, Bruce Caldwell, ed. (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1995), pp. 179-80.
330 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The first to explicitly refer to this third effect was David
Ricardo. He did so in his book, On the Principles of Political
Economy and Taxation, the first edition of which was published
in 1817. Here Ricardo concludes that
[e]very rise of wages, therefore, or, which is the same thing,
every fall of profits, would lower the relative value of those
commodities which were produced with a capital of a
durable nature, and would proportionally elevate those
which were produced with capital more perishable. A fall of
wages would have precisely the contrary effect.50
In the well-known appendix "On Machinery," which was
added in the third edition, published in 1821, Ricardo con-
cludes that " [machinery and labour are in constant competi-
tion, and the former can frequently not be employed until
labour rises."51
The same idea was later recovered by RA. Hayek, who,
beginning in 1939, applied it extensively in his writings on
business cycles. Here we will for the first time use it, inte-
grated with the prior two effects, to explain the consequences
an upsurge in voluntary saving has on the productive struc-
ture and to detract from theories on the so-called "paradox of
thrift" and the supposedly negative influence of saving on
effective demand. Hayek offers a very concise explanation of
the "Ricardo Effect" when he states that
[w]ith high real wages and a low rate of profit investment
will take highly capitalistic forms: entrepreneurs will try to
meet the high costs of labour by introducing very labour-sav-
ing machinery — the kind of machinery which it will be prof-
itable to use only at a very low rate of profit and interest.52
50See David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, vol.
1: On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Piero Sraffa and M.H.
Dobb, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 39-40.
51Ibid., p. 395.
52See Hayek, "Profits, Interest and Investment" and Other Essays on the
Theory of Industrial Fluctuations, p. 39. Shortly afterward, in 1941, EA.
Hayek briefly touched on this effect in relation to the impact an increase
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 331
Hence the "Ricardo Effect" is a third microeconomic
explanation for the behavior of entrepreneurs, who react to an
upsurge in voluntary saving by boosting their demand for
in voluntary saving exerts on the productive structure, though he did
not expressly quote Ricardo. This is the only instance we know of in
which the "Ricardo Effect" is directly applied to an analysis of the con-
sequences of a rise in voluntary saving, and not to the role the effect
plays in the different phases of the business cycle, theorists' predomi-
nant concern up until now. The excerpt in question is found on p. 293 of
The Pure Theory of Capital (London: Macmillan, 1941), and successively
reprinted thereafter (we quote from the 1976 Routledge reprint). It reads
as follows: "The fall in the rate of interest may . . . drive up the price of
labour to such an extent as to enforce an extensive substitution of
machinery for labour." Hayek later returned to the topic in his article,
"The Ricardo Effect," published in Economica 34, no. 9 (May 1942):
127-52, and republished as chapter 11 of Individualism and Economic
Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 220-54. Thirty
years later he dealt with it again in his article, "Three Elucidations of the
Ricardo Effect," published in the Journal of Political Economy 77, no. 2
(1979), and reprinted as chapter 11 of the book New Studies in Philosophy,
Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1978), pp. 165-78. Mark Blaug recently admitted that his criticism
of the "Ricardo Effect" in his book, Economic Theory in Retrospect (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 571-77, was based on an
error in interpretation regarding the supposedly static nature of Hayek's
analysis. See Mark Blaug's article entitled "Hayek Revisited," published
in Critical Review 7, no. 1 (Winter, 1993): 51-60, and esp. note 5 on pp.
59-60. Blaug acknowledges that he discovered his error thanks to an
article by Laurence S. Moss and Karen I. Vaughn, "Hayek's Ricardo
Effect: A Second Look," History of Political Economy 18, no. 4 (Winter,
1986): 545-65. For his part, Mises {Human Action, pp. 773-77) has criti-
cized the emphasis placed on the Ricardo Effect in order to justify a
forced increase in wages through union or government channels with
the purpose of raising investment in capital goods. He concludes that
such a policy only gives rise to unemployment and a poor allocation of
resources in the productive structure, since the policy does not stem
from an increase in society's voluntary saving, but rather from the sim-
ple coercive imposition of artificially high wages. Rothbard expresses a
similar view in Man, Economy, and State (pp. 631-32). Hayek does so as
well in The Pure Theory of Capital (p. 347), where he concludes that dic-
tatorially-imposed growth in wages produces not only a rise in unem-
ployment and a fall in saving, but also generalized consumption of cap-
ital combined with an artificial lengthening and narrowing of the stages
in the productive structure.
332 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
capital goods and by investing in new stages further from
final consumption.
It is important to remember that all increases in voluntary
saving and investment initially bring about a decline in the
production of new consumer goods and services with respect to
the short-term maximum which could be achieved if inputs were
not diverted from the stages closest to final consumption. This
decline performs the function of freeing productive factors
necessary to lengthen the stages of capital goods furthest from
consumption.53 Furthermore the consumer goods and serv-
ices left unsold as a result of the rise in voluntary saving play
a role remarkably similar to that of the accumulated berries in
our Robinson Crusoe example. The berries permitted Crusoe
to sustain himself for the number of days required to produce
his capital equipment (the wooden stick); during this time
period he was not able to devote himself to picking berries
"by hand." In a modern economy, consumer goods and serv-
ices which remain unsold when saving increases fulfill the
important function of making it possible for the different eco-
nomic agents (workers, owners of natural resources and capi-
talists) to sustain themselves during the time periods that fol-
low. During these periods the recently-initiated lengthening of
the productive structure causes an inevitable slowdown in the
arrival of new consumer goods and services to the market.
This "slowdown" lasts until the completion of all of the new,
more capital-intensive processes that have been started. If it
were not for the consumer goods and services that remain
unsold due to saving, the temporary drop in the supply of
new consumer goods would trigger a substantial rise in the
relative price of these goods and considerable difficulties in
the provision of them.54
53See Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 256.
54In the words of Hayek himself:
All that happens is that at the earlier date the savers consume
less than they obtain from current production, and at the later
date (when current production of consumers' goods has
decreased and additional capital goods are turned out . . .)
they are able to consume more consumers' goods than they
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 333
Conclusion: The Emergence of a New, More
Capital-Intensive Productive Structure
The three effects we have just examined are provoked by
the entrepreneurial process of seeking profit, and the combi-
nation of the three tends to result in a new, narrower and more
elongated structure of capital goods stages. Moreover the dif-
ferential between income and costs at each stage, i.e., the
accounting profit or interest rate, tends to even out at a lower
level over all stages of the new productive structure (as natu-
rally corresponds to a larger volume of saving and a lower
social rate of time preference). Therefore the shape of the pro-
ductive structure comes to closely resemble that reflected in
Chart V-3.
Chart V-3 reveals that final consumption has fallen to 75
m.u. This reduction has also affected the value of the product
of the second stage (the previous stage closest to consump-
tion), which has dropped from 80 m.u. in Chart V-l to 64.25
m.u. in Chart V-3. A similar decrease occurs in the third stage
(from 60 m.u. to 53.5 m.u.), though this time the reduction is
proportionally smaller. However beginning in the fourth stage
(and upward, each stage further from consumption than the
one before it), the demand in monetary terms grows. The
increase is gradual at first. In the fourth stage, the figures rise
from 40 m.u. to 42.75 m.u. It then becomes proportionally
much more substantial in the fifth stage, where the value of
the product grows from 20 m.u. to 32.25 m.u., as we saw in
Chart V-2. Furthermore two new stages, stages six and seven,
appear in the area furthest from consumption. These stages
did not exist before.
After all necessary adjustments have been made, the rate
of profit for the different stages tends to even out at a signifi-
cantly lower level than that reflected in Chart V-l. This phe-
nomenon derives from the fact that the upsurge in voluntary
saving generates a much lower market rate of interest, and the
rate of accounting profit for each stage (in our example,
get from current production. (Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capi-
tal, p. 275. See also footnote 13 above)
334
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
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Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 335
approximately 1.70 percent annually) approaches this figure.
The net income received by the owners of the original means of
production (workers and owners of natural resources) and by
the capitalists of each stage, according to the net interest rate
or differential, amounts to 75 m.u., which coincides with the
monetary income spent on consumer goods and services. It is
important to point out that even if only 75 m.u. are spent on
consumer goods and services, i.e., 25 units less than in Chart V-
1, once all new production processes are completed, the pro-
duction of new final consumer goods and services will increase
substantially in real terms. This is because production processes
tend to become more productive as they become more round-
about and capital-intensive. Moreover a larger quantity, in real
terms, of produced consumer goods and services can only be
sold for a lower total number of m.u. (in our example, 75).
Therefore there is a dramatic decline in the unit price of new
consumer goods and services reaching the market, and corre-
spondingly the income received by owners of the original
means of production (specifically, workers' wages and hence,
their living standard) undergoes a sharp increase in real terms.
Tables V-3 and V-4 reflect both the supply of and the
demand for present goods, as well as the composition of the
gross national output for the year, after all adjustments pro-
voked by the increase in voluntary saving. We see that the
supply of and demand for present goods rests at 295 m.u., i.e.,
25 m.u. more than in Table V-l. This is because gross saving
and investment have grown by precisely the 25 m.u. of addi-
tional net saving voluntarily carried out. However as Table V-
4 shows, the gross national output for the year remains unal-
tered at 370 m.u., of which 75 m.u. correspond to the demand
for final consumer goods, and 295 m.u. to the total supply of
present goods. In other words, even though the gross national
output is identical in monetary terms to its value in the last
example, it is now distributed in a radically different manner: over
a narrower and more elongated productive structure (that is,
a more capital-intensive one with more stages).
The distinct distribution of the same gross national output
(in monetary terms) in each of the two productive structures
is more apparent in Chart V-4.
336 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Chart V-4 is simply the result of superimposing Chart V-l
(line) on Chart V-3 (bar), and it shows the impact on the pro-
ductive structure of the 25 m.u. growth in voluntary net sav-
ing. Hence we see that the voluntary increase in saving pro-
vokes the following effects:
• First: a deepening of the capital goods structure. This out-
come manifests itself as a vertical "lengthening" of the
productive structure via the addition of new stages (in
our example, stages six and seven, which did not exist
before).
• Second: a widening of the capital goods structure, embod-
ied in a broadening of the existing stages (as in stages
four and five).
• Third: a relative narrowing of the capital goods stages
closest to consumption.
• Fourth: In the final stage, the stage of consumer goods
and services, the jump in voluntary saving invariably
generates an initial drop in consumption (in monetary
terms). However the lengthening of the productive
structure is followed by a substantial real increase (in
terms of quantity and quality) in the production of con-
sumer goods and services. Given that the monetary
demand for these goods is invariably reduced, and
given that these two effects (the drop in consumption
and the upsurge in the production of consumer goods)
exert similar influences, the increase in production gives
rise to a sharp drop in the market prices of consumer goods.
Ultimately this drop in prices makes it possible for a sig-
nificant real rise in wages to occur, along with a general
increase in all real income received by owners of the
original means of production.55
55The above considerations reveal once again the extent to which tradi-
tional national income statistics and the measures of growth in national
income are theoretically inadequate. We have already pointed out that
the indicators of national income do not measure the gross national out-
put and tend to exaggerate the importance of consumption, while over-
looking the intermediate stages in the production process. It is also true
that the statistical measures of economic growth and of the evolution of
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System
337
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338
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table V-4
Gross Income and Net Income for the Year
(following 25 m.u. of voluntary net saving)
Gross Income for the Year
75 m.u. of final consumption + 295 m.u.
of total supply of present goods
(Gross Saving and Investment as shown in detail in Table V-3)
(Note: Gross saving and investment grow by 25 m.u., from 270 to
295; and consumption shrinks by 25 m.u., from 100 to 75)
Total Gross Income: 370 m.u.
Net Income for the Year
a) Net Income Capitalists 1st stage: 75.00 -
73.75
= 1.25
Received by Capitalists 2nd stage: 64.25 -
63.18
= 1.07
Capitalists Capitalists 3rd stage: 53.50 -
52.61
= 0.89
(Profit or interest Capitalists 4th stage: 42.75 -
42.04
= 0.71
at each stage) Capitalists 5th stage: 32.25 -
31.71
= 0.54
Capitalists 6th stage: 21.50 -
21.14
= 0.36
Capitalists 7th stage: 10.75 -
10.57
= 0.18
Total profits, interest or
net income received by
capitalists at all stages: =
5.00 m.u.
b) Net Income From stage 1:
9.50
Received by From stage 2
9.68
Owners of the From stage 3
9.86
Original Means From stage 4
9.79
of Production From stage 5
10.21
(labor and From stage 6
10.39
natural resources) From stage 7
10.59
Total net income received
by owners of the original
means of production:
Total Net Income = Total Consumption
70.00 m.u.
75.00 m.u.
CONCLUSION: The Gross Income for the Year is equal to 4.9 times
the Net Income
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 339
In short, in our example there has been no drop in the
money supply (and therefore no external deflation, strictly-
speaking), nor has the demand for money risen. So if we
assume both of these factors remain constant, then the general
fall in the price of consumer goods and services arises exclu-
sively from the upsurge in saving and the increase in produc-
tivity, itself a consequence of the more capital-intensive pro-
ductive structure. Moreover this brings about marked growth
in wages (in real terms), which, though their nominal value
the price index are both distorted because they focus mainly on the final
stage, consumption. Therefore it is easy to see how, in the initial phases
of the process triggered when voluntary saving rises, a statistical
decrease in economic growth is registered. In fact there is often an initial
decline in final consumer and investment goods, while national
accounting statistics fail to reflect the parallel increase in investment in
the stages furthest from consumption, the creation of new stages, not to
mention the growth in investment in non-final intermediate products,
stocks and inventories of circulating capital. Moreover the consumer
price index falls, since it merely reflects the effect the reduced monetary
demand has on consumer goods stages, yet no index adequately records
the growth in prices in the stages furthest from consumption. Conse-
quently different agents (politicians, journalists, union leaders, and
employers' representatives) often make an erroneous popular interpre-
tation of these economic events, based on these statistical national
accounting measures. Hayek, toward the end of his article on "The
Ricardo Effect" (Individualism and Economic Order, pp. 251-54), offers a
detailed description of the great statistical difficulties which exist with
respect to using national accounting methods to record the effects on the
productive structure of an increase in voluntary saving; or in this case,
the influence of the "Ricardo Effect." More recently, in his Nobel Prize
acceptance speech, F.A. Hayek warned against the particularly wide-
spread custom of regarding unsound theories as valid simply because
there appears to be empirical support for them. Hayek cautioned
against rejecting or even ignoring true theoretical explanations merely
because it is quite difficult, from a technical standpoint, to collect the
statistical information necessary to confirm them. These are precisely
the errors committed in the application of national income accounting
to the process by which the productive stages furthest from consump-
tion grow wider and deeper, a process always due to a rise in voluntary
saving. See "The Pretence of Knowledge," Nobel Memorial Lecture,
delivered December 11, 1974 and reprinted in The American Economic
Review (December 1989): 3-7.
340
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
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Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 341
remains the same or even diminishes somewhat, permit the
earner to acquire an increasing quantity of consumer goods
and services of higher and higher quality: the decline in the
price of these goods is proportionally much sharper than the
possible decline in wages. In brief this is the healthiest, most
sustained process of economic growth and development
imaginable. In other words, it involves the fewest economic
and social maladjustments, tensions, and conflicts and histor-
ically has taken place on various occasions, as the most reli-
able studies have shown.56
56Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, in reference to the period
from 1865 to 1879 in the United States, during which practically no
increase in the money supply occurred, conclude that,
[T]he price level fell to half its initial level in the course of less
than fifteen years and, at the same time, economic growth
proceeded at a rapid rate. . . . [T]heir coincidence casts serious
doubts on the validity of the now widely held view that sec-
ular price deflation and rapid economic growth are incom-
patible. (Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary
History of the United States 1867-1960 [Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 1971], p. 15, and also the important sta-
tistical table on p. 30)
In addition Alfred Marshall, in reference to the period 1875-1885 in Eng-
land, stated that
It is doubtful whether the last ten years, which are regarded
as years of depression, but in which there have been few vio-
lent movements of prices, have not, on the whole, conduced
more to solid progress and true happiness than the alternations of
feverish activity and painful retrogression which have char-
acterised every preceding decade of this century. In fact, I
regard violent fluctuations of prices as a much greater evil than a
gradual fall of prices. (Alfred Marshall, Official Papers, p. 9; ital-
ics added)
Finally, see also George A. Selgin, Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling
Price Level in a Growing Economy, Hobart Paper 132 (London: Institute of
Economic Affairs, 1997).
342 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Theoretical Solution to the "Paradox of Thrift"57
Our analysis also allows us to solve the problems posed by
the supposed dilemma of the paradox of thrift or saving.
This "paradox" rests on the concept that, though saving by
57The essential argument against the thesis that saving adversely affects
economic development and that it is necessary to stimulate consump-
tion to foster growth was very brilliantly and concisely expressed by
Hayek in 1932 when he demonstrated that it is a logical contradiction to
believe that an increase in consumption manifests itself as an increase in invest-
ment, since investment can only rise due to a rise in saving, which must always
go against consumption. In his own words:
Money spent today on consumption goods does not immedi-
ately increase the purchasing power of those who produce for
the future; in fact, it actually competes with their demand
and their purchasing power is determined not by current
but by past prices of consumer goods. This is so because the
alternative always exists of investing the available produc-
tive resources for a longer or a shorter period of time. All
those who tacitly assume that the demand for capital goods
changes in proportion to the demand for consumer goods ignore
the fact that it is impossible to consume more and yet simultane-
ously to defer consumption with the aim of increasing the stock of
intermediate products. (EA. Hayek, "Capital Consumption,"
an English translation of the article previously published
under the German title "Kapitalaufzehrung," in Weltwirt-
schaftliches Archiv 36, no. 2 (1932): 86-108; italics added)
The English edition appears as chapter 6 of Money, Capital and Fluctu-
ations: Early Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp.
141-42. Hayek himself reminds us that this fundamental principle was
put forward by John Stuart Mill, who in his fourth proposition on cap-
ital established that: "demand for commodities is not demand for
labour." Nevertheless Hayek indicates that John Stuart Mill failed to
adequately justify this principle, which only became fully accepted by
theorists upon the development of the theory of capital by Bohm-
Bawerk and the theory of the cycle by Mises and Hayek himself (see
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (Fairfield, N.J.: Augustus
M. Kelley 1976), book 1, chap. 5, no. 9, pp. 79-88). According to Hayek,
the understanding of this basic idea is the true test of any economist:
"More than ever it seems to me to be true that the complete apprehen-
sion of the doctrine that 'demand for commodities is not demand for
labor' ... is 'the best test of an economist.'" Hayek, The Pure Theory of
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 343
individuals is positive in the sense that it allows them to aug-
ment their income, socially speaking, when the aggregate
demand for consumer goods diminishes, the decrease eventu-
ally exerts a negative effect on investment and production.58
In contrast we have presented the theoretical arguments
Capital (1976 ed.), p. 439. In short it means understanding that it is per-
fectly feasible for an entrepreneur of consumer goods to earn money
even when his sales do not increase and even decrease, if the entrepre-
neur reduces his costs by substituting capital equipment for labor. (The
increased investment in capital equipment creates jobs in other stages
and makes society's productive structure more capital-intensive.) See
also J. Huerta de Soto, "Hayek's Best Test of a Good Economist," Proce-
sos de Mercado 5, no. 2 (Autumn 2004): 121-24.
58To F.A. Hayek goes the credit for being the first to have theoretically
demolished the supposed "paradox of thrift" in 1929, in his article, "Gibt
es einen 'Widersinn des Sparens'?" ("The 'Paradox' of Saving," Economica
2, no. 2 [May 1931], and reprinted in Profits, Interest and Investment, pp.
199-263). In Italy Augusto Graziani defended a position very similar to
Hayek's in his article, "Sofismi sul risparmio," originally published in
Rivista Bancaria (December 1932), and later reprinted in his book, Studi di
Critica Economica (Milan: Societa Anonima Editrice Dante Alighieri, 1935),
pp. 253-63. It is interesting to note that an author as distinguished as
Samuelson has continued to defend the old myths of the theory of under-
consumption which constitute the basis for the paradox of thrift. He does
so in various editions of his popular textbook, and as one might expect,
relies on the fallacies of Keynesian theory, which we will comment on in
chapter 7. It is not until the thirteenth edition that the doctrine of the "par-
adox of thrift" becomes optional material and the corresponding diagram
justifying it disappears (Paul A. Samuelson and William N. Nordhaus,
Economics, 13th ed. [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989], pp. 183-85). Later, in
the 14th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992), all references to the topic
are silently and prudently eliminated. Unfortunately, however, they reap-
pear in the 15th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995, pp. 455-57). See
also Mark Skousen "The Perseverance of Paul Samuelson's Economics,"
journal of Economic Perspectives 2, no. 2 (Spring, 1997): 137-52. The main
error in the theory of the paradox of thrift consists of the fact that it
ignores the basic principles of capital theory and does not treat the pro-
ductive structure as a series of consecutive stages. Instead it contains the
implicit assumption that only two stages exist, one of final aggregate con-
sumer demand and another made up of a single set of intermediate
investment stages. Thus in the simplified model of the "circular flow of
income," it is assumed that the negative effect on consumption of an
upsurge in saving immediately and automatically spreads to all invest-
ment. On this topic see Skousen, The Structure of Production, pp. 244-59.
344 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
which demonstrate that this interpretation, based on the old
myth of underconsumption, is faulty. Indeed, even assuming
that gross national output in monetary terms remains con-
stant, we have shown how society grows and develops
through an increase in real wages, even when the monetary
demand for consumer goods declines. We have also demon-
strated how, in the absence of state intervention and increases
in the money supply, an immensely powerful market force,
driven by entrepreneurs' search for profit, leads to the length-
ening of and growing complexity in the productive structure.
In short, despite the initial relative decrease in the demand for
consumer goods which stems from growth in saving, the pro-
ductivity of the economic system is boosted, as is the final pro-
duction of consumer goods and services, and real wages.59
The Case of an Economy in Regression
Our reasoning up to this point can be reversed, with
appropriate changes, to explain the effects of a hypothetical
59Rothbard {Man, Economy, and State, pp. 467-79) has revealed that, as a
result of the lengthening of the productive structure (a phenomenon we
have examined and one which follows from an increase in voluntary
saving), it is impossible to determine in advance whether or not the
income capitalists receive in the form of interest will rise. In our detailed
example this does not occur in monetary terms and perhaps not in real
terms either. This is due to the fact that, even when saving and gross
investment grow, we cannot establish, simply on the basis of economic
theory whether or not the value of income derived from interest will
fall, rise or remain constant, since each of these alternatives is feasible. It
is also impossible to ascertain what will happen to the monetary income
received by owners of the original means of production. In our example
it stays the same, which results in a dramatic increase in the owners' real
income once the prices of consumer goods decline. Nonetheless a drop
in the income (in monetary terms) received by the owners of the origi-
nal means of production is possible, although such a drop will always
be less marked than the reduction in the prices of consumer goods and
services. Nowadays it is clearly a challenge for us to conceive of an
economy in rapid development, yet where the monetary income
received by owners of the factors of production (especially labor) dimin-
ishes, however this scenario is perfectly feasible if the prices of final
consumer goods and services fall even faster.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 345
decrease in society's voluntary saving. Let us begin by suppos-
ing that the productive structure closely resembles that
reflected in Chart V-3. If society as a whole decides to save
less, the result will be an increase, of for instance 25 m.u., in
the monetary demand for consumer goods and services.
Therefore the monetary demand will rise from 75 m.u. to 100
m.u., and the industries and companies of the stages closest to
consumption will tend to grow dramatically, which will drive
up their accounting profits. Though these events may appear
to provoke the effects of a consumer boom, in the long run
they will lead to a "flattening" of the productive structure,
since productive resources will be withdrawn from the stages
furthest from consumption and transferred to those closest to
it. In fact the increased accounting profits of the stages close to
final consumption will, relatively speaking, discourage pro-
duction in the most distant stages, which will tend to bring
about a reduction in investment in these stages. Moreover the
drop in saving will push up the market rate of interest and
diminish the corresponding present value of durable capital
goods, deterring investment in them. Finally a reverse
"Ricardo Effect" will exert its influence: growth in the prices
of consumer goods and services will be accompanied by an
immediate decline in real wages and in the rents of the other
original factors, which will encourage capitalists to replace
capital equipment with labor, now relatively cheaper.
The combined result of all these influences is a flattening
of the productive structure, which comes to resemble that
described in Chart V-l, which, although it reflects a greater
demand for consumer goods and services in monetary terms,
shows there has been a generalized impoverishment of society in
real terms. In fact the less capital-intensive productive struc-
ture will result in the arrival of fewer consumer goods and
services to the final stage, which nevertheless undergoes a
considerable rise in monetary demand. Hence there is a
decrease in the production of consumer goods and services,
along with a substantial increase in their price, a consequence
of the two previous effects combined. The result is the gener-
alized impoverishment of society, especially of workers,
whose wages shrink in real terms, since, while in monetary
terms they may remain constant or even increase, such a rise
346 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
never reaches the level of growth undergone by monetary
prices of consumer goods and services.
According to John Hicks, Giovanni Boccaccio, in an inter-
esting passage in the Introduction to Decameron, written
around the year 1360, was the first to describe, in rather pre-
cise terms, a process very similar to the one we have just ana-
lyzed when he related the impact the Great Plague of the four-
teenth century had on the people of Florence. In fact the
epidemic caused people to anticipate a drastic reduction in life
expectancy, and thus entrepreneurs and workers, instead of
saving and "lengthening" the stages in their production process
by working their lands and tending their livestock, devoted
themselves to increasing their present consumption.60 After
Boccaccio, the first economist to seriously consider the effects
of a decline in saving and the resulting economic setback was
Bohm-Bawerk in his book, Capital and Interest,61 where he
explains in detail that a general decision by individuals to con-
sume more and save less triggers a phenomenon of capital
consumption, which ultimately lowers productive capacity
and the production of consumer goods and services, giving
rise to the generalized impoverishment of society62
60In the words of John Hicks himself:
Boccaccio is describing the impact on people's minds of the
Great Plague at Florence, the expectation that they had not
long to live. "Instead of furthering the future products of their
cattle and their land and their own past labour, they devoted
all their attention to the consumption of present goods." [John
Hicks asks:] "Why does Boccaccio write like Bohm-Bawerk?
The reason is surely that he was trained as a merchant."
(Hicks, Capital and Time: A Neo-Austrian Theory, pp. 12-13)
61B6hm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, vol. 2: The Positive Theory of Capital,
pp. 113-14. At the end of this analysis, Bohm-Bawerk concludes that
saving is the necessary prior condition for the formation of capital. In
the words of Bohm-Bawerk himself: "Ersparung [ist] eine unent-
behrliche Bedingung der Kapitalbildung" (Bohm-Bawerk, German edi-
tion, p. 134).
62Fritz Machlup clearly exposed the error committed by the theorists of
the paradox of thrift when he made reference to the concrete historical
case of the Austrian economy after World War I. At that time everything
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 347
3
The Effects of Bank Credit Expansion
Unbacked by an Increase in Saving:
The Austrian Theory or Circulation
Credit Theory of the Business Cycle
In this section we will examine the effects banks exert on
the productive structure when they create loans unbacked by
a prior increase in voluntary saving. These circumstances dif-
fer radically from those we studied in the last section, where
loans were fully backed by a corresponding rise in voluntary
saving. In accordance with the credit expansion process trig-
gered by fractional-reserve banking (a process we examined
in detail in chapter 4), a bank's creation of credit would result
in an accounting entry which, in its simplest form, would
resemble this one:
(73) Debit Credit
1,000,000 Cash Demand deposits 1,000,000
(74)
900,000 Loans granted Demand deposits 900,000
These book entries, which are identical to numbers (17)
and (18) in chapter 4, record in a simplified and concise fash-
ion the unquestionable fact that the bank is able to generate
possible was done to foster consumption, however the country became
extremely impoverished. Machlup ironically states:
Austria had most impressive records in five lines: she
increased public expenditures, she increased wages, she
increased social benefits, she increased bank credits, she
increased consumption. After all these achievements she was
on the verge of ruin. (Fritz Machlup, "The Consumption of
Capital in Austria," Review of Economic Statistics 17, no. 1
[1935]: 13-19)
Other examples of this kind of generalized impoverishments were the
Argentina of General Peron and Portugal after the 1973 Revolution.
348 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
from nothing new m.u. in the form of deposits or fiduciary
media which are granted to the public as loans or credit even
when the public has not first decided to increase saving.63 We
will now consider the effects this important event has on
social processes of coordination and economic interaction.
The Effects of Credit Expansion on the
Productive Structure
The creation of money by the banking system in the form
of loans has some real effects on the economy's productive
structure, and it is necessary to clearly distinguish between
these effects and those we studied in the last section with
respect to loans backed by saving. More specifically, the gen-
eration of loans ex nihilo (i.e., in the absence of an increase in
saving) raises the supply of credit to the economy, especially
to the different capital goods stages in the productive struc-
ture. From this standpoint, the increased supply of loans
which results from bank credit expansion will initially exert
an effect very similar to that produced by the flow of new
loans from saving which we analyzed in detail in the last sec-
tion: it will tend to cause a widening and lengthening of the
stages in the productive structure.
The "widening" of the different stages is easy to under-
stand, since basically the loans are granted for the production
processes which constitute each of the stages. Credit extended
to finance durable consumer goods also leads to a widening
and lengthening of the productive structure, because (as we
have seen) durable consumer goods are economically compa-
rable to capital goods throughout the period during which
they are fit to render their services. Therefore even in the case
of consumer loans (to finance durable consumer goods), the
greater influx of loans will tend to increase both the quantity
and quality of such goods.
63"So far as deposits are created by the banks, money means are created,
and the command of capital is supplied, without cost or sacrifice on the
part of the saver." F.W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, 3rd ed. (New
York: Macmillan, 1939), vol. 1, p. 357.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 349
The "lengthening" of the productive structure derives
from the fact that the only way banks can introduce into the
economy the new money they create from nothing and grant
as loans is by temporarily and artificially reducing the inter-
est rate in the credit market and by easing the rest of the eco-
nomic and contractual conditions they insist on when grant-
ing loans to their customers. This lowering of the interest
rate in the credit market does not necessarily manifest itself
as a decrease in absolute terms. Instead a decrease in rela-
tive terms, i.e., in relation to the interest rate which would
have predominated in the market in the absence of credit
expansion, is sufficient.64 Hence the reduction is even compat-
ible with an increase in the interest rate in nominal terms, if
the rate climbs less than it would have in an environment
without credit expansion (for instance, if credit expansion
coincides with a generalized drop in the purchasing power of
money). Likewise such a reduction is compatible with a
decline in the interest rate, if the rate falls even more than it
would have had there been no credit expansion (for example,
in a process in which, in contrast, the purchasing power of
money is growing). Therefore this lowering of the interest rate
is a fact accounted for by theory, and one it will be necessary
to interpret historically while considering the circumstances
particular to each case.
The relative reduction credit expansion causes in the inter-
est rate boosts the present value of capital goods, since the
flow of rents they are expected to produce increases in value
when discounted using a lower market rate of interest. In
addition, the lowering of the interest rate gives the appearance
64 It does not matter whether this drop in the gross market rate
expresses itself in an arithmetical drop in the percentage stip-
ulated in the loan contracts. It could happen that the nominal
interest rates remain unchanged and that the expansion man-
ifests itself in the fact that at these rates loans are negotiated
which would not have been made before on account of the
height of the entrepreneurial component to be included. Such
an outcome too amounts to a drop in gross market rates and
brings about the same consequences. (Mises, Human Action,
p. 552)
350 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
of profitability to investment projects which until that point
were not profitable, giving rise to new stages further from
consumption. The process through which these stages come
into existence closely resembles the one involved when soci-
ety's voluntary saving actually increases. Nevertheless we
must emphasize that although the initial effects may be very
similar to those which, as we saw, follow an upsurge in vol-
untary saving, in this case the productive stages are lengthened and
widened65 only as a consequence of the easier credit terms banks offer
at relatively lower interest rates yet without any previous growth in
voluntary saving. As we know, a sustainable lengthening of the
productive structure is only possible if the necessary prior
saving has taken place in the form of a drop in the final
demand for consumer goods. This drop permits the different
productive agents to sustain themselves using the unsold con-
sumer goods and services while the new processes introduced
reach completion and their more productive result begins to
reach the market in the form of consumer goods.66
In short, entrepreneurs decide to launch new investment
projects, widening and lengthening the capital goods stages in
65 When under the conditions of credit expansion the whole
amount of the additional money substitutes is lent to business,
production is expanded. The entrepreneurs embark either
upon lateral expansion of production (viz., the expansion of
production without lengthening the period of production in
the individual industry) or upon longitudinal expansion
(viz., the lengthening of the period of production). In either
case, the additional plants require the investment of addi-
tional factors of production. But the amount of capital goods
available for investment has not increased. Neither does
credit expansion bring about a tendency toward a restriction
of consumption. (Ibid., p. 556)
66 A lengthening of the period of production is only practicable,
however, either when the means of subsistence have
increased sufficiently to support the laborers and entrepre-
neurs during the longer period or when the wants of produc-
ers have decreased sufficiently to enable them to make the
same means of subsistence do for the longer period. (Mises,
The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 400)
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 351
the productive structure; that is, they act as if society's saving
had increased, when in fact such an event has not occurred. In
the case of an upsurge in voluntary saving, which we exam-
ined in the last section, the individual behavior of the differ-
ent economic agents tended to become compatible, and thus
the real resources that were saved and not consumed made
the preservation and lengthening of the productive structure
possible. Now the fact that entrepreneurs respond to credit
expansion by behaving as if saving had increased triggers a
process of maladjustment or discoordination in the behavior of the
different economic agents. Indeed entrepreneurs rush to invest
and to widen and lengthen the real productive structure even
though economic agents have not decided to augment their
saving by the volume necessary to finance the new invest-
ments. In a nutshell, this is a typical example of an inducement
to mass entrepreneurial error in economic calculation or esti-
mation regarding the outcome of the different courses of action
entrepreneurs adopt. This error in economic calculation stems
from the fact that one of the basic indicators entrepreneurs refer
to before acting, the interest rate (along with the attractiveness
of terms offered in the credit market), is temporarily manipu-
lated and artificially lowered by banks through a process of
credit expansion.67 In the words of Ludwig von Mises,
But now the drop in interest falsifies the businessman's cal-
culation. Although the amount of capital goods available
did not increase, the calculation employs figures which
would be utilizable only if such an increase had taken
place. The result of such calculations is therefore mislead-
ing. They make some projects appear profitable and realiz-
able which a correct calculation, based on an interest rate
not manipulated by credit expansion, would have shown as
67Elsewhere we have explained why systematic coercion and manipu-
lation of market indicators, the result of government intervention or the
granting of privileges by the government to pressure groups (unions,
banks, etc.), prevent people from producing and discovering the infor-
mation necessary to coordinate society, and serious maladjustments and
social discoordination systematically follow. See Huerta de Soto, Social-
ismo, calculo economico y funcion empresarial, chaps. 2 and 3.
352 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
unrealizable. Entrepreneurs embark upon the execution of
such projects. Business activities are stimulated. A boom
begins.68
At first the discoordination expresses itself in the emer-
gence of a period of exaggerated and disproportionate opti-
mism, which stems from the fact that economic agents feel
able to expand the productive structure without at the same
time having to make the sacrifice of reducing their consump-
tion to generate savings. In the last section the lengthening of
the productive structure was shown to be made possible
precisely by the prior sacrifice required by all increases in sav-
ing. Now we see that entrepreneurs hasten to widen and
lengthen the stages in production processes when no such
prior saving has taken place. The discoordination could not be
more obvious nor the initial excess of optimism more justified,
since it seems possible to introduce longer production
processes without any sacrifice or previous accumulation of
capital. In short a mass error is committed by entrepreneurs,
who adopt production processes they consider profitable, but
which are not. This error feeds a generalized optimism
founded on the belief that it is possible to widen and lengthen
the stages in production processes without anyone's having to
save. Intertemporal discoordination increasingly mounts: entre-
preneurs invest as if social saving were constantly growing;
68Mises, Human Action, p. 553 (p. 550 of the Scholar's Edition). As all
saving takes the form of capital goods, even when initially these goods
are merely the consumer goods which remain unsold when saving rises,
Mises's explanation is completely valid. See footnotes 13 and 54. Lionel
Robbins, in his book, The Great Depression (New York: Macmillan, 1934),
lists the following ten characteristics typical of any boom://rsf, the inter-
est rate falls in relative terms; second, short-term interest rates begin to
decline; third, long-term interest rates also drop; fourth, the current mar-
ket value of bonds rises; fifth, the velocity of the circulation of money
increases; sixth, stock prices climb; seventh, real estate prices begin to
soar; eighth, an industrial boom takes place and a large number of secu-
rities are issued in the primary market; ninth, the price of natural
resources and intermediate goods rises; and last, tenth, the stock
exchange undergoes explosive growth based on the expectation of an
uninterrupted increase in entrepreneurial profits (pp. 39-42).
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 353
consumers continue to consume at a steady (or even
increased) pace and do not worry about stepping up their sav-
ing.^
To illustrate the initial effect credit expansion exerts on the
real productive structure, we will follow the system used in
the last section to present several graphs and tables which
reflect the impact of credit expansion on the productive struc-
ture. A word of caution is necessary, however: it is practically
impossible to represent in this way the complex effects pro-
duced in the market when credit expansion triggers the gen-
eralized process of discoordination we are describing. There-
fore it is important to exercise great care in interpreting the
following tables and charts, which should only be valued
insofar as they illustrate and facilitate understanding of the
fundamental economic argument. It is nearly impossible to
reflect with charts anything other than strictly static situations,
since charts invariably conceal the dynamic processes which
take place between situations. Nonetheless the tables and
graphs we propose to represent the stages in the productive
structure may well help illustrate the essential theoretical argu-
ment and greatly facilitate an understanding of it.70
6^Roger Garrison interprets this phenomenon as an unsustainable
departure from the production possibilities frontier (PPF). See his book,
Time and Money, pp. 67-76.
70Our intention is to warn readers of the error which threatens anyone
who might attempt to make a strictly theoretical interpretation of the
charts we present. Nicholas Kaldor committed such an error in his crit-
ical analysis of Hayek's theory as was recently revealed by Laurence S.
Moss and Karen I. Vaughn, for whom
the problem is not to learn about adjustments by comparing
states of equilibrium but rather to ask if the conditions
remaining at Ti make the transition to T2 at all possible.
Kaldor 's approach indeed assumed away the very problem
that Hayek's theory was designed to analyze, the problem of
the transition an economy undergoes in moving from one
coordinated capital structure to another.
See their article, "Hayek's Ricardo Effect: A Second Look," p. 564. The
articles in which Kaldor criticizes Hayek are "Capital Intensity and the
Trade Cycle," Economica (February 1939): 40-66; and "Professor Hayek
354 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Chart V-5 provides a simplified illustration of the effect
exerted on the structure of productive stages by credit
expansion brought about by the banking system without the
necessary increase in social saving. When we compare it with
Chart V-l of this chapter, we see that final consumption
remains unchanged at 100 m.u., in keeping with our supposi-
tion that no growth in net saving has taken place. However
new money is created (deposits or fiduciary media) and enters
the system through credit expansion and the relative reduc-
tion in the interest rate (along with the typical easing of the
contractual conditions and the requirements for obtaining a
loan) necessary to persuade economic agents to take out the
newly-created loans. Therefore the rate of profit in the differ-
ent productive stages, which as we know tends to coincide
with the interest rate obtained at each stage by advancing
present goods in exchange for future goods, now drops from
the 11 percent shown in Chart V-l to slightly over 4 percent
yearly. Moreover the new loans allow the entrepreneurs of
each productive stage to pay more for the corresponding orig-
inal means of production, as well as for the capital goods from
earlier stages which they obtain for their own productive
processes.
Table V-5 reflects the supply of and demand for present
goods following bank credit expansion unbacked by saving.
We see that the supply of present goods increases from the 270
m.u. shown in Table V-l to slightly over 380 m.u., which are in
turn composed of the 270 m.u. from the example in the last
section (m.u. originating from real saved resources) plus
slightly over 113 m.u. which banks have created through credit
and the Concertina Effect," Economica (November 1942): 359-82. Curi-
ously, Kaldor had translated from German to English Hayek's book,
Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle, first published in 1933 (London:
Routledge). Rudy van Zijp recently pointed out that the criticism Kaldor
and others have leveled against Hayek's "Ricardo Effect" has derived
from the assumption of a hypothetical state of general equilibrium
which does not permit a dynamic analysis of the intertemporal discoor-
dination credit expansion inevitably provokes in the market. See Rudy
van Zijp, Austrian and New Classical Business Cycle Theory (Aldershot,
U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1994), pp. 51-53.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 355
expansion without the backing of any saving. Thus credit expan-
sion has the effect of artificially raising the supply of present
goods, which are demanded at lower interest rates by owners
of the original means of production and by capitalists of the
earlier stages further from consumption. Furthermore Table V-
5 reveals that the gross income for the year is over 483 m.u.,
113 units more than the gross income for the year prior to
credit expansion. (See Table V-2.)
Chart V-6 offers a simplified representation of the effect of
credit expansion (i.e., unbacked by a prior rise in voluntary
saving) on the productive structure. In our example, this effect
expresses itself in the lengthening of the productive structure
via the appearance of two new stages, six and seven. Prior to
the expansion of credit these stages did not exist, and they are
the furthest from final consumption. In addition the preexist-
ing productive stages (two through five) are widened. The
sum of the m.u. which represent the monetary demand
embodied in each new widening or lengthening of productive
stages, and which on the chart is reflected by the shaded areas,
amounts to 113.75 m.u., the exact rise in gross monetary
income for the year, an increase which stems exclusively from
the creation of new money through credit expansion brought
about by banks.
Let us not be deceived by Chart V-5: the new structure of
productive stages it illustrates rests on generalized intertem-
poral discoordination, in turn the result of the mass entrepre-
neurial error provoked by the introduction of a large volume
of new loans which are granted at artificially reduced interest
rates, without the backing of real prior saving. This anom-
alous state of discoordination cannot be maintained, and the
next section will include a detailed explanation of the reaction
credit expansion inevitably sets off in the market. In other
words, from the standpoint of pure microeconomic theory, we will
examine the factors that will cause the reversal of the "macroeco-
nomic" discoordination we have revealed.
Hence we will study the reasons the intertemporal disco-
ordination process, initially set in motion by credit expansion,
will completely reverse. Any attack on the social process, be it
intervention, systematic coercion, manipulation of essential
356
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
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Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 357
indicators (such as the price of present goods in terms of
future goods, or the market rate of interest), or the granting of
privileges against traditional legal principles, spontaneously
triggers certain processes of social interaction which, as they
are driven precisely by entrepreneurship and its capacity to
coordinate, tend to halt and rectify errors and discoordination.
Great credit goes to Ludwig von Mises for being the first to
reveal, in 1912, that credit expansion gives rise to booms and
optimism which sooner or later invariably subside. In his own
words:
The increased productive activity that sets in when the
banks start the policy of granting loans at less than the nat-
ural rate of interest at first causes the prices of production
goods to rise while the prices of consumption goods,
although they rise also, do so only in a moderate degree,
namely, only insofar as they are raised by the rise in wages.
Thus the tendency toward a fall in the rate of interest on
loans that originates in the policy of the banks is at first
strengthened. But soon a count ermovement sets in: the prices of
consumption goods rise, those of production goods fall. That is,
the rate of interest on loans rises again, it again approaches the
natural rate.71
71Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 401; italics added. The last
two sentences are so important that it is worthwhile to consider Ludwig
von Mises's expression of the essential idea in his original German edi-
tion:
Aber bald setzt eine rucklaufige Bewegung ein: Die Preise der
Konsumgiiter steigen, die der Produktivguter sinken, das
heifit der Darlehenszinsfufi steigt wieder, er nahert sich
wieder dem Satze des natiirlichen Kapitalzinses. (Ludwig
von Mises, Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel, 2nd Ger-
man ed. [Munich and Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1924],
p. 372)
Mises, who was strongly influenced by Wicksell's doctrine of "natural
interest," bases his theory on the disparities which emerge throughout
the cycle between "natural interest" and "gross interest in the credit (or
'monetary') market." Banks temporarily reduce the latter in their
process of credit expansion. Though we view Mises's analysis as impec-
cable, we prefer to base our presentation of the theory of the cycle
358
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
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Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 359
As we will have the opportunity to study later, prior to
Mises various scholars of the School of Salamanca (Saravia de
la Calle for instance) and others of the nineteenth century
mainly intellectuals of the Currency School (Henry Thornton,
Condy Raguet, Geyer, etc.), sensed that booms provoked by
credit expansion ultimately and spontaneously reversed, caus-
ing economic crises. Nonetheless Mises was the first to correctly
formulate and explain, from the standpoint of economic theory,
the reasons this is necessarily so. Despite Mises's momentous
initial contribution, a completely formulated analysis of the dif-
ferent economic effects which comprise the market's reaction to
credit expansion first became available with the writings of
Mises's most brilliant student, F.A. Hayek.72 In the next section
we will examine these effects in detail.73
directly on the effects credit expansion exerts on the productive struc-
ture, and to somewhat minimize the importance of Mises's analysis of
the disparities between "natural interest" and "monetary interest."
Knut Wicksell's main work in this area is Geldzins und Gilterpreise: Line
Studie iiber die den Tauschwert des Geldes bestimmenden Ursachen (Jena:
Verlag von Gustav Fischer, 1898), translated into English by R.E Kahn
with the title Interest and Prices: A Study of the Causes Regulating the Value
of Money (London: Macmillan, 1936 and New York: Augustus M. Kelley
1965). Nevertheless Wicksell's analysis is much inferior to Mises's, par-
ticularly because it rests almost exclusively on changes in the general
price level, rather than on variations in relative prices in the capital
goods structure, which is the essence of our theory. Mises summarized
and completed the exposition of his own theory in Geldwertstabilisierung
und Konjunkturpolitik (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1928); English translation by
Bettina Bien Greaves, "Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy,"
included in On the Manipulation of Money and Credit (New York: Free
Market Books, 1978).
72Hayek's most important works are: Geldtheorie und Konjunkturtheorie,
(Beitrage zur Konjunkturforschung, herausgegeben vom Osterreichis-
ches Institut fiir Konjunkturforschung, no. 1 [Vienna 1929]), translated
into English by Nicolas Kaldor and published as Monetary Theory and the
Trade Cycle (London: Routledge, 1933, and New Jersey: Augustus M.
Kelley 1975); Prices and Production, the first edition of which appeared in
1931 and the second, revised, updated edition of which appeared in
1935 and was later reprinted more than ten times in England and the
United States; Profits, Interest, and Investment (1939, 1969, 1975); the
series of essays published in Money, Capital and Fluctuations: Early Essays,
360
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
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Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 361
The Market's Spontaneous Reaction to Credit Expansion
We will now consider the microeconomic factors which will
halt the process of exaggerated optimism and unsustainable
Roy McCloughry, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984); and
last, The Pure Theory of Capital (1941; four later editions, and vol. XII of
Hayek's Collected Works). Hayek himself, in an "Appendix" to Prices and
Production (pp. 101-04), lists the main forerunners of the Austrian theory
or circulation credit theory of the business cycle, which can be traced back
to Ricardo himself (the first to describe the effect Hayek christened the
"Ricardo Effect"), Condy Raguet, James Wilson, and Bonamy Price in Eng-
land and the United States; J.G. Courcelle-Seneuil, V. Bonnet, and Yves
Guyot in France; and curiously, in German, ideas very similar to those of
the theorists of the Austrian School can be found in the writings of Karl
Marx and especially in those of Mijail Tugan-Baranovsky (see his work,
Industrial Crises in England, St. Petersburg, 1894), and of course in those of
Bohm-Bawerk (Capital and Interest, vol. 2: Positive Theory of Capital, pp.
316ff.). Later these contemporaries of Hayek worked along the same lines:
Richard von Strigl, in Kapital und Produktion (Munich and Vienna:
Philosophia Verlag, 1934, 1982; English translation, Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig
von Mises Institute, 2000); Bresciani-Turroni in Italy, The Economics of Infla-
tion: A Study of Currency Depreciation of Post-War Germany (1931, 1937; Lon-
don and New York: Augustus M. Kelley 1968); Gottfried Haberler,
"Money and the Business Cycle," published in 1932 and reprinted in The
Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays (Washington, D.C: Lud-
wig von Mises Institute, 1978), pp. 7-20; Fritz Machlup, The Stock Market,
Credit and Capital Tormation, originally published in German in 1931 and
reprinted in English (London: William Hodge, 1940). Notable writings in
the English-speaking world include: Davenport, The Economics of Enter-
prise (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, [1913] 1978), chap. 13; Frederick Ben-
ham, British Monetary Policy (London: PS. King and Shaw, 1932); H.F.
Fraser, Great Britain and the Gold Standard (London: Macmillan, 1933);
Theodore E. Gregory, Gold, Unemployment and Capitalism (London: PS.
King and Shaw, 1933); E.F.M. Durbin, Purchasing Power and Trade Depres-
sion: A Critique of Under -Consumption Theories (London and Toronto:
Johnathan Cape, 1933), and The Problem of Credit Policy (London: Chapman
and Hall, 1935); M.A. Abrams, Money in a Changing Civilisation (London:
John Lain, 1934); and C A. Phillips, T.F McManus and R.W. Nelson, Bank-
ing and the Business Cycle, (New York: Arno Press, 1937). And also in the
United States, the work of Frank Albert Fetter, esp. his article, "Interest
Theory and Price Movements," American Economic Review 17, no. 1 (1926):
72ff. (included in F.A. Fetter, Capital, Interest, and Kent, Murray N. Roth-
bard, ed. [Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1977]).
73It is important to remember that in 1974 the Swedish Academy
awarded F.A. Hayek the Nobel Prize in Economics precisely for his
362 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
economic expansion that follows the granting of bank loans
unbacked by a previous increase in voluntary saving. In this
way we will be fully able to take typically macroeconomic
"pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations."
See William J. Zahka, The Nobel Prize Economics Lectures (Aldershot,
U.K.: Avebury 1992), pp. 19 and 25-28. Writings in Spanish on the Aus-
trian theory of the business cycle are few but can be traced back to the
article by Mises published in the Revista de Occidente in 1932 ("La causa
de las crisis economicas," Revista de Occidente, February 1932) and to
Luis Olariaga's translation of Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle, by FA.
Hayek (La teoria monetaria y el ciclo economico [Espasa-Calpe, 1936]). Olar-
iaga's edition of this book of Hayek's contains, as an appendix, a trans-
lation into Spanish (entitled "Previsiones de Precios, Perturbaciones
Monetarias e Inversiones Fracasadas") of "Price Expectations, Monetary
Disturbances and Malinvestments" from the original English version.
This article appears as chapter 4 of Profits, Interest and Investment and
undoubtedly holds one of Hayek's clearest presentations of his theory
of the business cycle (fortunately it is included in the Spanish transla-
tion of Prices and Production published in 1996 [Precios y produccion],
Union Editorial, Madrid). The fateful first year of the Spanish Civil War
also coincided with the publication of the first Spanish translation (by
Antonio Riano) of The Theory of Money and Credit, by Ludwig von Mises
(Teoria del dinero y del credito (Madrid: Editorial Aguilar, 1936). It is not
surprising that the war reduced the impact of these writings in Spain to
a minimum. A notable achievement from the period following the civil
war is Richard von Strigl's outline of the Austrian theory of the cycle in
his book, Curso medio de economia, M. Sanchez Sarto, Spanish trans.
(Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1941). The year 1947 saw the
publication of Teoria de los ciclos economicos (Madrid: CSIC, 1947), by
Emilio de Figueroa. In volume 2 of this work Figueroa compares
Hayek's and Keynes's theories of the cycle (pp. 44-63). The Fondo de
Cultura Economica also published the translation of J.A. Estey's book,
Business Cycles (Tratado sobre los ciclos economicos [Mexico: Fondo de Cul-
tura Economica, 1948]), chapter 13 of which contains a detailed expla-
nation of the Austrian theory. The only other works on this subject to be
translated into Spanish are Gottfried Haberler's book, Prosperity and
Depression (Prosperidad y depresidn: andlisis tedrico de los movimientos cicli-
cos, translated by Gabriel Franco and Javier Marquez and published by
the Fondo de Cultura Economica in 1942; chapter 3 of this book is
devoted to the Austrian School's theory of circulation credit); FA.
Hayek's book, The Pure Theory of Capital (La teoria pura del capital, pub-
lished by Aguilar in 1946); and Ludwig von Mises's work, Human Action
(La accion humana: tratado de economia, the first edition of which was pub-
lished in 1960 by the Fundacion Ignacio Villalonga). Apart from these
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 363
phenomena (economic crises, depression, and unemploy-
ment) back to their fundamental microeconomic roots. We will
now study, one by one, the six microeconomic causes of the
reversal of the boom that credit expansion invariably triggers:
1. The rise in the price of the original means of production.
The first temporary effect of credit expansion is an increase
in the relative price of the original means of production (labor
and natural resources). This rise in price stems from two sep-
arate causes which reinforce each other. On the one hand, cap-
italists from the different stages in the production process
show a greater monetary demand for original resources, and
this growth in demand is made possible by the new loans the
banking system grants. On the other hand, with respect to
supply, we must keep in mind that when credit expansion
takes place without the backing of a prior increase in saving,
no original means of production are freed from the stages clos-
est to consumption, as occurred in the process we studied ear-
lier, which was initiated by a real upsurge in voluntary saving.
Therefore the rise in the demand for original means of pro-
duction in the stages furthest from consumption and the
absence of an accompanying boost in supply inevitably result
in a gradual increase in the market price of the factors of pro-
duction. Ultimately this increase tends to accelerate due to
competition among the entrepreneurs of the different stages in
the production process. The desire of these entrepreneurs to
attract original resources to their projects makes them willing
to pay higher and higher prices for these resources, prices they
are able to offer because they have just received new liquidity
from the banks in the form of loans the banks have created
from nothing. This rise in the relative price of the original fac-
tors of production begins to push the cost of the newly
books, the only other work in Spanish on the topic is our article, "La
teoria austriaca del ciclo economico," 'which 'was published over
twenty years ago in Moneda y Credito 152 (March 1980), and which
includes a comprehensive bibliography on the subject; and the series of
essays by EA. Hayek published as ilnflacion o Pleno Empleo? (Madrid:
Union Editorial, 1976). Last, in 1996 Carlos Rodriguez Braun's transla-
tion of Hayek's Prices and Production (Precios y produccidn) appeared,
published by Ediciones Aosta and Union Editorial in Madrid.
364 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
launched investment projects above the amount originally
budgeted. Nevertheless this effect alone is still not sufficient to
end the wave of optimism, and entrepreneurs, who continue
to feel safe and supported by the banks, usually go ahead with
their investment projects without a second thought.74
2. The subsequent rise in the price of consumer goods.
Sooner or later the price of consumer goods begins to
gradually climb, while the price of services offered by the
original factors of production starts to mount at a slower pace
(in other words, it begins to fall in relative terms). The combi-
nation of the following three factors accounts for this phe-
nomenon:
(a) First, growth in the monetary income of the owners of the
original factors of production. Indeed if, as we are sup-
posing, economic agents' rate of time preference
remains stable, and therefore they continue to save
the same proportion of their income, the monetary
demand for consumer goods increases as a result of
the increase in monetary income received by the own-
ers of the original factors of production. Nonetheless
this effect would only explain a similar rise in the
price of consumer goods if it were not for the fact that
it combines with effects (b) and (c).
(b) Second, a slowdown in the production of new con-
sumer goods and services in the short- and medium-
term, a consequence of the lengthening of production
processes and the greater demand for original means
of production in the stages furthest from final con-
sumption. This decline in the speed at which new
consumer goods arrive at the final stage in the pro-
duction process derives from the fact that original fac-
tors of production are withdrawn from the stages
closest to consumption, causing a relative shortage of
these factors in those stages. This shortage affects the
immediate production and delivery of final consumer
74In section 11 of chapter 6 (p. 440) we will see that our analysis does not
change substantially even when a large volume of unused factors of
production exists prior to credit expansion.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 365
goods and services. Furthermore as the capital theory
outlined at the beginning of the chapter explains, the
generalized lengthening of production processes and
the incorporation into them of a greater number of
stages further from consumption invariably leads to a
short-term decrease in the rate at which new con-
sumer goods are produced. This slowdown lasts the
length of time necessary for newly initiated invest-
ment processes to reach completion. It is clear that the
longer production processes are, i.e., the more stages
they contain, the more productive they tend to be.
However it is also clear that until new investment
processes conclude, they will not allow a larger
quantity of consumer goods to reach the final stage.
Hence the growth in income experienced by the own-
ers of the original factors of production, and thus the
increase in monetary demand for consumer goods,
combined with the short-term slowdown in the
arrival of new consumer goods to the market,
accounts for the fact that the price of consumer goods
and services eventually climbs more than proportion-
ally; that is, faster than the increase in monetary
income experienced by the owners of the original
means of production.
(c) Third, the rise in monetary demand for consumer
goods which is triggered by artificial entrepreneurial
profits that result from the credit expansion process.
Banks' creation of loans ultimately entails an increase
in the money supply and a rise in the price of the fac-
tors of production and of consumer goods. These
increases eventually distort entrepreneurs' estimates
of their profits and losses. In fact entrepreneurs tend
to calculate their costs in terms of the historical cost
and purchasing power of m.u. prior to the inflationary
process. However they compute their earnings based
on income comprised of m.u. with less purchasing
power. All of this leads to considerable and purely fic-
titious profits, the appearance of which creates an illu-
sion of entrepreneurial prosperity and explains why busi-
nessmen begin to spend profits that have not actually
366 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
been produced, which further increases the pressure
of the monetary demand for final consumer goods.75
It is important to underline the effect of the more-than-
proportional rise in the price of consumer goods with respect
to the rise in the price of original factors of production. Theo-
retically this is the phenomenon which has most escaped the
notice of many scholars. As they have not fully comprehended
capital theory, the analyses of these theorists have not
accounted for the fact that when more productive resources
are devoted to processes further from consumption, processes
which begin to yield results only after a prolonged period of
time, there is a reduction in the speed at which new consumer
goods arrive at the last stage in the production process. More-
over this is one of the most significant distinguishing features
of the case we are now considering (in which the lengthening
of production processes is financed with loans the banks cre-
ate ex nihilo) with respect to the process initiated by an
upsurge in voluntary saving (which by definition produced
an increase in the stock of consumer goods that remained
75 The additional demand on the part of the expanding entre-
preneurs tends to raise the prices of producers' goods and
wage rates. With the rise in wage rates, the prices of con-
sumers' goods rise too. Besides, the entrepreneurs are con-
tributing a share to the rise in the prices of consumers' goods
as they too, deluded by the illusory gains which their busi-
ness accounts show, are ready to consume more. The general
upswing in prices spreads optimism. If only the prices of pro-
ducers' goods had risen and those of consumers' goods had
not been affected, the entrepreneurs would have become
embarrassed. They would have had doubts concerning the
soundness of their plans, as the rise in costs of production
would have upset their calculations. But they are reassured
by the fact that the demand for consumers' goods is intensi-
fied and makes it possible to expand sales in spite of rising
prices. Thus they are confident that production will pay,
notwithstanding the higher costs it involves. They are
resolved to go on. (Mises, Human Action, p. 553)
Furthermore, assuming the existence of a (constant) supply curve of
savings, the decrease in interest rates will reduce savings and increase
consumption. See Garrison, Time and Money, p. 70.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 367
unsold and which sustained the owners of the original factors
of production while new processes of production could be
completed). When there is no prior growth in saving, and
therefore consumer goods and services are not freed to sup-
port society during the lengthening of the productive stages
and the transfer of original factors from the stages closest to
consumption to those furthest from it, the relative price of
consumer goods inevitably tends to rise.76
3. The substantial relative increase in the accounting profits of
the companies from the stages closest to final consumption.
The price of consumer goods escalates faster than the price
of original factors of production, and this results in relative
growth in the accounting profits of the companies from the
stages closest to consumption with respect to the accounting
profits of companies who operate in the stages furthest from
consumption. Indeed the relative price of the goods and serv-
ices sold in the stages closest to consumption increases very
rapidly, while costs, though they also rise, do not rise as fast.
Consequently accounting profits, or the differential between
income and costs, mount in the final stages. In contrast, in the
stages furthest from consumption the price of the intermedi-
ate goods produced at each stage does not show a major
change, while the cost of the original factors of production
employed at each stage climbs continuously, due to the
greater monetary demand for these factors, which in turn
originates directly from credit expansion. Hence companies
operating in the stages furthest from consumption tend to
76Hayek expresses the concept in this concise manner:
[F]or a time, consumption may even go on at an unchanged
rate after the more roundabout processes have actually
started, because the goods which have already advanced to
the lower stages of production, being of a highly specific char-
acter, will continue to come forward for some little time. But
this cannot go on. When the reduced output from the stages
of production, from which producers' goods have been with-
drawn for use in higher stages, has matured into consumers'
goods, a scarcity of consumers' goods will make itself felt,
and the prices of those goods will rise. (Hayek, Prices and Pro-
duction, p. 88)
368 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
bring in less profit, an accounting result of a rise in costs more
rapid than the corresponding increase in income. These two
factors produce the following combined effect: it gradually
becomes evident throughout the productive structure that the
accounting profits generated in the stages closest to consumption are
higher in relative terms than the accounting profits earned in the
stages furthest from it. This prompts entrepreneurs to rethink
their investments and even to doubt their soundness. It com-
pels them to again consider the need to reverse their initial
investment of resources by withdrawing them from more cap-
ital-intensive projects which have barely gotten off the ground
and returning them to the stages closest to consumption.77
4. The "Ricardo Effect."
In addition, the more-than-proportional rise in the price of
consumer goods with respect to the increase in original-factor
income begins to drive down (in relative terms) the real
income of these factors, particularly wages. This real reduction
77 Sooner or later, then, the increase in the demand for con-
sumers' goods will lead to an increase of their prices and of
the profits made on the production of consumers' goods. But
once prices begin to rise, the additional demand for funds
will no longer be confined to the purposes of new additional
investment intended to satisfy the new demand. At first — and
this is a point of importance which is often overlooked — only
the prices of consumers' goods, and of such other goods as
can rapidly be turned into consumers' goods, will rise, and
consequently profits also will increase only in the late stages
of production. . . . [T]he prices of consumers' goods would
always keep a step ahead of the prices of factors. That is, so
long as any part of the additional income thus created is spent on
consumers' goods (i.e., unless all of it is saved), the prices of con-
sumers' goods must rise permanently in relation to those of the var-
ious kinds of input. And this, as will by now be evident, cannot
be lastingly without effect on the relative prices of the various
kinds of input and on the methods of production that will
appear profitable. (Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, pp.
377-78; italics added)
In an environment of increasing productivity (such as the one experi-
enced during the period from 1995 to 2000), the (unit) prices of con-
sumer goods will not rise significantly, yet the (monetary) amount com-
panies closest to consumption bring in in sales and total profits will soar.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 369
in wages provokes the "Ricardo Effect," which we have cov-
ered in detail, but which now exerts an impact contrary to the
one it exerted in our last example, where real growth took
place in voluntary saving. In the case of voluntary saving, the
temporary decrease in the demand for consumer goods
brought about a real increase in wages, which tended to give
rise to the substitution of machines for labor and therefore to
lengthen the productive stages, distancing them from con-
sumption and making them more capital-intensive. However
now the effect is just the opposite: the more-than-proportional
growth in the price of consumer goods with respect to the rise
in factor income drives this income, particularly wages, down
in real terms, providing entrepreneurs with a powerful finan-
cial incentive to substitute labor for machinery or capital
equipment, in keeping with the "Ricardo Effect." This results
in a relative drop in the demand for the capital goods and
intermediate products of the stages furthest from consump-
tion, which in turn further aggravates the underlying problem
of the fall in accounting profits (even losses) which begins to
be perceived in the stages furthest from consumption.78
In short, here the "Ricardo Effect" exerts an impact contrary
to the one it exerted when there was an upsurge in voluntary
saving.79 Then we saw that an increase in saving brought about
78 As is logical, the fact that, due to coercion and union action, wages
may rise at a rate similar to that of the increase in the price of consumer
goods, in no way detracts from our argument, since the other five fac-
tors we have mentioned in the text will continue to exert their influence.
The "Ricardo Effect" may do so as well, given that, at least in relative
terms, the price of the factors of production employed in the stages clos-
est to consumption will always be lower than that of the resources used
in the stages furthest from it, and therefore the "Ricardo Effect," which
is based on a comparison of relative costs, will continue to operate
(entrepreneurs of the stages closest to consumption will begin to use, in
relative terms, more labor than capital equipment). When coercion is
used to improve the income of owners of the original factors, ultimately
the only possible outcome is an important rise in involuntary unem-
ployment among members of this group. This effect is especially acute
in the stages furthest from consumption.
79The first time Hayek expressly mentioned the "Ricardo Effect" to
explain the process by which the initial effects of credit expansion
370 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
a short-term decrease in the demand for consumer goods and
in their price, and thus a boost in real wages which encouraged
the substitution of machinery for workers, growth in the
demand for capital goods and a lengthening of productive
stages. Now we see that the relative rise in the price of con-
sumer goods causes a drop in real wages, motivating entrepre-
neurs to substitute labor for machinery, which lessens the
demand for capital goods and further reduces the profits of
companies operating in the stages furthest from consumption.80
reverse was in his essay, "Profits, Interest and Investment," included in
pp. 3-71 of the book of the same title. Hayek offers a very concise descrip-
tion of the "Ricardo Effect" on pp. 13-14 of this essay, where he states:
It is here that the "Ricardo Effect" comes into action and
becomes of decisive importance. The rise in the prices of con-
sumers' goods and the consequent fall in real wages means a
rise in the rate of profit in the consumers' goods industries,
but, as we have seen, a very different rise in the time rates of
profit that can now be earned on more direct labour and on the
investment of additional capital in machinery. A much higher
rate of profit will now be obtainable on money spent on labour
than on money invested in machinery. The effect of this rise in
the rate of profit in the consumers' goods industries will be
twofold. On the one hand it will cause a tendency to use more
labour with the existing machinery, by working over-time and
double shifts, by using outworn and obsolete machinery, etc.,
etc. On the other hand, in so far as new machinery is being
installed, either by way of replacement or in order to increase
capacity, this, so long as real wages remain low compared with
the marginal productivity of labour, will be of a less expensive,
less labour-saving or less durable type.
Hayek also deals with the action of the "Ricardo Effect" in the most expan-
sive phases of the boom in the following papers: "The Ricardo Effect"
(1942, pp. 127-52), and the previously-cited "Three Elucidations of the
Ricardo Effect" (1969). Other interesting writings on this topic include the
article by Laurence S. Moss and Karen I. Vaughn, "Hayek's Ricardo Effect:
A Second Look" (1986, pp. 545-65) and the one by G.P. O'Driscoll, "The
Specialization Gap and the Ricardo Effect: Comment on Ferguson," pub-
lished in History of Political Economy 7 (Summer, 1975): 261-69. See also
Jesus Huerta de Soto, "Ricardo Effect," Eponymous Dictionary of Economics:
A Guide to Laws and Theorems Named after Economists, Julio Segura and Car-
los Rodriquez Braun, eds. (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2004).
80Or as Mises explains:
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 371
5. The increase in the loan rate of interest. Rates even exceed pre-
credit-expansion levels.
The last temporary effect consists of an escalation in inter-
est rates in the credit market. This rise occurs sooner or later,
when the pace of credit expansion unbacked by real saving
stops accelerating. When this happens the interest rate will tend
to return to the relatively higher levels which prevailed prior to
the beginning of credit expansion. In fact if, for instance, the
interest rate is around 10 percent before credit expansion begins
and the new loans the banking system creates ex nihilo are
placed in the productive sectors via a reduction in the interest
rate (for example, to 4 percent) and an easing of the rest of the
"peripheral" requirements for the granting of loans (contractual
guarantees, etc.), it is clear that when credit expansion comes to
a halt, if, as we are supposing, no increase in voluntary saving
takes place, interest rates will climb to their previous level (in our
example, they will rise from 4 to 10 percent). They will even
exceed their pre-credit-expansion level (i.e., they will rise above
the originary rate of 10 percent) as a result of the combined
effect of the following two phenomena:
(a) Other things being equal, credit expansion and the
increase in the money supply which it involves will
tend to drive up the price of consumer goods, i.e., to
reduce the purchasing power of the monetary unit.
Consequently if lenders wish to charge the same
[W]ith further progress of the expansionist movement the rise
in the prices of consumers' goods will outstrip the rise in the
prices of producers' goods. The rise in wages and salaries and
the additional gains of the capitalists, entrepreneurs, and
farmers, although a great part of them is merely apparent,
intensify the demand for consumers' goods. ... At any rate, it
is certain that the intensified demand for consumers' goods
affects the market at a time when the additional investments
are not yet in a position to turn out their products. The gulf
between the prices of present goods and those of future goods
widens again. A tendency toward a rise in the rate of origi-
nary interest is substituted for the tendency toward the oppo-
site which may have come into operation at the earlier stages
of the expansion. (Mises, Human Action, p. 558)
372 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
interest rates in real terms, they will have to add (to
the interest rate which prevails prior to the beginning
of the credit expansion process) a component for
"inflation," or in other words, for the expected drop in
the purchasing power of the monetary unit.81
(b) There is another powerful reason interest rates climb
to and even exceed their prior level: entrepreneurs
who have embarked upon the lengthening of produc-
tion processes despite the rise in interest rates will, to
the extent that they have already committed substan-
tial resources to new investment projects, be willing to
pay very high interest rates, provided they are supplied
with the funds necessary to complete the projects they have
mistakenly launched. This is an important aspect which
went completely unnoticed until Hayek studied it in
81 As Ludwig von Mises wrote in 1928:
The banks can no longer make additional loans at the same
interest rates. As a result, they must raise the loan rate once
more for two reasons. In the first place, the appearance of the
positive price premium forces them to pay higher interest for
outside funds which they borrow. Then also they must dis-
criminate among the many applicants for credit. Not all enter-
prises can afford this increased interest rate. Those which can-
not run into difficulties. (See On the Manipulation of Money and
Credit, p. 127)
This is Bettina Bien Greaves's translation into English of the book pub-
lished in 1928 by Ludwig von Mises with the title, Geldwertstabilisierung
und Konjunkturpolitik. The above passage is found on pp. 51-52 of this
German edition, which contains a detailed explanation of all of Mises's
theory on business cycles. It was published before Prices and Production
and the German edition of Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle by Hayek
(1929). It is odd that Hayek almost never cites this important work, in
which Mises formulates and develops the theory of the cycle, which he
only had the opportunity to outline in his book, The Theory of Money and
Credit, published sixteen years earlier. Perhaps this oversight was delib-
erate and arose from a desire to convey to the scientific community the
impression that the first attempt to develop Mises's theory was made by
Hayek in his writings on Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle and Prices
and Production, when Mises had already covered the topic very thor-
oughly in 1928.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 373
detail in 1937.82 Hayek demonstrated that the process
of investment in capital goods generates an
autonomous demand for subsequent capital goods,
precisely ones which are complementary to those
already produced. Furthermore this phenomenon will
last as long as the belief that the production processes
can be completed. Thus entrepreneurs will rush to
demand new loans regardless of their cost, before
being forced to admit their failure and altogether aban-
don investment projects in which they have allocated
very important resources and with respect to which
they have jeopardized their prestige. As a result, the
growth in the interest rate which takes place in the
credit market at the end of the boom is not only due to
monetary phenomena, as Hayek had previously
thought, but also to real factors that affect the demand
for new loans.83 In short, entrepreneurs, determined
to complete the new capital goods stages they have
82See F.A. Hayek, "Investment that Raises the Demand for Capital,"
published in Review of Economics and Statistics 19, no. 4 (November 1937)
and reprinted in Profits, Interest and Investment, pp. 73-82.
83Hayek himself, in reference to the rise in interest rates in the final
stage of the boom, indicates that:
[T]he most important cause practically of such false expecta-
tions probably is a temporary increase in the supply of such
funds through credit expansion at a rate which cannot be
maintained. In this case, the increased quantity of current
investment will induce people to expect investment to con-
tinue at a similar rate for some time, and in consequence to
invest now in a form which requires for its successful com-
pletion further investment at a similar rate. . . . And the
greater the amount of investment which has already been
made compared with that which is still required to utilise the
equipment already in existence, the greater will be the rate of
interest which can advantageously be borne in raising capital
for these investments completing the chain. (Hayek, "Invest-
ment that Raises the Demand for Capital," pp. 76 and 80)
Mises points out the boom ends precisely when the entrepreneurs begin
to experience difficulties in obtaining the increasing amount of financ-
ing they need for their investment projects:
374 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
begun and which they begin to see threatened, turn to
banks and demand additional loans, offering a higher
and higher interest rate for them. Thus they start a
"fight to the death" to obtain additional financing.84
The entrepreneurs cannot procure the funds they need for the
further conduct of their ventures. The gross market rate of
interest rises because the increased demand for loans is not
counterpoised by a corresponding increase in the quantity of
money available for lending. (Mises, Human Action, p. 554)
84 Entrepreneurs determined to complete their endangered
long-term capital projects turn to the banks for more bank
credit, and a tug-of-war begins. Producers seek new bank
loans, the banking system accommodates the new loan
demand by creating new money, product prices rise ahead of
wage costs. In each market period the process repeats itself,
with product prices always rising ahead of wages. (Moss and
Vaughn, "Hayek's Ricardo Effect: A Second Look," p. 554)
In Human Action Mises explains the process in this way:
This tendency toward a rise in the rate of originary interest
and the emergence of a positive price premium explain some
characteristics of the boom. The banks are faced with an
increased demand for loans and advances on the part of busi-
ness. The entrepreneurs are prepared to borrow money at
higher gross rates of interest. They go on borrowing in spite
of the fact that banks charge more interest. Arithmetically, the
gross rates of interest are rising above their height on the eve
of the expansion. Nonetheless, they lag catalactically behind
the height at which they would cover originary interest plus
entrepreneurial component and price premium. The banks
believe that they have done all that is needed to stop
"unsound" speculation when they lend on more onerous
terms. They think that those critics who blame them for fan-
ning the flames of the boom-frenzy of the market are wrong.
They fail to see that in injecting more and more fiduciary
media into the market they are in fact kindling the boom. It is
the continuous increase in the supply of the fiduciary media
that produces, feeds, and accelerates the boom. The state of
the gross market rates of interest is only an outgrowth of this
increase. If one wants to know whether or not there is credit
expansion, one must look at the state of the supply of fiduci-
ary media, not at the arithmetical state of the interest rates.
(Mises, Human Action, pp. 558-59)
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 375
6. The appearance of accounting losses in companies operating
in the stages relatively more distant from consumption: the
inevitable advent of the crisis.
The above five factors provoke the following combined
effect: sooner or later companies which operate in the stages
relatively more distant from consumption begin to incur
heavy accounting losses. These accounting losses, when com-
pared with the relative profits generated in the stages closest
to consumption, finally reveal beyond all doubt the serious
entrepreneurial errors committed and the urgent need to cor-
rect them by paralyzing and then liquidating the investment
projects mistakenly launched, withdrawing productive
resources from the stages furthest from consumption and
transferring them back to those closest to it.
In a nutshell, entrepreneurs begin to realize a massive
readjustment in the productive structure is necessary. Through
this "restructuring" in which they withdraw from the projects
they began in the stages of capital goods industries and which
they were unable to successfully complete, they transfer what
is left of their resources to the industries closest to consump-
tion. It has now become obvious that certain investment proj-
ects are unprofitable, and entrepreneurs must liquidate these
and make a massive transfer of the corresponding productive
resources, particularly labor, to the stages closest to consump-
tion. Crisis and economic recession have hit, essentially due to a lack
of real saved resources with which to complete investment projects
which, as has become apparent, were too ambitious. The crisis is
brought to a head by excessive investment ("overinvestment")
in the stages furthest from consumption, i.e., in capital goods
industries (computer software and hardware, high-tech com-
munications devices, blast furnaces, shipyards, construction,
etc.), and in all other stages with a widened capital goods
structure. It also erupts due to a parallel relative shortage in
investment in the industries closest to consumption. The com-
bined effect of the two errors is generalized malinvestment of
productive resources; that is, investment of a style, quality,
quantity, and geographic and entrepreneurial distribution
typical of a situation in which much more voluntary saving
has taken place. In short, entrepreneurs have invested an
376 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
inappropriate amount in an inadequate manner in the wrong
places in the productive structure because they were under
the impression, deceived as they were by bank credit expansion,
that social saving would be much greater. Economic agents
have devoted themselves to lengthening the most capital-
intensive stages in the hope that once the new investment
processes have, with time, reached completion, the final flow
of consumer goods and services will increase significantly.
However the process by which the productive structure is
lengthened requires a very prolonged period of time. Until
this time has passed, society cannot profit from the correspon-
ding rise in the production of consumer goods and services.
Yet economic agents are not willing to wait until the end of
that more prolonged period of time. Instead they express their
preferences through their actions and demand the consumer
goods and services now, i.e., much sooner than would be
possible were the lengthening of the productive structure to
be completed.85
Society's savings can be either wisely or foolishly
invested. Credit expansion brought about by the banking sys-
tem ex nihilo encourages entrepreneurs to act as //"social saving
had increased substantially, precisely by the amount the bank
has created in the form of new loans or fiduciary media. The
85In the words of F.A. Hayek:
The crux of the whole capital problem is that while it is
almost always possible to postpone the use of things now
ready or almost ready for consumption, it is in many cases
impossible to anticipate returns which were intended to
become available at a later date. The consequence is that,
while a relative deficiency in the demand for consumers'
goods compared with supply will cause only comparatively
minor losses, a relative excess of this demand is apt to have
much more serious effects. It will make it altogether impossi-
ble to use some resources which are destined to give a con-
sumable return only in the more distant future but will do so
only in collaboration with other resources which are now
more profitably used to provide consumables for the more
immediate future. (Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, pp.
345-46)
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 377
microeconomic processes examined above invariably and
spontaneously bring to light the error committed. This error
derives from the fact that for a prolonged period of time eco-
nomic agents believed available savings to be much more con-
siderable than they actually were. This situation is very simi-
lar to the one in which our Robinson Crusoe from section 1
would find himself if, having saved a basket of berries large
enough to permit him to spend a maximum of five days pro-
ducing a capital good without having to devote himself to the
collection of more berries, through an error in calculation^ he
were to believe that this amount of savings would allow him
to undertake the construction of his cabin. After five days
spent just digging the foundations and gathering materials, he
would have consumed all of his berries and would therefore
be unable to complete his illusory investment project. Mises
likens the general error committed to the one a builder would
make if he were to misjudge the amount of materials available
to him and use them all up laying the foundations of a build-
ing, which he would then be forced to leave unfinished.87 As
Hayek puts it, we are thus dealing with a crisis of overcon-
sumption, or in other words, insufficient saving. It has become
86Precisely for this reason we have argued elsewhere that business
cycles are a practical example of the errors in economic calculation
which result from state interventionism in the economy (in this case in
the monetary and credit field). See Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo
economico y funcion empresarial, pp. lllff. In other words, we could con-
sider the entire content of this book as simply the application of the the-
orem of the impossibility of socialist economic calculation to the partic-
ular case of the credit and financial sector.
87 The whole entrepreneurial class is, as it were, in the position
of a master-builder whose task it is to erect a building out of
a limited supply of building materials. If this man overesti-
mates the quantity of the available supply, he drafts a plan for
the execution of which the means at his disposal are not suf-
ficient. He oversizes the groundwork and the foundations
and only discovers later in the progress of the construction
that he lacks the material needed for the completion of the
structure. It is obvious that our master-builder's fault was not
overinvestment, but an inappropriate employment of the
means at his disposal. (Mises, Human Action, p. 560)
See also the curious Biblical reference in Luke 14, 28-30.
378 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
obvious that saving is inadequate to permit the completion of
the more capital-intensive investments made by mistake. The
situation would resemble that of the imaginary inhabitants of
an island who, having undertaken the construction of an enor-
mous machine capable of completely satisfying their needs,
had exhausted all of their savings and capital before finishing
it and had been left with no other choice but to temporarily
abandon the project and return all of their energy to the daily
search for food at a mere subsistence level, i.e., without the
assistance of any capital equipment.88 In our society such a
shortage of savings leads to the following: many factories are
closed, particularly in the stages furthest from consumption,
numerous investment projects launched in error are para-
lyzed, and many workers are laid off. Furthermore pessimism
spreads throughout society, and the notion that an inexplicable
economic crisis has erupted, shortly after people had begun to
believe that the boom and optimism, far from reaching their
peak, would last indefinitely, demoralizes even the most per-
sistently high-spirited.89
88See Huerta de Soto, "La teoria austriaca del ciclo economico," in
Estudios de Economia Politica, chap. 13, p. 175. In Hayek's own words:
The situation would be similar to that of a people of an isolated
island, if, after having partially constructed an enormous
machine which was to provide them with all necessities, they
found out that they had exhausted all their savings and avail-
able free capital before the new machine could turn out its
product. They would then have no choice but to abandon tem-
porarily the work on the new process and to devote all their
labour to producing their daily food without any capital.
(Hayek, Prices and Production, p. 94)
89 The entrepreneurs must restrict their activities because they
lack the funds for their continuation on the exaggerated scale.
Prices drop suddenly because these distressed firms try to
obtain cash by throwing inventories on the market dirt cheap.
Factories are closed, the continuation of construction projects
in progress is halted, workers are discharged. As on the one
hand many firms badly need money in order to avoid bank-
ruptcy, and on the other hand no firm any longer enjoys con-
fidence, the entrepreneurial component in the gross market
rate of interest jumps to an excessive height. (Mises, Human
Action, p. 562)
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 379
Chart V-7 reflects the state of the productive structure
once the crisis and economic recession provoked by credit
expansion (i.e., unbacked by a prior increase in voluntary sav-
ing) have become evident and the necessary readjustments
have been made. As the chart makes clear, the new productive
structure is flatter and contains only five stages, since the two
stages furthest from consumption have disappeared. As
Charts V-5 and V-6 show, initially credit expansion, in error,
permitted entrepreneurs to embark on these stages. Further-
more Table V-6 demonstrates that although the gross income
for the year is identical to that reflected in Table V-5 (483.7
m.u.), the distribution of the portion allocated to the direct
demand for final consumer goods and services and to the
demand for intermediate goods has varied in favor of the for-
mer. In fact now there are 132 m.u. of monetary demand for
consumer goods, an amount one-third larger than the 100
units of monetary demand which appeared in the example
shown in Chart V-5 and Table V-5. Meanwhile the overall
monetary demand for intermediate goods has diminished
from 383 to 351 units. In short there is a "flatter" structure
which is less capital-intensive and therefore leads to the pro-
duction of fewer consumer goods and services, yet these
goods and services are the object of greater monetary demand,
all of which gives rise to a strong jump in the price of con-
sumer goods and services and the generalized impoverish-
ment of society. This is revealed in the fall, in real terms, in the
price of the different original factors of production. Though
the nominal value of the monetary income received by their
owners has mounted substantially, the even more rapid
Mark Skousen indicates that in the recession phase the price of goods
from the different stages undergoes the following changes: first, the
most serious decreases in price and employment normally affect the
companies operating furthest from consumption; second, the prices of
products from the intermediate stages fall as well, though not as dra-
matically; third, wholesale prices drop, yet less sharply in comparison;
and fourth and last, the prices of consumer goods also tend to decline,
though much less noticeably than the rest of the above goods. Moreover
if stagflation occurs the price of consumer goods may even rise instead
of declining. See Skousen, The Structure of Production, p. 304.
380 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
increase in the price of consumer goods places the owners of
these factors at a considerable disadvantage in real terms.
Moreover the interest rate, or rate of accounting profit
approached at each stage, has risen above 13.5 percent, i.e., to
a level which even exceeds that of the interest in the credit
market prior to credit expansion (11 percent per year). This
higher rate reflects a premium to compensate for the drop in
the purchasing power of money; the keener competition
among the different entrepreneurs, who desperately wish to
obtain new loans; and the increase in the components of risk
and entrepreneurial uncertainty which influences the interest
rate whenever pessimism and economic distrust are rampant.
We must emphasize that the productive structure which
remains following the necessary readjustment, and which
Chart V-7 illustrates, cannot continue to match the structure
that existed prior to credit expansion. This is due to the fact
that circumstances have changed significantly. Heavy inevitable
losses of specific capital goods have been incurred to the
extent that society's scarce resources have been channeled into
investments that cannot be restructured and therefore are
devoid of economic value. This gives rise to general impover-
ishment of society, a state which manifests itself as a decline in
capital equipment per capita, resulting in a decrease in the pro-
ductivity of labor, and consequently, a further reduction in real
wages. Furthermore there has been a shift in the distribution of
income among the different factors of production, as well as a
realignment of all the investment processes which, though ini-
tiated in error, are still of some use and economic value. All of
these new circumstances make the productive structure qual-
itatively very different from and quantitatively much flatter
and poorer than the one that existed before banks brought
about credit expansion.90
90Fritz Machlup has closely studied the factors which provoke the flat-
tening of the productive structure and has examined the reasons it is dif-
ferent and poorer after the readjustment than before credit expansion:
(1) Many capital goods are specific, i.e., not capable of being
used for other purposes than those they were originally
planned for; major losses follow then from the change in
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 381
In summary, we have described the microeconomic basis
for the spontaneous market reaction which consistently tends
to follow credit expansion. This reaction gives rise to the con-
secutive cycles of boom and recession which have regularly
affected western economies for nearly two centuries (and
even much longer, as we saw in chapter 2). We have also
demonstrated that there is no theoretical possibility that hanks'
production structure. (2) Capital values in general — i.e., antic-
ipated values of the future income — are reduced by higher
rates of capitalization; the owners of capital goods and prop-
erty rights experience, therefore, serious losses. (3) The spe-
cific capital goods serviceable as "complementary" equip-
ment for those lines of production which would correspond
to the consumers' demand are probably not ready; employ-
ment in these lines is, therefore, smaller than it could be oth-
erwise. (4) Marginal-value productivity of labour in short-
ened investment periods is lower, wage rates are, therefore,
depressed. (5) Under inflexible wage rates unemployment
ensues from the decreased demand prices for labour. (See
Fritz Machlup, "Professor Knight and the 'Period of Produc-
tion,'" Journal of Political Economy 43, no. 5 [October 1935]:
623)
The comments of Ludwig von Mises regarding the possibility that the
new productive structure will resemble the one which existed prior to
credit expansion are perhaps even more specific:
These data, however, are no longer identical with those that
prevailed on the eve of the expansionist process. A good
many things have changed. Forced saving and, to an even
greater extent, regular voluntary saving may have provided
new capital goods which were not totally squandered
through malinvestment and overconsumption as induced by
the boom. Changes in the wealth and income of various indi-
viduals and groups of individuals have been brought about
by the unevenness inherent in every inflationary movement.
Apart from any causal relation to the credit expansion, pop-
ulation may have changed with regard to figures and the
characteristics of the individuals comprising them; techno-
logical knowledge may have advanced, demand for certain
goods may have been altered. The final state to the establish-
ment of which the market tends is no longer the same toward
which it tended before the disturbances created by the credit
expansion. (Mises, Human Action, p. 563)
382 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
increase in loans, if not backed by a corresponding prior rise in vol-
untary saving, will permit society to reduce the necessary sacri-
fices all processes of economic growth require, and foster and accel-
erate sustainable growth in the absence of a voluntary decision
made by citizens to sacrifice and save.91 Given that these are
highly significant conclusions, in the next section we will ana-
lyze their implications for the banking sector, particularly, the
manner in which they explain that this sector cannot operate
independently (i.e., without a central bank) while maintaining
a fractional reserve. Thus we will conclude the theoretical
analysis we set out to produce in chapter 3: to demonstrate on
the basis of economic theory that it is impossible for the bank-
ing system to insure itself against suspensions of payments
and bankruptcy via a fractional-reserve requirement, since the
supposed insurance (the fractional-reserve requirement) is
precisely what triggers a process of credit expansion, boom,
crisis and economic recession which invariably has a detri-
mental effect on banks' solvency and ability to pay.
91ln the eloquent words of Moss and Vaughn:
Any real growth in the capital stock takes time and requires
voluntary net savings. There is no way for an expansion of the
money supply in the form of bank credit to short-circuit the process
of economic growth. ("Hayek's Ricardo Effect: A Second Look,"
p. 555; italics added)
Perhaps the article in which Hayek most concisely and clearly explains this
entire process is "Price Expectations, Monetary Disturbances and Malin-
vestment," published in 1933 and included in his book, Profits, Interest and
Investment, pp. 135-56. Along these lines we should also mention the work
of Roger W. Garrison, who vividly illustrated the Austrian theory of capi-
tal and of the cycle and compared it with the most common diagrams used
in macroeconomics textbooks to present the classical and Keynesian mod-
els, especially, "Austrian Macroeconomics: A Diagrammatical Exposition,"
originally published on pp. 167-201 of the book, New Directions in Austrian
Economics, Louis M. Spadaro, ed. (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and
McMeel, 1978; The Institute for Humane Studies, 1978, as an independent
monograph), and the article by Ludwig M. Lachmann, "A Reconsideration
of the Austrian Theory of Industrial Fluctuations," originally published in
Economica 7 (May 1940), and included on pp. 267-84 of Lachmann's book,
Capital, Expectations and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Mar-
ket Economy (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1977). Finally, see
Garrison's book, Time and Money.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System
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Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 385
4
Banking, Fractional-Reserve Ratios,
and the Law of Large Numbers
Our analysis up to this point permits us to comment on
whether it is possible, as certain scholars maintain, to insure
through the application of the law of large numbers the prac-
tice of fractional-reserve banking. Essentially we will respond
to the argument that banks, in order to fulfill their customers'
normal requests for liquidity, and in accordance with the law
of large numbers, only need to keep on hand, in the form of a
cash reserve, a fraction of the money deposited with them in
cash. This argument lies at the heart of legal doctrines aimed
at justifying the monetary irregular bank-deposit contract
with a fractional reserve. We critically examined this contract
in chapter 3.
The reference in this area to the law of large numbers is
equivalent to an attempt to apply the principles of insurance
techniques to guard against the risk of deposit withdrawals,
a risk assumed in advance to be quantifiable and thus techni-
cally insurable. However, this belief is mistaken, and as we
will see, it is based on a misconceived idea of the nature of the
phenomena before us. Indeed, far from the type of events
which correspond to the natural world and represent an
insurable risk, banking related phenomena fall within the
realm of human action and are therefore immersed in uncer-
tainty (not risk), which by its very nature is not technically
insurable.
For in the field of human action the future is always uncer-
tain, in the sense that it has yet to be built and the only part of
it possessed by the actors which will be its protagonists are
certain ideas, mental images, and expectations they hope to
realize through their personal action and interaction with
other actors. Moreover the future is open to man's every cre-
ative possibility; hence each actor faces it with a permanent
uncertainty which can be reduced through the patterned
behaviors of the actor and others (institutions) and the alert
exercise of entrepreneurship. Nevertheless the actor will not
386 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
be able to totally eliminate this uncertainty.92 The open, per-
manent nature of the uncertainty we are referring to makes
both traditional notions of objective and subjective probability
and the Bayesian conception of the latter inapplicable to the
field of human interaction. In fact Bayes's theorem requires a
stable, underlying stochastic structure incompatible with the
human capacity for entrepreneurial creativity93 This is so for
two reasons: first, it is not even possible to know all of the
potential alternatives or cases; and second, the actor only
possesses certain subjective beliefs or convictions — termed by
Mises case probabilities (of unique events)94 — which as they are
modified or broadened tend to change by surprise, i.e., in a
radical, divergent manner, the actor's entire map of beliefs
and knowledge. Thus the actor continually discovers com-
pletely new situations of which previously he had not even
been able to conceive.
This concept of uncertainty, which corresponds to single
events in the field of human action and hence of economics,
differs radically from the notion of risk applicable within the
sphere of physics and natural science. Table V-7 provides a
summary.
Clearly the events related to customers' more or less mas-
sive and unexpected withdrawal of deposits from a bank
correspond to the sphere of human action and are immersed
in uncertainty, which by its very nature is not technically
92On this topic see Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico yfuncion
empresarial, pp. 46-47.
93"The Bayesian approach rules out the possibility of surprise." J.D.
Hey Economics in Disequilibrium (New York: New York University
Press, 1981), p. 99. Along the same lines, Emiel EM Wubben, in his
article, "Austrian Economics and Uncertainty" a manuscript presented
at the First European Conference on Austrian Economics (Maastricht,
April 1992, p. 13), states:
the conclusion to be drawn is the impossibility of talking
about subjective probabilities that tend to objective probabil-
ities. The dimensions are not on the same footing but cover
different levels of knowledge.
94Mises, Human Action, pp. 110-18.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 387
insurable. The technical-economic reason it is impossible to
insure uncertainty stems basically from the fact that human
action itself brings about or creates the events which an attempt is
made to insure. In other words, withdrawals of deposits are
invariably influenced by the very existence of the insurance,
and therefore the necessary stochastic independence between
the existence of the "insurance" (a fractional-reserve require-
ment supposedly established according to the law of large
numbers and bankers' experience) and the occurrence of the
phenomenon (bank crises and runs which provoke the massive
withdrawal of deposits), precisely what is meant to be insured
against, does not exist.95 A detailed demonstration of the close
connection between the attempt to apply the law of large
numbers in the form of a fractional-reserve requirement and
the fact that this "insurance" inevitably triggers massive with-
drawals of deposits is simple. The development of the Aus-
trian theory, or circulation credit theory of the business cycle
(covered in this chapter), makes it possible. Indeed fractional-
reserve banking permits the large-scale granting of loans
95In short we are referring to the phenomenon of moral hazard, which
M.V. Pauly has already theoretically analyzed. According to Pauly, the
optimality of complete insurance is no longer valid when the method of
insurance influences the demand for the services provided by the
insurance policy ("The Economics of Moral Hazard," American Eco-
nomic Review 58 (1968): 531-37). Another relevant article is Kenneth J.
Arrow's "The Economics of Moral Hazard: Further Comments," origi-
nally published in American Economic Review 58 (1968): 537-53. Here
Arrow continues the research he started on this phenomenon in his 1963
article, "Uncertainty in the Welfare Economics of Medical Care," Ameri-
can Economic Review 53 (1963): 941-73. Arrow holds the view that moral
hazard is involved whenever "the insurance policy might itself change
incentives and therefore the probabilities upon which the insurance
company has relied." These two articles by Arrow appear in his book,
Essays in the Theory of Risk-Bearing (Amsterdam, London and New York:
North Holland Publishing Company 1974), pp. 177-222; see esp. pp.
202-04. Finally two further sources which warrant consideration are:
chapter 7 (devoted to uninsurable risks) of Karl H. Borch's important
book, Economics of Insurance (Amsterdam and New York: North Hol-
land, 1990), esp. pp. 317 and 325-30; as well as Joseph E. Stiglitz's arti-
cle, "Risk, Incentives and Insurance: The Pure Theory of Moral Hazard,"
published in The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance 26 (1983): 4-33.
388
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table V-7
The Field of Natural Science
1. Class probability: The
behavior of the class is
known or knowable,
while the behavior of its
individual elements are
not.
The Field of Human Action
1. "Probability" of a unique
case or event: class does not
exist, and while some of
the factors which affect the
unique event are known,
others are not. Action itself
may bring about or create
the event.
A situation of insurable
risk exists for the whole
class.
2. Permanent uncertainty
exists, given the creative
nature of human action.
Thus uncertainty is not
insurable.
Probability can be
expressed in mathematical
terms.
3. Probability cannot be
expressed in mathematical
terms.
Probability is gauged
through logic and empiri-
cal research. Bayes's theo-
rem makes it possible to
estimate the probability
of class as new informa-
tion appears.
4. It is discovered through
insight, understanding,
and entrepreneurial estima-
tion. Each new bit of infor-
mation modifies ex novo
the entire map of beliefs
and expectations (concept
of surprise).
5. It is an object of research
to the natural scientist.
5. A concept typically used
by the actor-entrepreneur
and by the historian.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 389
unbacked by a prior increase in saving (credit expansion) and
initially provokes artificial widening and lengthening of the
productive structure (illustrated by the shaded areas in
Chart V-6). Nevertheless sooner or later the microeconomic
factors explained in detail in the previous section set in
motion social processes which tend to reverse the entrepre-
neurial errors committed, and consequently the productive
structure comes to resemble that illustrated in Chart V-7.
There we see that the new stages by which an attempt was
made to lengthen the productive structure (stages six and
seven of Chart V-6) disappear altogether. Furthermore the
"widenings" of stages two through five are liquidated,
bringing about the general impoverishment of society, a
result of the unwise investment of its scarce real saved
resources. Accordingly a highly significant number of the
recipients of loans derived from credit expansion are ulti-
mately unable to repay them and become defaulters, initiat-
ing a process in which both suspensions of payments and
bankruptcies multiply. Hence default comes to affect a very
large percentage of bank loans. In fact once the crisis hits and
it becomes evident that the investment projects launched in
error should not have been undertaken, the market value of
these projects is reduced to a fraction of their initial value,
when it does not disappear completely.
The extent to which this generalized decrease in the value
of many capital goods is carried over to banks' assets is graph-
ically illustrated precisely by the loan amounts which corre-
spond to the shaded areas in Chart V-6. This chart reflects, in
monetary terms, the erroneous lengthening and widening of
the productive structure: changes attempted in the expansive
phases of the economic cycle, due to the cheap, easy financing
of bank loans (unbacked by a prior increase in voluntary real
saving). Inasmuch as the errors committed are revealed and the
"lengthenings" and "widenings" of the productive structure are
abandoned, liquidated, or realigned, the value of the assets of the
entire banking system diminishes dramatically. Moreover this
decline in value is gradually accompanied by the credit tight-
ening process we analyzed in accounting terms at the end of
chapter 4 and which tends to aggravate even further the neg-
ative effects the recession exerts on the assets of the banking
390 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
system. In fact those entrepreneurs who fortunately manage
to save their companies from a suspension of payments and
bankruptcy restructure the investment processes they initi-
ated. They paralyze them, liquidate them and accumulate the
liquidity necessary to return the loans they obtained from the
bank. Furthermore the pessimism and demoralization of eco-
nomic agents96 means that new loan requests and their
approval cannot compensate for the speed at which loans are
repaid. A serious credit squeeze results.
Therefore one must draw the conclusion that the economic
recession caused by credit expansion results in a generalized
decline in the value of the accounting assets of the banking sys-
tem, just when depositors' optimism and confidence are lowest.
In other words, recession and default drive down the value of
banks' loans and other assets, while banks' corresponding
liabilities, the deposits now in the hands of third parties,
remain unchanged. With respect to accounting, the financial
situation of many banks becomes particularly problematic
and difficult, and they begin to announce suspensions of pay-
ments and failures. As is logical, from a theoretical standpoint
it is impossible to determine in advance which specific banks
will be relatively more affected. However we can safely predict
that those banks which are marginally less solvent will face a
serious liquidity squeeze, a suspension of payments and even
bankruptcy. Such a situation can very easily precipitate a gen-
eralized crisis of confidence in the entire banking system,
prompting individuals to withdraw their deposits en masse,
not only from the banks which, relatively speaking, experience
the greatest difficulties, but by contagion, from all the rest as
well. Indeed all banks which operate with a fractional reserve
are inherently insolvent, and their differences are relatively
96 The boom produces impoverishment. But still more disas-
trous are its moral ravages. It makes people despondent and
dispirited. The more optimistic they were under the illusory
prosperity of the boom, the greater is their despair and their
feeling of frustration. (Mises, Human Action, p. 576)
Remember also what we said in chapter 4, sec. 8, pp. 254-63.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 391
minor and merely a matter of degree, making a significant
financial and credit squeeze inevitable. Events of this sort (such
as the economic crisis Florentine banks provoked in the four-
teenth century) have repeatedly occurred since the dawn of
fractional-reserve banking. At any rate it has been demon-
strated that the fractional-reserve system endogenously triggers
processes which make it impossible to insure banking via the
application of the law of large numbers. These processes cause
systematic crises in the banking system, which sooner or later
plague it with insuperable difficulties. This invalidates one of
the stalest arguments to technically justify the existence of a
contract which, like that of the monetary bank deposit with a
fractional reserve, is of an inadmissible legal nature (as we saw
in chapter 3), given that it originates solely from a privilege
granted by public authorities to private banks.
One might mistakenly believe that the high incidence of
default and the generalized loss of value on the asset side of
bank balance sheets, both products of the economic crisis,
could from an accounting standpoint be offset with no prob-
lem by eliminating the corresponding deposits which balance
these loans on the liability side. Not in vain did chapter 4
show that the credit expansion process entails banks' creation
of such deposits. Nonetheless economically speaking this
argument is invalid. While banks' creation of money in the
form of deposits initially coincides with their creation of loans,
and both are granted to the same actors, loan recipients imme-
diately part with the m.u. received as deposits, using them to
pay their suppliers and owners of the original means of pro-
duction. Hence the direct recipients continue to owe the loan
amounts to the bank, yet the deposits change hands at once.
This precisely is the root of banks' inherent insolvency which
endangers their survival in the stages of severe economic
recession. In fact the businessmen who receive loans commit
en masse entrepreneurial errors which the crisis reveals. They
mistakenly instigate processes of investment in capital goods,
in which the loans materialize, loans whose value falls dra-
matically or is completely lost. Substantial default results, and
the value of a large portion of banks' assets plummets. How-
ever at the same time, the deposit holders, now third parties,
maintain their claims intact against the banks that brought
392 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
about credit expansion, and therefore banks are unable to
eliminate their liabilities at the same rate the value of their
assets drops. An accounting maladjustment ensues, leading to
suspensions of payments and to the bankruptcy of marginally
less solvent banks. If pessimism and the lack of confidence
spread, all banks may become insolvent, ending in the disas-
trous failure of the banking system and of the monetary system
based on fractional-reserve banking. This instability intrinsic
to the fractional-reserve banking system is what makes the
existence of a central bank as lender of last resort inevitable, just
as the correct functioning of a system of complete banking free-
dom requires a return to traditional legal principles and thus a
100-percent reserve requirement.
If a monetary bank-deposit contract which allows bankers
to neglect their obligation to maintain a 100-percent reserve
ratio may eventually even lead to the downfall of the banking
system (and of many of its customers), how is it possible that
historically bankers have insisted upon acting in this manner?
In the first three chapters we studied the historical factors and
circumstances which gave rise to the bank-deposit contract
with a fractional reserve. There we saw that this contract origi-
nated from a privilege governments granted bankers, allowing
them to use in their own interest the money of their deposi-
tors, most often in the form of loans given to the very granter
of the privilege, i.e., the government or state, continually over-
whelmed by financial pressures. If governments had fulfilled
their essential purpose and had adequately defined and
defended the property rights of depositors, such an anom-
alous institution would never have emerged.
Let us now ponder some additional considerations with
respect to the emergence of the monetary bank-deposit con-
tract with a fractional reserve. One relevant issue is the great
theoretical difficulty which, given the complex, abstract
nature of social processes related to credit and money, renders
a great many people, even those most involved in these
processes, unable to analyze and comprehend the effects
which credit expansion ultimately provokes. In fact throughout
history most people have generally considered the effects of
credit expansion on the economy positive and have merely
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 393
focused on its most visible, short-term results (waves of opti-
mism, economic booms). However what can be said of the
bankers themselves, who throughout history have experi-
enced numerous bank runs and crises that have repetitively
and seriously endangered their business or even ended it?
Given that bankers have suffered first-hand the consequences
of operating with a fractional-reserve ratio, one might think it
is in their own best interest to modify their practices and adapt
them to traditional legal principles (that is, a 100-percent cash
reserve). Even Ludwig von Mises held this idea at first,97 yet
historical experience, which shows that again and again banks
have relapsed into holding a fractional reserve (in spite of the
huge risks it entails), does not justify it, nor does the theoreti-
cal analysis. Indeed even when bankers are aware that frac-
tional-reserve banking is condemned to failure in the long run,
97In 1928 Ludwig von Mises admitted:
I could not understand why the banks didn't learn from expe-
rience. I thought they would certainly persist in a policy of
caution and restraint, if they were not led by outside circum-
stances to abandon it. Only later did I become convinced that
it was useless to look to an outside stimulus for the change in
the conduct of the banks. Only later did I also become con-
vinced that fluctuations in general business conditions were
completely dependent on the relationship of the quantity of
fiduciary media in circulation to demand. . . . We can readily
understand that the banks issuing fiduciary media, in order
to improve their chances for profit, may be ready to expand
the volume of credit granted and the number of notes issued.
What calls for a special explanation is why attempts are made
again and again to improve general economic conditions by
the expansion of circulation credit in spite of the spectacular
failure of such efforts in the past. The answer must run as fol-
lows: According to the prevailing ideology of businessman
and economist-politician, the reduction of the interest rate is
considered an essential goal of economic policy. Moreover,
the expansion of circulation credit is assumed to be the appro-
priate means to achieve this goal. ("Monetary Stabilization
and Cyclical Policy" included in the book, On the Manipula-
tion of Money and Credit, pp. 135-36)
This work is the English translation of the important book Mises pub-
lished in 1928 with the title, Geldiuertstabilisierung und Konjunkturpolitik.
394 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the ex nihilo creation of money, an ability all credit expansion
involves, generates such large profits that bankers eventually
succumb to the temptation to revert to a fractional reserve. In
addition no particular banker can be absolutely certain his bank
will be one of those that eventually suspend payments or fail,
since he can always hope to be able to withdraw from the
process before the crisis hits, demand the repayment of loans,
and avoid defaulters. Thus a typical tragedy of the commons, a
process known to be triggered whenever the property rights
of third parties are inadequately defined or defended (as in
the case which concerns us), is set in motion. We will study the
process in greater depth in chapter 8. In light of the above it is
unsurprising banks face an irresistible temptation to expand
their credit before other banks and hence to take full advan-
tage of the profits of the expansion while leaving the rest of
the banks, and the entire economic system in general, to
jointly bear the extremely harmful consequences which ulti-
mately follow.98
To conclude, the technical impossibility of insuring against
the risk of deposit withdrawal via a fractional-reserve ratio
also explains, as we will see in chapter 8, that bankers them-
selves have been the chief defenders of the existence of a cen-
tral bank which, as lender of last resort, could guarantee their
98We first had the opportunity to defend the thesis that the theory of the
"tragedy of the commons" should be applied to fractional-reserve bank-
ing at the Regional Meeting of the Mont-Pelerin Society which took
place in Rio de Janeiro, September 5-8, 1993. There we pointed out that
the typical "tragedy of the commons" clearly applies to banking, given
that the entire expansive process derives from a privilege against prop-
erty rights, since each bank entirely internalizes the benefits of expanding
its credit while letting the other banks and the whole economic system
share the corresponding costs. Moreover as we will see in chapter 8, an
interbank clearing mechanism within a free banking system may thwart
individual, isolated attempts at expansion, but it is useless if all banks,
moved by the desire for profit in a typical "tragedy of the commons"
process, are more or less carried away by "optimism" in the granting of
loans. On this topic see our "Introduction Critica a la Edicion Espanola"
to Vera C. Smith's book, Fundamentos de la banca central y de la libertad ban-
caria [The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative]
(Madrid: Union Editorial /Ediciones Aosta, 1993), footnote 16 on p. 38.
Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System 395
survival during panic stages." From this point of view, the his-
torical emergence of the central bank as an institution was an
inevitable result of the very privilege which allows banks to loan
most of the money they receive on deposit, through the mainte-
nance of a fractional-reserve ratio. Furthermore it is evident that
until traditional legal principles, and thus a 100-percent reserve
requirement, are reestablished, it will be impossible to manage
without the central bank and to introduce a true free-banking sys-
tem which is subject to the law and does not adversely affect the
course of the economy by regularly provoking destabilizing
phases of artificial expansion and economic recession.100
"The standard analysis of the "public-choice school" could also be men-
tioned here to explain how banks, as a powerful pressure group, have
mobilized to protect their privilege, establish a legal foundation for it and
obtain government support whenever necessary. Thus it is not surprising
authors such as Rothbard conclude that "bankers are inherently inclined
toward statism." Murray N. Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American For-
eign Policy (Burlingame, Calif.: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1995), p. 1.
See also the literature on the economic effects of demand deposits in cur-
rent monetary systems based on central banks (among others Douglas W.
Diamond and Phillip H. Dybvig, "Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liq-
uidity," journal of Political Economy 91 [1983]: 401-19; and Itay Goldstein and
Ady Pauzner, "Demand-Deposit Contracts and the Probability of Bank
Runs," journal of Finance 60, no. 3 [June 2005]: 1293-1327).
lOOTherefore ^e central bank constitutes the most concrete historical
proof of the practical and theoretical failure of the attempt to insure
against deposit withdrawal via a fractional reserve. The fact that a lender
of last resort, to create and provide the liquidity required in times of
panic, is considered necessary shows that such insurance is impossible
and that the only way to avoid the inevitable, damaging consequences
that the institution of fractional-reserve banking produces for banks is by
creating and preserving an institution with absolute control over the
monetary system and the ability to create the necessary liquidity at any
time. In other words, the fractional-reserve privilege is also ultimately
responsible for the central bank's strong, frequent intervention in the
financial system, which is thus excluded from the processes of the free
market subject to traditional legal principles. This book began with the
assertion that the main practical and theoretical challenge facing the
economy at the start of this new century is precisely to put an end to the
intervention and systematic coercion of the state and to privileges within
the financial system, by subjecting it to the same traditional legal princi-
ples which are invariably demanded of all other economic agents oper-
ating in a free market. This assertion is now perfectly understandable.
6
Additional
Considerations
on the Theory of
the Business Cycle
This chapter presents some additional considerations to
clarify various aspects of the circulation credit theory of
the business cycle. These reflections are intended to
further our analysis as much as possible and to shed light on
different peripheral matters of great theoretical and practical
interest. The final part of the chapter is devoted to a review of
the empirical evidence which illustrates and supports the the-
ory put forward in the previous chapters.
1
Why No Crisis Erupts When
New Investment is Financed by Real Saving
(and Not by Credit Expansion)
No economic crisis and consequent recession hit when the
lengthening of the stages in the productive structure, a process
we studied in the last chapter, results from a prior increase in
voluntary saving, rather than from credit expansion banks
bring about without the backing of any growth in real saving.
Indeed if a sustained rise in voluntary saving triggers the
process, this saving prevents all of the six microeconomic
phenomena which spontaneously arise in reaction to credit
397
398 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
expansion and which reverse the artificial boom that credit
expansion initially creates. In fact in such a case there is no
increase in the price of the original means of production. On
the contrary, if the loans originate from an upsurge in real sav-
ing, the relative decrease in immediate consumption which
this saving invariably entails frees a large volume of produc-
tive resources in the market of original means of production.
These resources become available for use in the stages furthest
from consumption and there is no need to pay higher prices for
them. In the case of credit expansion we saw that prices rose
precisely because such expansion did not arise from a prior
increase in saving, and therefore original productive resources
were not freed in the stages close to consumption, and the
only way entrepreneurs from the stages furthest from con-
sumption could obtain such resources was by offering rela-
tively higher prices for them.
In addition if the lengthening of the productive structure
derives from growth in voluntary saving, there is no increase
in the price of consumer goods which is more than propor-
tional to a corresponding increase in the price of the factors of
production. Quite the opposite is true; at first there tends to be
a sustained drop in the price of these goods. Indeed a rise in
saving always involves a certain short-term drop in consump-
tion. Hence there will be no relative increase in the accounting
profits of the industries closest to consumption, nor a decrease
in the profits, or even an accounting loss, in the stages furthest
from consumption. Therefore the process will not reverse and
there will be nothing to provoke a crisis. Moreover as we saw
in chapter 5, the "Ricardo Effect" plays a role, as it becomes
advantageous for entrepreneurs to substitute capital equip-
ment for labor, due to the growth in real wages following the
relative decrease in the price of consumer goods, which in
turn tends to arise from an upsurge in saving. Market rates of
interest do not mount; on the contrary, they tend to decline
permanently , reflecting society's new rate of time preference,
now even lower, given the increased desire to save. Further-
more if a component is to be included in the market interest
rate to compensate for a change in the purchasing power of
money, when voluntary saving climbs, the component will be
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 399
negative. This is because, as we have seen, the tendency is
toward a fall in the price of consumer goods (in the short- and
long-term), which tends to drive up the purchasing power of
money, an event which will exert even further downward
pressure on nominal interest rates. In addition economic
growth based on voluntary saving is healthy and sustained,
and therefore entrepreneurial and risk components implicit in
the interest rate will also tend to drop.
The above considerations confirm that the recession
always originates from an absence of the voluntary saving
necessary to sustain a productive structure which thus proves
too capital-intensive. The recession is caused by the credit
expansion the banking system undertakes without the corre-
sponding support of economic agents, who in general do not
wish to augment their voluntary saving. Perhaps Moss and
Vaughn have most concisely expressed the conclusion of the
entire theoretical analysis of this process:
Any real growth in the capital stock takes time and requires
voluntary net savings. There is no way for the expansion of
the money supply in the form of bank credit to short-circuit
the process of economic growth.1
2
The Possibility of Postponing the Eruption
of the Crisis: The Theoretical Explanation
of the Process of Stagflation
The arrival of the economic recession can be postponed if
additional loans unbacked by real saving are granted at an
ever-increasing rate, i.e., if credit expansion reaches a speed
at which economic agents cannot completely anticipate it.
The procedure consists of administering additional doses of
bank credit to the companies which have launched new
investment projects and have widened and lengthened the
stages in the production process. This new credit may defer
iMoss and Vaughn, "Hayek's Ricardo Effect: A Second Look," p. 555.
See also footnote 91 on p. 382.
400 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the six phenomena we explained in chapter 5, which always
tend to spontaneously reverse the initial consequences of all
credit expansion in the market. However, while this proce-
dure may postpone the depression, and may even do so for
relatively long periods of time,2 this strategy is condemned to
inevitable failure and involves a huge additional cost: once the
recession hits, it will be much deeper and much more painful
and prolonged.3
2Hayek himself, while commenting on the eruption of the economic cri-
sis at the end of the 1970s, admitted:
[m]y expectation was that the inflationary boom would last
five or six years, as the historical ones had done, forgetting
that then their termination was due to the gold standard. If
you had no gold standard — if you could continue inflating for
much longer — it was very difficult to predict how long it
would last. Of course, it has lasted very much longer than I
expected. The end result was the same.
Hayek is referring to the inflationary process which in the 1960s and
1970s spread throughout the world and was encouraged by historical
circumstances which, like the Vietnam War and other events, fostered
almost unlimited credit expansion worldwide, thus triggering a process
that would later give rise to the severe stagflation and high unemploy-
ment of the late 1970s and early 1980s. See Hayek on Hayek: An Autobio-
graphical Dialogue, Stephen Kresge and Leif Wenar, eds. (London: Rout-
ledge, 1994), p. 145.
3Murray Rothbard assesses the possibility of deferring the arrival of the
depression in the following terms:
Why do booms, historically, continue for several years? What
delays the reversion process? The answer is that as the boom
begins to peter out from an injection of credit expansion, the
banks inject a further dose. In short, the only way to avert the
onset of the depression-adjustment process is to continue
inflating money and credit. For only continual doses of new
money on the credit market will keep the boom going and the
new stages profitable. Furthermore, only ever increasing doses
can step up the boom, can lower interest rates further, and
expand the production structure, for as the prices rise, more
and more money will be needed to perform the same amount
of work. . . . But it is clear that prolonging the boom by ever
larger doses of credit expansion will have only one result: to
make the inevitably ensuing depression longer and more gru-
eling. (Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, pp. 861-62)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 401
The success of this strategy of postponing the crisis
through additional loans hinges on a continuously-growing
rate of credit expansion. Hayek already revealed this principle
in 1934 when he stated: "[I]n order to bring about constant
additions to capital, [credit] would have to . . . increase at a
constantly increasing rate."4 The need for this ever-escalating
increase in the rate of credit expansion rests on the fact that in
each time period the rate must exceed the rise in the price of
consumer goods, a rise which results from the greater mone-
tary demand for these goods following the jump in the nomi-
nal income of the original factors of production. Therefore
given that a large portion of the new income received by own-
ers of the original means of production originates directly
from credit expansion, this expansion must progressively
intensify so that the price of the factors of production is always
ahead of the price of consumer goods. The moment this ceases to
be true, the six microeconomic processes which reverse the
changes made to the productive structure, shortening and flat-
tening it, are spontaneously set in motion and the crisis and
economic recession irrevocably hit.
In any case credit expansion must accelerate at a rate
which does not permit economic agents to adequately predict
it, since if these agents begin to correctly anticipate rate
increases, the six phenomena we are familiar with will be trig-
gered. Indeed if expectations of inflation spread, the prices of
consumer goods will soon begin to rise even faster than the
prices of the factors of production. Moreover market interest
rates will soar, even while credit expansion continues to inten-
sify (given that the expectations of inflation and of growth in
the interest rate will immediately be reflected in its market
value).
Hence the strategy of increasing credit expansion in
order to postpone the crisis cannot be indefinitely pursued,
and sooner or later the crisis will be provoked by any of the
following three factors, which will also give rise to the reces-
sion:
4Hayek, Prices and Production, p. 150.
402 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(a) The rate at which credit expansion accelerates either
slows down or stops, due to the fear, experienced by
bankers and economic authorities, that a crisis will
erupt and that the subsequent depression may be
even more acute if inflation continues to mount. The
moment credit expansion ceases to increase at a grow-
ing rate, begins to increase at a steady rate, or is com-
pletely halted, the six microeconomic processes which
lead to the crisis and the readjustment of the produc-
tive structure are set in motion.
(b) Credit expansion is maintained at a rate of growth
which, nevertheless, does not accelerate fast enough
to prevent the effects of reversion in each time period.
In this case, despite continual increases in the money
supply in the shape of loans, the six effects described
will inevitably develop. Thus the crisis and economic
recession will hit. There will be a sharp rise in the
prices of consumer goods; simultaneous inflation and
crisis; depression; and hence, high rates of unem-
ployment. To the great surprise of Keynesian theo-
rists, the western world has already experienced such
circumstances and did so both in the inflationary
depression of the late 1970s and, to a lesser extent, in
the economic recession of the early 1990s. The
descriptive term used to refer to them is stagflation.5
5Mark Skousen correctly indicates that, in relative terms, stagflation is a
universal phenomenon, considering that in all recessions the price of con-
sumer goods climbs more (or falls less) in relative terms than the price of
the factors of production. Widespread growth in the nominal prices of
consumer goods during a phase of recession first took place in the depres-
sion of the 1970s, and later in the recession of the 1990s. It sprang from
the fact that the credit expansion which fed both processes was great
enough in the different stages of the cycle to create and maintain expec-
tations of inflation in the market of consumer goods and services even
during the deepest stages of the depression (apart from the typical
recent phenomena of relentless growth in public spending and in the
deficit, and of massive social transfer payments which foster direct
growth in the demand for, and therefore, in the prices of consumer
goods and services). See Skousen, The Structure of Production, pp. 313-15.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 403
Hayek revealed that the increasing speed at which
the rise in the monetary income of the factors of pro-
duction pushes up the demand for consumer goods
and services ultimately limits the chances that the
inevitable eruption of the crisis can be deferred via the
subsequent acceleration of credit expansion. Indeed
sooner or later a point will be reached at which
growth in the prices of consumer goods will actually
start to outstrip the increase in the monetary income
of the original factors, even though this may only be
due to the emergence of a slowdown in the arrival of
consumer goods and services to the market, as a
result of the "bottlenecks" caused by the attempt to
make society's productive structure more capital-
intensive. Beginning at that point, the income gener-
ated by the factors of production, specifically wages,
will begin to decline in relative terms, and therefore
entrepreneurs will find it advantageous to substitute
labor (now relatively cheaper) for machinery, and the
"Ricardo Effect" will enter into action, hindering the
projects of investment in capital-intensive goods, and
thus ensuring the outbreak of the recession.6
6Hayek draws the following analogy to explain this phenomenon:
The question is rather similar to that whether, by pouring a
liquid fast enough into one side of a vessel, we can raise the
level at that side above that of the rest to any extent we desire.
How far we shall be able to raise the level of one part above
that of the rest will clearly depend on how fluid or viscid the
liquid is; we shall be able to raise it more if the liquid is syrup
or glue than if it is water. But in no case shall we be at liberty
to raise the surface in one part of the vessel above the rest to
any extent we like. Just as the viscosity of the liquid deter-
mines the extent to which any part of its surface can be raised
above the rest, so the speed at which an increase of incomes
leads to an increase in the demand for consumers' goods lim-
its the extent to which, by spending more money on the fac-
tors of production, we can raise their prices relative to those
of the products. (Hayek, "The Ricardo Effect," pp. 127-52;
Individualism and Economic Order, p. 241)
404 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(c) Finally let us suppose that the banking system at no
time reduces the rate at which it accelerates credit
expansion, and instead does just the opposite: it con-
stantly and progressively intensifies it, with the pur-
pose of quashing any symptom of an emerging
depression. In this case, the moment economic agents
begin to realize that the rate of inflation is certain to
continue growing, a widespread flight toward real
values will commence, along with an astronomical
jump in the prices of goods and services, and finally,
the collapse of the monetary system, an event which
In 1969 Hayek again used this analogy in his article, "Three Elucida-
tions of the Ricardo Effect," in which he reiterates that the distorting
effect of credit expansion on the productive structure must continue as
long as banks create new money and this money enters the economic
system at certain points at a progressively increasing rate. Hayek criti-
cizes Hicks for assuming the inflationary shock will "uniformly" affect
the entire productive structure, and he demonstrates that if credit
expansion escalates at a rate exceeding the rise in prices, this process
"can evidently go on indefinitely, at least as long as we neglect changes
in the manner in which expectations concerning future prices are
formed." He concludes:
I find it useful to illustrate the general relationship by an anal-
ogy which seems worth stating here, though Sir John [Hicks]
(in correspondence) did not find it helpful. The effect we are
discussing is rather similar to that which appears when we
pour a viscous liquid, such as honey, into a vessel. There will,
of course, be a tendency for it to spread to an even surface. But
if the stream hits the surface at one point, a little mound will
form there from which the additional matter will slowly spread
outward. Even after we have stopped pouring in more, it will
take some time until the even surface will be fully restored. It
will, of course, not reach the height which the top of the mound
had reached when the inflow stopped. But as long as we pour
at a constant rate, the mound will preserve its height relative to
the surrounding pool — providing a very literal illustration of
what I called before a fluid equilibrium. (Hayek, New Studies in
Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, pp.
171-73)
On the important role of expectations in this entire process, see espe-
cially Garrison, Time and Money, chaps. 1-4.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 405
will ensue when the hyperinflation process destroys
the purchasing power of the monetary unit and eco-
nomic agents spontaneously start to use another
type of money. At that point the six microeconomic
reversion effects we are familiar with will appear in
all of their intensity, as will an acute economic
depression, which to the painful readjustment of a
totally distorted productive system will add the
tremendous cost and social harm involved in any gen-
eral failure of the monetary system.7
7Ludwig von Mises examines this process in his analysis of the
hyperinflation which assailed Germany from 1920 to 1923. Mises
concludes:
Suppose the banks still did not want to give up the race? Sup-
pose, in order to depress the loan rate, they wanted to satisfy
the continuously expanding desire for credit by issuing still
more circulation credit? Then they would only hasten the
end, the collapse of the entire system of fiduciary media. The
inflation can continue only so long as the conviction persists
that it will one day cease. Once people are persuaded that the
inflation will not stop, they turn from the use of this money.
They flee then to "real values," foreign money, the precious
metals, and barter. (Mises, "Monetary Stabilization and Cycli-
cal Policy" p. 129)
Later, in Human Action, Mises states:
The boom can last only as long as the credit expansion pro-
gresses at an ever-accelerated pace. The boom comes to an
end as soon as additional quantities of fiduciary media are no
longer thrown upon the loan market. But it could not last for-
ever even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on end-
lessly. It would then encounter the barriers which prevent the
boundless expansion of circulation credit. It would lead to the
crack-up boom and breakdown of the whole monetary system,
(p. 555)
The classical treatment of Germany's hyperinflation process is the one
Bresciani-Turroni gives in The Economics of Inflation: A Study of Currency
Depreciation in Post-War Germany. See also Richard M. Ebeling, "The
Great Austrian Inflation," The Preeman (April 2006): 2-3.
406 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
3
Consumer Credit and the Theory of the Cycle
We are now able to identify the modifications, if any, to be
made to our analysis when, as in modern economies, a signif-
icant portion of the credit expansion banks bring about with-
out the support of voluntary saving takes the form of con-
sumer credit. This analysis is of great theoretical and practical
importance, since it has at times been argued that, to the
extent credit expansion initially falls on consumption and not
on investment, the economic effects which trigger a recession
would not necessarily appear. Nevertheless this opinion is
erroneous for reasons this section will explain.
It is first necessary to point out that most consumer credit
is extended by banks to households for the purchase of durable
consumer goods. We have already established that durable
consumer goods are actually true capital goods which permit
the rendering of direct consumer services over a very pro-
longed period of time. Therefore from an economic standpoint,
the granting of loans to finance durable consumer goods is indistin-
guishable from the direct granting of loans to the capital-intensive
stages furthest from consumption. In fact an easing of credit
terms and a decline in interest rates will provoke, among other
effects, an increase in the quantity, quality and duration of so-
called "durable consumer goods," which will simultaneously
require a widening and lengthening of the productive stages
involved, especially those furthest from consumption.
Hence we have only to consider how to revise our theory
of the business cycle if a significant portion of credit expansion
is devoted (contrary to the usual practice) to financing not
durable consumer goods, but the current consumption of each
financial year (in the form of goods and services which directly
satisfy human needs and are exhausted in the course of the
period in question). Substantial modifications to our analysis
are unnecessary in this case as well, since one of the following
is true: either credit expansion satisfies a more or less constant
demand for credit to finance existing direct consumption in the
economic system, and given that credit markets are like "com-
municating vessels," such expansion frees the capacity to grant
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 407
loans in favor of the stages furthest from consumption, thus
instigating the typical processes of expansion and recession we
are familiar with; or the loans exert their impact on current
consumption while no additional capacity is freed for granting
loans to industries from the stages furthest from consumption.
Only in this second case, insignificant in practice, is there
a direct effect on the monetary demand for consumer goods
and services. Indeed the new money immediately pushes up
the prices of consumer goods and diminishes, in relative
terms, the prices of the factors of production. The "Ricardo
Effect" is set in motion, and entrepreneurs begin to hire more
workers, in relative terms, and substitute them for machinery.
Thus a trend toward the flattening of the productive structure is
established without a prior expansionary boom in the stages furthest
from consumption. Therefore the only modification to be made
to our analysis is the following: if consumption is directly
encouraged through credit expansion, the existing productive
structure furthest from consumption clearly ceases to be prof-
itable in relative terms, creating a trend toward the liquidation
of these stages and the general flattening of the productive
structure. This constitutes an economic process of impover-
ishment which initially manifests itself in a bubble, not only
due to the increased consumer demand, but also because
many entrepreneurs try to complete the investment projects
they have already committed to. This process is just the oppo-
site of the one we examined at the beginning of chapter 5,
where we studied the beneficial effects an increase in volun-
tary saving (or a decrease in the immediate consumption of
goods and services) exerts on economic development.8
8Perhaps Fritz Machlup has most clearly and concisely explained this
phenomenon. He states:
The view that the expansion of credit for financing the pro-
duction of consumers' goods will not lead to disproportional-
ities of the kind associated with inflation can be disproved by
the following argument. Either the consumers' goods indus-
tries would have borrowed on the money market, or the cap-
ital market, in the absence of any expansion of bank credit, in
which case the satisfaction of their demand for funds by
408 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
At any rate credit expansion always gives rise to the same
widespread malinvestment in the productive structure,
whether by artificially lengthening the existing structure
(when expansion directly affects the capital goods stages,
financing durable consumer goods) or shortening it (when
credit expansion directly finances non-durable consumer
goods).9
means of the credit expansion obviously implies that there is
so much less pressure on the credit market, and that some
producers' goods industry, which would not otherwise have
obtained credit to finance an expansion, will be enabled to do
so by this means. . . . Or the consumers' goods industries
would not have had any incentive to extend production in the
absence of the credit expansion; in this case the fact that they
now enter the market for producers' goods with relatively
increased buying power as against all other industries . . .
may lead to a change in the distribution of productive factors
involving a shift from the stages far from consumption to the
stages near to consumption. (Machlup, The Stock Market,
Credit and Capital Formation, pp. 192-93)
In Prices and Production (pp. 60-62 of the 1935 edition) Hayek uses his
triangular diagrams to explain how the productive structure will
inevitably become flatter and less capital-intensive, and therefore, less
productive and poorer, if consumption is directly promoted through the
granting of loans to finance non-durable consumer goods and services.
9In the 1970s this phenomenon, along with the need to provide a sim-
plified explanation of the process of malinvestment without relying on
the complicated reasoning inherent in capital theory, led EA. Hayek to
slightly modify the popular presentation of his theory of the cycle. In his
article, "Inflation, the Misdirection of Labor, and Unemployment," writ-
ten in 1975 (and included in the book, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics,
Economics and the History of Ideas, pp. 197-209), he states:
[T]he explanation of extensive unemployment ascribes it to a
discrepancy between the distribution of labour (and the other
factors of production) between the different industries (and
localities) and the distribution of demand among their products.
This discrepancy is caused by a distortion of the system of rela-
tive prices and wages, (p. 200)
In the recent "biography" of Hayek, we see that in the last years of his life
he believed modern cycles to be characterized by the very distinct forms of
malinvestment involved, not only credit expansion in the stages furthest
from consumption, but also artificial stimulation of consumption and, in
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 409
4
The Self-Destructive Nature of the Artificial
Booms Caused by Credit Expansion:
The Theory of "Forced Saving"
In the broad sense of the term, "forced saving" arises when-
ever there is an increase in the quantity of money in circula-
tion or an expansion of bank credit (unbacked by voluntary
saving) which is injected into the economic system at a spe-
cific point. If the money or credit were evenly distributed
among all economic agents, no "expansionary" effect would
appear, except the decrease in the purchasing power of the
monetary unit in proportion to the rise in the quantity of
money. However if the new money enters the market at cer-
tain specific points, as always occurs, then in reality a rela-
tively small number of economic agents initially receive the
new loans. Thus these economic agents temporarily enjoy
greater purchasing power, given that they possess a larger
number of monetary units with which to buy goods and serv-
ices at market prices that still have not felt the full impact of
the inflation and therefore have not yet risen. Hence the
process gives rise to a redistribution of income in favor of those
who first receive the new injections or doses of monetary
units, to the detriment of the rest of society, who find that with the
same monetary income, the prices of goods and services begin
to go up. "Forced saving" affects this second group of eco-
nomic agents (the majority), since their monetary income
grows at a slower rate than prices, and they are therefore
general, all public spending which generates in the productive structure a
change that cannot ultimately become permanent because the behavior of
consumers does not support it. Hayek concludes:
[S]o much of the credit expansion has gone to where govern-
ment directed it that the misdirection may no longer be of an
overinvestment in industrial capital but may take any number of
forms. You must really study it separately for each particular
phase and situation. . . . But you get very similar phenomena
with all kinds of modifications. (Hayek, Hayek on Hayek: An
Autobiographical Dialogue, p. 146)
410 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
obliged to reduce their consumption, other things being
equal.10
Whether this phenomenon of forced saving, which is pro-
voked by an injection of new money at certain points in the
market, leads to a net increase or decrease in society's overall,
voluntary saving will depend on the circumstances specific to
^Consequently in its broadest sense, "forced saving" refers to the
forced expropriation to which banks and monetary authorities subject
most of society, producing a diffuse effect, when they decide to expand
credit and money, diminishing the purchasing power of the monetary
units individuals possess, in relation to the value these units would
have in the absence of such credit and monetary expansion. The funds
derived from this social plunder can either be completely squandered (if
their recipients spend them on consumer goods and services or sink
them into utterly mistaken investments), or they can become business or
other assets, which either directly or indirectly come, de facto, under the
control of banks or the state. The first Spaniard to correctly analyze this
inflationary process of expropriation was the scholastic Father Juan de
Mariana, in his work, De monetae mutatione, published in 1609. In it he
writes:
If the prince is not a lord, but an administrator of the goods of
individuals, neither in that capacity nor in any other will he
be able to seize a part of their property, as occurs each time the
currency is devalued, since they are given less in place of what
is worth more; and if the prince cannot impose taxes against
the will of his vassals nor create monopolies, he will not be
able to do so in this capacity either, because it is all the same,
and it is all depriving the people of their goods, no matter
how well disguised by giving the coins a legal value greater
than their actual worth, which are all deceptive, dazzling fab-
rications, and all lead to the same outcome. (Juan de Mariana,
Tratado y discurso sobre la moneda de vellon que al presente se labra
en Castilla y de algunos desordenes y abusos [Treatise and Dis-
course on the Copper Currency which is now Minted in Castile and
on Several Excesses and Abuses], with a preliminary study by
Lucas Beltran [Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, Minis-
terio de Economia y Hacienda, 1987], p. 40; italics added)
A somewhat different translation from the original text in Latin has been
more recently published in English. Juan de Mariana, S.J., A Treatise on
the Alteration of Money, translation by Patrick T. Brannan, S.J. Introduc-
tion by Alejandro A. Chafuen, Journal of Markets and Morality 5, no. 2
(Fall, 2002): 523-93. The quotation is on page 544 (12 of the translation).
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 411
each historical case. In fact if those whose income rises (those
who first receive the new money created) consume a propor-
tion of it greater than that previously consumed by those
whose real income falls, then overall saving will drop. It is
also conceivable that those who benefit may have a strong
inclination to save, in which case the final amount of saving
might be positive. At any rate the inflationary process
unleashes other forces which impede saving: inflation falsifies
economic calculation by generating fictitious accounting prof-
its which, to a greater or lesser extent, will be consumed.
Therefore it is impossible to theoretically establish in advance
whether the injection of new money into circulation at specific
points in the economic system will result in a rise or a decline
in society's overall saving.11
In a strict sense, "forced saving" denotes the lengthening
(longitudinal) and widening (lateral) of the capital goods
11Joseph A. Schumpeter attributes the appropriate expression "forced
saving" (in German, Erzwungenes Sparen or Zwangssparen) to Ludwig
von Mises in his book, The Theory of Economic Development, first pub-
lished in German in 1911 (The Theory of Economic Development [Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968], p. 109). Mises acknowl-
edges having described the phenomenon in 1912 in the first German
edition of his book, The Theory of Money and Credit, though he indicates
he does not believe he used the particular expression Schumpeter attrib-
utes to him. In any case Mises carefully analyzed the phenomenon of
forced saving and theoretically demonstrated that it is impossible to
predetermine whether or not net growth in voluntary saving will follow
from an increase in the amount of money in circulation. On this topic see
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, pp. 120, 122 and 126-27. Also
Human Action, pp. 148-50. Mises first dealt with the subject in The The-
ory of Money and Credit, p. 386. Though we will continue to attribute the
term "forced saving" to Mises, a very similar expression, "forced fru-
gality" was used by Jeremy Bentham in 1804 (see Hayek's article, "A
Note on the Development of the Doctrine of 'Forced Saving,'" pub-
lished as chapter 7 of Profits, Interest and Investment, pp. 183-97). As
Roger Garrison has aptly revealed, a certain disparity exists between
Mises's concept of forced saving (what we refer to as "the broad sense"
of the term) and Hayek's concept of it (which we will call "the strict
sense"), and thus "what Mises termed malin vestment is what Hayek
called forced savings." See Garrison, "Austrian Microeconomics: A Dia-
grammatical Exposition," p. 196.
422 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
stages in the productive structure, changes which stem from
credit expansion the banking system launches without the
support of voluntary saving. As we know, this process initially
generates an increase in the monetary income of the original
means of production, and later, a more-than-proportional rise
in the price of consumer goods (or in the gross income of con-
sumer goods industries, if productivity increases). In fact, the
circulation credit theory of the business cycle explains the the-
oretical microeconomic factors which determine that the
attempt to force a more capital-intensive productive structure,
without the corresponding backing of voluntary saving, is
condemned to failure and will invariably reverse, provoking
economic crises and recessions. This process is almost certain
to entail an eventual redistribution of resources which in some
way modifies the overall voluntary saving ratio that existed
prior to the beginning of credit expansion. However unless the
entire process is accompanied by a simultaneous, independent, and
spontaneous increase in voluntary saving of an amount at least
equal to the newly-created credit banks extend ex nihilo, it will be
impossible to sustain and complete the new, more capital-intensive
stages undertaken, and the typical reversion effects we have exam-
ined in detail will appear, along with a crisis and economic recession.
Moreover the process involves the squandering of numerous
capital goods and society's scarce resources, making society
poorer. As a result, by and large, society's voluntary saving
ultimately tends to shrink rather than grow. At any rate, bar-
ring dramatic, spontaneous, unforeseen increases in voluntary
saving, which for argument's sake we exclude at this point
from the theoretical analysis (which furthermore always
involves the assumption that other things remain equal),
credit expansion will provoke a self-destructive boom, which
sooner or later will revert in the form of an economic crisis
and recession. This demonstrates the impossibility of forcing
the economic development of society by artificially encourag-
ing investment and initially financing it with credit expansion,
if economic agents are unwilling to voluntarily back such a
policy by saving more. Therefore society's investment cannot
possibly exceed its voluntary saving for long periods (this
would constitute an alternative definition of "forced saving,"
one more in line with the Keynesian analysis, as FA. Hayek
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 413
correctly indicates).12 Instead, regardless of the final amount
of saving and investment in society (always identical ex post),
all that is achieved by an attempt to force a level of investment
which exceeds that of saving is the general malinvestment of
the country's saved resources and an economic crisis always
destined to make it poorer.13
5
The Squandering of Capital, Idle Capacity,
and Malinvestment of Productive Resources
The chief effect credit expansion exerts on the productive
structure is ultimately that it discoordinates the behavior of the
different economic agents. Indeed entrepreneurs rush to
lengthen and widen the productive stages and make them
more capital-intensive, while the remaining economic agents
are unwilling to cooperate by sacrificing their consumption and
raising their overall voluntary saving. This maladjustment or
discoordination, which stems from a systematic attack on the
process of social interaction (the privilege governments grant
banks, allowing them to use a fractional reserve on demand
deposits), invariably triggers a crisis process that eventually
corrects the entrepreneurial mistakes committed. Neverthe-
less the process takes time, and inevitably, by its end, serious
errors will have been made that will have become irreversible.
The errors consist of launching and attempting to com-
plete a series of investment projects which entail a lengthen-
ing and widening of the capital goods structure, projects
which nonetheless cannot come to fruition, due to a lack of
real saved resources. Moreover once resources and original
12See Hayek, "A Note on the Development of the Doctrine of 'Forced
Saving,'" p. 197. See also the comments on Cantillon and Hume's con-
tributions in chapter 8, pp. 615-20.
13Fritz Machlup has compiled up to 34 different concepts of "forced sav-
ing" in his article, "Forced or Induced Saving: An Exploration into its
Synonyms and Homonyms," The Review of Economics and Statistics 25,
no. 1 (February 1943); reprinted in Fritz Machlup, Economic Semantics
(London: Transaction Publishers, 1991), pp. 213-40.
414 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
factors of production have been transformed into capital
goods, these goods become non-convertible to a certain extent.
In other words, many capital goods will lose all of their value
once it becomes clear there is no demand for them, they were
manufactured in error and they should never have been pro-
duced. It will be possible to continue using others, but only
after spending a large amount of money redesigning them.
The production of yet others may reach completion, but given
that the capital goods structure requires that the goods be com-
plementary, they may never be operated if the necessary com-
plementary resources are not produced. Finally, it is conceiv-
able that certain capital goods may be remodeled at a
relatively low cost, though such goods are undoubtedly in the
minority14 Hence a widespread malinvestment of society's
scarce productive resources takes place, and a loss of many of
its scarce capital goods follows. This loss derives from the dis-
torted information which, during a certain period of time,
entrepreneurs received in the form of easier credit terms and
relatively lower interest rates.15 Many investment processes
14As a general rule, the closer a capital good is to the final consumer
good, the more difficult it will be to convert. In fact all human actions
are more irreversible the closer they are to their final objective: a house
built in error is an almost irreversible loss, while it is somewhat easier
to modify the use of the bricks if it becomes obvious during the course
of the construction that using them to build a specific house is a mistake
(see comments on pp. 280-82 previously).
15Thus the theory of the cycle is simply the application, to the specific
case of credit expansion's impact on the productive structure, of the the-
ory on the discoordinating effects of institutional coercion, a theory we
present in Socialismo, cdlculo economico y funcion empresarial (esp. pp.
111-18). Lachmann arrives at the same conclusion when he states that
malinvestment is "the waste of capital resources in plans prompted by
misleading information," adding that, though many capital goods reach
completion, they
will lack complementary factors in the rest of the economy.
Such lack of complementary factors may well express itself in
lack of demand for its services, for instance where these fac-
tors would occupy "the later stages of production." To the
untrained observer it is therefore often indistinguishable
from "lack of effective demand." (Lachmann, Capital and its
Structure, pp. 66 and 117-18)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 415
may also be left half-completed, as their promoters abandon
them upon realizing they cannot continue to obtain the new
financial resources necessary to complete them, or though
they may be able to continue to secure loans, they recognize
that the investment processes lack economic viability. In short
the widespread malinvestment expresses itself in the follow-
ing ways: many capital goods remain unused, many invest-
ment processes cannot be completed, and capital goods pro-
duced are used in a manner not originally foreseen. A large
portion of society's scarce resources has been squandered, and
as a result, society becomes poorer in general and the standard
of living drops, in relative terms.
Many economists have misunderstood the fact that a sig-
nificant number of the errors committed manifest themselves
as completed capital goods which, nonetheless, cannot be
used, due to the absence of the complementary capital goods
or working capital necessary. Indeed many see this phenom-
enon of "idle capacity" as clear proof of a necessity to boost
overall consumption with the purpose of putting into oper-
ation an idle capacity which has been developed but is not
yet used. They do not realize that, as Hayek indicates,16 the
16In the words of F.A. Hayek himself:
The impression that the already existing capital structure
would enable us to increase production almost indefinitely is
a deception. Whatever engineers may tell us about the sup-
posed immense unused capacity of the existing productive
machinery there is in fact no possibility of increasing produc-
tion to such an extent. These engineers and also those econo-
mists who believe that we have more capital than we need,
are deceived by the fact that many of the existing plant and
machinery are adapted to a much greater output than is actu-
ally produced. What they overlook is that durable means of
production do not represent all the capital that is needed for
an increase of output and that in order that the existing
durable plants could be used to their full capacity it would be
necessary to invest a great amount of other means of produc-
tion in lengthy processes which would bear fruit only in a
comparatively distant future. The existence of unused capac-
ity is, therefore, by no means a proof that there exists an
416 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
existence of "idle capacity" in many production processes
(but especially in those furthest from consumption, such as
high technology construction, and capital goods industries in
general) in no way constitutes proof of oversaving and insuf-
ficient consumption. Quite the opposite is true: it is a symptom
of the fact that we cannot completely use fixed capital pro-
duced in error, because the immediate demand for consumer
goods and services is so urgent that we cannot allow ourselves
the luxury of producing the complementary capital goods nor
the working capital necessary to take advantage of such idle
capacity. In short the crisis is provoked by a relative excess of
consumption, i.e., a relative shortage of saving, which does
not permit the completion of the processes initiated, nor the
production of the complementary capital goods or working
capital necessary to maintain the ongoing investment
processes and to employ the capital goods which, for what-
ever reason, entrepreneurs were able to finish during the
expansion process.17
excess of capital and that consumption is insufficient: on the
contrary, it is a symptom that we are unable to use the fixed
plant to the full extent because the current demand for con-
sumers' goods is too urgent to permit us to invest current pro-
ductive services in the long processes for which (in conse-
quence of "misdirections of capital") the necessary durable
equipment is available. (Hayek, Prices and Production, pp.
95-96)
17 After the boom period is over, what is to be done with the
malinvestments? The answer depends on their profitability
for further use, i.e., on the degree of error that was commit-
ted. Some malinvestments will have to be abandoned, since
their earnings from consumer demand will not even cover the
current costs of their operation. Others, though monuments
of failure, will be able to yield a profit over current costs,
although it will not pay to replace them as they wear out.
Temporarily working them fulfills the economic principle of
always making the best of even a bad bargain. Because of the
malinvestments, however, the boom always leads to general
impoverishment, i.e., reduces the standard of living below
what it would have been in the absence of the boom. For the
credit expansion has caused the squandering of scarce
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 417
6
Credit Expansion as the Cause
of Massive Unemployment
The direct cause of massive unemployment is labor market
inflexibility. In fact state intervention in the labor market and
union coercion, made possible by the privileges the legal sys-
tem confers on unions, result in a series of regulations (mini-
mum wages, entry barriers to maintain wages artificially high,
very strict, interventionist rules on hiring and dismissal, etc.)
which make the labor market one of the most rigid. Further-
more due to the artificial costs labor legislation generates, the
discounted value of a worker's real marginal productivity
tends to fall short of the total labor costs the entrepreneur
incurs (in the form of monetary costs, such as wages, and
other costs, such as subjective inconveniences) in hiring the
worker. This leads to markedly high unemployment, which
will affect all workers whose expected marginal productivity
yields a discounted value lower than the cost involved in
employing them. Therefore they will either be dismissed or
not hired at all.
Whereas the direct cause of unemployment is clearly that
indicated above, the indirect cause is still inflation; more
specifically, credit expansion initiated by the banking system
without the backing of real saving. Credit expansion is ulti-
mately what gives rise to massive unemployment, since it
instigates the entire process of widespread discoordination
and malinvestment described. It does so by extensively allo-
cating original means of production to parts of the productive
structure where they do not belong, considering that entre-
preneurs attract them to lengthen and widen the capital goods
structure, without realizing that in doing so they commit a
resources and scarce capital. Some resources have been com-
pletely wasted, and even those malin vestments that continue
in use will satisfy consumers less than would have been the
case without the credit expansion. (Rothbard, Man, Economy,
and State, p. 863)
418 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
serious, large-scale entrepreneurial error. When the crisis hits
and the errors come to light, new massive transfers of original
factors of production and labor from the stages furthest from
consumption to those closest to it will be necessary and will
require an especially flexible labor market, one free of any
institutional or union restrictions or coercion. Therefore those
societies with a more rigid labor market will experience
higher and more sustained unemployment upon the
inevitable exposure of the entrepreneurial errors provoked in
the productive structure by credit expansion.18
Thus the only way to fight unemployment is, in the short
term, to make the labor market more flexible in every sense,
and in the medium and long term, to prevent the initiation of
any process of artificial expansion which arises from the bank-
ing system's granting of loans in the absence of a prior
increase in voluntary saving.
7
National Income Accounting is Inadequate to
Reflect the Different Stages in the Business Cycle
The statistics of gross national product (GNP), and in gen-
eral, the definitions and methodology of national income
accounting do not provide a reliable indication of economic
fluctuations. Indeed gross national product figures systemati-
cally conceal both the artificial expansionary effects of banks'
creation of loans and the tightening effects the crisis exerts on
the stages furthest from consumption.19 This phenomenon can
18We are referring to involuntary (or institutional) unemployment, not
to the so-called "natural rate of unemployment" (or voluntary and
"catallactic" unemployment) which has grown so spectacularly in mod-
ern times as a result of generous unemployment compensation and
other measures which act as a strong disincentive to the desire of work-
ers to return to work.
19See pp. 305-12 and 336 note 55. As Mark Skousen has pointed out:
Gross Domestic Product systematically underestimates the
expansionary phase as well as the contraction phase of the
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 419
be explained in the following manner: contrary to the very
implications of the term gross, which is added to the expres-
sion "National Product," GNP is actually a net figure that
excludes the value of all intermediate capital goods which at the
end of the measurement period become available as inputs for
the next financial year. Hence gross national product figures
exaggerate the importance of consumption20 over national
business cycle. For example, in the most recent recession, real
GDP declined 1-2 percent in the United States, even though
the recession was quite severe according to other measures
(earnings, industrial production, employment). ... A better
indicator of total economic activity is Gross Domestic Output
(GDO), a statistic I have developed to measure spending in all
stages of production, including intermediate stages. Accord-
ing to my estimates, GDO declined at least 10-15 percent dur-
ing most of the 1990-92 recession. (See "I Like Hayek: How I
Use His Model as a Forecasting Tool," presented at The Mont
Pelerin Society General Meeting, which took place in Cannes,
France, September 25-30, 1994, manuscript awaiting publica-
tion, p. 12.)
20Most conventional economists, along with political authorities and
commentators on economic issues, tend to magnify the importance of
the sector of consumer goods and services. This is primarily due to the
fact that national income accounting measures tend to exaggerate the
importance of consumption over total income, since they exclude most
products manufactured in the intermediate stages of the production
process, thus representing consumption as the most important sector
of the economy. In modern economies this sector usually accounts for
60 to 70 percent of the entire national income, while it does not normally
reach a third of the gross domestic output, if calculated in relation to the
total spent in all stages of the productive structure. Moreover it is evi-
dent that Keynesian doctrines continue to strongly influence the
methodology of the national income accounts as well as the statistical
procedures used to collect the information necessary to prepare them.
From a Keynesian standpoint, it is advantageous to magnify the role of
consumption as an integral part of aggregate demand, thus centering
national income accounting on this phenomenon, excluding from its cal-
culations the portion of the gross domestic output which fails to fit well
into Keynesian models and making no attempt to reflect the develop-
ment of the different stages devoted to the production of intermediate
capital goods, which is much more volatile and difficult to predict than
consumption. On these interesting topics see Skousen, The Structure of
420 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
income, relegate to third place, after government expenditure,
the production of final capital goods completed throughout
the period (the only capital goods reflected in the GNP by
definition) and absurdly exclude approximately half of all of
society's entrepreneurial, labor and productive effort, that
devoted to the manufacture of intermediate products.
The gross domestic output (GDO) of a financial year
would be a much more precise indicator of the influence
business cycles exert on the market and society. This measure
would be calculated as described in tables from chapter 5, i.e.,
in truly gross terms, including all monetary spending, not
merely that related to final goods and services, but all inter-
mediate products manufactured in all stages in the production
process. A measure of this sort would reveal the true effects
exerted on the productive structure by credit expansion and
by the economic recession it inevitably causes.21
Production, p. 306. According to a study carried out by the U.S. Depart-
ment of Commerce, entitled, "The Interindustry Structure of the United
States," and published in 1986, 43.8 percent of the American gross
domestic output (3,297,977 million dollars) comprised intermediate
products which were not reflected by GDP figures (merely equal to 56.2
percent of the gross domestic output, i.e., 4,235,116 million dollars). See
Arthur Middleton Hughes, "The Recession of 1990: An Austrian Expla-
nation," Review of Austrian Economics 10, no. 1 (1997): 108, note 4. Com-
pare this data with that provided for 1982 in footnote 38 of chapter 5.
21Hayek, on the last pages of his 1942 article on the Ricardo Effect ("The
Ricardo Effect," pp. 251-54), examines the ways in which traditional
consumer price index statistics tend to obscure or prevent the empirical
description of the evolution of the cycle, in general, and of the operation
of the Ricardo Effect during the cycle, in particular. In fact the statistics
in use do not reflect price changes in the products manufactured in the
different stages of the production process, nor the relationship which
exists in each stage between the price paid for the original factors of pro-
duction involved and the price of the products made. Fortunately recent
statistical studies have in all cases confirmed the Austrian analysis,
revealing how the price of goods from the stages furthest from con-
sumption is much more volatile than the price of consumer goods. Mark
Skousen, in his (already cited) article presented before the general meet-
ing of the Mont Pelerin Society of September 25-30, 1994 in Cannes,
showed that in the United States over the preceding fifteen years the
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 421
8
Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the Cycle
The conception of entrepreneurship developed by Lud-
wig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek, and Israel M. Kirzner lies
at the very root of a theory of entrepreneurship which we
have presented elsewhere.22 An entrepreneur is any human
actor who performs each of his actions with shrewdness,
remains alert to the opportunities for subjective profit which
arise in his environment and tries to act so as to take advantage
of them. Human beings' innate entrepreneurial capacity not only
leads them to constantly create new information concerning their
ends and means, but also spontaneously triggers a process by
which this information tends to spread throughout society,
accompanied by the spontaneous coordination of disparate
human behaviors. The coordinating capacity of entrepreneur-
ship sparks the emergence, evolution and coordinated devel-
opment of human society and civilization, as long as entre-
preneurial action is not systematically coerced (interventionism
and socialism) nor are entrepreneurs obliged to act in an envi-
ronment in which traditional legal norms are not respected
because the government has granted privileges to certain
social groups. When entrepreneurship cannot be incorporated
into a framework of general legal principles or is systemati-
cally coerced, not only does it cease to create and transmit a
large volume of social information, but it also generates cor-
rupt and distorted information and provokes discoordinated
price of the goods furthest from consumption had oscillated between a
+30 percent increase and a -10 percent decrease, depending on the year
and the stage of the cycle; while the price of products from the interme-
diate stages had fluctuated between +14 percent and -1 percent,
depending on the particular stage in the cycle, and the price of con-
sumer goods vacillated between +10 percent and -2 percent, depending
on the particular stage. These results are also confirmed by V.A.
Ramey's important article, "Inventories as Factors of Production and
Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review (June 1989): 338-54.
22See Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico y funcion empresarial,
chaps. 2 and 3.
422 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and irresponsible behaviors. From this point of view our the-
ory of the cycle could be considered an application of the more
general theory of entrepreneur ship to the specific case of the
intertemporal discoordination (i.e., between different time periods)
which follows from banking activity not subject to general legal
principles and therefore based on the privilege of granting
loans unbacked by a prior rise in voluntary saving (the mone-
tary bank-deposit contract with a fractional reserve). Hence our
theory explains how the violation of legal principles, which
invariably causes serious social discoordination, exerts the
same effect in a field as complex and abstract as that of money
and bank credit. Thus economic theory has made it possible to
connect legal and economic phenomena (the granting of privi-
leges in violation of legal principles; and crises and recessions)
which until now were thought to be completely unrelated.
One might wonder how entrepreneurs can possibly fail to
recognize that the theory of the cycle developed by econo-
mists and presented here pertains to them, and to modify their
behavior by ceasing to accept the loans they receive from the
banking sector and avoiding investment projects which, in
many cases, will bankrupt them. However, entrepreneurs can-
not refrain from participating in the widespread process of
discoordination bank credit expansion sets in motion, even if
they have a perfect theoretical understanding of how the cycle
will develop. This is due to the fact that individual entrepre-
neurs do not know whether or not a loan offered them origi-
nates from growth in society's voluntary saving. In addition
though hypothetically they might suspect the loan to be cre-
ated ex nihilo by the bank, they have no reason to refrain from
requesting the loan and using it to expand their investment
projects, if they believe they will be able to withdraw from them
before the onset of the inevitable crisis. In other words the possi-
bility of earning considerable entrepreneurial profit exists for
those entrepreneurs who, though aware the entire process is
based on an artificial boom, are shrewd enough to withdraw
from it in time and to liquidate their projects and companies
before the crisis hits. (This is, for instance, what Richard Can-
tillon did, as we saw in chapter 2.) Therefore the entrepre-
neurial spirit itself, and the profit motive on which it rests,
destines entrepreneurs to participate in the cycle even when
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 423
they are aware of the theory concerning it. Logically no one
can predict precisely when and where the crisis will erupt,
and a large number of entrepreneurs will undoubtedly be
"surprised" by the event and will encounter serious difficul-
ties. Nonetheless, in advance, from a theoretical standpoint,
we can never describe as "irrational" those entrepreneurs
who, though familiar with the theory of the cycle, get carried
away by the new money they receive, funds which the bank-
ing system has created from nothing, and which from the start
provide the entrepreneurs with a great additional ability to
pay and the chance to make handsome profits.23
Another connection links the theory of entrepreneurship
to the theory of the business cycle, and it involves the stage of
recession and readjustment in which the grave errors com-
mitted in earlier phases of the cycle are exposed. Indeed eco-
nomic recessions are the periods in which historically the
seeds of the greatest entrepreneurial fortunes have been
sown. This phenomenon is due to the fact that the deepest
stages of the recession are accompanied by an abundance of
capital goods produced in error, goods with a market price
reduced to a fraction of its original amount. Therefore the
opportunity to make a large entrepreneurial profit presents
23However Mises makes the following astute observation:
it may be that businessmen will in the future react to credit
expansion in a manner other than they have in the past. It
may be that they will avoid using for an expansion of their
operations the easy money available because they will keep in
mind the inevitable end of the boom. Some signs forebode such
a change. But it is too early to make a definite statement. (Mises,
Human Action, p. 797)
Nevertheless, for reasons supplied in the main text, this augural presenta-
tion Mises made in 1949 of the hypothesis of rational expectations is not
entirely justified, considering that even when entrepreneurs have a perfect
understanding of the theory of the cycle and wish to avoid being trapped
by it, they will always continue to be tempted to participate in it by the
excellent profits they can bring in if they are perceptive enough to with-
draw in time from the corresponding investment projects. On this topic,
see also the section entitled, "A Brief Note on the Theory of Rational
Expectations" from chapter 7 in this volume, pp. 535-42.
424 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
itself to those entrepreneurs shrewd enough to arrive at this
recession stage in the cycle with liquidity and to very selec-
tively acquire those capital goods which have lost nearly all of
their commercial value but which will again be considered
very valuable once the economy recovers. Hence entrepre-
neurship is essential to salvaging whatever can be saved and to
getting the best possible use, depending upon the circum-
stances, from those capital goods produced in error, by select-
ing and keeping them for the more or less distant future in
which the economy will have recovered and they can again be
useful to society.
9
The Policy of General-Price-Level Stabilization
and its Destabilizing Effects on the Economy
Theorists are particularly interested in the following ques-
tion, which has carried practical significance in the past and
appears to be acquiring it again: If the banking system brings
about credit expansion unbacked by real saving, and as a
result the money supply increases, but just enough to main-
tain the purchasing power of money (or the "general price
level"), then does the recession we are analyzing in this chap-
ter follow? This question applies to those economic periods
in which productivity jumps due to the introduction of new
technologies and entrepreneurial innovations, and to the
accumulation of capital wisely invested by diligent, insight-
ful entrepreneurs.24 As we have seen, when bank credit is not
24This appears to be the case of the American economic boom of the
late 1990s, when to a large extent the upsurge in productivity hid the
negative, distorting effects of great monetary, credit and stock market
expansion. The parallel with the development of economic events in the
1920s is striking, and quite possibly the process will again be inter-
rupted by a recession, which will again surprise all who merely concen-
trate their analysis on the evolution of the "general price level" and
other macroeconomic measures that conceal the underlying microeco-
nomic situation (disproportion in the real productive structure of the
economy). At the time of this writing (the end of 1997), the first symp-
toms of a new recession have already manifested themselves, at least
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 425
artificially expanded and the quantity of money in circulation
remains more or less constant, growth in voluntary saving
gives rise to a widening (lateral) and lengthening (longitudi-
nal) of the capital goods stages in the productive structure.
These stages can be completed with no problem, and once
concluded, they yield a new rise in the quantity and quality of
final consumer goods and services. This increased production
of consumer goods and services must be sold to a decreased
monetary demand (which has fallen by precisely the amount
saving has risen), and consequently the unit prices of con-
sumer goods and services tend to decline. This reduction is
always more rapid than the possible drop in the nominal
income of the owners of the original means of production,
whose income therefore increases very significantly in real
terms.
The issue we now raise is whether or not a policy aimed at
increasing the money supply by credit expansion or another
procedure, and at maintaining the price level of consumer goods
and services constant, triggers the processes which lead to
intertemporal discoordination among the different economic
agents, and ultimately, to economic crisis and recession. The
American economy faced such a situation throughout the
1920s, when dramatic growth in productivity was neverthe-
less not accompanied by the natural decline in the prices of
consumer goods and services. These prices did not fall, due to
the expansionary policy of the American banking system, a
policy orchestrated by the Federal Reserve to stabilize the pur-
chasing power of money (i.e., to prevent it from rising).25
through the serious banking, stock market, and financial crises which
have erupted in Asian markets. [The evolution of the world economy
since 1998 has confirmed entirely the analysis of this book as already
mentioned in its Preface to the 2nd English edition.]
25See, for example, Murray N. Rothbard's detailed analysis of this his-
torical period in his notable book, America's Great Depression, 5th ed.
(Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000). Mises (Human Action,
p. 561) indicates that in the past, economic crises have generally hit dur-
ing periods of continual improvement in productivity due to the fact
that
426 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
At this point it should be evident that a policy of credit
expansion unbacked by real saving must inevitably set in
motion all of the processes leading to the eruption of the eco-
nomic crisis and recession, even when expansion coincides
with an increase in the system's productivity and nominal
prices of consumer goods and services do not rise. Indeed the
issue is not the absolute changes in the general price level of
consumer goods, but how these changes evolve in relative terms
with respect to the prices of the intermediate products from the
stages furthest from consumption and of the original means of
production. In fact in the 1929 crisis, the relative prices of con-
sumer goods (which in nominal terms did not rise and even
fell slightly) escalated in comparison with the prices of capital
goods (which plummeted in nominal terms). In addition the
overall income (and hence, profits) of the companies close to
[t]he steady advance in the accumulation of new capital made
technological improvement possible. Output per unit of input
was increased and business filled the markets with increasing
quantities of cheap goods.
Mises explains that this phenomenon tends to partially counteract the
rise in prices which follows from an increase in credit expansion, and
that in certain situations the price of consumer goods may even fall
instead of rise. He concludes:
As a rule the resultant of the clash of opposite forces was a
preponderance of those producing the rise in prices. But there
were some exceptional instances too in which the upward
movement of prices was only slight. The most remarkable
example was provided by the American boom of 1926-29.
In any case Mises warns against policies of general price level stabiliza-
tion, not only because they mask credit expansion during periods of
increasing productivity but also due to the theoretical error they contain:
It is a popular fallacy to believe that perfect money should be
neutral and endowed with unchanging purchasing power,
and that the goal of monetary policy should be to realize this
perfect money. It is easy to understand this idea . . . against
the still more popular postulates of the inflationists. But it is
an excessive reaction, it is in itself confused and contradictory,
and it has worked havoc because it was strengthened by an
inveterate error inherent in the thought of many philosophers
and economists. (Human Action, p. 418)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 427
consumption soared throughout the final years of the expan-
sion, as a result of the substantial increase in their productiv-
ity. Their goods were sold at constant nominal prices in an
environment of great inflationary expansion. Therefore the
factors which typically trigger the recession (relative growth
in profits in consumption and a mounting interest rate),
including the "Ricardo Effect," are equally present in an envi-
ronment of rising productivity, insofar as increased profits
and sales in the consumer sector (more than the jump in nom-
inal prices, which at that point did not take place) reveal the
decline in the relative cost of labor in that sector.
The theoretical articles Hayek wrote on the occasion of his
first scholarly trip to the United States in the 1920s were aimed
at analyzing the effects of the policy of stabilizing the mone-
tary unit. Fisher and other monetarists sponsored the policy,
and at that time its effects were considered harmless and very
beneficial to the economic system. Upon analyzing the situa-
tion in the United States, Hayek arrives at the opposite con-
clusion and presents it in his well-known article, "Intertempo-
ral Price Equilibrium and Movements in the Value of Money,"
published in 1928.26 There Hayek demonstrates that a policy
26The article was first printed in German with the title, "Das intertem-
porale Gleichgewichtssystem der Preise und die Bewegungen des
'Geldwertes,'" and published in Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 2 (1928):
36-76. It was not translated nor published in English until 1984, when it
was included in the book, Money, Capital and Fluctuations: Early Essays,
pp. 71-118. A second English translation, by William Kirby, appeared in
1994. It is superior to the first and is entitled, "The System of Intertem-
poral Price Equilibrium and Movements in the 'Value of Money,'" chap-
ter 27 of Classics in Austrian Economics: A Sampling in the History of a Tra-
dition, Israel M. Kirzner, edv vol. 3: The Age ofMises and Hayek (London:
William Pickering, 1994), pp. 161-98. Prior to this article, Hayek dealt
with the same topic in "Die Wahrungspolitik der Vereinigten Staaten
seit der Uberwindung der Krise von 1920," Zeitschrift fur Volkswirtschaft
und Sozialpolitik 5 (1925): vols. 1-3, pp. 25-63 and vols. 4-6, pp. 254-317.
The theoretical portion of this article has appeared in English with the
title, "The Monetary Policy of the United States after the Recovery from
the 1920 Crisis," in Money, Capital and Fluctuations: Early Essays, pp.
5-32. Here Hayek first criticizes the stabilization policies adopted in the
United States.
428 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
of stabilizing the purchasing power of the monetary unit is
incompatible with the necessary function of money with
respect to coordinating the decisions and behaviors of eco-
nomic agents at different points in time. Hayek explains that
if the quantity of money in circulation remains constant, then
in order to maintain intertemporal equilibrium among the
actions of the different economic agents, widespread growth
in the productivity of the economic system must give rise to a
drop in the price of consumer goods and services, i.e., in the
general price level. Thus a policy which prevents an upsurge
in productivity from reducing the price of consumer goods
and services inevitably generates expectations on the mainte-
nance of the price level in the future. These expectations
invariably lead to an artificial lengthening of the productive
structure, a modification bound to reverse in the form of a
recession. Although in 1928 Hayek had yet to make his pol-
ished contributions of the 1930s, writings which we have used
in our analysis and which make this phenomenon much eas-
ier to understand, it is especially commendable that at that
point he arrived at the following conclusion (in his own
words):
[I]t must be assumed, in sharpest contradiction to the pre-
vailing view, that it is not a deficiency in the stability of the
purchasing power of money that constitutes one of the most
important sources of disturbances of the economy from the
side of money. On the contrary, it is the tendency peculiar to
all commodity currencies to stabilize the purchasing power
of money even when the general state of supply is changing,
a tendency alien to all the fundamental determinants of eco-
nomic activity.27
27F.A. Hayek, "Intertemporal Price Equilibrium and Movements in the
Value of Money," p. 97; italics removed. Even more specifically, Hayek
concludes that
[t]here is no basis in economic theory for the view that the
quantity of money must be adjusted to changes in the econ-
omy if economic equilibrium is to be maintained or — what
signifies the same — if monetary disturbances to the economy
are to be prevented, (p. 106)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 429
Hence it is not surprising that F.A. Hayek and the other
theorists of his school during the latter half of the 1920s, upon
examining the expansionary monetary policy of the United
States (which, nonetheless, given the increase in productivity,
did not manifest itself as a rise in prices), were the only ones
capable not only of correctly interpreting the largely artificial
nature of the expansionary American boom and its accompa-
nying impact in the form of what appeared to be unlimited
growth in the New York stock market indexes, but also of pre-
dicting, against the tide and to the surprise of all, the arrival of
the Great Depression of 1929.28 Therefore we can conclude
with Fritz Machlup that
28See Mark Skousen, "Who Predicted the 1929 Crash?" included in The
Meaning of Ludwig von Mises, Jeffrey M. Herbener, ed. (Amsterdam:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993), pp. 247-84. Lionel Robbins, in his
"Foreword" to the first edition of Prices and Production (p. xii), also
expressly refers to the prediction of Mises and Hayek of the arrival of
the Great Depression. This prediction appeared in writing in an article
by Hayek published in 1929 in Monatsberichte des Osterreichischen Insti-
tuts fiir Konjunkturforschung. More recently in 1975, Hayek was ques-
tioned on this subject and answered the following (Gold & Silver
Newsletter [Newport Beach, Calif.: Monex International, June 1975]):
I was one of the only ones to predict what was going to hap-
pen. In early 1929, when I made this forecast, I was living in
Europe which was then going through a period of depression.
I said that there [would be] no hope of a recovery in Europe
until interest rates fell, and interest rates would not fall until
the American boom collapses, which I said was likely to hap-
pen within the next few months. What made me expect this,
of course, is one of my main theoretical beliefs, that you can-
not indefinitely maintain an inflationary boom. Such a boom
creates all kinds of artificial jobs that might keep going for a
fairly long time but sooner or later must collapse. Also, I was
convinced after 1927, when the Federal Reserve made an
attempt to stave off a collapse by credit expansion, the boom
had become a typically inflationary one. So in early 1929 there
was every sign that the boom was going to break down. I
knew by then that the Americans could not prolong this sort
of expansion indefinitely, and as soon as the Federal Reserve
was no longer to feed it by more inflation, the thing would
collapse. In addition, you must remember that at the time the
Federal Reserve was not only unwilling but was unable to
430 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
[t]he creation of new circulating media so as to keep con-
stant a price level which would otherwise have fallen in
response to technical progress, may have the same unstabi-
lizing effect on the supply of money capital that has been
described before, and thus be liable to lead to a crisis. In
spite of their stabilizing effect on the price level, the emer-
gence of the new circulating media in the form of money
capital may cause roundabout processes of production to be
undertaken which cannot in the long run be maintained.29
Though in the past these considerations could be thought
of little practical importance, given the chronic increase in the
general price level in western economies, today they are again
significant and demonstrate that even with a policy of mone-
tary "stability" guaranteed by central banks, in an environ-
ment of soaring productivity economic crises will inevitably
continue the expansion because the gold standard set a limit
to the possible expansion. Under the gold standard, therefore,
an inflationary boom could not last very long.
This entire process, which Austrian economists found so easy to under-
stand and predict because they already had the necessary analytical
tools, took place in an environment in which the general price level of
consumer goods not only did not rise, but tended to fall slightly. In fact
in the 1920s the general price level in the United States was very stable:
the index went from 93.4 (100 in the base year, 1926) in June 1921, to 104.5
in November 1925, and fell again to 95.2 in June 1929. However during
this seven-year period, the money supply grew from 45.3 to 73.2 trillion
dollars, i.e., more than 61 percent. See Rothbard, America's Great Depres-
sion, pp. 88 and 154. Rothbard, with his natural insight, concludes:
The ideal of a stable price level is relatively innocuous during
a price rise when it can aid sound money advocates in trying
to check the boom; but it is highly mischievous when prices
are tending to sag, and the stabilizationists call for inflation.
And yet, stabilization is always a more popular rallying cry
when prices are falling, (p. 158)
Incidentally a great parallel exists between the situation Hayek
described and that which is developing seventy years later, at the time
of this writing (1997). Thus the American economic and stock-market
boom may soon very possibly reverse in the form of a worldwide reces-
sion (which has already begun to manifest itself in Asian markets).
29Machlup, The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation, p. 177.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 431
hit if all credit expansion is not prevented. Thus in the near
future these considerations may very well regain their very
important practical significance. At any rate, they are of great
use in understanding many economic cycles of the past (the
most consequential of which was the Great Depression of
1929), and as an application of the theoretical conclusions of
our analysis.30
30Gottfried Haberler demonstrated that a fall in the general price level
caused by improvements in all lines of production does not lead to the
same adverse consequences as monetary deflation. See his monograph,
Der Sinn der Indexzahlen: Eine Untersuchung tiber den Begriff des Preis-
niveaus und die Methoden seiner Messung (Tubingen: Verlag von J.C.B.
Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1927), pp. 112ff. See also his article, "Monetary
Equilibrium and the Price Level in a Progressive Economy," published
in Economica (February 1935): 75-81 (this article has been reprinted in
Gottfried Haberler, The Liberal Economic Order, vol. 2: Money and Cycles
and Related Things, Anthony Y.C. Koo, ed. [Aldershot: Edward Elgar,
1993], pp. 118-25). Gottfried Haberler later qualified his position on the
Austrian theory of the business cycle. This led some to believe, in our
opinion unjustifiably, that Haberler had recanted his position entirely.
The most substantial concession he made consisted of the statement
that the theorists of the Austrian School had not rigorously shown that
the stabilization of prices in an improving economy would necessarily
always lead to an economic crisis (see Haberler, Prosperity and Depres-
sion, pp. 56-57). Furthermore Haberler did not base his change of opin-
ion on any theoretical consideration, but merely on the possibility that
during the evolution of the cycle, additional, unforeseen phenomena
might occur (such as an increase in voluntary saving, etc.), which would
tend to neutralize to an extent the forces indicated by the economic
analysis. Therefore it is the responsibility of Haberler and his support-
ers to explain, in reference to each specific cycle, what particular cir-
cumstances may have neutralized the typical effects of credit expansion,
effects, on the whole, predicted by the Austrians, whose formal theory
Haberler and his followers have not been able to discredit at all (see also
our comments on the similar thesis of D. Laidler, in chapter 7, pp.
528-30). Another author of relevant work is L. Albert Hahn, who, in his
book, Common Sense Economics (New York: Abelard-Schumann, 1956, p.
128), asks whether or not a rise in productivity justifies a policy of infla-
tionary credit expansion. He arrives at the conclusion that such a policy,
which generates inflation without inflation and is generally considered
totally harmless, can have very disturbing effects and cause a deep eco-
nomic crisis. According to Hahn, theorists who consider such a policy
innocuous err because they "overlook the fact that productivity
432 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
10
How to Avoid Business Cycles: Prevention of
and Recovery From the Economic Crisis
At this point we can easily deduce that once banks have
initiated a policy of credit expansion, or the money supply has
increased in the form of new loans granted without the sup-
port of new voluntary saving, processes which eventually
provoke a crisis and recession are spontaneously triggered.
Thus economic crises and depressions cannot be avoided when
credit expansion has taken place. The only possible measure is
to prevent the process from beginning, by precluding the adop-
tion of policies of credit expansion or of growth in the money
supply in the shape of new bank loans. The final chapter of this
book contains an explanation of the institutional modifications
necessary to immunize modern economies against the succes-
sive stages of boom and recession they regularly undergo.
These institutional reforms essentially involve restoring bank-
ing to the traditional legal principles which regulate the con-
tract of irregular deposit of fungible goods and which require
the continuous maintenance of the tantundem; in other words,
a 100-percent reserve requirement. This is the only way to
guarantee that the system will not independently initiate any
credit expansion unbacked by real saving, and that the loans
granted will always originate from a prior increase in society's
voluntary saving. Thus entrepreneurs will only undertake the
lengthening of the productive structure when, barring unusual
circumstances, they are able to complete and maintain it in the
absence of systematic discoordination between the entrepre-
neurial decisions of investors and those of the other economic
agents with respect to the amount and proportion of their
income they wish to consume and save.
increases mean profit increases for the entrepreneurs as long as costs —
for labor as well as for capital — are not fully raised accordingly." Hence
Murray Rothbard concludes that the important factor is not so much the
evolution of the general price level, but whether via a policy of credit
expansion the interest rate is reduced to a level lower than the one
which would prevail in a free market in the absence of such a policy
(Man, Economy, and State, pp. 862-63).
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 433
Assuming credit expansion has taken place in the past, we
know the economic crisis will inevitably hit, regardless of any
attempts to postpone its arrival through the injection of new
doses of credit expansion at a progressively increasing rate. In
any case the eruption of the crisis and recession ultimately
constitutes the beginning of the recovery. In other words the
economic recession is the start of the recovery stage, since it is
the phase in which the errors committed are revealed, the
investment projects launched in error are liquidated, and labor
and the rest of the productive resources begin to be transferred
toward those sectors and stages where consumers value them
most. Just as a hangover is a sign of the body's healthy reaction
to the assault of alcohol, an economic recession marks the
beginning of the recovery period, which is as healthy and nec-
essary as it is painful. This period results in a productive struc-
ture more in tune with the true wishes of consumers.31
The recession hits when credit expansion slows or stops
and as a result, the investment projects launched in error are
liquidated, the productive structure narrows and its number
of stages declines, and workers and other original means of
production employed in the stages furthest from consump-
tion, where they are no longer profitable, are laid off or no
longer demanded. Recovery is consolidated when economic
agents, in general, and consumers, in particular, decide to
reduce their consumption in relative terms and to increase
their saving in order to repay their loans and face the new
stage of economic uncertainty and recession. The boom and
31 One point should be stressed: the depression phase is actually
the recovery phase; ... it is the time when bad investments are
liquidated and mistaken entrepreneurs leave the market — the
time when "consumer sovereignty" and the free market
reassert themselves and establish once again an economy that
benefits every participant to the maximum degree. The
depression period ends when the free-market equilibrium has
been restored and expansionary distortion eliminated. (Roth-
bard, Man, Economy, and State, p. 860)
Therefore even though upcoming Table VI-1 (pp. 506-07) distinguishes
between the phases of "depression" and "recovery" as in the text,
strictly speaking, the stage of depression marks the beginning of the
true recovery.
434 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the beginning of the readjustment are naturally followed by a
drop in the interest rate. This drop arises from the reduction
and even the disappearance of the premium based on the
expectation of a decrease in the purchasing power of money,
and also from the increased relative saving the recession pro-
vokes. The slowing of the frantic pace at which goods and
services from the final stage are consumed, together with the
rise in saving and the reorganization of the productive struc-
ture at all levels, furthers the recovery. Its effects initially
appear in stock markets, which are generally the first to
undergo a certain improvement. Moreover the real growth in
wages which takes place during the stage of recovery sets the
"Ricardo Effect" in motion, thus reviving investment in the
stages furthest from consumption, where labor and produc-
tive resources are again employed. In this spontaneous man-
ner the recovery concludes. It can be strengthened and main-
tained indefinitely in the absence of a new stage of credit
expansion unbacked by real saving, an event which is usually
repeated, giving rise to new recurring crises.32
Nevertheless now that we have established that economic
crises cannot be avoided once the seeds of them are sown, and
that the only alternative is to prevent them, what would be the
most appropriate policy to apply once an inevitable crisis and
recession have hit? The answer is simple if we remember the
origin of the crisis and what the crisis implies: the need to
readjust the productive structure and adapt it to consumers'
32 A detailed study of recovery and its different phases can be found on
pp. 38-82 of Hayek's book, Profits, Interest and Investment. See also pp.
315-17 of Skousen's book, The Structure of Production, where Skousen
refers to a statement of Hayek's, according to which:
It is a well-known fact that in a slump the revival of final
demand is generally an effect rather than a cause of the
revival in the upper reaches of the stream of production —
activities generated by savings seeking investment and by the
necessity of making up for postponed renewals and replace-
ments. (Skousen, The Structure of Production, p. 315)
Hayek made this astute observation in the journal, The Economist, in an
article printed June 11, 1983 and entitled "The Keynes Centenary: The
Austrian Critic," no. 7293, p. 46.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 435
true desire with regard to saving, to liquidate the investment
projects undertaken in error and to massively transfer factors
of production toward the stages and companies closest to con-
sumption, where consumers demand they be employed.
Therefore the only possible and advisable policy in the case of
a crisis consists of making the economy as flexible as possible, par-
ticularly the different factor markets, and especially the labor
market, so the adjustment can take place as quickly and with
as little pain as possible. Hence the more rigid and controlled
an economy is, the more prolonged and socially painful its
readjustment will be. The errors and recession could even per-
sist indefinitely, if it is institutionally impossible for economic
agents to liquidate their projects and regroup their capital
goods and factors of production more advantageously. Thus
rigidity is the chief enemy of recovery and any policy aimed at miti-
gating the crisis and initiating and consolidating recovery as soon as
possible must center on the microeconomic goal of deregulating all
factor markets, particularly the labor market, as much as possible,
and on making them as flexible as possible?3
This is the only measure advisable during the stage of eco-
nomic crisis and recession, and it is particularly important to
avoid any policies which, to a greater or lesser extent, actively
hinder or prevent the necessary spontaneous process of read-
justment.34 Also to be especially avoided are certain measures
33 As Ludwig M. Lachmann indicates,
[w]hat is needed is a policy which promotes the necessary
readjustments. . . . Capital regrouping is thus the necessary
corrective for the maladjustment engendered by a strong
boom. (Capital and its Structure, pp. 123 and 125)
34We agree with Murray N. Rothbard when he recommends that once
the crisis erupts, the economy should be made as flexible as possible
and the scope and influence of the state with respect to the economic
system be reduced at all levels. In this way not only is entrepreneurship
fostered in the sense that businessmen are encouraged to liquidate
erroneous projects and appropriately redesign them, but a higher rate
of social saving and investment is also promoted. According to Roth-
bard,
Reducing taxes that bear most heavily on savings and invest-
ment will further lower social time preferences. Furthermore,
436 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
which always acquire great popularity and political support
during crises, in view of the socially painful nature of such
phenomena. The following are among the main steps which
are normally proposed and should be averted:
(a) The granting of new loans to companies from the
capital goods stages to keep them from going
through a crisis, suspending payments and having to
depression is a time of economic strain. Any reduction of
taxes, or of any regulations interfering with the free-market,
will stimulate healthy economic activity.
He concludes,
There is one thing the government can do positively, how-
ever: it can drastically lower its relative role in the economy,
slashing its own expenditures and taxes, particularly taxes
that interfere with saving and investment. Reducing its tax-
pending level will automatically shift the societal saving-
investment-consumption ratio in favor of saving and invest-
ment, thus greatly lowering the time required for returning to
a prosperous economy. (America's Great Depression, p. 22)
Rothbard also provides us with a list of typical government measures
which are highly counterproductive and which, in any case, tend to pro-
long the depression and make it more painful. The list is as follows:
(1) Prevent or delay liquidation. Lend money to shaky busi-
nesses, call on banks to lend further, etc. (2) Inflate further . Fur-
ther inflation blocks the necessary fall in prices, thus delaying
adjustment and prolonging depression. Further credit expan-
sion creates more malinvestments, which, in their turn, will
have to be liquidated in some later depression. A government
"easy-money" policy prevents the market's return to the nec-
essary higher interest rates. (3) Keep wage rates up. Artificial
maintenance of wage rates in a depression insures permanent
mass unemployment. ... (4) Keep prices up. Keeping prices
above the free-market levels will create unsalable surpluses,
and prevent a return to prosperity. (5) Stimulate consumption
and discourage saving. . . . [M]ore saving and less consumption
would speed recovery; more consumption and less saving
aggravate the shortage of saved capital even further. ... (6)
Subsidize unemployment. Any subsidization of unemployment
. . . will prolong unemployment indefinitely, and delay the
shift of workers to the fields where jobs are available. (Amer-
ica's Great Depression, p. 19)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 437
reorganize. The granting of new loans simply post-
pones the eruption of the crisis, while making the nec-
essary subsequent readjustment much more severe
and difficult. Furthermore, the systematic concession
of new loans to repay the old ones delays the painful
investment liquidations, postponing, even indefi-
nitely, the arrival of the recovery. Therefore any policy
of further credit expansion should be avoided.
(b) Also very harmful are the inappropriately-named
policies of "full employment," which are intended to
guarantee jobs to all workers. As Hayek very clearly
states,
[A] 11 attempts to create full employment with
the existing distribution of labour between
industries will come up against the difficulty
that with full employment people will want a
larger share of the total output in the form of
consumers' goods than is being produced in that
form.35
Thus it is impossible for a government policy of
spending and credit expansion to successfully protect
all current jobs if workers spend their income, origi-
nating from credit expansion and artificial demand
from the public sector, in a way that requires a different
productive structure, i.e., one incapable of keeping
them in their current jobs. Any policy of artificially
preserving jobs which is financed with inflation or
credit expansion is self-destructive, insofar as con-
sumers spend the new money created, once it reaches
35Hayek, Profits, Interest and Investment, p. 60. Hayek also mentions that
the rate of unemployment fails to reflect differences between the various
stages in production processes. He points out that normally, in the deep-
est stage of the crisis, up to 25 or 30 percent of workers who dedicate
their efforts to the stages furthest from consumption may be unem-
ployed, while unemployment among workers from the stages closest to
consumption is noticeably reduced, and may reach 5 or 10 percent. See
also footnote 2 on pp. 59-60 of Hayek's book.
438 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
their pockets, in a way that makes it impossible for
those very jobs to be profitable. Hence the only labor
policy possible is to facilitate the dismissal and rehir-
ing of workers by making labor markets highly flexi-
ble.
(c) Likewise, any policy aimed at restoring the status quo
with respect to macroeconomic aggregates should
also be avoided. Crises and recessions are by nature
microeconomic, not macroeconomic, and thus such a
policy is condemned to failure, to the extent it makes
it difficult or impossible for entrepreneurs to review
their plans, regroup their capital goods, liquidate
their investment projects and rehabilitate their com-
panies. As Ludwig M. Lachmann articulately puts it,
[A]ny policy designed merely to restore the sta-
tus quo in terms of "macro-economic" aggregate
magnitudes, such as incomes and employment,
is bound to fail. The state prior to the downturn
was based on plans which have failed; hence a
policy calculated to discourage entrepreneurs
from revising their plans, but to make them "go
ahead" with the same capital combinations as
before, cannot succeed. Even if business men lis-
ten to such counsel they would simply repeat
their former experience. What is needed is a pol-
icy which promotes the necessary readjust-
ments.36
Therefore monetary policies intended to maintain at
all costs the economic boom in the face of the early
symptoms of an impending crisis (generally, a down-
turn in the stock market and real estate market), will
not prevent the recession, even when they are suffi-
cient to postpone its arrival.
(d) In addition the price of present goods in terms of
future goods, which is reflected by the social rate of
time preference, or the interest rate, should not be
36Lachmann, Capital and its Structure, p. 123.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 439
manipulated. Indeed in the recovery phase the inter-
est rate in the credit market will spontaneously tend
to decline, given the drop in the price of consumer
goods and the increase in saving brought about by the
reorganization the recession entails. Nevertheless any
manipulation of the market rate of interest is counter-
productive and exerts a negative effect on the liquida-
tion process or generates new entrepreneurial errors.
In fact we can conclude with Hayek that any policy
which tends to maintain interest rates at a fixed level
will be highly detrimental to the stability of the econ-
omy since interest rates must evolve spontaneously
according to the real preferences of economic agents
with respect to saving and consumption:
[T]he tendency to keep the rates of interest sta-
ble, and especially to keep them low as long as
possible, must appear as the arch-enemy of sta-
bility, causing in the end much greater fluctua-
tions, probably even of the rate of interest, than
are really necessary. Perhaps it should be
repeated that this applies especially to the doc-
trine, now so widely accepted, that interest rates
should be kept low till "full employment" in
general is reached.37
(e) Finally any policy involving the creation of artificial
jobs through public works or other investment proj-
ects financed by the government should be avoided. It
is evident that if such projects are financed by taxes or
via the issuance of public debt, they will simply draw
resources away from those areas of the economy
where consumers desire them and toward the public
works financed by the government, thus creating a
new layer of widespread malinvestment. Moreover if
these works or "investments" are financed through
the mere creation of new money, generalized malin-
vestment also takes place, in the sense that, if workers
37Hayek, Profits, Interest and Investment, p. 70.
440 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
employed through this procedure dedicate most of
their income to consumption, the price of consumer
goods tends to rise in relative terms, causing the deli-
cate situation of companies from the stages furthest
from consumption to deteriorate even further. In any
case, in their contracyclical policies of public spend-
ing, it is nearly impossible for governments to resist
the influence of all kinds of political pressures which
tend to render these policies even more inefficient and
harmful, as indicated by the conclusions of public-
choice theory. Furthermore there is no guarantee that
by the time governments diagnose the situation and
decide to take the supposedly remedial measures,
they will not err with respect to the timing or
sequence of the different phenomena and tend with
their measures to worsen rather than solve the mal-
adjustments.38
11
The Theory of the Cycle and Idle Resources:
Their Role in the Initial Stages of the Boom
Critics of the Austrian theory of the business cycle often
argue that the theory is based on the assumption of the full
employment of resources, and that therefore the existence of idle
resources means credit expansion would not necessarily give
rise to their widespread malinvestment. However this criti-
cism is completely unfounded. As Ludwig M. Lachmann has
insightfully revealed, the Austrian theory of the business cycle
does not start from the assumption of full employment. On
the contrary, almost from the time Mises began formulating
the theory of the cycle, in 1928, he started from the premise
that at any time a very significant volume of resources could
38On this topic see Ludwig von Mises, "The Chimera of Contracyclical
Policies," pp. 798-800 of Human Action. See also the pertinent observa-
tions of Mark Skousen on "The Hidden Drawbacks of Public Works Pro-
jects," pp. 337-39 of his book, The Structure of Production.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 441
be idle.39 In fact Mises demonstrated from the beginning that
the unemployment of resources was not only compatible with
the theory he had developed, but was actually one of its essen-
tial elements. In market processes in which entrepreneurs
undertake plans that involve the production of heterogeneous
and complementary capital goods, errors are continually com-
mitted and due to "bottlenecks," not all productive factors
and resources are fully employed. Thus the necessity of a flex-
ible market conducive to the exercise of entrepreneurship,
which tends to reveal existing maladjustments and restore
coordination in a never-ending process. Indeed the theory
explains how bank credit expansion interrupts and compli-
cates the coordinating process by which existing maladjust-
ments are remedied.40
39 [T]he Austrian theory does not, as is often suggested, assume
"Full Employment." It assumes that in general, at any
moment, some factors are scarce, some abundant. It also
assumes that, for certain reasons connected with the produc-
tion and planned use of capital goods, some of these scarcities
become more pronounced during the upswing. Those who
criticize the theory on the ground mentioned merely display
their inability to grasp the significance of a fundamental fact
in the world in which we are living: the heterogeneity of all
resources. Unemployment of some factors is not merely com-
patible with Austrian theory; unemployment of those factors
whose complements cannot come forward in the conditions
planned is an essential feature of it. (Lachmann, Capital and its
Structure, pp. 113-14)
40In 1928 Mises stated:
At times, even on the unhampered market, there are some
unemployed workers, unsold consumers' goods and quanti-
ties of unused factors of production, which would not exist
under "static equilibrium." With the revival of business and
productive activity, these reserves are in demand right away.
However, once they are gone, the increase of the supply of
fiduciary media necessarily leads to disturbances of a special
kind. (Mises, On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, p. 125)
This is the English translation of a passage found on p. 49 of the book
Mises originally published in Jena in 1928. It is entitled, Geldzvertstabil-
isierung und Konjunkturpolitik. Hayek, in his book, Profits, Interest and
Investment, pp. 3-73, presents his theory of the business cycle, starting
442 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The theory of the business cycle teaches precisely that
credit expansion unbacked by an increase in real saving will
encourage the malinvestment of productive resources even
when there is a significant volume of idle resources, specifically,
unemployed labor. In other words, contrary to opinions
expressed by many critics of the theory, full employment is
not a prerequisite of the microeconomic distortions of credit
expansion. When credit expansion takes place, economic proj-
ects which are not actually profitable appear so, regardless of
whether they are carried out with resources that were unem-
ployed prior to their commencement. The only effect is that
the nominal price of the original means of production may not
rise as much as it would if full employment existed before-
hand. Nevertheless the other factors which give rise to malin-
vestment and a spontaneous reversal, in the form of a crisis
and recession, of the errors committed eventually appear,
regardless of whether the errors have been committed with
originally-unemployed resources.
An artificial boom based on bank credit expansion which
reallocates previously-unemployed original means of produc-
tion merely interrupts the process of readjustment of those
factors, a process not yet complete. Consequently a new layer
of widespread malinvestment of resources overlaps a previ-
ous layer which has yet to be completely liquidated and reab-
sorbed by the market.
Another possible effect of the use of previously-idle
resources is the following: apart from the fact that their price
does not increase as rapidly in absolute terms, they may make
a short-term slowdown in the production of consumer goods
and services unnecessary. Nonetheless a poor allocation of
resources still takes place, since resources are invested in
unprofitable projects, and the effects of the cycle eventually
appear when the monetary income of the previously-unem-
ployed original means of production begins to be spent on
from the existence of idle resources. There he expressly reminds us that
from the time Mises began developing the theory of the cycle in 1928, he
assumed some labor and other resources would be unemployed (see
also the footnote 1 on p. 42).
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 443
consumer goods and services. The relative prices of these
goods and services rise more rapidly than the prices of prod-
ucts from the stages furthest from consumption, thus dimin-
ishing real relative wages and setting off the "Ricardo Effect"
and the other effects which lead to crisis and recession. In any
case credit expansion will always, from the outset, cause a
more-than-proportional increase in the relative price of prod-
ucts from the stages furthest from consumption. This rise
stems from the new monetary demand credit generates for
these goods and from the artificial reduction in the interest
rate, which makes such projects more attractive. This results in
a lengthening of the productive structure, a change which can-
not be maintained in the long run and which is completely
independent of whether previously-idle resources have been
used in some of such projects.
Therefore the common argument that the theory devel-
oped by Mises, Hayek, and the Austrian School rests on the
existence of a full employment of resources is fallacious. Even
if we suppose high unemployment exists, the credit expansion
process invariably leads to a recession.41
41 Thus it becomes obvious how vain it is to justify a new credit
expansion by referring to unused capacity unsold — or, as peo-
ple say incorrectly, "unsalable" — stocks, and unemployed
workers. The beginning of a new credit expansion runs across
remainders of preceding malinvestment and malemployment,
not yet obliterated in the course of the readjustment process,
and seemingly remedies the faults involved. In fact, however,
this is merely an interruption of the process of readjustment
and of the return to sound conditions. The existence of
unused capacity and unemployment is not a valid argument
against the correctness of the circulation credit theory. (Mises,
Human Action, p. 580)
Hayek arrives at a similar conclusion, though his reasoning differs
slightly:
If the proportion as determined by the voluntary decisions of
individuals is distorted by the creation of artificial demand, it
must mean that part of the available resources is again led
into a wrong direction and a definite and lasting adjustment
is again postponed. And, even if the absorption of the unem-
ployed resources were to be quickened in this way it would
444 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
12
The Necessary Tightening of Credit in
the Recession Stage: Criticism of the
Theory of "Secondary Depression"
We will now consider three different types of deflation,
defined as any decrease in the quantity of money "in circula-
tion."42 Deflation consists of a drop in the money supply or a
rise in the demand for money and other things being equal, it
tends to cause an increase in the purchasing power of the
monetary unit (i.e., a decline in the "general price level").
Nevertheless it is important to avoid confusing deflation with
its most typical, pronounced effect (the fall in the general
price level), given that in certain cases the prices of goods and
services decrease in the absence of deflation. As we have seen,
this is part of the healthy growth process of an economy
whose productivity is improving due to the incorporation of
new technologies and to capital accumulation which arises
from the entrepreneurial spirit and from the natural increase in
the voluntary saving of its agents. We studied this process in
previous sections, and without any decrease in the quantity of
money in circulation, it gives rise to a widespread increase in
the production of consumer goods and services, which can
only be sold at lower prices. Thus the process results in a real
rise in wages and in the income of the other original means of
only mean that the seed would already be sown for new dis-
turbances and new crises. The only way permanently to
"mobilise" all available resources is, therefore, not to use arti-
ficial stimulants — whether during the crisis or thereafter —
but to leave it to time to effect a permanent cure by the slow
process of adapting the structure of production to the means
available for capital purposes. (Hayek, Prices and Production,
pp. 98-99)
Mark Skousen also makes some very shrewd observations on this sub-
ject in his book, The Structure of Production, pp. 289-90.
42This expression, though quite vivid, is not theoretically rigorous, since
money is never "in circulation," but always forms part of the cash bal-
ances of someone.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 445
production, because although the income of workers and of the
other owners of original factors may remain fairly constant in
nominal terms, the prices of the consumer goods and services
workers acquire drop considerably. In this case the decline in the
general price level is not monetary in origin, but real,43 and it
derives from the generalized increase in the productivity of the
economy. Hence this phenomenon is completely unrelated to
deflation as we have defined it, and is simply a sign of the
healthiest and most natural process of economic development.
Nonetheless we will now examine three distinct types of
deflation (strictly defined as any decline in the supply of or
increase in the demand for money) which have radically dif-
ferent causes and consequences. Let us analyze these types of
deflation in detail:44
43See the section entitled, "Cash-Induced and Goods-Induced Changes
in Purchasing Power," from chapter 17 of Mises, Human Action, 3rd edv
pp. 419ff.
44In short we attempt to fill an important theoretical gap in the eco-
nomic theory of deflation. In 1933 Ludwig von Mises revealed this gap
when he stated,
Unfortunately, economic theory is weakest precisely where
help is most needed — in analyzing the effects of declining
prices. . . . Yet today even more than ever before, the rigidity
of wage rates and the costs of many other factors of produc-
tion hamper an unbiased consideration of the problem.
Therefore, it would certainly be timely now to investigate
thoroughly the effects of declining money prices and to ana-
lyze the widely held idea that declining prices are incompat-
ible with the increased production of goods and services and
an improvement in general welfare. The investigation should
include a discussion of whether it is true that only inflationis-
tic steps permit the progressive accumulation of capital and
productive facilities. So long as this naive inflationist theory
of development is firmly held, proposals for using credit
expansion to produce a boom will continue to be successful.
Ludwig von Mises, "Die Stellung und der nachste Zukunft der Kon-
junkturforschung," published in Festschrift in honor of Arthur Spiethoff
(Munich: Duncker and Humblot, 1933), pp. 175-80, and translated into
English as "The Current Status of Business Cycle Research and its
Prospects for the Immediate Future," published in On the Manipulation
of Money and Credit, pp. 207-13 (the excerpt is taken from pp. 212-13).
446 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(a) The first type consists of policies adopted by public
authorities to deliberately reduce the quantity of
money in circulation. Such policies have been imple-
mented on various historical occasions45 and trigger a
process by which the purchasing power of the mone-
tary unit tends to increase. Moreover this forced
decrease in the quantity of money in circulation dis-
torts the structure of society's productive stages.
Indeed the reduction in the quantity of money ini-
tially brings about a decline in loan concession and an
artificial increase in the market interest rate, which in
turn leads to a flattening of the productive structure,
a modification forced by strictly monetary factors
(and not by the true desires of consumers). Conse-
quently many profitable capital goods stages in the
productive structure erroneously appear unprofitable
(especially those furthest from consumption and most
capital-intensive). As a result the most specialized
companies in capital-intensive sectors sustain wide-
spread accounting losses. Furthermore in all sectors
the reduced monetary demand is unaccompanied by a
parallel, equally-rapid decline in costs, and thus
accounting losses arise and pessimism becomes gener-
alized. In addition the increase in the purchasing
power of the monetary unit and the decrease in the
products' selling price cause a substantial rise in the
real income of the owners of the original means of pro-
duction, who, to the extent their prices are rigid and
do not fall at the same rate as those of consumer
goods, will tend to become unemployed. Therefore a
prolonged, painful adjustment period begins and lasts
until the entire productive structure and all original
factors have adjusted to the new monetary conditions.
45For example on May 13, 1925, Winston Churchill, at that time Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, decided to restore the
pre-World War I gold parity of the pound sterling. In other words, the
parity which had existed since 1717, when Sir Isaac Newton fixed it at 1
pound per 4.86 dollars of gold.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 447
This whole process of deliberate deflation contributes
nothing and merely subjects the economic system to
unnecessary pressure. Regrettably, politicians' lack of
theoretical knowledge has led them on various histor-
ical occasions to deliberately initiate such a process.46
46The most typical examples of deflation deliberately initiated by gov-
ernments are found in the United Kingdom: first, following the
Napoleonic wars, and then, as mentioned above, under the auspices of
Winston Churchill in 1925 when, despite the tremendous inflation
which affected pound sterling notes in World War I, he decided to
restore the currency's prewar parity with gold. In short Churchill bla-
tantly disregarded the advice Ricardo had given 100 years earlier in a
very similar situation, following the Napoleonic wars: "I should never
advise a government to restore a currency which had been depreciated
30 per cent to par." Letter from David Ricardo to John Wheatley, dated
September 18, 1821, The Works of David Ricardo, Piero Sraffa, ed. (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), vol. 9, p. 73. Ludwig von
Mises, in reference to these two historical cases, states:
The outstanding examples were provided by Great Britain's
return, both after the wartime inflation of the Napoleonic
wars and after that of the first World War, to the prewar gold
parity of the sterling. In each case Parliament and Cabinet
adopted the deflationist policy without having weighed the
pros and cons of the two methods open for a return to the
gold standard. In the second decade of the nineteenth century
they could be exonerated, as at that time monetary theory had
not yet clarified the problems involved. More than a hundred
years later it was simply a display of inexcusable ignorance of
economics as well as of monetary history. (Mises, Human
Action, pp. 567-68 and also p. 784)
EA. Hayek points out the grave error of returning to the pre-World War I
parity between gold and the pound and also mentions that this policy
was implemented slowly and gradually, instead of in the form of a rapid
shock, as took place in the United States between 1920 and 1921. Hayek
concludes:
Though the clear determination of the government to restore
the gold standard made it possible to do so as early as 1925,
internal prices and wages were then still far from being
adapted to the international level. To maintain this parity, a
slow and highly painful process of deflation was initiated,
bringing lasting and extensive unemployment, to be aban-
doned only when it became intolerable when intensified by
448 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(b) The second type of deflation, which should be clearly
distinguished from the first, occurs when economic
agents decide to save; that is, to refrain from consum-
ing a significant portion of their income and to devote
all or part of the monetary total saved to increasing
their cash balances (i.e., to hoarding).47 In this case, the
rise in the demand for money tends to push up the
purchasing power of the monetary unit (in other
words, it tends to push down the "general price
level"). However this type of deflation differs radi-
cally from the former in the sense that it does make a
contribution, since it originates from an increase in
the saving of economic agents, who thus free
resources in the form of unsold consumer goods and
services. This provokes the effects we studied in chap-
ter 5, where we considered a rise in voluntary saving.
More specifically the "Ricardo Effect" appears, due to
the drop in the relative prices of consumer goods,
which in turn leads to an increase, other things being
equal, in the real wages of workers and in the income
of the other original means of production. Hence the
processes which trigger a lengthening of the produc-
tive structure are set in motion. The productive struc-
ture becomes more capital-intensive, due to the new
investment projects undertaken, projects entrepre-
neurs will be able to complete because productive
the world crisis of 1931 — but, I am still inclined to believe, just
at the time when the aim of that painful struggle had been
nearly achieved. (RA. Hayek, 1980s Unemployment and the
Unions: The Distortion of Relative Prices by Monopoly in the
Labour Markets, 2nd ed. [London: Institute of Economic
Affairs, 1984], p. 15. See also footnote 43 in chapter 8)
47It is also possible, in theory and in practice, for economic agents to
raise their cash balances (demand for money) without at all modifying
their volume of monetary consumption. They can do this by disinvest-
ing in productive resources and selling capital goods. This leads to a
flattening of the productive structure and brings about the widespread
impoverishment of society through a process which is the exact oppo-
site of the one we analyzed in chapter 5 with respect to a lengthening
(financed by growth in voluntary saving) of the productive structure.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 449
resources have been freed in the stages closest to con-
sumption. The only difference between this situation
and that of an increase in voluntary saving which is
immediately and directly invested in the productive
structure or capital markets is as follows: when saving
manifests itself as a rise in cash balances, there is a
necessary decline in the price of consumer goods and
services and in the price of products from the inter-
mediate stages, as well as an inevitable reduction in
the nominal income of the original means of produc-
tion and in wages, all of which adapt to the increased
purchasing power of the monetary unit. Nevertheless
unlike the first type of deflation mentioned, this type
does not entail a painful process which contributes
nothing. Instead here it is based on effective saving
which causes a rise in society's productivity. The
lengthening of the productive structure and the real-
location of the factors of production occur to the extent
there is a change, as explained in chapter 5, in the rel-
ative prices of the products from the intermediate
stages and from the final stage, consumption. Such a
change is independent of whether, in absolute, nominal
terms, all prices must drop (to a varying extent) as a
consequence of the increased purchasing power of the
monetary unit.48
48 Whenever an individual devotes a sum of money to saving
instead of spending it for consumption, the process of saving
agrees perfectly with the process of capital accumulation and
investment. It does not matter whether the individual saver
does or does not increase his cash holding. The act of saving
always has its counterpart in a supply of goods produced and
not consumed, of goods available for further production
activities. A man's savings are always embodied in concrete
capital goods. . . . The effect of our saver's saving, i.e., the sur-
plus of goods produced over goods consumed, does not dis-
appear on account of his hoarding. The prices of capital goods
do not rise to the height they would have attained in the
absence of such hoarding. But the fact that more capital goods
are available is not affected by the striving of a number of
people to increase their cash holdings. . . . The two
450 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(c) The third type of deflation we will consider results
from the tightening of credit which normally occurs in
the crisis and recession stage that follows all credit
expansion. This process was mentioned in chapters 4
and 5, where we analyzed the following: just as credit
expansion increases the quantity of money in circula-
tion, the massive repayment of loans and the loss of
value on the assets side of banks' balance sheets, both
caused by the crisis, trigger an inevitable, cumulative
process of credit tightening which reduces the quan-
tity of money in circulation and thus generates defla-
tion. This third type of deflation arises when, as the
crisis is emerging, not only does credit expansion stop
increasing, but there is actually a credit squeeze and
thus, deflation, or a drop in the money supply, or
quantity of money in circulation. Nevertheless this
sort of deflation differs from that analyzed in (a)
above and produces various positive effects which
merit our attention. First, deflation caused by the
tightening of credit does not give rise to the unneces-
sary maladjustments referred to in section (a); instead
it facilitates and accelerates the liquidation of the
investment projects launched in error during the
expansionary phase. Therefore it is the natural market
reaction necessary for a rapid liquidation of the
investment projects undertaken in error during the
expansionary stage. A second positive effect of credit
deflation is that it in a sense reverses the redistribu-
tion of income which took place in the expansionary
stage of the inflationary boom. In fact inflationary
expansion tended to bring about a decrease in the
purchasing power of money, which in turn reduced
the real income of everyone on a fixed income (savers,
widows, orphans, pensioners) in favor of those who
first received the loans of the banking system and first
processes — increased cash holding of some people and
increased capital accumulation — take place side by side.
(Mises, Human Action, pp. 521-22)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 451
experienced an increase in monetary income. Now, in
the stage of credit tightening, this forced redistribu-
tion of income reverses in favor of those who in the
expansionary stage were the first harmed, and thus
people on a fixed income (widows, orphans, and pen-
sioners) will gain an advantage over those who most
exploited the situation in the earlier stage. Third,
credit deflation generally makes business ventures
appear less profitable, since historical costs are
recorded in monetary units with less purchasing
power, and later, accounting income is recorded in
monetary units with more purchasing power. As a
result entrepreneurial profits are artificially dimin-
ished in account books, prompting entrepreneurs to
save more and distribute less in the form of divi-
dends (exactly the opposite of what they did in the
expansionary phase). This tendency to save is highly
favorable to the commencement of economic recov-
ery49 The decline, provoked by the tightening of
credit, in the quantity of money in circulation
undoubtedly tends to drive up the purchasing power
of the monetary unit. An inevitable drop in the wages
and income of the original means of production fol-
lows, though at first this decrease will be more rapid
49An analysis of the positive effects of this third type of deflation
(caused by the tightening of credit in the recession stage of the cycle) can
be found in Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, pp. 863-71. See also
Mises, Human Action, pp. 566-70. Furthermore Mises indicates that
despite its negative effects, the deflationary squeeze is never as damag-
ing as credit expansion, because
contraction produces neither malinvestment nor overcon-
sumption. The temporary restriction in business activities
that it engenders may by and large be offset by the drop in
consumption on the part of the discharged wage earners and
the owners of the material factors of production the sales of
which drop. No protracted scars are left. When the contrac-
tion comes to an end, the process of readjustment does not
need to make good for losses caused by capital consumption.
(Mises, Human Action, p. 567)
452 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
than the reduction in the price of consumer goods and
services, if such a reduction takes place. Consequently,
in relative terms, the wages and income of the original
means of production will decline, leading to an
increased hiring of workers over machines and a mas-
sive transfer of workers toward the stages closest to
consumption. In other words the credit squeeze rein-
forces and accelerates the necessary "flattening" of the
productive structure, a process which accompanies the
recession. It is essential that labor markets be flexible in
every aspect, in order to facilitate the massive transfers
of productive resources and labor. The sooner the read-
justment is completed and the effect of loans granted
for erroneous investment projects is eliminated, the
sooner the foundations of the subsequent recovery will
be laid. The recovery will be characterized by a restora-
tion of the relative price of the original means of pro-
duction, i.e., by a decrease in the price of consumer
goods and services. This reduction in the price of con-
sumer goods and services will be greater, in relative
terms, than the drop in wages, due to an increase in
society's general saving, which will again stimulate
growth in the capital goods stages. This growth will be
achievable, given that it will originate from a rise in
voluntary saving. As Wilhelm Ropke reasonably con-
cludes, this third type of deflation (the result of the
credit squeeze that follows the crisis)
is the unavoidable reaction to the inflation of the
boom and must not be counteracted, otherwise a
prolongation and aggravation of the crisis will
ensue, as the experiences in the United States in
1930 have shown.50
Under certain conditions, government and union inter-
vention, along with the institutional rigidity of the markets,
may prevent the necessary readjustments which precede any
50Wilhelm Ropke, Crises and Cycles (London: William Hodge, 1936), p.
120.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 453
recovery of economic activity. If wages are inflexible, hiring
conditions very rigid, union power great and governments
succumb to the temptation of protectionism, then extremely
high unemployment can actually be maintained indefinitely,
without any adjustment to new economic conditions on the
part of the original means of production. Under these circum-
stances a cumulative process of contraction may also be trig-
gered. By such a process the massive growth of unemploy-
ment would give rise to a widespread decrease in demand,
which in turn would provoke new doses of unemployment,
etc. Some theorists have used the term secondary depression to
refer to this process, which does not arise from spontaneous
market forces, but from coercive government intervention in
labor markets, products, and international trade. In some
instances, "secondary depression" theorists have considered
the mere possibility of such a situation a prima facie argument
to justify government intervention, encouraging new credit
expansion and public spending. However the only effective
policy for avoiding a "secondary depression," or for prevent-
ing the severity of one, is to broadly liberalize markets and
resist the temptation of credit expansion policies. Any policy
which tends to keep wages high and make markets rigid
should be abandoned. These policies would only make the
readjustment process longer and more painful, even to the
point of making it politically unbearable.51
What should be done if, under certain circumstances, it
appears politically "impossible" to take the measures neces-
sary to make labor markets flexible, abandon protectionism
and promote the readjustment which is the prerequisite of
any recovery? This is an extremely intriguing question of
51Wilhelm Ropke, the chief "secondary depression" theorist, in his hes-
itant and at times contradictory treatment of the topic, acknowledges
that in any case, in the absence of outside intervention or rigidity, spon-
taneous market forces prevent a "secondary depression" from hitting
and developing. Even when the rigidity of labor markets and the imple-
mentation of protectionist policies causes such a depression and it
develops, the market ultimately invariably and spontaneously estab-
lishes a "floor" to the cumulative process of depression. See Ropke,
Crises and Cycles, pp. 128-29.
454 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
economic policy, and its answer must depend on a correct
evaluation of the severity of each particular set of circum-
stances. Although theory suggests that any policy which con-
sists of an artificial increase in consumption, in public spend-
ing and in credit expansion is counterproductive, no one
denies that, in the short run, it is possible to absorb any vol-
ume of unemployment by simply raising public spending or
credit expansion, albeit at the cost of interrupting the read-
justment process and aggravating the eventual recession.
Nonetheless Hayek himself admitted that, under certain cir-
cumstances, a situation might become so desperate that polit-
ically the only remaining option would be to intervene again,
which is like giving a drink to a man with a hangover. In 1939
Hayek made the following related comments:
it has, of course, never been denied that employment can be
rapidly increased, and a position of "full employment"
achieved in the shortest possible time by means of monetary
expansion. . . . All that has been contended is that the kind
of full employment which can be created in this way is
inherently unstable, and that to create employment by these
means is to perpetuate fluctuations. There may be desperate
situations in which it may indeed be necessary to increase
employment at all costs, even if it be only for a short
period — perhaps the situation in which Dr. Bruning found
himself in Germany in 1932 was such a situation in which
desperate means would have been justified. But the econo-
mist should not conceal the fact that to aim at the maximum
of employment which can be achieved in the short run by
means of monetary policy is essentially the policy of the
desperado who has nothing to lose and everything to gain
from a short breathing space.52
52Hayek, Profits, Interest and Investment, footnote 1 on pp. 63-64. Hayek
later amplified his ideas on the subject, indicating that in the thirties he
was opposed to Germany's expansionary policy and even wrote an arti-
cle that he never actually published. He sent the article to Professor
Ropke with a personal note in which he stated the following:
Apart from political considerations I feel you ought not — not
yet at least — to start expanding credit. But if the political sit-
uation is so serious that continuing unemployment would
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 455
Now let us suppose politicians ignore the economist's rec-
ommendations and circumstances do not permit the liberal-
ization of the economy, and therefore unemployment becomes
widespread, the readjustment is never completed and the
economy enters a phase of cumulative contraction. Further-
more let us suppose it is politically impossible to take any
appropriate measure and the situation even threatens to end
in a revolution. What type of monetary expansion would be
the least disturbing from an economic standpoint? In this case
the policy with the least damaging effects, though it would
still exert some very harmful ones on the economic system,
would be the adoption of a program of public works which
would give work to the unemployed at relatively reduced
wages, so workers could later move on quickly to other more
profitable and comfortable activities once circumstances
improved. At any rate it would be important to refrain from
the direct granting of loans to companies from the productive
stages furthest from consumption. Thus a policy of govern-
ment aid to the unemployed, in exchange for the actual com-
pletion of works of social value at low pay (in order to avoid
providing an incentive for workers to remain chronically
lead to a political revolution, please do not publish my article.
That is a political consideration, however, the merits of which
I cannot judge from outside Germany but which you will be
able to judge.
Hayek concludes:
Ropke's reaction was not to publish the article, because he
was convinced that at that time the political danger of
increasing unemployment was so great that he would risk the
danger of causing further misdirections by more inflation in
the hope of postponing the crisis; at that particular moment,
this seemed to him politically necessary and I consequently
withdrew my article. (EA. Hayek, "The Campaign Against
Keynesian Inflation," chapter 13 of New Studies in Philosophy,
Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, p. 211)
At any rate desperate measures such as this can only procure a brief
respite, while postponing the resolution of problems, which become
much more serious over time. Indeed despite Ropke's consequentialist
decision, the situation in Germany continued to deteriorate and it was
impossible to prevent Hitler's accession to power in 1933.
456 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
unemployed) would be the least debilitating under the
extreme conditions described above.53
13
The "Manic-Depressive" Economy:
The Dampening of the Entrepreneurial Spirit
and Other Negative Effects Recurring Business
Cycles Exert on the Market Economy
The economic crises credit expansion repeatedly provokes
lead to other consequences which are more subtle, yet no less
damaging to the harmonious cooperation among people and
to their economic and social development.54 Specifically it is
53F.A. Hayek himself mentions that, under such circumstances, the least
damaging policy would consist of offering
employment through public works at relatively low wages so
that workers will wish to move as soon as they can to other
and better paid occupations, and not by directly stimulating
particular kinds of investment or similar kinds of public
expenditure which will draw labour into jobs they will expect
to be permanent but which must cease as the source of the
expenditure dries up. (Hayek, "The Campaign against Key-
nesian Inflation," p. 212)
However the risk of this type of concession is that, in current democratic
systems, it is almost certain to be used by politicians in a less than rig-
orous manner to justify their measures of intervention in any economic
recession. A possible solution might be to include as an article in the
constitution the principle, supported by classical experts of public
finance, of a balanced budget. As the agreement of all political forces
would be required in order to modify the article, and this would only
occur in the case of a unanimous belief in the "critical" nature of the sit-
uation, the risk of the unjustified implementation of artificial expan-
sionary measures in times of crisis could be reduced.
54The fact that new crises erupt every few years shows that they origi-
nate from the credit expansion process, which necessarily sets off the
spontaneous readjustments we have studied. In the absence of credit
expansion, economic crises would be specific, isolated events which
would result only from unusual phenomena of a physical sort (poor
crops, earthquakes, etc.) or of a social sort (wars, revolutions, etc.). They
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 457
necessary to highlight the way in which the current monetary
system, based on credit expansion, has made it customary for
booms and crises to disturb economic development. In other
words, it appears as if "manic-depressive" behavior were
required of a market economy.
Indeed businessmen, journalists, politicians, union mem-
bers, and economic agents in general have come to consider
the artificial expansionary phase characteristic of a boom to be
the normal stage of prosperity, which should be sought and
maintained in any way possible. By the same token, expan-
sion's inevitable consequences, i.e., crisis and recession, are
considered a very negative stage which should be avoided at
all costs.55 Economic agents do not recognize the recession as
the inevitable result of artificial expansion, and they fail to
realize it has the virtue of revealing the errors committed and
facilitating the recovery and readjustment of the productive
structure.
Furthermore credit expansion excessively and unjustifi-
ably forces economic agents' reflexes and the pace at which
they work. While the expansion lasts, people's capacity for
work is pushed to the limit and their entrepreneurial spirit
becomes corrupted. Psychological stress and wear follow and
are of high human and personal cost. Moreover the new
money created via the expansionary granting of loans is used
would not arise regularly, nor would they be as geographically wide-
spread as they normally are.
55 The boom is called good business, prosperity and upswing.
Its unavoidable aftermath, the readjustment of conditions to
the real data of the market, is called crisis, slump, bad busi-
ness, depression. People rebel against the insight that the dis-
turbing element is to be seen in the malinvestment and the
overconsumption of the boom period and that such an artifi-
cially induced boom is doomed. (Mises, Human Action, p. 575)
Thus it is a grave error to believe real wealth is destroyed by the stock
market crash which announces the crisis. On the contrary, the economic
destruction takes place much earlier, in the form of generalized malin-
vestment during the previous stage, the credit boom. The fall in the
stock market merely indicates economic agents have finally taken notice
of this phenomenon. See also section 14.
458 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
to finance all sorts of speculative operations, takeover bids and
financial and trade wars in which the culture of short-sighted
speculation prevails. In other words the misconceived idea
that it is possible and desirable to accumulate astronomical
profits with astonishing ease and swiftness spreads. This dis-
courages the traditional entrepreneurial spirit and a job well
done, both of which are based on prudent business manage-
ment with an attitude of constancy and commitment to the
achievement of long-term goals. This is what we have in mind
when we refer to the widespread demoralization caused by
artificial credit expansion. This discouragement is especially
devastating to society's youngest, most dynamic generations.56
The problem is made worse if, as theorists who have ana-
lyzed the cycle from a political standpoint have shown,57
politicians make their decisions entirely on a short-term basis
and with the aim of attaining immediate support to guarantee
them victory in the next election, and therefore they never hes-
itate to advocate and initiate those policies of monetary
expansion which will most help them achieve electoral suc-
cess in the short run. Furthermore as any deviation from arti-
ficial expansion and the excessive optimism it produces is
viewed unfavorably, immediately attacked by the media and
used as a political weapon to be hurled by the opposition,
unions and business organizations, no one dares to condemn the
56The effect of credit expansion is more harmful the more accustomed
economic agents are to an austere economy, the sustained growth of
which depends solely on voluntary saving. It is under these circum-
stances that credit expansion is most damaging. Nevertheless under
current conditions, in which artificial booms alternate with recessions,
economic agents begin to learn from experience and the expansionary
effects of the granting of loans are increasingly reduced or are achieved
solely at the cost of injecting mounting volumes of credit at an escalat-
ing rate.
57William D. Nordhaus, "The Political Business Cycle," Review of Eco-
nomic Studies 42, no. 130 (April 1975): 169-90. See also Edward R. Tufte,
Political Control of the Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1978); and C. Duncan MacRae, "A Political Model of the Business
Cycle," published in Journal of Political Economy 85 (1977): 239-63. See
also footnote 56 of chapter 9.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 459
evils of the credit policy. This creates an environment of mon-
etary irresponsibility which tends to aggravate problems and
makes it highly unlikely they will be resolved through a sensi-
ble readjustment and liquidation which lay the foundations for
a sustained recovery that does not depend on credit expansion.
The recurrent economic crises credit expansion provokes
exert another very destructive effect on market economies and
the principles of freedom of enterprise. Indeed each expansion
process is invariably followed by a painful stage of readjust-
ment, which is the ideal breeding ground for justifications of
subsequent state intervention in the economy and for popular
arguments that it is precisely the economic recession which
reveals the inadequacies of a market economy and "proves"
the necessity for the state to intervene more in the economy at
all levels to mitigate the consequences of the recession and
prevent further crises. Thus the recession provides a favorable
environment for the resurgence of proposals of trade protec-
tionism, market intervention, increases in the government
budget deficit, and regulation of the economy. As we know,
these interventionist policies only serve to prolong and aggra-
vate the recession, and to hamper the necessary recovery.
Sadly, the timid beginnings of the recovery are accompanied
by such public pressure in favor of new credit expansion that
expansion begins again and the entire process is repeated. As
Mises eloquently concludes: "But the worst is that people are
incorrigible. After a few years they embark anew upon credit
expansion, and the old story repeats itself."58
14
The Influence Exerted on the Stock Market
by Economic Fluctuations
The stock market is an important part of the marketplace
in which securities representing loans to companies are traded
(also called the "capital market"). Securities are the legal
58Mises, Human Action, p. 578.
460 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
embodiment of investments which savers, or capitalists, make
in the following type of transaction: Capitalists concede pres-
ent goods to demanders of present goods, who are willing to
hand over a larger quantity of future goods to savers, or
lenders, in the future in exchange for the ability to use the
present goods in production processes. These securities may
take on a wide variety of legal forms; they may be stocks,
bonds, etc. In any case the stock market has the great virtue of
facilitating the exchange of ownership of such securities, and
hence of the corresponding capital goods of which the securi-
ties represent a share. Another main advantage of the stock
market is that it allows the holders of securities to obtain rapid
liquidity should they wish to part with them.59 In addition it
permits economic agents to temporarily invest their excess
cash on hand, which they can use to purchase securities, and
though these securities may represent long-term investments,
they can be held for shorter periods and sold at any time.60
59Another essential function of the stock market and the options and
futures market has been revealed, in accordance with the most hallowed
tradition of the Austrian School, by Ludwig M. Lachmann, who states:
[T]he Stock Exchange by facilitating the exchange of knowl-
edge tends to make the expectations of large numbers of peo-
ple consistent with each other, at least more consistent than
they would have been otherwise; and that through the con-
tinual revaluation of yield streams it promotes consistent capi-
tal change and therefore economic progress. (Lachmann, Capi-
tal and its Structure, p. 71; italics added)
60It is important to point out that the banking sector has largely usurped
this important role of the stock market. Since the banking sector can
expand credit, generate deposits and pay them out, it has become a pop-
ular tool for investing a temporary excess of cash. This is very harmful,
as it permits an even greater increase in credit expansion, along with the
negative effects we are familiar with. However if excess cash were
placed in the stock market, it would lead to an effective rise in voluntary
saving, which would permit the lengthening of investment processes,
and no inevitable subsequent crisis would force entrepreneurs to sus-
pend these processes (yet savers would never have the guarantee of
receiving the same monetary sum for their securities, should they sell
them, as they pay when they buy them). A common criticism against the
stock market is that its small size and limited development make the
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 461
In an economy which shows healthy, sustained growth,
voluntary savings flow into the productive structure by two
routes: either through the self-financing of companies, or
through the stock market. Nevertheless the arrival of savings
via the stock market is slow and gradual and does not involve
stock market booms or euphoria.61
Only when the banking sector initiates a policy of credit
expansion unbacked by a prior increase in voluntary saving
do stock market indexes show dramatic and sustained overall
growth. In fact newly-created money in the form of bank loans
reaches the stock market at once, starting a purely speculative
upward trend in market prices which generally affects most
securities to some extent. Prices may continue to mount as
long as credit expansion is maintained at an accelerated rate.
Credit expansion not only causes a sharp, artificial relative
drop in interest rates, along with the upward movement in
market prices which inevitably follows. It also allows securi-
ties with continuously rising prices to be used as collateral for
new loan requests in a vicious circle which feeds on continual,
speculative stock market booms, and which does not come to
issuance of bank deposits necessary for the financing of production proj-
ects. We are now in a position to grasp why this criticism is unjustified.
The reality is actually quite the opposite: banks' ability to finance invest-
ment projects via credit expansion unbacked by real saving is precisely
what places banks in a position of prominence in many investment proj-
ects, to the detriment of the stock market, which loses importance in the
process of investment and in many instances becomes a secondary mar-
ket which, throughout the cycle, follows the guidelines set by the bank-
ing sector.
^lOnly a sudden, improbable drop in society's rate of time preference
would allow stock-market indexes, in the absence of credit expansion,
to jump to a new, consolidated level, from which point, at most, slow,
gradual stock-market growth could take place. Thus continuously-pro-
longed stock-market booms and euphoria are invariably artificial and
fed by credit expansion. Moreover such episodes of euphoria encourage
the public to postpone consumption for the short term and invest cash
balances in the stock market. Therefore while expectations of stock-mar-
ket booms fed by credit expansion last, the crisis and recession can be
temporarily postponed. This is what happened at the end of the 1990s,
before the severe stock-market adjustment of 2000-2001 .
462 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
an end as long as credit expansion lasts. As Fritz Machlup
explains:
If it were not for the elasticity of bank credit, which has often
been regarded as such a good thing, the boom in security
values could not last for any length of time. In the absence
of inflationary credit the funds available for lending to the
public for security purchases would soon be exhausted.62
Therefore (and this is perhaps one of the most important
conclusions we can reach at this point) uninterrupted stock
market growth never indicates favorable economic condi-
tions. Quite the contrary: all such growth provides the most
unmistakable sign of credit expansion unbacked by real sav-
ings, expansion which feeds an artificial boom that will invari-
ably culminate in a severe stock market crisis.
By the same token, as Hayek has shown, the significant
capital gains acquired on the stock market during the expan-
sion stage, to the extent economic agents consider them an
addition to their wealth and spend them on the purchase of
consumer goods and services, imply substantial consumption
of capital, an event which will ultimately make society
poorer.63
Even when, analytically speaking, it is perfectly easy to
identify the processes which tend to reverse the investment
projects undertaken in error as a result of credit expansion, it
is impossible to determine in advance exactly when and under
62Machlup, The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation, p. 92. This
book by Machlup is essential to understanding the cycle's influence on
the stock market.
63 Stock Exchange profits made during such periods of capital
appreciation in terms of money, which do not correspond to
any proportional increase of capital beyond the amount
which is required to reproduce the equivalent of current
income, are not income, and their use for consumption pur-
poses must lead to a destruction of capital. (EA. Hayek, "The
Maintenance of Capital," Economica 2 [August 1934])
This article appears as chapter 3 of Profits, Interest and Investment, pp.
83-134. The above excerpt is found on p. 133.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 463
what specific circumstances the artificial nature of the expan-
sion will become evident in the stock market, ultimately setting
off a crisis. However the stock market will definitely offer the
first sign that the expansion is artificial and has "feet of clay"
and then quite possibly the slightest trigger will set off a stock
market crash.64 The crash will take place as soon as economic
agents begin to doubt the continuance of the expansionary
process, observe a slowdown or halt in credit expansion and
in short, become convinced that a crisis and recession will
appear in the near future. At that point the fate of the stock
market is sealed.
The first symptoms of a stock market crisis seriously
frighten politicians, economic authorities and the public in
general, and a widespread clamor in favor of enough further
credit expansion to consolidate and maintain the high stock
market indexes is usually heard. High security prices are mis-
takenly viewed as a sign of good economic "health," and
therefore it is wrongly believed that all possible measures
should be taken to prevent the stock market from collapsing.65
64Regardless of its specific historical trigger, the stock market crisis will
erupt after credit expansion decreases, since, as Fritz Machlup states,
The most probable result in this case is a quick recession of
security prices. For higher stock prices will invite a new sup-
ply of securities, and the corporations, which want to take
advantage of the higher prices in order to draw funds from
the stock exchange and use them for real investment, will find
that there are no additional funds to be had. (Machlup, The
Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation, p. 90)
65We make no mention of the unquestionable fact that the interests of
many speculative security holders are behind a large part of the "public
clamor" in favor of institutional support of the stock market. Likewise it
is highly significant that when a stock market crisis erupts, the media
almost unanimously convey "reassuring" messages which insist the
phenomenon is transient and "unjustified" and advise the public not
only to refrain from getting rid of their stocks, but also to take advan-
tage of the situation to acquire more securities at a good price. The dis-
cordant voices of those who view the situation differently and believe it
is wisest to sell (voices which, in crisis situations, represent precisely the
majority of those who go to the market) are always discreetly and con-
veniently silenced.
464 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Indeed neither the public nor the majority of specialists wish
to accept that the stock market decline is the initial warning of
the inevitable recession and that stock market indexes cannot
remain unchanged in the absence of new doses of credit.66
Such credit would only postpone the crisis and make the
eventual recession much more severe.
When the crisis erupts, the stock market also acts as an
indicator of its development. Other things being equal,
indexes corresponding to the securities of companies that
operate in the stages furthest from consumption reflect a more
dramatic fall in market prices than those which represent
companies that produce consumer goods and services. This is
the stock market's confirmation of the fact that the greatest
entrepreneurial errors have been committed in the capital
goods stages and of the necessity to liquidate these errors,
save what can be saved and transfer the corresponding
resources and original means of production toward other
companies closer to consumption.
Once the recession period has begun, market sluggishness
will continue for the duration of the readjustment process,
indicating not only that this process is still painfully in
motion, but also that market interest rates have risen to their
pre-credit-expansion level (or even to a higher level, if, as usu-
ally occurs, they incorporate an additional premium for risk
and inflation).67 In any case, market sluggishness will last as
66Hence, for example, just prior to the stock market crash of October 24,
1929, Irving Fisher himself confidently stated, on October 17, 1929, "We
are in a 'higher plateau' of stock exchange prices," that a fully consoli-
dated level had been reached and would never necessarily drop. See the
remarks he made to the Commercial & Financial Chronicle, remarks which
appeared on October 26, 1929, pp. 2618-19. Cited by Benjamin M.
Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare: A Financial and Economic His-
tory of the United States, 1914-1946 (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press,
1979), p. 210. Wesley C. Mitchell, R.G. Hawtrey and even John Maynard
Keynes committed the same error as Fisher. See Skousen, "Who Pre-
dicted the 1929 Crash?" pp. 254-57 (see also footnote 100 below).
67 This is clearly seen on the Stock Exchange which discounts
future yield streams on the basis of the present rate of inter-
est. A sensitive and well-informed market witnessing the
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 465
long as the readjustment, and could last indefinitely if the
readjustment never concludes because new loans prolong
malinvestment, and labor and all other markets are highly
controlled and rigid.68
When the readjustment has ended the recovery can begin,
assuming economic agents regain confidence and again
increase their rate of voluntary saving. In this case the price of
consumer goods and services will tend to decline, in relative
terms, with respect to the wages and income of the original
means of production. This will set off the "Ricardo Effect,"
and entrepreneurs will again become interested in launching
new investment projects to lengthen and widen the capital
goods stages in the productive structure. This rise in saving
will stimulate growth in the price of securities, which will
indicate the recovery has begun and entrepreneurs are again
embarking on new processes of investment in capital goods.
Nonetheless the upturn in stock market indexes will not be
spectacular as long as new credit expansion is not initiated.69
spectacle of a strong boom will of course in any case sooner
or later have its misgivings about future yields and the cost of
present projects. But we need not doubt that where this is not
so, a rising rate of interest would strongly reinforce the dis-
counting factor and thus damp excessive optimism. (Lach-
mann, Capital and Its Structure, pp. 124-25)
Lachmann explains the great importance of the stock market and
futures market in spreading the dispersed knowledge and information
of the different economic agents, thus enhancing the inter- and
intratemporal coordination among them. Hence both the stock market
and the futures market facilitate economic coordination and stability, as
long as they are not distorted by the inflationary impact of credit expansion. At
any rate futures markets will be the first to predict the successive phases
of the business cycle. Even if this should not be the case, the events
themselves (an increase in interest rates, accounting losses in capital-
goods industries, etc.) will eventually put an end to the stock market
boom and precipitate the economic crisis.
68This is true of the current (2001) Japanese recession.
^Therefore it should not surprise us that the recovery stage combines a
relative drop in the price of consumer goods and services, and hence, in
466 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Although many additional considerations regarding the
evolution of the stock market during the business cycle could
be presented, the most important idea is this: in general, no
significant, continuous rise in the price of securities can be
accounted for by an improvement in production conditions
nor by an increase in voluntary saving; such a rise can only be
indefinitely maintained as a result of inflationary growth in
credit expansion. A sustained improvement in the economy
and an increase in voluntary saving generate a greater mone-
tary influx into the stock market, but this inflow is slower and
more gradual and is rapidly absorbed by the new securities
issued by companies with an aim to finance their new invest-
ment projects. Only continuous, disproportionate growth in
the money supply in the form of credit expansion can feed the
speculative mania (or "irrational exuberance") which charac-
terizes all stock market booms.70
the price of the listed securities which correspond to the companies clos-
est to the last stage in the productive structure, with an increase in the
price of the securities which correspond to the companies which oper-
ate furthest from consumption. As Fritz Machlup indicates,
A shift of demand from consumers' goods to securities is
"saving." It is usually assumed that a significant price shift
takes place not only between consumers' goods and securities
but also between consumers' goods and producers' goods. It
may seem strange that the price fall in consumers' goods
should correspond on the other side to price rises in two cate-
gories of things at the same time. But there is nothing com-
plicated about this, for the rise in price of titles to capital
goods may actually involve the rise in prices of the capital
goods themselves. (Machlup, The Stock Market, Credit and Cap-
ital Formation, pp. 70-71)
70 A continual rise of stock prices cannot be explained by
improved conditions of production or by increased voluntary
savings, but only by an inflationary credit supply. A lasting
boom can result only from inflationary credit supply. (Ibid.,
pp. 99 and 290)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 467
15
Effects the Business Cycle Exerts
on the Banking Sector
At this point in our analysis it should be easy to identify
the effects and relationships which link the business cycle and
the banking sector. To begin with, we must recognize that the
business cycle stems from credit expansion the banking sector
brings about as a result of its legal privilege of implementing
monetary demand-deposit contracts with a fractional reserve
ratio. Moreover in chapter 4 we saw that this privilege
explains the trend toward mergers in the banking industry,
since the larger a bank's relative size is in the market, the
greater are its possibilities for credit expansion unlimited by
the corresponding bank clearing house. Furthermore bank
consolidation makes it possible to better "manage" fractional
cash reserves, allowing banks to satisfy normal withdrawals
with lower central cash balances.
Nevertheless in chapter 5 we saw how the credit expan-
sion process inevitably provokes a crisis and readjustment
period, during which much of the book value of banks' assets
evaporates, and in addition a widespread increase occurs in
the demand for money and in the withdrawal of deposits (at
least in the marginally less solvent banks). Therefore this
accounts for the fact that bankers have forced the creation of a
public institution, called the "central bank," designed to act
basically as lender of last resort in the stages of economic
recession which are so dangerous for banks. Also the difficul-
ties and overwhelming worries which beset bankers as a con-
sequence of default and the withdrawal of deposits during the
stage of readjustment and economic recession reinforce even
further the trend toward bank mergers. In fact in this way
banks are able to treat defaulters more uniformly, achieve sig-
nificant economies of scale in the management of payment
arrears and avoid the marginally more insolvent situation in
which they would find themselves if a higher percentage of
their loans were non-performing or if the public had less con-
fidence in them.
468 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Hence we can conclude that an inherent trend in the priv-
ileged exercise of fractional-reserve banking leads to bank con-
solidation and encourages bankers to develop and maintain close
relations with the central bank as the only institution capable of
guaranteeing banks' survival in moments of crisis, situations
banks themselves create regularly. Furthermore the central
bank directs, orchestrates, and organizes credit expansion,
making sure that banks expand more or less in unison and
that none stray far from the established pace.
16
Marx, Hayek, and the View that Economic
Crises are Intrinsic to Market Economies
It is interesting to note that Marx, in his analysis of the cap-
italist economic system, basically concentrates on the study of
the imbalances and maladjustments which occur in the mar-
ket. This accounts for the fact that Marxist theory is primarily
a theory of market disequilibrium and that occasionally it
even coincides remarkably with the dynamic analysis of mar-
ket processes which was developed by economists of the Aus-
trian School, and particularly by Mises and Hayek them-
selves. One of the more curious points on which a certain
agreement exists relates precisely to the theory of the crises
and recessions which systematically ravage the capitalist sys-
tem. Thus it is interesting to observe that certain authors of the
Marxist tradition, such as the Ukrainian Mikhail Ivanovich
Tugan-Baranovsky (1865-1919), reached the conclusion that
economic crises originate from a tendency toward a lack of pro-
portion among the different branches of production, a lack
Tugan-Baranovsky believed inherent in the capitalist sys-
tem.71 According to Baranovsky, crises occur because
the distribution of production ceases to be proportional: the
machines, tools, tiles and wood used in construction are
71Tugan-Baranovsky, Industrial Crises in Contemporary Britain. Spanish
translation included in Lecturas de economia politica, Francisco Cabrillo,
ed. (Madrid: Minerva Ediciones, 1991), pp. 190-210. See also chapter 7,
footnote 87.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 469
requested less than before, given that new companies are
less numerous. However the producers of the means of pro-
duction cannot withdraw their capital from their compa-
nies, and in addition, the importance of the capital involved
in the form of buildings, machines, etc., obliges producers to
continue producing (if not, the idle capital would not bear
interest). Thus there is excessive production of the means of pro-
duction.72
Clearly part of the underlying economic reasoning behind
this analysis bears a strong resemblance to that behind the
Austrian theory of the business cycle. In fact Hayek himself
mentions Tugan-Baranovsky as one of the forerunners of the
theory of the cycle he presents in Prices and Production.73
Furthermore it is interesting to note that Hayek himself,
for a time, came to believe, like Marx, that economic crises were
inherent in the capitalist economic system, although Hayek con-
sidered them the necessary cost of maintaining an elastic
72Excerpt translated from Spanish edition. Ibid., p. 205; italics added.
73 In the German literature similar ideas were introduced
mainly by the writings of Karl Marx. It is on Marx that M.v.
Tougan-Baranovsky's work is based which in turn provided
the starting point for the later work of Professor Spiethoff and
Professor Cassel. The extent to which the theory developed in
these lectures corresponds with that of the two last-named
authors, particularly with that of Professor Spiethoff, need
hardly be emphasised. (Hayek, Prices and Production, p. 103)
See also Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 426. On Tugan-Baranovsky
and the content of his doctoral thesis, The Industrial Crises in England, see
the biographical article on this author by Alec Nove, published in The
New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, John Eatwell, Murray Milgate,
and Peter Newman, eds. (London: Macmillan, 1987), vol. 4, pp. 705-06.
The error in all of these doctrines of a "lack of proportion" lies in the fact
that they disregard the monetary and interventionist origin (in the form
of the privileged operation of the banking system) of such a lack, they
fail to recognize the entrepreneurial tendency to detect and correct mal-
adjustments (in the absence of state intervention) and they naively
assume that government economic authorities possess a deeper knowl-
edge of these effects than the network of entrepreneurs which act freely
in the market. See Mises, Human Action, pp. 582-83.
470 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
monetary and credit system, the expansion of which, at all
times, would "guarantee" economic development. Specifi-
cally, Hayek asserted that economic crises arose
from the very nature of the modern organization of credit. So
long as we make use of bank credit as a means of furthering
economic development we shall have to put up with the
resulting trade cycles. They are, in a sense, the price we pay
for a speed of development exceeding that which people
would voluntarily make possible through their savings, and
which therefore has to be extorted from them. And even if it
is a mistake — as the recurrence of crises would demon-
strate— to suppose that we can, in this way, overcome all
obstacles standing in the way of progress, it is at least con-
ceivable that the non-economic factors of progress, such as
technical and commercial knowledge, are thereby benefited
in a way which we should be reluctant to forgo.74
74Hayek, Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle, pp. 189-90. In 1929 the
young Hayek added that, in his opinion, a rigid banking system would
prevent crises, but "the stability of the economic system would be
obtained at the price of curbing economic progress." He concluded,
It is no exaggeration to say that not only would it be impossi-
ble to put such a scheme into practice in the present state of
economic enlightenment of the public, but even its theoretical
justification would be doubtful. (Ibid., p. 191)
Hayek himself recognized that his conclusion rested more on intuition
and non-economic factors than on a rigorous theoretical analysis, and
therefore it is not surprising that only a few years later, in Prices and Pro-
duction and in Monetary Nationalism and International Stability, he
changed his mind, proposed a constant money supply and advocated
the demand for a 100-percent reserve requirement in banking. In
"Hayek, Business Cycles and Fractional Reserve Banking: Continuing
the De-Homogenization Process," The Review of Austrian Economics 9,
no. 1 (1996): 77-94, Walter Block and Kenneth M. Garschina level pene-
trating criticism against these statements the young Hayek made in
1929. However, on reflection, perhaps Hayek's comments should be
understood in a different light. As early as 1925 he proposed, as a radi-
cal solution to economic cycles, a return to the prescriptions of the Bank
Charter Act of 1844 and the establishment of a 100-percent reserve
requirement for demand deposits held by banks. Thus maybe it would
be wiser to interpret the assertions Hayek made in 1929 (in Monetary
Theory and the Trade Cycle) in the context of the lecture given before the
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 471
This early thesis of Hayek's, which partially coincides
with that of Marx, would only be valid if the very Austrian
theory of business cycles had not revealed that economic
crises cause great damage to the productive structure and
widespread consumption of accumulated capital. These
effects seriously hinder the harmonious economic develop-
ment of any society. Moreover (and this is even more impor-
tant) the theoretical, legal, and economic analysis carried out
here is aimed at demonstrating that economic crises are not an
inevitable by-product of market economies, but on the con-
trary, result from a privilege governments have granted banks,
allowing them, with respect to monetary demand deposits, to
act outside the traditional legal principles of private property,
principles vital to market economies. Thus credit expansion
and economic cycles arise from an institutionally-forced vio-
lation of the property rights involved in the monetary bank-
deposit contract. Therefore crises are in no way inherent in the
capitalist system, nor do they inevitably emerge in a market economy
subject to the general legal principles that constitute its essential
legal framework, an economy in which no privileges are conferred.
A second link connects Marxism and the Austrian theory
of business cycles. Indeed if any ideology has justified and fed
the class struggle, strengthening the popular belief that it is
Verein fur Sozialpolitik which took place in Zurich in September 1928,
instead of in the context of his other research studies. (This lecture
formed the basis of his 1929 book.) Hayek's speech was subject to a rig-
orous examination by professors who 'were little inclined to accept con-
clusions they viewed as too original or revolutionary. Hayek's first
endorsement of a 100-percent reserve requirement is found in note 12 of
his article, "The Monetary Policy of the United States after the Recovery
from the 1920 Crisis," p. 29 (see also upcoming footnote 94). Hayek's
erroneous and short-lived concession regarding the supposedly benefi-
cial effect of credit expansion on technological innovation echoes the
naive inflationism implicit in Joseph Schumpeter's book, Theory of Eco-
nomic Development. A brilliant critical evaluation of Schumpeter's
unorthodox nature as viewed from the perspective of the Austrian the-
ory of capital and business cycles is presented by Jose Antonio Aguirre
in his "Introduction" to the Spanish edition of Bohm-Bawerk's book,
Capital and Interest, vol. 2: Positive Theory of Capital (Teoria positiva del cap-
ital) (Madrid: Ediciones Aosta/Union Editorial, 1998), pp. 19-22.
472 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
necessary to strictly regulate and control labor markets to
"protect" workers from entrepreneurs and their capacity for
exploitation, it has precisely been Marxist ideology. Hence
Marxism has played a key and perhaps unintentional75 role in
justifying and fostering the rigidity of labor markets, and
therefore in making the readjustment processes which
inevitably follow any stage of bank credit expansion much
more prolonged and painful. If labor markets were much
more flexible (a situation which will only be politically possi-
ble once the general public realizes how damaging labor reg-
ulation is), the necessary readjustment processes which follow
credit expansion would be much less lasting and painful.
There is a third possible connection between the Austrian
theory of economic cycles and Marxism: the absence of eco-
nomic crises in systems of "real socialism," an absence many
authors have highly praised in the past. Nevertheless there is
no point in arguing that economic crises do not arise in sys-
tems in which the means of production are never privately
owned and all economic processes are "coordinated" from
above through a coercive plan which public authorities delib-
erately impose. We must remember that depression appears in
a market economy precisely because credit expansion distorts
the productive structure, so that it no longer matches the one
consumers would voluntarily maintain. Thus wherever con-
sumers lack the freedom to choose and the productive struc-
ture is imposed on them from above, it is not that successive
stages of boom and recession cannot occur, but rather, with all
theoretical justification we may consider that such economies are
continually and permanently in a situation of crisis and recession.
This is due to the fact that the productive structure is imposed
75In fact Marx himself considered the interventionist and syndicalist
versions of socialism "utopian" and even stated that welfare and labor
legislation aimed at benefiting workers would invariably be ineffective.
In this sense he fully accepted the classical school's arguments against
state regulation of the market economy. Marx's position on this issue in
no way lessens the fact that Marxism, quite unintentionally, was the
main ideological force behind the "reformist" movements that justified
intervention in the labor market.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 473
from above and does not coincide with the desires of citizens
and it is theoretically impossible for the system to correct its
maladjustments and discoordination.76 Therefore to contend
that an economy of real socialism offers the advantage of elim-
inating economic crises is tantamount to affirming that the
advantage of being dead is immunity to disease.77 Indeed
after the fall of the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe, when
consumers were again given the opportunity to freely estab-
lish the productive structure most in line with their desires, it
immediately became clear that the scale and magnitude of
past investment errors would make the readjustment process
much deeper and much more prolonged and painful than is
common in the stages of recession which affect market
economies. It has become evident that most of the capital
goods structure which existed in socialist economies was com-
pletely useless with respect to the needs and objectives char-
acteristic of a modern economy. In short socialism provokes a
widespread, intense, and chronic malinvestment of society's
factors of production and capital goods, a malinvestment
much more severe than that caused by credit expansion.
Hence we may conclude that "real socialism" is immersed in
a deep "chronic depression," i.e., in a situation of constant
76We have completely devoted the book, Socialismo, calculo economico y
funcion empresarial, to demonstrating why it is impossible for a system of
real socialism to exert a coordinating effect through its policies even
under the most favorable conditions.
77 A dictator does not bother about whether or not the masses
approve of his decision concerning how much to devote for
current consumption and how much for additional invest-
ment. If the dictator invests more and thus curtails the means
available for current consumption, the people must eat less
and hold their tongues. No crisis emerges because the sub-
jects have no opportunity to utter their dissatisfaction. Where
there is no business at all, business can be neither good nor
bad. There may be starvation or famine, but no depression in
the sense in which this term is used in dealing with the prob-
lems of a market economy. Where the individuals are not free
to choose, they cannot protest against the methods applied by
those directing the course of production. (Mises, Human
Action, pp. 565-66)
474 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
malinvestment of productive resources, a phenomenon which
has even been accompanied by cyclical adverse changes and
which has been studied in certain detail by various theorists
from the former Eastern economies.78
The appalling economic difficulties presently confronting
the economies of the former Eastern bloc stem from many
decades of systematic economic errors. These errors have been
much more serious (and have been committed at a much more
rapid pace) than those which have regularly appeared in the
West due to credit expansion by the banking system and to the
monetary policy of public authorities.
17
Two Additional Considerations
On various historical occasions credit expansion has been
used as an instrument to help finance the national budget
deficit. This can occur in two ways: either banks may be
instructed to acquire treasury bonds with part of their credit
expansion, or the government may borrow money directly
from banks. Though technically these are examples of credit
expansion, here it does not directly influence the loan market,
but rather acts as a perfect substitute for the creation of money.
In fact in this case, credit expansion amounts to the simple cre-
ation of money to finance the public deficit and leads to the
traditional effects of any inflationary process: an initial redis-
tribution of income similar to that which follows any infla-
tionary process; and a distortion of the productive structure,
to the extent the government finances expenditures and pub-
lic works which temporarily modify the productive structure
and later cannot be permanently maintained via economic
agents' current spending on consumer goods and services. At
any rate it is necessary to distinguish true credit expansion,
78 Among others, Tomask Stankiewicz in his article, "Investment under
Socialism," Communist Economies 1, no. 2 (1989): 123-30. See also Jan
Winiecki's book, The Distorted World of Soviet-Type Economies (London:
Routledge, 1988 and 1991).
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 475
which gives rise to an artificial boom and to the business cycle,
from the mere creation of new money and the placing of it in
the hands of the state, a procedure which exerts the effects
typical of an inflationary tax.79
Another final consideration relates to the international
nature of business cycles. Economies as internationally inte-
grated as modern ones usually are initiate credit expansion
processes simultaneously, and the effects spread rapidly to all
the world's markets. While the gold standard prevailed, each
country's capacity for domestic credit expansion was auto-
matically limited, and this limit was determined by the invari-
able outflow of gold from the relatively more inflationary
economies. With the abandonment of the gold standard, the
arrival of flexible exchange rates and the triumph of monetary
nationalism, each country became able to freely adopt credit
expansion policies, triggering an inflationary contest which pit-
ted all countries against all others. Only a very large and inte-
grated economic area comprising various nations which have
renounced credit expansion and maintain among themselves
fixed exchange rates will be able to free itself, relatively speak-
ing (not completely), from the damaging effects of a general
expansion of credit initiated outside its borders. Nevertheless
the effects of inflation may be felt even inside this area if a flex-
ible exchange rate is not established between it and the coun-
tries outside of it which suffer a process of monetary expan-
sion. It is true that fixed exchange rates act as an (imperfect)
substitute for the limits the gold standard set on each coun-
try's ability to independently expand its money supply in the
form of loans. However this is consistent with the fact that the
negative effect external expansion has on nations with more
prudent monetary policies can only be lessened by the estab-
lishment of flexible exchange rates.
79The massive increase in budget deficits was a common characteristic
of the 1980s (especially in Spain), and it served to prolong expansionary
periods and to postpone and aggravate subsequent recessions. The neg-
ative effects of these indirectly-monetized deficits have combined with
the harmful effects of credit expansion, and the result has been even
greater maladjustments in the allocation of resources and a delay in the
beginning of the necessary readjustment.
476 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In any case the definitive elimination of economic crises
will require a worldwide reform of the monetary system. Such
a reform is outlined in the ninth and final chapter of this book.
18
Empirical Evidence for the Theory of the Cycle
In this section we will study how the theory of the busi-
ness cycle presented in former sections fits in with the history
of economic events. In other words we will consider whether
or not our theoretical analysis provides an outline suitable for
use in interpreting the phenomena of boom and recession
which have occurred in history and still continue to occur.
Thus we will contemplate how historical events, both those in
the distant past and those more recent, illustrate or fit in with
the theory we have developed.
Nonetheless it is necessary to begin with a word of caution
regarding the historical interpretation of business cycles. Con-
trary to the assumptions of the "positivist" school, we do not
consider empirical evidence alone sufficient to confirm or
refute a scientific theory in the field of economics. We deliber-
ately stated that we aim to study how historical events "illus-
trate" or "fit in with" the theoretical conclusions reached in
our analysis, not to carry out an empirical test allowing us to
falsify, confirm or demonstrate the validity of our analysis.
Indeed though this may not be an appropriate place to repro-
duce the entire critical analysis of the logical inadequacies of
"positivist methodology,"80 it is clear that experience in the
80 A summary of the critical analysis of positivist methodology, along
with a brief bibliography of the most important writings on the topic,
appears in our article, "Metodo y crisis en la ciencia economica,"
Hacienda publica espanola 74 (1982): 33-48, reprinted in Jesus Huerta de
Soto, Estudios de economia politica (Madrid: Union Editorial, 1994),
chap. 3, pp. 59-82. See also our article, "The Ongoing Methodenstreit
of the Austrian School," pp. 75-113. The methodological ideas of the
Austrian School evolved in parallel with the debate on socialist eco-
nomic calculation, and criticism of positivist methodology is one of the
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 477
social realm is always "historical," i.e., it consists of extremely
complex events in which innumerable "variables" are
involved. It is not possible to observe these variables directly;
we can only interpret them in light of a prior theory. Further-
more both events (with their infinite complexity) and their
specific structure vary from one situation to another, and
hence, though the typical, underlying forces of greatest sig-
nificance may be considered the same, their specific historical
nature varies substantially from one particular case to
another.
Each theory of the cycle will determine a different selec-
tion and interpretation of historical events, and this fact
gives great significance to the prior establishment, by
methodological procedures other than positivist ones, of
most interesting byproducts of this debate. The very factors which
make socialism an intellectual error (the impossibility of obtaining the
necessary practical information in a centralized way, for example) actu-
ally explain why it is not possible in economics to directly observe
empirical events, nor to empirically test any theory nor in short, to
make specific predictions with respect to the time and place of future
events. This is because the object of research in economics consists of the
ideas and knowledge which human beings possess and create in con-
nection with their actions, and this information changes constantly is
highly complex and cannot be measured, observed nor grasped by a sci-
entist (nor by a central planning agency). If it were possible to measure
social events and empirically test economic theories, socialism would be
possible. The very factors which make socialism impossible demon-
strate that positivist methodology is inapplicable. Thus "events" in the
social realm, given their "spiritual" nature, can only be interpreted from
a historical perspective, and this always requires a prior theory. For
more on these controversial and thought-provoking issues, see the 33
bibliographical sources mentioned in our article, "Metodo y crisis en la
ciencia economica," and especially Mises's book, Theory and History
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957), Hayek's article, "The
Facts of the Social Sciences," in Individualism and Economic Order, pp.
57-76, and The Counter-Revolution of Science (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press,
1952; Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1979). A favorable and unbiased
explanation of the Austrian methodological paradigm appears in Bruce
Caldwell, Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Cen-
tury (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982; 2nd ed., London: Rout-
ledge, 1994), esp. pp. 117-38.
478 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
valid theories which permit the adequate interpretation of
reality. Hence no irrefutable historical evidence exists, much
less evidence capable of confirming that a theory is valid or
invalid. Therefore we should be very cautious and humble in
our hopes of empirically corroborating a theory. At most we
must be satisfied with developing a logically-coherent theory
which is as free as possible of logical defects in its correspon-
ding chain of analytical arguments and is based on the essen-
tial principles of human action ("subjectivism"). With this the-
ory at our disposal, the next step is to check how well it fits in
with historical events and allows us to interpret actual occur-
rences in a manner more general, balanced and suitable than
other, alternative theories.
These considerations are particularly relevant to the the-
ory of the business cycle. As F.A. Hayek has indicated, the
"scientistic" attitude which has so far dominated economics
has determined that only economic theories formulated in
empirical terms and applicable to measurable magnitudes are
heeded. In Hayek's words:
It can hardly be denied that such a demand quite arbitrar-
ily limits the facts which are to be admitted as possible
causes of the events which occur in the real world. This
view, which is often quite naively accepted as required by
scientific procedure, has some rather paradoxical conse-
quences. We know, of course, with regard to the market and
similar social structures, a great many facts which we can-
not measure and on which indeed we have only some very
imprecise and general information. And because the effects
of these facts in any particular instance cannot be con-
firmed by quantitative evidence, they are simply disre-
garded by those sworn to admit only what they regard as
scientific evidence: they thereupon happily proceed on the
fiction that the factors which they can measure are the only
ones that are relevant. The correlation between aggregate
demand and total employment, for instance, may only be
approximate, but as it is the only one on which we have
quantitative data, it is accepted as the only causal connec-
tion that counts. On this standard there may thus well exist
better "scientific" evidence for a false theory, which will be
accepted because it is more "scientific," than for a valid
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 479
explanation, which is rejected because there is no sufficient
quantitative evidence for it.81
While taking the above warnings and considerations into
account, in this section we will see that the available historical
data concerning past cycles of boom and recession fits in
excellently with our theory of the cycle. In addition at the end
of this section we will review the studies conducted to empir-
ically test the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
Business Cycles Prior to the Industrial Revolution
(a) It would be impossible to cover here (even in con-
densed form) all cycles of boom and recession which
affected the world's economies prior to the Industrial
Revolution. Nevertheless we are fortunate enough to
have available to us a growing number of works on
economic history which greatly facilitate the applica-
tion of the theory of the business cycle to specific eco-
nomic events from the past. We could begin by men-
tioning Carlo M. Cipolla's works on the crises which
gripped the Florentine economy in the mid-four-
teenth century and in the sixteenth century, crises we
covered in chapter 2.82 Indeed we saw that Cipolla,
81Hayek made these important observations regarding the difficulty of
empirically testing economic theories, particularly the theory of the
cycle, in the acceptance speech he made on receiving the Nobel Prize
December 11, 1974. See his article, "The Pretence of Knowledge," The
American Economic Review (December 1989): 3. Hayek concludes in the
same place:
[W]hat is probably the true cause of extensive unemployment
has been disregarded by the scientistically minded majority
of economists, because its operation could not be confirmed
by directly observable relations between measurable magni-
tudes, and that an almost exclusive concentration on quantita-
tively measurable surface phenomena has produced a policy
which has made matters worse, (p. 5)
82Carlo M. Cipolla, The Monetary Policy of Fourteenth-Century Florence
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); and Money in Sixteenth-
Century Florence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
480 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
following R.C. Mueller's studies,83 documented the
substantial credit expansion Florentine banks brought
about starting at the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury.84 The result was a significant economic boom
that made Florence the center of financial and trade
activity in the Mediterranean. Nonetheless a series of
events, such as the bankruptcy in England, the with-
drawal of funds in Naples, and the crash of Florentine
treasury bills triggered the beginning of the inevitable
crisis, which manifested itself in widespread bank
failure and a strong tightening of credit in the market
(or as it was then known, mancamento delta credenza).
Cipolla points out that the crisis resulted in the
destruction of a great stock of wealth, and real estate
prices, which had skyrocketed, plummeted to half
their former value, and even such a reduction in price
was insufficient to attract enough buyers. According
to Cipolla, it took thirty years (from 1349 to 1379) for
a recovery to begin. In his opinion a major role in the
recovery was played by the disastrous plague, which
broke the vicious spiral of deflation. Since the
number of capita was suddenly and dramati-
cally reduced, the average per capita amount of
currency available rose. In addition, during the
three years that followed the plague, the output
of the mint remained high. Consequently, cash
balances were unusually large, and they were
not hoarded: the prevailing mood among the
survivors was that of spending. Thus prices and
wages increased.85
83R.C. Mueller, "The Role of Bank Money in Venice: 1300-1500," pp.
47-96. And more recently, The Venetian Money Market: Bank, Panics, and
the Public Debt, 1200-1500.
84 As Carlo Cipolla literally states: "The banks of that time had already
developed to the point of creating money besides increasing its veloc-
ity of circulation." Cipolla, The Monetary Policy of Fourteenth-Century Flo-
rence, p. 13.
85Ibid., p. 48.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 481
In chapter 2 we critically analyzed Cipolla's use of the
monetarist theory which underlies his interpretation
of Florentine monetary processes.
(b) The second economic crisis Cipolla has studied in
depth can also be fully accounted for in terms of the
Austrian theory of the business cycle. It involves
credit expansion which took place during the second
half of the sixteenth century in Florence. Specifically,
Cipolla explains,
the managers of the Ricci bank used the public
funds as a monetary base for a policy of credit
expansion. The preeminence of the Ricci bank in
the Florentine market must have lured the other
banks into emulating its policy of credit expan-
sion.86
According to Cipolla, during the 1560s the Florentine
economy was quite active and was boosted by credit
euphoria. However at the beginning of the 1570s the
situation culminated in a severe liquidity squeeze
which affected the entire banking system. Bankers, as
the chroniclers colorfully put it, "only paid in ink."
The crisis gradually grew worse and then violently
exploded in the mid-1570s, when a "great shortage of
money" (deflation) and a tightening of credit were felt
in the city. Cipolla states,
The credit multiplier suddenly worked per-
versely, and the Florentine market was throttled
by a liquidity crisis, induced by the credit
squeeze, that was exceptionally serious both in
intensity and length. In the chronicler's pages, in
the merchants' letters, and in the contemporary
bans we find continual, concerned references to
the monetary and credit "stringency," to the
banks that did not "count" (that is, did not pay
86Cipolla, Money in Sixteenth-Century Florence, p. 106.
482 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
out cash), and to the lack of cash to pay workers
on Saturdays.87
Therefore credit expansion and the boom were fol-
lowed by a depression, due to which trade shrank
rapidly and bankruptcies were frequent. At that point
the Florentine economy fell into a long process of
decline.
(c) In chapter 2 we also mentioned other credit expansion
processes which inevitably gave rise to subsequent
economic crises. For example we covered the case of
the Venetian Medici Bank, which expanded credit and
eventually failed in 1492. In addition we studied, fol-
lowing Ramon Carande, the processes of expansion
and bank failure which affected all of Charles V's
bankers in the Seville square. Likewise we reflected
on the major depression which stemmed from John
Law's speculative and financial expansion in France
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, expansion
which several authors, including Hayek himself, have
analyzed in detail.88
Business Cycles From the Industrial Revolution Onward
With the Napoleonic Wars, the start of the Industrial Revo-
lution and the spread of the fractional-reserve banking system,
business cycles began to reappear with great regularity and
acquired the most significant typical features identified by the
theory we have presented in this book. We will now briefly
touch on the dates and features of the most substantial cycles
since the beginning of the nineteenth century.
1. The Panic of 1819. This particularly affected the United
States and has been studied chiefly by Murray N. Rothbard in
87Ibid.,P. 111.
88See Hayek's article, "First Paper Money in Eighteenth Century
France," printed as chapter 10 of the book, The Collected Works of F.A.
Hayek, vol. 3: The Trend of Economic Thinking, pp. 155-76. See also
Kindleberger, A Financial History of Western Europe, pp. 98ff.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 483
a now classic book on the subject. The panic was preceded by
an expansion of credit and of the money supply, both in the
form of bank bills and of loans, neither of which were backed
by real saving. The newly-created Bank of the United States
played a leading role in this process. This produced great
artificial economic expansion which was sharply inter-
rupted in 1819, when the bank ceased to expand credit and
demanded the payment of other banks' bills it possessed.
The typical tightening of credit followed, along with a deep,
widespread economic depression which halted the investment
projects initiated during the boom and pushed up unemploy-
ment.89
2. The Crisis of 1825. This was essentially an English crisis.
It was characterized by marked credit expansion, which was
used to finance a lengthening of the productive structure, i.e.,
an addition to the stages furthest from consumption. Such
financing consisted basically of investments in the first rail-
road lines and in the development of the textile industry. In
1825 the crisis erupted, triggering a depression which lasted
until 1832.
3. The Crisis of 1836. Banks began again to expand credit,
and this led to a boom in which banking companies and cor-
porations multiplied. New loans financed railroads, the iron
and steel industry and coal, and the steam engine was devel-
oped as a new source of power. At the beginning of 1836 prices
89See Rothbard, The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies. Rothbard made
another important contribution with this book: in it he revealed that the
crisis aroused a highly intellectual controversy regarding bank paper.
Rothbard highlights the emergence of a large group of politicians, jour-
nalists and economists who were able to correctly diagnose the origins
of the crisis and to propose appropriate measures to prevent it from
recurring in the future. All of this occurred years before Torrens and oth-
ers in England defined the essential principles of the Currency School.
The following are among the most important figures who identified
credit expansion as the origin of economic evils: Thomas Jefferson,
Thomas Randolph, Daniel Raymond, Senator Condy Raguet, John
Adams, and Peter Paul de Grand, who even defended the call for banks
to follow the model of the Bank of Amsterdam and to constantly main-
tain a 100-percent reserve ratio (p. 151).
484 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
began to shoot up. The crisis came to a halt when banks decided
to stop increasing their loans in light of the fact that they were
losing more and more gold reserves, which were leaving the
country, headed mainly for the United States. Starting in 1836
prices plunged and banks failed or suspended payments. The
result was a deep depression which lasted until 1840.
4. The Crisis of 1847. As of 1840 credit expansion resumed
in the United Kingdom and spread throughout France and the
United States. Thousands of miles of railroad track were built
and the stock market entered upon a period of relentless
growth which mostly favored railroad stock. Thus began a
speculative movement which lasted until 1846, when eco-
nomic crisis hit in Great Britain.
It is interesting to note that on July 19, 1844, under the aus-
pices of Peel, England had adopted the Bank Charter Act, which
represented the triumph of Ricardo's Currency School and pro-
hibited the issuance of bills not backed 100 percent by gold. Nev-
ertheless this provision was not established in relation to deposits
and loans, the volume of which increased five-fold in only two
years, which explains the spread of speculation and the severity
of the crisis which erupted in 1846. The depression spread to
France and the price of railroad stock plummeted in the different
stock exchanges. In general profits decreased, particularly in the
capital goods industries. Unemployment grew, especially in the
sector of railroad construction. It is in this historical context that
we should view the (clearly working-class and socialist) revolu-
tion which broke out in France in 1848.
5. The Panic of 1857. Its structure resembled that of previous
crises. The panic originated in a prior boom which lasted five
years, from 1852 to 1857, and which rested on widespread
credit expansion of worldwide consequences. Prices, profits
and nominal wages rose, and a stock market boom took place.
The boom especially favored mining companies and railroad
construction companies (the most important capital goods
industries of the period). Moreover speculation became gener-
alized. The first signs of the end of the boom appeared with the
start of the decline in mining and railroad profits (the stages
furthest from consumption); and the increase in production
costs weakened profits further. Subsequently the slowdown
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 485
impacted the iron, steel and coal industries and the crisis hit.
It spread quickly, triggering a worldwide depression. August
22, 1857 was a day of true panic in New York and many banks
suspended their operations.
6. The Crisis of 1866. The expansionary stage began in 1861.
The evolution of banking in England, and credit expansion
initiated by the Credit Foncier in France played a key role.
Expansion drove up the price of intermediate goods, con-
struction and cotton-related industries and persisted at a
rapid pace until panic broke out in 1866, due to a series of
spectacular failures, the most famous of which was that of
Overend Gurney in London. At this time, as occurred in 1847
and 1857, Peel's Bank Charter Act was temporarily suspended
with the purpose of injecting liquidity into the economy and
defending the Bank of England's gold reserves. France's first
investment bank, the Credit Mobiliaire, failed. The above gave
rise to a depression which, as always, affected principally the
sector of railroad construction, and unemployment spread
mostly to capital-goods industries. Between 1859 and 1864,
Spain engaged in substantial credit expansion which fostered
widespread malinvestment, particularly in railroads. Begin-
ning in 1864 it suffered a recession which reached its peak in
1866. Gabriel Tortella Casares has analyzed this entire process,
and although in light of our theory some of his interpretative
conclusions should be modified, the events he presents in his
writings fit in perfectly with it.90
7. The Crisis of 1873. The pattern of this crisis also closely
resembled that of prior crises. Expansion was initiated in the
United States due to the high costs involved in the Civil War.
The railroad network was dramatically enlarged and the iron
9°Tortella points out, quoting Vicens, that the Spanish crisis of 1866
"was at the origin of the Catalonian businessmen's proverbial mistrust
towards banks and large corporations." See Gabriel Tortella-Casares,
Banking, Railroads, and Industry in Spain 1829-1874 (New York: Arno
Press, 1977), p. 585. For more information on the Spanish economy dur-
ing this period, see Juan Sarda, La politica monetaria y las fluctuaciones de
la economia espanola en el siglo XIX (Barcelona: Ariel, 1970; first ed.,
Madrid: C.S.I.C, 1948), esp. pp. 131-51.
486 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and steel industries underwent intensive development.
Expansion spread to the rest of the world and in Europe there
was tremendous stock market speculation in which industrial
sector securities soared. Crisis hit first on the Continent in
May of 1873 and following the summer in the United States,
when recession had become obvious and one of the great
American banks, Jay Cook & Co., failed. Notably, France, hav-
ing abstained from the prior credit expansion, escaped this
panic and the serious depression which followed.
8. The Crisis of 1882. Credit expansion resumed in 1878 in
the United States and France. In the latter the issuance of
industrial shares soared and an ambitious public works pro-
gram was introduced. Banks played a very active role in
attracting family savings and in the massive granting of loans
to industry. The crisis erupted in 1882 with the failure of the
Union Generale. Also on the verge of failure, the Credit Lyon-
nais faced a massive withdrawal of deposits (around half). In
the United States over 400 banks (from a total of 3,271) failed,
and unemployment and crisis spread mostly to the industries
furthest from consumption.
9. The Crisis of 1890-1892. Credit expansion spread
throughout the world in the form of loans directed mainly to
South America. Shipbuilding and heavy industry developed
rapidly. The crisis arose in 1890, and the depression lasted
until 1896. The usual bankruptcies of railroad companies, col-
lapse of the stock market, crisis in the iron and steel industries,
and unemployment made a violent appearance, as is typical
in all depression years following a crisis.
10. The Crisis of 1907. In 1896 credit expansion was again
initiated and lasted until 1907. In this case the new loan funds
(created ex nihilo) were invested in electric power, telephone,
subways, and shipbuilding. Electricity took on the leading
role previously played by the railroads. Moreover for the first
time the chemical industry took advantage of bank loans and
the first automobiles appeared. In 1907 the crisis hit. It was
particularly severe in the United States and many banks
failed.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 487
Following the crisis of 1907 a new boom began, and in
1913 it culminated in a new crisis similar to previous ones.
This new crisis was interrupted by the outbreak of World War
I, which altered the productive structure of nearly all coun-
tries in the world.91
The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression of 1929
The years following the First World War were character-
ized by the great credit expansion initiated in the United
States. The newly-established Federal Reserve (founded in
1913) orchestrated this bout of credit expansion, which
revolved around programs to stabilize the value of the mone-
tary unit. Theorists such as Irving Fisher and other mone-
tarists supported these programs, which acquired great,
enduring popularity at this point. Given that the decade of the
1920s saw a considerable increase in productivity, in which
many new technologies were employed and a large quantity
of capital was accumulated, in the absence of such an expan-
sion of the money supply in the form of loans, there would
have been a significant decrease in the price of consumer
goods and services, and thus a substantial rise in real wages.
However credit expansion kept the prices of consumer goods
practically constant throughout the entire period.
Benjamin M. Anderson, in his notable financial and eco-
nomic history of this period in the United States, gives a
detailed account of the volume of credit expansion brought
about by the American banking system. In little over five
years, the amount of the loans created ex nihilo by the banking
system grew from $33 billion to over $47 billion. Anderson
expressly states that
Between the middle of 1922 and April 1928, without need,
without justification, lightheartedly, irresponsibly, we
91For a more detailed historical outline of the crises and economic cycles
from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution until World War I, see, for
example, Maurice Niveau, Historia de los hechos economicos contempord-
neos, Spanish trans. Antonio Bosch Domenech (Barcelona: Editorial
Ariel, 1971), pp. 143-60.
488 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
expanded bank credit by more than twice as much, and in
the years which followed we paid a terrible price for this.92
Murray N. Rothbard calculates that the money supply in
the United States grew from $37 billion in 1921 to over $55 bil-
lion in January 1929. 93 These figures closely approximate the
estimates of Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, accord-
ing to whom the money supply increased from over $39 bil-
lion in January 1921 to $57 billion in October 1929.94
92 Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare, pp. 145-57. The above
excerpt appears on p. 146.
93Rothbard, America's Great Depression, p. 88, column 4. Rothbard exam-
ines all peculiarities of the inflationary process, specifically their corre-
spondence with a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve, a policy
endorsed by, among others, the Secretary of the Treasury, William G.
McAdoo, according to whom,
The primary purpose of the Federal Reserve Act was to alter
and strengthen our banking system that the enlarged credit
resources demanded by the needs of business and agricul-
tural enterprises will come almost automatically into exis-
tence and at rates of interest low enough to stimulate, protect
and prosper all kinds of legitimate business, (p. 113)
Also see George A. Selgin, "The 'Relative' Inflation of the 1920's," in Less
Than Zero, pp. 55-59.
94Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the
United States, 1867-1960 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1963), pp. 710-12 (Table A-l, column 8). In the chapter they devote to the
1920s, Friedman and Schwartz indicate that one of the principal changes
of the period was the decision, for the first time in history, to use
central-bank powers to promote internal economic stability as
well as to preserve balance in international payments and to
prevent and moderate strictly financial crises. In retrospect,
we can see that this was a major step toward the assumption
by government of explicit continuous responsibility for eco-
nomic stability, (p. 240)
Although Friedman and Schwartz put their finger on the issue with this
observation, the inadequacy of the monetary analysis with which they
interpret their data leads them to consider the cause of the Great
Depression of 1929 to be monetary policy errors committed by the Fed-
eral Reserve as of that date and not, as the theory of the Austrian School
reveals, the credit expansion of the 1920s. Friedman and Schwartz
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 489
FA. Hayek himself was a qualified first-hand witness of
the expansionary credit policy the Federal Reserve followed in
the 1920s. Indeed between 1923 and 1924 he spent fifteen
months studying in situ the monetary policy of the U.S. Fed-
eral Reserve. One outcome of that stay was his article on
American monetary policy following the crisis of 1920.95 In
this article Hayek critically analyzes the Federal Reserve's
objective, according to which
Any rise in the index by a definite percentage is immedi-
ately to be met with a rise in the discount rate or other
restrictions on credit, and every fall in the general price level
by a reduction of the discount rate.96
Hayek indicates that the proposal to stabilize the general
price level originated with Irving Fisher in the United States
and J.M. Keynes and Ralph Hawtrey in England, and that
various economists, headed by Benjamin M. Anderson,
fiercely criticized it. Hayek's essential theoretical objection to
the stabilization project is that, when the general price level
is declining, attempts at stabilization invariably take the
form of credit expansion, which inevitably provokes a boom,
completely overlook and fail to grasp the influence such expansion
exerts on the productive structure.
95F.A. Hayek, "The Monetary Policy of the United States after the
Recovery from the 1920 Crisis," chapter 1 of Money, Capital and Fluctua-
tions, pp. 5-32. This article is an extract from a much more extensive
German version which appeared in 1925 in Zeitschrift filr Volkszvirtschaft
und Sozialpolitik (no. 5, 1925, vols. 1-3, pp. 25-63, and vols. 4-6, pp.
254-317). It is important to point out that it is in note 4 of this article (pp.
27-28) that Hayek first presents the fundamental argument which he
later develops in detail in Prices and Production and which he bases on
the work of Mises. Moreover note 12 of this article contains Hayek's first
explicit statement in favor of reestablishing a 100-percent reserve
requirement for banking. Hayek concludes:
The problem of the prevention of crises would have received
a radical solution if the basic concept of Peel's Act had been
consistently developed into the prescription of 100-percent
gold cover for bank deposits as well as notes, (p. 29)
96Hayek, Money, Capital and Fluctuations, p. 17.
490 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
a poor allocation of resources in the productive structure and
subsequently, a deep depression. This is what actually hap-
pened.
Indeed the goal of stability in the general price level of
consumer goods was very nearly achieved throughout the
1920s, at the cost of great credit expansion. This generated a
boom which, in keeping with our theoretical predictions,
affected mainly capital goods industries. Thus the price of
securities increased four-fold in the stock market, and while
the production of goods for current consumption grew by 60
percent throughout the period, the production of durable con-
sumer goods, iron, steel, and other fixed capital goods
increased by 160 percent.97
Another fact which illustrates the Austrian theory of the
cycle is the following: during the 1920s wages rose mainly in
the capital goods industries. Over an eight-year period they
increased in this sector by around 12 percent, in real terms,
while they showed an average of 5 percent real growth in the
consumer goods industries. In certain capital goods industries
wages rose even more. For instance, they increased by 22 per-
cent in the chemical industry and by 25 percent in the iron and
steel industry.
Apart from John Maynard Keynes and Irving Fisher,
Ralph Hawtrey, the British Treasury's Director of Financial
Studies, was another particularly influential economist in
97In other words high "inflation" was definitely a factor during this
period, but it manifested itself in the sector of financial assets and capi-
tal goods, not in the consumer goods sector (Rothbard, America's Great
Depression, p. 154). In his article, "The Federal Reserve as a Cartelization
Device: The Early Years: 1913-1930," chapter 4 in Money in Crisis, Barry
N. Siegel, edv pp. 89-136, Murray Rothbard offers us a fascinating
account of the development of the Federal Reserve's policy from 1913 to
1930, together with an analysis of the close, expansion-related coopera-
tion between Strong, governor of the Federal Reserve, and Montagu
Norman, governor of the Bank of England. The large-scale open market
operations of the 1920s followed. Their purpose was to inflate the Amer-
ican money supply in order to help the United Kingdom resolve its self-
inflicted deflation problem.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 491
terms of justifying credit expansion with the supposedly ben-
eficial goal of keeping the general price level constant. Accord-
ing to Hawtrey
The American experiment in stabilization from 1922 to 1928
showed that early treatment could shake a tendency either
to inflation or to depression in a few months, before any
serious damage had been done. The American experiment
was a great advance upon the practice of the 19th century98
The policy of credit expansion which was deliberately
adopted to keep the general price level stable initially pro-
voked a boom. This boom, along with a lack of the analytical
tools necessary to comprehend that the plan would actually
cause a deep depression, led authorities to go ahead with the
policy, which as we know, was doomed to fail."
The eruption of the crisis surprised monetarists (Fisher,
Hawtrey, etc.), who, imbued with a mechanistic concept of the
quantity theory of money, believed that once the money sup-
ply had been increased, its impact on prices would become
stable and irreversible. These theorists did not realize that the
98Ralph G. Hawtrey, The Art of Central Banking (London: Longman,
1932), p. 300. Rothbard describes Hawtrey as "one of the evil geniuses
of the 1920s." Rothbard, America's Great Depression, p. 159. The most seri-
ous error committed by Fisher, Hawtrey, and the rest of the "stabilizing"
theorists is their failure to understand that the principal function of
money is to serve as a vehicle for the creative exercise of entrepreneur-
ship by leaving all creative possibilities for human action open with
respect to the future. Therefore the demand for money and the pur-
chasing power of money must never cease to vary. As Mises states,
With the real universe of action and unceasing change, with
the economic system which cannot be rigid, neither neutral-
ity of money nor stability of its purchasing power are com-
patible. A world of the kind which the necessary require-
ments of neutral and stable money presuppose would be a
world without action. (Mises, Human Action, p. 419)
"According to Phillips, McManus, and Nelson, "The end result of what
was probably the greatest price-level stabilization experiment in history
proved to be, simply, the greatest depression." Phillips, McManus, and
Nelson, Banking and the Business Cycle, p. 176.
492 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
expansionary growth in loans exerted a highly unequal effect
on the productive structure and relative prices. Professor Irv-
ing Fisher was perhaps the most famous American economist
at the time, and his comments were among those which most
stood out. Fisher obstinately defended the theory that the
stock market had reached a level (a high plateau) below which
it would never again fall. The 1929 crisis took him by surprise
and nearly ruined him.100
The New York Stock Exchange disaster occurred in stages.
Between 1926 and 1929 the share index more than doubled,
increasing from 100 to 216. The first warning appeared on
Thursday, October 24, 1929, when a supply of thirteen million
shares was met with an almost nonexistent demand, and
prices collapsed. Banks intervened and were able to momen-
tarily suspend the fall, and prices dropped between twelve
and twenty-five points. Though the panic was expected to
cease over the weekend, the morning of Monday, October 28
brought a new, unstoppable disaster. Over nine million shares
were offered for sale, and the market plunged by forty-nine
points. The most devastating day was Tuesday, October 29,
when thirty-three million shares were offered and the market
plummeted by another forty-nine points.
At that point the depression hit and had the typical char-
acteristics. More than 5,000 banks (out of a total of 24,000)
failed or suspended payments between 1929 and 1932. 101
l°°On October 17, 1929, Fisher asserted: "Stocks have reached what
looks like a permanently high plateau." Anderson, Economics and the
Public Welfare, p. 210. On the fortune Fisher made developing a calcula-
tor, and his inability to theoretically explain events he experienced and
to predict the stock market crash in which he lost practically everything,
see Robert Loring Allen's enthralling biography, Irving Fisher: A Biogra-
phy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993). Fisher's major forecasting errors account
for the damage to his academic and popular reputation and for the fact
that his subsequent theory on the causes of the Great Depression was
not taken very seriously. See Robert W. Dimand, "Irving Fisher and
Modern Macroeconomics," American Economic Review 87, no. 2 (May
1997): 444.
101Elmus Wicker, The Banking Panics of the Great Depression (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, [1996] 2000).
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 493
Furthermore a drastic credit squeeze took place, and gross pri-
vate investment shrank from over $15 billion in 1929 to barely
$1 billion in 1932. In addition unemployment reached its peak
in 1933 at around 27 percent of the active population.
The duration and particular severity of the Great Depres-
sion, which lasted an entire decade, can only be understood in
terms of the economic and monetary policy errors committed
principally by the Hoover administration (President Hoover
was reelected in 1928), but also by Roosevelt, an interventionist
democrat. Virtually all of the most counterproductive measures
possible were taken to exacerbate the problems and hinder the
arrival of recovery. Specifically a forced and artificial wage sup-
port policy drove up unemployment and prevented the trans-
fer of productive resources and labor from one industry to
another. Moreover a colossal increase in public spending in
1931 constituted another grave error in economic policy. That
year public spending rose from 16.4 percent of the gross domes-
tic product to 21.5 percent, and a deficit of over $2 billion
ensued. Authorities mistakenly decided to balance the budget
by raising taxes (instead of reducing expenses): income taxes
increased from 1.5 percent-5 percent to 4 percent-8 percent,
many deductions were eliminated and marginal tax rates for
the highest income levels jumped. Likewise corporate taxes
climbed from 12 to nearly 14 percent, and estate and gift taxes
doubled, reaching a maximum rate of 33.3 percent.
Furthermore the public works considered necessary to
mitigate the problems of unemployment were financed by the
large-scale issuance of government securities, which ulti-
mately absorbed the scarce supply of available capital, crip-
pling the private sector.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who succeeded Hoover in the 1932
election, continued these harmful policies and carried their
disastrous results a step further.102
102Murray N. Rothbard concludes his analysis of the Great Depression
in this way:
Economic theory demonstrates that only governmental infla-
tion can generate a boom-and-bust cycle, and that the depres-
sion will be prolonged and aggravated by inflationist and
494 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Economic Recessions of the Late 1970s and Early 1990s
The most characteristic feature of the business cycles
which have followed World War II is that they have originated
in deliberately inflationary policies directed and coordinated
by central banks. During the post-war decades and well into
the late sixties Keynesian theory led to the belief that an
"expansive" fiscal and monetary policy could avert any crisis.
Grim reality sank in with the arrival of severe recession in the
1970s, when stagflation undermined and discredited Keyne-
sian assumptions. Moreover the 1970s and the emergence of
stagflation actually marked the rebirth of interest in Austrian
economics, and Hayek received the 1974 Nobel Prize in Eco-
nomics precisely for his studies on the theory of the business
cycle. As a matter of fact, the crisis and stagflation of the sev-
enties were a "trial by fire" which Keynesians did not survive,
and which earned great recognition for Austrian School theo-
rists, who had been predicting it for some time. Their only
error, as Hayek admits, lay in their initial misjudgment of the
duration of the inflationary process, which, unrestricted by old
gold-standard requirements, was prolonged by additional
doses of credit expansion and spanned two decades. The result
other interventionary measures. In contrast to the myth of
laissez-faire, we have shown how government intervention
generated the unsound boom of the 1920's, and how
Hoover's new departure aggravated the Great Depression by
massive measures of interference. The guilt for the Great
Depression must, at long last, be lifted from the shoulders of
the free market economy and placed where it properly
belongs: at the doors of politicians, bureaucrats, and the mass
of "enlightened" economists. And in any other depression,
past or future, the story will be the same. (Rothbard, America's
Great Depression, p. 295)
We have not yet mentioned the European side of the Great Depression,
an analysis of which appears in Lionel Robbins's book, The Great Depres-
sion (1934). In a recent work, The Credit-Anstalt Crisis of 1931 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), Aurel Schubert provides a clear
account of the crisis of the Austrian banking system (though the under-
lying theory at times leaves much to be desired).
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 495
was an unprecedented phenomenon: an acute depression
accompanied by high rates of inflation and unemployment.103
The crisis of the late seventies belongs to recent economic
history and we will not discuss it at length. Suffice it to say
that the necessary worldwide adjustment was quite costly.
Perhaps after this bitter experience, with the recovery under-
way western financial and economic authorities could have
been required to take the precautionary measures necessary to
avoid a future widespread expansion of credit and thus, a
future recession. Unfortunately this was not the case, and
despite all of the effort and costs involved in the realignment
of western economies following the crisis of the late seventies,
the second half of the eighties saw the beginnings of another
significant credit expansion which started in the United States
l°3In an article in which he examines data from the crises between 1961
and 1987, Milton Friedman states that he sees no correlation between
the amount of expansion and the subsequent contraction and concludes
that these results "would cast grave doubt on those theories that see as
the source of a deep depression the excesses of the prior expansion (the
Mises cycle theory is a clear example)." See Milton Friedman, "The
'Plucking Model' of Business Fluctuations Revisited," Economic Inquiry
31 (April 1993): 171-77 (the above excerpt appears on p. 172). Never-
theless Friedman's interpretation of the facts and their relationship to
the Austrian theory is incorrect for the following reasons: (a) As an
indicator of the cycle's evolution, Friedman uses GDP magnitudes,
which as we know conceal nearly half of the total gross national output,
which includes the value of intermediate products and is the measure
which most varies throughout the cycle; (b) The Austrian theory of the
cycle establishes a correlation between credit expansion, microeco-
nomic malinvestment and recession, not between economic expansion
and recession, both of which are measured by an aggregate (GDP) that
conceals what is really happening; (c) Friedman considers a very brief
time period (1961-1987), during which any sign of recession was met
with energetic expansionary policies which made subsequent recessions
short, except in the two cases mentioned in the text (the crisis of the late
seventies and early nineties), in which the economy entered the trap of
stagflation. Thanks to Mark Skousen for supplying his interesting private
correspondence with Milton Friedman on this topic. See also the demon-
stration of the perfect compatibility between Friedman's aggregate data
and the Austrian theory of business cycles, in Garrison, Time and Money,
pp. 222-35.
496 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and spread throughout Japan, England, and the rest of the
world. Despite the stock market's "warnings," particularly the
collapse of the New York Stock Exchange on October 19, 1987,
"Black Monday," (when the New York Stock Exchange Index
tumbled 22.6 percent), monetary authorities reacted by nerv-
ously injecting massive new doses of credit into the economy
to bolster stock market indexes.
In an empirical study on the recession of the early
nineties,104 W.N. Butos reveals that between 1983 and 1987 the
average rate of annual growth in the reserves provided by the
Federal Reserve to the American banking system increased by
14.5 percent per year (i.e., from $25 billion in 1985 to over $40
billion three years later). This led to great credit and monetary
expansion, which in turn fed a considerable stock market
boom and all sorts of speculative financial operations. More-
over the economy entered a phase of marked expansion
which entailed a substantial lengthening of the capital goods
stages and a spectacular increase in the production of durable
consumer goods. This stage has come to be called the
"Golden Age" of the Reagan-Thatcher years, and it rested
mainly on the shaky foundation of credit expansion.105 An
empirical study by Arthur Middleton Hughes also confirms
104William N. Butos, "The Recession and Austrian Business Cycle The-
ory: An Empirical Perspective," in Critical Review 7, nos. 2-3 (Spring and
Summer, 1993). Butos concludes that the Austrian theory of the business
cycle provides a valid analytical explanation for the expansion of the
eighties and the subsequent crisis of the early nineties. Another inter-
esting article which applies the Austrian theory to the most recent eco-
nomic cycle is Roger W. Garrison's "The Roaring Twenties and the Bull-
ish Eighties: The Role of Government in Boom and Bust," Critical Review
7, nos. 2-3 (Spring and Summer, 1993): 259-76. The money supply grew
dramatically during the second half of the 1980s in Spain as well, where
it increased from thirty trillion pesetas to nearly sixty trillion between
1986 and 1992, when a violent crisis erupted in Spain ("Banco de
Espana," Boletin estadistico [August 1994]: 17).
105Margaret Thatcher herself eventually admitted, in her autobiogra-
phy that all of the economic problems of her administration emerged
when money and credit were expanded too quickly and the prices of
consumer goods rocketed. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 497
these facts. Furthermore Hughes examines the impact of
credit expansion and recession on different sectors belonging
to various stages of the productive structure (some closer to
and some further from consumption). His empirical time-
series study confirms the most important conclusions of our
theory of the cycle.106 Moreover this recession was accompa-
nied by a severe bank crisis which in the United States became
apparent due to the collapse of several important banks and
especially to the failure of the savings and loan sector, the
analysis of which has appeared in many publications.107
This last recession has again surprised monetarists, who
cannot understand how such a thing happened.108 However
the expansion's typical characteristics, the arrival of the crisis
and the ensuing recession all correspond to the predictions of
the Austrian theory of the cycle.
Perhaps one of the most interesting, distinguishing char-
acteristics of the last cycle has been the key role the Japanese
106Hughes, "The Recession of 1990: An Austrian Explanation," pp. 107-23.
107por example, Lawrence H. White, "What has been Breaking U.S.
Banks?" pp. 321-34, and Catherine England, "The Savings and Loan
Debacle," in Critical Review 7, nos. 2-3 (Spring and Summer, 1993):
307-20. In Spain, the following work of Antonio Torrero Manas stands
out: La crisis del sistema bancario: lecciones de la experiencia de Estados
Unidos (Madrid: Editorial Civitas, 1993).
108On this topic Robert E. Hall arrives at a most illustrative conclusion:
Established models are unhelpful in understanding this
recession, and probably most of its predecessors. There was
no outside force that concentrated its effects over the few
months in the late summer and fall of 1990, nor was there a
coincidence of forces concentrated during that period. Rather,
there seems to have been a cascading of negative responses
during that time, perhaps set off by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
and the resulting oil-price spike in August 1990. (Hall,
"Macrotheory and the Recession of 1990-1991," American Eco-
nomic Review (May 1993): 275-79; above excerpt appears on
pp. 278-79)
It is discouraging to see such a prestigious author so confused about the
emergence and evolution of the 1990s crisis. This situation says a lot
about the pitiful current state of macroeconomic theory.
498 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
economy has played in it. Particularly in the four-year period
between 1987 and 1991, the Japanese economy underwent
enormous monetary and credit expansion which, as theory sug-
gests, affected mainly the industries furthest from consumption.
In fact although the prices of consumer goods rose only by
around 0 to 3 percent each year during this period, the price
of fixed assets, especially land, real estate, stocks, works of art
and jewelry, escalated dramatically. Their value increased to
many times its original amount and the respective markets
entered a speculative boom. The crisis hit during the second
quarter of 1991, and the subsequent recession has lasted more
than ten years. A widespread malinvestment of productive
resources has become evident, a problem unknown in Japan in
the past, and has made it necessary for the Japanese economy
to initiate a painful, comprehensive realignment process in
which it continues to be involved at the time of this writing
(2001).109
Regarding the effect this worldwide economic crisis has
exerted in Spain, it is necessary to note that it violently
gripped the country in 1992 and the recession lasted almost
five years. All of the typical characteristics of expansion, cri-
sis and recession have again been present in Spain's imme-
diate economic environment, with the possible exception
that the artificial expansion was even more exaggerated as a
lO^The Nikkei 225 index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange dropped from
over 30,000 yen at the beginning of 1990 to less than 12,000 yen in 2001,
following the failure of a number of banks and stock market firms (such
as Hokkaido Takushoku, Sanyo and Yamaichi Securities and others).
These bankruptcies have seriously harmed the credibility of the coun-
try's financial system, which will take a long time to recover. Further-
more the Japanese bank and stock market crises have fully spread to the
rest of the Asian markets (the failure of the Peregrine Bank of Hong
Kong, of the Bangkok Bank of Commerce, and of the Bank Korea First
come to mind, among others), and in 1997 they even threatened to
spread to the rest of the world. On the application of the Austrian the-
ory to the Japanese recession see the interesting article Yoshio Suzuki
presented at the regional meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, Septem-
ber 25-30, 1994 in Cannes, France. See also the pertinent comments of
Hiroyuki Okon in Austrian Economics Newsletter (Winter, 1997): 6-7.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 499
consequence of Spain's entrance into the European Eco-
nomic Community. Moreover the recession hit within a con-
text of an overvalued peseta, which had to be devalued on
three consecutive occasions over a period of twelve months.
The stock market was seriously affected, and well-known
financial and bank crises arose in an environment of specula-
tion and get-rich-quick schemes. It has taken several years for
Spain to recover entirely from these events. Even today, Span-
ish authorities have yet to adopt all necessary measures to
increase the flexibility of the economy, specifically the labor
market. Together with a prudent monetary policy and a
decrease in public spending and the government deficit, such
measures are essential to the speedy consolidation of a stable,
sustained recovery process in Spain.110 Finally, following the
great Asian economic crisis of 1997, the Federal Reserve
orchestrated an expansion of credit in the United States (and
throughout the world) which gave rise to an intense boom
and stock-market bubble. At this time (late 2001), it appears
this situation will very probably end in a stock-market crash
(already evident for stocks in the so-called "New Economy" of
electronic commerce, new technologies and communications)
and a new, deep, worldwide economic recession.111
U0\Ve will not also go into the devastating effect of the economic and
bank crisis in developing countries (for example, Venezuela), and on the
economies of the former Eastern bloc (Russia, Albania, Latvia, Lithua-
nia, the Czech Republic, Romania, etc.), which with great naivete and
enthusiasm have raced down the path of unchecked credit expansion.
As an example, in Lithuania at the end of 1995, following a period of
euphoria, a bank crisis erupted and led to the closure of sixteen of the
twenty-eight existing banks, the sudden tightening of credit, a drop in
investment, and unemployment and popular malaise. The same can be
said for the rest of the cases mentioned (in many of them the crisis has
even been more severe).
111 As explained in the Preface, when the English edition of this book
was prepared (2002-2003), a worldwide economic recession was simul-
taneously affecting Japan, Germany, and (very probably) the United
States.
500 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Some Empirical Testing of the Austrian Theory
of the Business Cycle
Several fascinating studies have lent strong empirical sup-
port to the Austrian theory of the business cycle. This has
occurred despite the difficulties in testing a theory based on
the impact of credit expansion on the productive structure and
the irregular manner in which such expansion affects the rela-
tive prices of products of the different production stages. It is
difficult to empirically test these economic processes, especially
while an attempt is made to continue using national account-
ing statistics, which, as we know, exclude most of the gross
value produced in the intermediate stages of the production
process. Charles E. Wainhouse has carried out one of these
outstanding empirical studies.112 Wainhouse lists nine propo-
sitions which he deduces from the Austrian theory of the cycle
and empirically tests them one by one.113 These tests yield sev-
eral main conclusions. Wainhouse first empirically tests the
proposition that changes in the supply of voluntary savings
are independent of changes in bank credit. He uses statistical
series which date from January 1959 to June 1981 and finds
that in all cases but one the empirical evidence confirms this
112Wainhouse, "Empirical Evidence for Hayek's Theory of Economic
Fluctuations," pp. 37-71. See also his article, "Hayek's Theory of the
Trade Cycle: The Evidence from the Time Series" (Ph.D. dissertation,
New York University, 1982).
113Wainhouse states:
Within the constellation of available tests of causality
Granger's notion of causality — to the extent that it requires
neither the "true" model nor controllability — seems to offer
the best prospects for practical implementation. (Wainhouse,
"Empirical Evidence for Hayek's Theory of Economic Fluctu-
ations," p. 55)
Wainhouse mentions the following articles of Granger's and bases his
empirical testing of the Austrian theory on them: Clive W.J. Granger,
"Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-
Spectral Methods," Econometrica 37, no. 3 (1969): 428 ff.; and "Testing for
Causality: A Personal Viewpoint," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Con-
trol 2, no. 4 (November 1980): 330 ff.
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 501
first proposition. Wainhouse's second proposition is that mod-
ifications in the supply of credit give rise to changes in the
interest rate, and that the two are inversely related. Abundant
empirical evidence also exists to support this second proposi-
tion. Wainhouse's third proposition states that changes in the
rate at which loans are granted cause an increase in the output
of intermediate goods, an idea he believes is also corroborated
by the evidence he analyzes. The last three propositions Wain-
house empirically tests are these: that the ratio of the price of
intermediate goods to the price of consumer goods rises fol-
lowing the beginning of credit expansion; that in the expan-
sion process the price of the goods closest to final consump-
tion tends to decrease in relation to the price of intermediate
goods; and lastly, that in the final stage of expansion the price
of consumer goods increases more rapidly than that of inter-
mediate goods, thus reversing the initial trend. Wainhouse
also believes that in general these last three propositions agree
with the empirical data, and he therefore concludes that the
data supports the theoretical propositions of the Austrian
School of economics. Wainhouse leaves three propositions
untested, thus leaving open an important field of possible
future study for econometricians.114
114In his book, Prices in Recession and Recovery (New York: National
Bureau of Economic Research, 1936), Frederick C. Mills presents another
relevant empirical study which centers on the years of the Great Depres-
sion of 1929. Here Mills empirically confirms that the evolution of rela-
tive prices during the period of crisis, recession, and recovery which fol-
lowed the crash of 1929 closely resembled that outlined by the Austrian
theory of the business cycle. Specifically, Mills concludes that during the
depression "Raw materials dropped precipitously; manufactured
goods, customarily sluggish in their response to a downward pressure
of values, lagged behind." With respect to consumer goods, Mills states
that they "fell less than did the average of all commodity prices."
Regarding the recovery of 1934-1936, Mills indicates that "the prices of
industrial raw materials, together with relatively high prices of finished
goods, put manufacturers in an advantageous position on the operating
side" (pp. 25-26, see also pp. 96-97, 151, 157-58 and 222).
A helpful evaluation of Mills's writings appears in Skousen's book,
The Structure of Production, pp. 58-60.
502 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Another empirical study pertinent to the Austrian theory
of the cycle is one conducted by Valerie Ramey, of the Univer-
sity of California at San Diego.115 Ramey has developed an
intertemporal model which breaks down into different stages
the inventories which correspond to: consumer goods, whole-
sale goods, manufactured equipment goods, and intermediate
manufactured products. Ramey draws the conclusion that the
price of inventories oscillates more the further they are from
the final stage of consumption. The inventories closest to con-
sumption are the most stable and vary the least throughout
the cycle.
Mark Skousen arrives at a similar conclusion in his analy-
sis of trends in the prices of products from three different pro-
duction stages: that of finished consumer goods, that of inter-
mediate products, and that of material factors of production.
Skousen indicates, as stated in footnote 21, that during the
period from 1976 to 1992, the prices of products from the
stages furthest from consumption varied from +30 percent to
-10 percent, the prices of intermediate goods only oscillated
between +14 percent and -1 percent, and the prices of final
consumer goods varied from +10 to -2 percent.116 Moreover
Mark Skousen himself estimates that in the crisis of the early
nineties, the gross national output of the United States, a
measure which includes all goods from intermediate stages,
fell by between 10 and 15 percent, and not by the significantly
lower percentage (between 1 and 2 percent) reflected by tradi-
tional national accounting figures, like gross national product,
which exclude all intermediate products, and therefore enor-
mously exaggerate the relative importance of final consump-
tion with respect to the total national productive effort.117
115Valerie A. Ramey, "Inventories as Factors of Production and Eco-
nomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review (July 1989): 338-54.
116Mark Skousen, "I Like Hayek: How I Use His Model as a Forecasting
Tool," presented at the general meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society
which took place September 25-30, 1994 in Cannes, France, pp. 10-11.
117Other empirical studies have also revealed the non-neutral nature of
monetary growth and the fact that it exerts a relatively greater impact
on the industries in which the most durable goods are produced. See,
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 503
Hopefully the future will bring more frequent and abun-
dant historical-empirical research on the Austrian theory of
the business cycle. With luck this research will rest on data
from input-output tables and permit the use of the Austrian
theory to reform the methodology of the national accounts,
thus permitting the gathering of statistical data on variations
in relative prices, variations which constitute the microeco-
nomic essence of the business cycle. Table VI-1 is designed to
simplify and facilitate this type of empirical research in the
future. It summarizes and compares the different phases in
the market processes triggered by an increase in society's vol-
untary saving and those triggered by an expansion of bank
credit unbacked by a prior rise in voluntary saving.
Conclusion
In light of the theoretical analysis carried out and the his-
torical experience accumulated, it is surprising that at the
dawn of the twenty-first century doubts still exist with respect
to the recessive nature of credit expansion. We have seen that
stages of boom, crisis, and recession recur with great regular-
ity, and we have examined the key role bank credit expansion
plays in these stages. Despite these truths, a large number of
theorists persist in denying that economic crises stem from an
underlying theoretical cause. These theorists fail to realize that
for example, Peter E. Kretzmer, "The Cross-Industry Effects of Unantic-
ipated Money in an Equilibrium Business Cycle Model/' Journal of Mon-
etary Economics 23, no. 2 (March 1989): 275-396; and Willem Thorbecke,
"The Distributional Effects of Disinflationary Monetary Policy" Jerome
Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 144 (Fairfax, Va.: George
Mason University 1995). Tyler Cowen, commenting on these and other
studies, concludes:
[T]he literature on sectoral shifts presents some of the most
promising evidence in favor of Austrian approaches to busi-
ness cycles. The empirical case for monetary non-neutrality
across sectors is relatively strong, and we even see evidence
that monetary shocks have greater real effects on industries
that produce highly durable goods. (Tyler Cowen, Risk and
Business Cycles: New and Old Austrian Perspectives [London:
Routledge, 1997], chap. 5, p. 134)
504 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
their own analysis (be it Keynesian, monetarist, or of any
other tendency) relies on the implicit assumption that the
monetary factors related to credit play a leading role. These
factors are fundamental to understanding the expansion and
initial boom, that excessive, continuous increase which invari-
ably takes place in the stock market, and, with the arrival of
the crisis, the inevitable credit squeeze and recession, which
particularly affects capital-goods industries.
Furthermore it should be obvious that such cycles perpet-
ually recur due to an institutional cause, one capable of
accounting for this inherent behavior of (controlled) market
economies. As we have been arguing from the beginning of
chapter 1, the cause lies in the privilege granted to bankers,
allowing them, in violation of traditional legal principles, to
loan out the money placed with them on demand deposit,
thus operating with a fractional reserve. Governments have
also taken advantage of this privilege in order to obtain easy
financing in moments of difficulty, and later, via central banks,
to guarantee easy credit terms and inflationary liquidity,
which until now have been considered necessary and favor-
able as a stimulus of economic development.
The "gag rule" which has generally been imposed on the
Austrian theory of the business cycle is highly significant, as
is the widespread public ignorance of the functioning of the
financial system. It is as if the two corresponded to an unspo-
ken strategy to avoid change, a strategy which may originate
from the desire of many theorists to maintain a justification for
government intervention in financial and banking markets,
together with the fear and awe most people feel at the idea of
confronting banks. Thus we conclude with Mises:
For the nonmonetary explanations of the trade cycle the
experience that there are recurrent depressions is the pri-
mary thing. Their champions first do not see in their scheme
of the sequence of economic events any clue which could
suggest a satisfactory interpretation of these enigmatic dis-
orders. They desperately search for a makeshift [explana-
tion] in order to patch it onto their teachings as an alleged
cycle theory. The case is different with the monetary or cir-
culating credit theory. Modern monetary theory has finally
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle 505
cleared away all notions of an alleged neutrality of money.
It has proved irrefutably that there are in the market econ-
omy factors operating about which a doctrine ignorant of
the driving force of money has nothing to say. ... It has been
mentioned already that every nonmonetary explanation of
the cycle is bound to admit that an increase in the quantity
of money or fiduciary media is an indispensable condition
of the emergence of a boom. . . . The fanaticism with which
the supporters of all these nonmonetary doctrines refuse to
acknowledge their errors is, of course, a display of political
bias. . . . [T]he interventionists are . . . anxious to demon-
strate that the market economy cannot avoid the return of
depressions. They are the more eager to assail the monetary
theory as currency and credit manipulation is today the
main instrument by means of which the anticapitalist gov-
ernments are intent upon establishing government omnipo-
tence.118
118Mises, "Fallacies of the Nonmonetary Explanations of the Trade
Cycle," in Human Action, pp. 580-82.
506
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table VI-1
A Summary of Stages
(i)
(2)
An Increase in
Credit Expansion
Voluntary Saving
(No increase in saving)
SI The rate of consumption
SI Consumption does not decline.
slows. Consumer goods drop
in price.
SI Banks grant new loans on a
massive scale and the interest
S2 Accounting profits decline in
rate drops.
the consumer sector.
C
S2 Capital goods rise in price.
S2 Real wages tend to climb
,0
''Si
S2 Prices climb on the stock
(unchanged nominal amount;
3
market.
lower-priced consumer
Oh
X
w
goods).
S2 The productive structure is
S2 The Ricardo Effect: workers
artificially lengthened.
are replaced by capital equip-
S2 Large accounting profits
ment.
appear in the capital-goods
sector.
S2 The interest rate decreases
(due to the rise in saving). The
S3 The capital-goods sector
stock market shows moderate
demands more workers.
growth.
s
S3 Wages rise.
S2 Capital goods rise in price
(due to the increase in the
0
0
CO
S3 The expansionary and stock
demand for them, the Ricardo
market boom becomes wide-
Effect, and the reduction in the
spread. Rampant speculation.
interest rate).
S4 Monetary demand for con-
S3 The production of capital
goods mounts.
sumer goods begins to grow
(increased earned and entre-
preneurial income is devoted
S3 Workers are laid off in the con-
to consumption).
sumer sector and hired in capi-
S4 At some point the rate of
growth in credit expansion
tal-goods industries.
CO
.2
ceases to mount: the interest
S4 The productive structure is
U
rate climbs. The stock market
permanently lengthened.
crashes.
S5 The production of consumer
S4 Accounting profits appear in
goods and services soars,
the consumer sector (demand
while their price falls
increases).
(increased supply and
decreased monetary demand).
S4 The prices of consumer goods
Wages and national income
begin to grow faster than
rise permanently in real terms.
wages, in relative terms.
(Continued on the next page)
Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle
507
Continued from previous page)
S4
Real wages fall. The Ricardo
Effect: capital equipment is
replaced by workers.
S5
The capital-goods sector sus-
tains heavy accounting losses.
(Demand decreases, the
Ricardo Effect, and costs rise.
The interest rate and the prices
of commodities increase.)
S5
Workers are laid off in capital-
goods industries.
o
en
On
S5
Entrepreneurs liquidate erro-
neous investment projects:
bankruptcies and suspensions
of payments. Widespread pes-
simism.
0
S5
Bank default mounts: Margin-
ally less solvent banks face
serious difficulties. Credit
squeeze.
S5
Workers are again employed in
stages close to consumption.
S5
Capital is consumed, and the
productive structure becomes
shorter.
S5
The production of consumer
goods and services slows.
S5
The relative prices of con-
sumer goods rise even further
(decreased supply and
increased monetary demand).
S5
National income and wages
drop in real terms.
>
o
u
01
PS
S6
Once the readjustment has
occurred, an increase in volun-
tary saving may bring recov-
ery. See column (1). Or credit
expansion may begin again.
See column (2).
508 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Notes on Table VI-1
1. All references to "increases" and "decreases" in prices
refer to relative prices, not nominal prices or absolute
magnitudes. Thus, for example, an "increase in the
prices" of consumer goods indicates that such prices
rise, in relative terms, with respect to those of inter-
mediate goods.
2. It is simple to introduce the necessary modifications
in the stages of the theoretical processes summarized
in the table to include the historical peculiarities of
each cycle. Hence if a rise in voluntary saving is
accompanied by an increase in hoarding or the
demand for money, the phases will remain the same,
yet there will be a greater nominal decrease in the
price of consumer goods, and a lesser increase in the
nominal price of the factors of production. Nonethe-
less all relationships among relative prices remain just
as depicted in the table. In the case of credit expan-
sion, if "idle capacity" exists at its initiation, the nom-
inal price of the factors of production and capital
goods will not rise as significantly in the beginning,
though the rest of the stages will follow as described,
and foolish investments will also pile up.
3. Though the number which follows the letter "S"
denotes the order of the stages, in certain cases this
numbering is relatively arbitrary, depending upon
each particular historical situation and whether or not
the stages take place more or less simultaneously.
4. In real life the process could come to an indefinite halt
during any of the phases, if government intervention
makes markets highly rigid, and specifically if the
prices of intermediate goods, wages or labor legisla-
tion are successfully manipulated. Furthermore a pro-
gressive increase in credit expansion may postpone
the eruption of the crisis (and/or the liquidation of
the malinvestments), but it will make it deeper and
more painful when it inevitably hits.
A Critique of
Monetarist and
Keynesian Theories
In this chapter we will criticize alternative theoretical
developments aimed at explaining economic cycles. More
specifically, we will consider the theories of the two most
deeply-rooted schools of macroeconomics: the Monetarist
School and the Keynesian School. According to the general
view, these two approaches offer alternative, competing expla-
nations of economic phenomena. However from the standpoint
of the analysis presented here, they suffer from very similar
defects and can thus be criticized using the same arguments.
Following an introduction in which we identify what we
believe to be the unifying element of the macroeconomic
approaches, we will study the monetarist position (including
some references to new classical economics and the school of
rational expectations) and then the Keynesian and neo-Ricar-
dian stances. With this chapter we wrap up the most important
analytical portion of the book. At the end, as an appendix, we
include a theoretical study of several peripheral financial insti-
tutions unrelated to banking. We are now fully prepared to
grasp the different effects they exert on the economic system.
1
Introduction
Though most textbooks on economics and the history of
economic thought contain the assertion that the subjectivist
509
510 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
revolution Carl Menger started in 1871 has been fully
absorbed by modern economic theory to a large extent this
claim is mere rhetoric. The old "objectivism" of the Classical
School which dominated economics until the eruption of the
marginalist revolution continues to wield a powerful influ-
ence. Moreover various important fields within economic the-
ory have until now remained largely unproductive due to the
imperfect reception and assimilation of the "subjectivist
view."1
Perhaps money and "macroeconomics" (a term of varying
accuracy) constitute one of the most significant areas of eco-
nomics in which the influence of the marginalist revolution
and subjectivism has not yet been noticeable. In fact with the
exception of Austrian School theorists, in the past macroeco-
nomic scholars have not generally been able to trace their the-
ories and arguments back to their true origin: the action of
human individuals. More specifically they have not incorpo-
rated the following essential idea of Menger 's into their models:
every action involves a series of consecutive stages which the
actor must complete (and which take time) before he reaches
his goal in the future. Menger's most important conceptual
iFor example, when Oskar Lange and other theorists developed the
neoclassical theory of socialism, they intended it to apply Walras's
model of general equilibrium to solve the problem of socialist economic
calculation. The majority of economists believed for many years that
this issue had been successfully resolved, but recently it became clear
their belief was unjustified. This error would have been obvious had
most economists understood from the beginning the true meaning and
scope of the subjectivist revolution and had they completely imbued
themselves with it. Indeed if all volition, information, and knowledge is
created by and arises from human beings in the course of their free inter-
action with other actors in the market, it should be evident that, to the
extent economic agents' ability to act freely is systematically limited (the
essence of the socialist system is embodied in such institutional coer-
cion), their capacity to create, to discover new information and to coor-
dinate society diminishes, making it impossible for actors to discover the
practical information necessary to coordinate society and make eco-
nomic calculations. On this topic see Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo
economico yfuncion empresarial, chaps. 4-7, pp. 157-411.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 511
contribution to economics was his theory of economic goods
of different order (consumer goods, or "first-order" economic
goods, and "higher-order" economic goods). According to this
theory, higher-order economic goods are embodied in a num-
ber of successive stages, each of which is further from final
consumption than the last, ending in the initial stage in which
the actor plans his whole action process. The entire theory of
capital and cycles we have presented here rests on this con-
cept of Menger's. It is a basic idea which is easy to under-
stand, given that all people, simply by virtue of being human,
recognize this concept of human action as the one they put
into practice daily in all contexts in which they act. In short
Austrian School theorists have developed the whole theory of
capital, money and cycles which is implicit in the subjectivism
that revolutionized economics in 1871.
Nevertheless in economics antiquated patterns of thinking
have been at the root of a very powerful backlash against sub-
jectivism, and this reaction is still noticeable today. Thus it is
not surprising that Frank H. Knight, one of the most impor-
tant authors of one of the two "objectivist" schools we will
critically examine in this chapter, has stated:
Perhaps the most serious defect in Menger's economic sys-
tem ... is his view of production as a process of converting
goods of higher order to goods of lower order.2
We will now consider the ways in which the ideas of the
Classical School have continued to predominate in the Mone-
tarist and Keynesian Schools, the developers of which have
thus far disregarded the subjectivist revolution started in 1871.
Our analysis will begin with an explanation of the errors in
the concept of capital proposed by J.B. Clark and F.H. Knight.
Then we will critically examine the mechanistic version of the
quantity theory of money supported by monetarists. Follow-
ing a brief digression into the school of rational expectations,
we will study the ways in which Keynesian economics, today
2Frank H. Knight, in his introduction to the first English edition of Carl
Menger's book, Principles of Economics , p. 25.
522 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
in the grip of a crisis, shares many of the theoretical errors of
monetarist macroeconomics.3
2
A Critique of Monetarism
The Mythical Concept of Capital
In general the Neoclassical School has followed a tradi-
tion which predated the subjectivist revolution and which
deals with a productive system in which the different factors
3The following words of John Hicks offer compelling evidence that the
subjectivist revolution sparked off by the Austrian School lay at the core
of economic development until the eruption of the neoclassical-Keyne-
sian "counterrevolution":
I have proclaimed the "Austrian" affiliation of my ideas; the
tribute to Bohm-Bawerk, and to his followers, is a tribute that
I am proud to make. I am writing in their tradition; yet I have
realized, as my work has continued, that it is a wider and big-
ger tradition than at first appeared. The "Austrians" were not
a peculiar sect, out of the main stream; they were in the main
stream; it was the others who were out of it. (Hicks, Capital
and Time, p. 12)
It is interesting to observe the personal scientific development of Sir
John Hicks. The first edition of his book, The Theory of Wages (London:
Macmillan, 1932), reflects a strong Austrian influence on his early
work. Chapters 9 to 11 were largely inspired by Hayek, Bohm-Bawerk,
Robbins, and other Austrians, whom he often quotes (see, for example,
the quotations on pp. 190, 201, 215, 217 and 231). Hicks later became
one of the main architects of the doctrinal synthesis of the neoclassical-
Walrasian School and the Keynesian School. In the final stage of his
career as an economist, he returned with a certain sense of remorse to
his subjectivist origins, which were deeply rooted in the Austrian
School. The result was his last work on capital theory, from which the
excerpt at the beginning of this note is taken. The following statement
John Hicks made in 1978 is even clearer, if such a thing is possible: "I
now rate Walras and Pareto, who were my first loves, so much below
Menger." John Hicks, "Is Interest the Price of a Factor of Production?"
included in Time, Uncertainty, and Disequilibrium: Exploration of Austrian
Themes, Mario J. Rizzo, ed. (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1979),
p. 63.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 513
of production give rise, in a homogenous and horizontal man-
ner, to consumer goods and services, without at all allowing
for the immersion of these factors in time and space through-
out a temporal structure of productive stages. This was more
or less the basic framework for the research of classical econo-
mists from Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and John Stuart
Mill to Marshall.4 It also ultimately provided the structure for
4Alfred Marshall is undoubtedly the person most responsible for the
failure of both monetarist and Keynesian School theorists, his intellec-
tual heirs, to understand the processes by which credit and monetary
expansion affect the productive structure. Indeed Marshall was unable
to incorporate the subjectivist revolution (started by Carl Menger in
1871) into Anglo-Saxon economics and to carry it to its logical conclu-
sion. On the contrary he insisted on constructing a "decaffeinated" syn-
thesis of new marginalist contributions and Anglo-Saxon Classical
School theories which has plagued neoclassical economics up to the
present. Thus it is interesting to note that for Marshall, as for Knight, the
key subjectivist distinction between first-order economic goods, or con-
sumer goods, and higher-order economic goods "is vague and perhaps
not of much practical use" (Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, 8th
ed. [London: Macmillan, 1920], p. 54). Moreover Marshall was unable to
do away with the old, pre-subjectivist ways of thinking, according to
which costs determine prices, not vice versa. In fact Marshall believed
that while marginal utility determined the demand for goods, supply
ultimately depended on "real" factors. He neglected to take into account
that costs are simply the actor's subjective valuation of the goals he
relinquishes upon acting, and hence both blades of Marshall's famous
"pair of scissors" have the same subjectivist essence based on utility
(Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, pp. 301-08). Language problems
(the works of Austrian theorists were belatedly translated into English,
and then only partially) and the clear intellectual chauvinism of many
British economists have also helped significantly to uphold Marshall's
doctrines. This explains the fact that most economists in the Anglo-
Saxon tradition are not only very distrustful of the Austrians, but they
have also insisted on keeping the ideas of Marshall, and therefore those
of Ricardo and the rest of the classical economists as part of their mod-
els (see, for example, H.O. Meredith's letter to John Maynard Keynes,
dated December 8, 1931 and published on pp. 267-68 of volume 13 of
The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: The General Theory and
After, Part I, Preparation, Donald Moggridge, ed. [London: Macmillan,
1973]. See also the criticism Schumpeter levels against Marshall in
Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis [Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press, 1954], pp. 920-24).
514 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the work of John Bates Clark (1847-1938). Clark was Professor of
Economics at Columbia University in New York, and his
strong anti-subjectivist reaction in the area of capital and inter-
est theory continues even today to serve as the foundation for
the entire neoclassical-monetarist edifice.5 Indeed Clark consid-
ers production and consumption to be simultaneous. In his view
production processes are not comprised of stages, nor is there a
need to wait any length of time before obtaining the results of
production processes. Clark regards capital as a permanent
fund which "automatically" generates a productivity in the
form of interest. According to Clark, the larger this social fund
of capital, the lower the interest. The phenomenon of time
preference in no way influences interest in his model.
It is evident that Clark's concept of the production process
consists merely of a transposition of Walras's notion of general
equilibrium to the field of capital theory. Walras developed an
economic model of general equilibrium which he expressed in
terms of a system of simultaneous equations intended to
explain how the market prices of different goods and services
are determined. The main flaw in Walras's model is that it
involves the interaction, within a system of simultaneous
equations, of magnitudes (variables and parameters) which
are not simultaneous, but which occur sequentially in time as
the actions of the agents participating in the economic system
drive the production process. In short, Walras's model of gen-
eral equilibrium is a strictly static model which fails to account
for the passage of time and which describes the interaction of
supposedly concurrent variables and parameters which never
arise simultaneously in real life.
Logically, it is impossible to explain real economic
processes using an economic model which ignores the issue of
time and in which the study of the sequential generation of
5The following are J.B. Clark's most important writings: "The Genesis of
Capital," pp. 302-15; "The Origin of Interest," Quarterly journal of Eco-
nomics 9 (April 1895): 257-78; The Distribution of Wealth (New York:
Macmillan, 1899, reprinted by Augustus M. Kelley, New York 1965); and
"Concerning the Nature of Capital: A Reply."
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 515
processes is painfully absent.6 It is surprising that a theory
such as the one Clark defends has nevertheless become the
most widely accepted in economics up to the present day and
appears in most introductory textbooks. Indeed nearly all of
these books begin with an explanation of the "circular flow of
income,"7 which describes the interdependence of produc-
tion, consumption and exchanges between the different eco-
nomic agents (households, firms, etc.). Such explanations
completely overlook the role of time in the development of
economic events. In other words, this model relies on the
^Perhaps the theorist who has most brilliantly criticized the different
attempts at offering a functional explanation of price theory through static
models of equilibrium (general or partial) has been Hans Mayer in his arti-
cle, "Der Erkenntniswert der funktionellen Preistheorien," published in
Die Wirtschaftstheorie der Gegenwart (Vienna: Verlag von Julius Springer,
1932), vol. 2, pp. 147-23%. This article was translated into English at the
request of Israel M. Kirzner and published with the title, "The Cognitive
Value of Functional Theories of Price: Critical and Positive Investigations
Concerning the Price Problem," chapter 16 of Classics in Austrian Econom-
ics: A Sampling in the History of a Tradition, vol. 2: The InterWar Period (Lon-
don: William Pickering, 1994), pp. 55-168. Hans Mayer concludes:
In essence, there is an immanent, more or less disguised, fic-
tion at the heart of mathematical equilibrium theories: that is,
they bind together, in simultaneous equations, non-simultaneous
magnitudes operative in genetic-causal sequence as if these existed
together at the same time. A state of affairs is synchronized in the
"static" approach, whereas in reality we are dealing with a
process. But one simply cannot consider a generative process
"statically" as a state of rest, without eliminating precisely that
which makes it what it is. (Mayer, p. 92 in the English edition;
italics in original)
Mayer later revised and expanded his paper substantially at the request
of Gustavo del Vecchio: Hans Mayer, "II concetto di equilibrio nella teo-
ria economica," in Economia Pura, Gustavo del Vecchio, ed., Nuova Col-
lana di Economisti Stranieri e Italiani (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice
Torinese, 1937), pp. 645-799.
7 A standard presentation of the "circular flow of income" model and its
traditional flow chart appears, for example, in Paul A. Samuelson and
William D. Nordhaus, Economics. According to Mark Skousen the inven-
tor of the circular-flow diagram (under the name of "wheel of wealth")
was precisely Frank H. Knight. See Skousen, Vienna and Chicago: Friends
or Foes (Washington, D.C.: Capital Press, 2005), p. 65.
516 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
assumption that all actions occur at once, a false and totally
groundless supposition which not only avoids solving impor-
tant, real economic issues, but also constitutes an almost
insurmountable obstacle to the discovery and analysis of them
by economics scholars. This idea has also led Clark and his
followers to believe interest is determined by the "marginal
productivity" of that mysterious, homogenous fund they con-
sider capital to be, which explains their conclusion that as this
fund of capital increases, the interest rate will tend to fall.8
8For our purposes, i.e., the analysis of the effects credit expansion exerts
on the productive structure, it is not necessary to take a stand here on
which theory of interest is the most valid, however it is worth noting
that Bohm-Bawerk refuted the theories which base interest on the pro-
ductivity of capital. In fact according to Bohm-Bawerk the theorists who
claim interest is determined by the marginal productivity of capital are
unable to explain, among other points, why competition among the dif-
ferent entrepreneurs does not tend to cause the value of capital goods to
be identical to that of their corresponding output, thus eliminating any
value differential between costs and output throughout the production
period. As Bohm-Bawerk indicates, the theories based on productivity
are merely a remnant of the objectivist concept of value, according to
which value is determined by the historical cost incurred in the produc-
tion process of the different goods and services. However prices deter-
mine costs, not vice versa. In other words, economic agents incur costs
because they believe the value they will be able to obtain from the con-
sumer goods they produce will exceed these costs. The same principle
applies to each capital good's marginal productivity, which is ultimately
determined by the future value of the consumer goods and services
which it helps to produce and which, by a discount process, yields the
present market value of the capital good in question. Thus the origin and
existence of interest must be independent of capital goods, and must
rest on human beings' subjective time preference. It is easy to compre-
hend why theorists of the Clark-Knight School have fallen into the trap
of considering the interest rate to be determined by the marginal pro-
ductivity of capital. We need only observe that interest and the marginal
productivity of capital become equal in the presence of the following: (1)
an environment of perfect equilibrium in which no changes occur; (2) a
concept of capital as a mythical fund which replicates itself and involves
no need for specific decision-making with respect to its depreciation;
and (3) a notion of production as an "instantaneous" process which takes
no time. In the presence of these three conditions, which are as absurd as
they are removed from reality the rent of a capital good is always equal
to the interest rate. In light of this fact it is perfectly understandable that
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 517
After John Bates Clark, another American economist,
Irving Fisher, the most visible exponent of the mechanistic
version of the quantity theory of money, also defended the
thesis that capital is a "fund," in the same way income is a
"flow." He did so in his book, The Nature of Capital and Income,
and his defense of this thesis lent support to Clark's markedly
"macroeconomic" view involving general equilibrium.9
In addition Clark's objectivist, static concept of capital was
also advocated by Frank H. Knight (1885-1962), the founder
of the present-day Chicago School. In fact Knight, following in
Clark's footsteps, viewed capital as a permanent fund which
automatically and synchronously produces income, and he
considered the production "process" to be instantaneous and
not comprised of different temporal stages.10
theorists, imbued with a synchronous, instantaneous conception of cap-
ital, have been deceived by the mathematical equality of income and
interest in a hypothetical situation such as this, and that from there they
have jumped to the theoretically unjustifiable conclusion that produc-
tivity determines the interest rate (and not vice versa, as the Austrians
assert). On this subject see: Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, Capital and Inter-
est, vol. 1, pp. 73-122. See also Israel M. Kirzner's article, "The Pure
Time-Preference Theory of Interest: An Attempt at Clarification,"
printed as chapter 4 of the book, The Meaning of Ludwig von Mises: Con-
tributions in Economics, Sociology, Epistemology, and Political Philosophy,
Jeffrey M. Herbener, ed. (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic Pub-
lishers, 1993), pp. 166-92; republished as essay 4 in Israel M. Kirzner's
book, Essays on Capital and Interest, pp. 134-53. Also see Fetter's book,
Capital, Interest and Rent, pp. 172-316.
9Irving Fisher, The Nature of Capital and Income (New York: Macmillan,
1906); see also his article, "What Is Capital?" published in the Economic
journal (December 1896): 509-34.
10George J. Stigler is another author of the Chicago School who has gone
to great lengths to support Clark and Knight's mythical conception of
capital. In fact Stigler, in his doctoral thesis (written, interestingly
enough, under the direction of Frank H. Knight in 1938), vigorously
attacks the subjectivist concept of capital developed by Menger, Jevons,
and Bohm-Bawerk. In reference to Menger 's groundbreaking contribu-
tion with respect to goods of different order, Stigler believes "the classi-
fication of goods into ranks was in itself, however, of dubious value."
518 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Austrian Criticism of Clark and Knight
Austrian economists reacted energetically to Clark and
Knight's erroneous, objectivist conception of the production
process. Bohm-Bawerk, for instance, describes Clark's concept
of capital as mystical and mythological, pointing out that pro-
duction processes never depend upon a mysterious, homoge-
neous fund, but instead invariably rely on the joint operation
of specific capital goods which entrepreneurs must always
first conceive, produce, select, and combine within the eco-
nomic process. According to Bohm-Bawerk, Clark views cap-
ital as a sort of "value jelly," or fictitious notion. With remark-
able foresight, Bohm-Bawerk warned that acceptance of such
an idea was bound to lead to grave errors in the future devel-
opment of economic theory11
He thus criticizes Menger for not formulating a concept of the produc-
tion "process" as one in which capital goods yield "a perpetual stream
of services (income)." George J. Stigler, Production and Distribution Theo-
ries (London: Transaction Publishers, 1994), pp. 138 and 157. As is logi-
cal, Stigler concludes that "Clark's theory of capital is fundamentally
sound, in the writer's opinion" (p. 314). Stigler fails to realize that a
mythical, abstract fund which replicates itself leaves no room for entre-
preneurs, since all economic events recur again and again without
change. However in real life capital only retains its productive capacity
through concrete human actions regarding all aspects of investing,
depreciating and consuming specific capital goods. Such entrepreneur-
ial actions may be successful, but they are also subject to error.
11Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, "Professor Clark's Views on the Genesis of
Capital," Quarterly Journal of Economics IX (1895): 113-31, reprinted on pp.
131-43 of Classics in Austrian Economics, Kirzner, edv vol. 1. Bohm-Baw-
erk, in particular, predicted with great foresight that if Clark's static
model were to prevail, the long-discredited doctrines of underconsump-
tion would revive. Keynesianism, which in a sense stemmed from Mar-
shall's neoclassical theories, is a good example:
When one goes with Professor Clark into such an account of
the matter, the assertion that capital is not consumed is seen
to be another inexact, shining figure of speech, which must
not be taken at all literally. Any one taking it literally falls into
a total error, into which, for sooth, science has already fallen
once. I refer to the familiar and at one time widely dissemi-
nated doctrine that saving is a social evil and the class of
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 519
Years after Bohm-Bawerk, fellow Austrian Fritz Machlup
voiced his strong criticism of the Clark-Knight theory of capi-
tal, concluding that
[t]here was and is always the choice between maintaining,
increasing, or consuming capital. And past and "present"
experience tells us that the decision in favour of consumption
spendthrifts a useful factor in social economy, because what
is saved is not spent and so producers cannot find a market.
(Bohm-Bawerk quoted in Classics in Austrian Economics,
Kirzner, ed., vol. 1, p. 137)
Mises reaches the same conclusion when he censures Knight for his
chimerical notions such as "the self-perpetuating character"
of useful things. In any event their teachings are designed to
provide a justification for the doctrine which blames over-
saving and underconsumption for all that is unsatisfactory
and recommends spending as a panacea. {Human Action, p.
848)
Further Bohm-Bawerk criticism of Clark appears mainly in his essays,
"Capital and Interest Once More," printed in Quarterly Journal of Eco-
nomics (November 1906 and February 1907): esp. pp. 269, 277 and
280-82; "The Nature of Capital: A Rejoinder," Quarterly journal of Eco-
nomics (November 1907); and in the above-cited Capital and Interest.
Moreover the fact that Bohm-Bawerk's "average production period"
idea was misconceived, a fact recognized by Menger, Mises, Hayek,
and others, in no way justifies the mythical concept of capital Clark
and Knight propose. The members of the Austrian School have unan-
imously acknowledged that Bohm-Bawerk made a "slip" when he
introduced the (non-existent) "average production period" in his
analysis, since the entire theory of capital may be easily constructed
from a prospective viewpoint; that is, in light of actors' subjective esti-
mates regarding the time periods their future actions will take. In fact
Hayek states,
Professor Knight seems to hold that to expose the ambiguities
and inconsistencies involved in the notion of an average
investment period serves to expel the idea of time from capi-
tal theory altogether. But it is not so. In general it is sufficient
to say that the investment period of some factors has been
lengthened, while those of all others have remained
unchanged. (F.A. Hayek, "The Mythology of Capital," Quar-
terly journal of Economics [February 1936]: 206)
520 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
of capital is far from being impossible or improbable. Capi-
tal is not necessarily perpetual.12
Realizing the debate between the two sides is not pointless,
as it involves the clash of two radically incompatible concep-
tions of economics (namely subjectivism versus objectivism
based on general equilibrium), Hayek also attacked Clark and
Knight's position, which he felt rested on the following essen-
tial error:
This basic mistake — if the substitution of a meaningless
statement for the solution of a problem can be called a mis-
take-is the idea of capital as a fund which maintains itself
automatically and that, in consequence, once an amount of
capital has been brought into existence the necessity of
reproducing it presents no economic problem.13
Hayek insists that the debate on the nature of capital is not
merely terminological. On the contrary, he emphasizes that
the mythical conception of capital as a self-sustaining fund in
a production "process" which involves no time prevents its
own proponents from identifying, on the whole, the impor-
tant economic issues in real life. In particular it blinds them to
variations in the productive structure which result from
changes in the level of voluntary saving, and to the ways
credit expansion affects the structure of production. In other
words the mythical concept of capital keeps its supporters
from understanding the close relationship between the micro
and macro aspects of economics, since the connection between
12Fritz Machlup, "Professor Knight and the 'Period of Production/" p.
580, reprinted in Israel M. Kirzner, edv Classics in Austrian Economics,
vol. 2, chap. 20, pp. 275-315.
13F.A. Hayek, "The Mythology of Capital," Quarterly Journal of Econom-
ics (February 1936): 203. Several years later, Hayek added:
I am afraid, with all due respect to Professor Knight, I cannot
take this view seriously because I cannot attach any meaning
to this mystical "fund" and I shall not treat this view as a seri-
ous rival of the one here adopted. (Hayek, The Pure Theory of
Capital, p. 94)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 521
the two is composed precisely of the temporal plans of cre-
ative entrepreneurs who, by definition, are excluded from the
Walrasian model of the economic system, the model Clark and
Knight incorporate into their theory of capital.14
Ludwig von Mises later joined the debate, showing his
disapproval of the "new chimerical notions such as the 'self-
perpetuating character' of useful things."15 Mises echoes
Bohm-Bawerk's16 views when he points out that such notions
are eventually put forward to justify doctrines based on the
myth of "underconsumption" and on the supposed "paradox
of thrift," and to thus provide a theoretical basis for economic
policies which foster increased consumption to the detriment
of saving. Mises explains that the entire current structure of
capital goods is the result of concrete entrepreneurial deci-
sions made in the past by real people who on specific occa-
sions opted to invest in certain capital goods, and on others, to
replace them or group them differently, and on yet others to
even relinquish or consume capital goods already produced.
Hence "we are better off than earlier generations because we
are equipped with the capital goods they have accumulated
for us."17 Incredibly, it appears this theoretical principle and
others equally obvious have yet to sink in.
In his more recent book, An Essay on Capital, Israel M.
Kirzner emphasizes that Clark and Knight's concept of capi-
tal rules out human, entrepreneurial decision-making in the
14The negative consequences of disregarding the time factor and the
stages involved in any action process were stressed by Hayek as early as
1928, when he pointed out that,
[I]t becomes evident that the customary abstraction from time
does a degree of violence to the actual state of affairs which
casts serious doubt on the utility of the results thereby
achieved. (EA. Hayek, "Intertemporal Price Equilibrium and
Movements in the Value of Money" originally published in
German in 1928, chapter 4 of Money, Capital and Fluctuations,
p. 72)
15Mises, Human Action, p. 848.
16See footnote 11 above.
17Mises, Human Action, p. 492.
522 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
production process. Individuals' different plans regarding the
specific capital goods they may decide to create and employ in
their production processes are not even considered. In short
Clark and Knight assume that the course of events flows "by
itself" and that the future is an objective given which follows
a set pattern and is not influenced by individual agents'
microeconomic actions and decisions, which they deem fully
predetermined. Kirzner concludes that the view of Clark and
Knight ignores "the planned character of capital goods main-
tenance," adding that their model requires acceptance of the
notion that
the future will take care of itself so long as the present
"sources" of future output flows are appropriately main-
tained. . . . The Knightian approach reflects perfectly the
way in which this misleading and unhelpful notion of
"automaticity" has been developed into a fully articulated
and self-contained theory of capital.18
A Critique of the Mechanistic Monetarist Version
of the Quantity Theory of Money
Monetarists not only overlook the role time and stages
play in the economy's productive structure. They also accept
a mechanistic version of the quantity theory of money, a ver-
sion they base on an equation which supposedly demon-
strates the existence of a direct causal link between the total
quantity of money in circulation, the "general level" of prices
and total production. The equation is as follows:
MV = PT
where M is the stock of money, V the "velocity of circulation"
(the number of times the monetary unit changes hands on
average in a certain time period), P the general price level, and
T the "aggregate" of all quantities of goods and services
exchanged in a year.19
18Kirzner, An Essay on Capital, p. 63; italics deleted.
19This is the transaction version of the equation of exchange. According
to Irving Fisher (The Purchasing Power of Money: Its Determination and
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 523
Supposing the "velocity of circulation" of money remains
relatively constant over time, and the gross national product
approximates that of "full employment," monetarists believe
money is neutral in the long run, and that therefore an expan-
sion of the money supply (M) tends to proportionally raise the
corresponding general price level. In other words, though in
nominal terms the different factor incomes and production
and consumption prices may increase by the same percentage
as the money supply, in real terms they remain the same over
time. Hence monetarists believe inflation is a monetary phe-
nomenon that affects all economic sectors uniformly and pro-
portionally, and that therefore it does not disrupt or discoordi-
nate the structure of productive stages. It is clear that the
monetarist viewpoint is purely "macroeconomic" and ignores
the microeconomic effects of monetary growth on the produc-
tive structure. As we saw in the last section, this approach
stems from the lack of a capital theory which takes the time
factor into account.
Relation to Credit Interest and Crises [New York: Macmillan, 1911 and
1925], p. 48 in the 1925 edition), the left side of the equation can also be
separated out into two parts, MV and M'V, where M' and V denote
respectively the supply and velocity of money with respect to bank
deposits:
MV + M'V = PT
A national income version of the equation of exchange has also been
proposed. In this case T represents a "real" national income measure
(for example, the "real" gross national product), which, as we know,
only includes consumer goods and services and final capital goods (see,
for instance, Samuelson and Nordhaus, Economics). This version is par-
ticularly faulty, since it excludes all products of intermediate stages in
the productive structure, products which are also exchanged in units of the
money stock, M. Thus the equation more than halves the true, real value
of T which MV supposedly influences. Finally, the Cambridge cash bal-
ance version is as follows:
M = kPT
where M is the stock of money (though it can also be interpreted as the
desired cash balance) and PT is a measure of national income. See Milton
Friedman, "Quantity Theory of Money," in The New Palgrave: A Dictio-
nary of Economics, vol. 4, esp. pp. 4-7.
524 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The English economist R.G. Hawtrey, a main exponent of
the Monetarist School in the early twentieth century is one
whose position illustrates the theoretical difficulties of mone-
tarism. In his review of Hayek's book, Prices and Production,
which appeared in 1931, Hawtrey expressed his inability to
understand the book. To comprehend this assertion, one must
take into account that Hayek's approach presupposes a capi-
tal theory; but monetarists lack such a theory and therefore
fail to grasp how credit expansion affects the productive
structure.20 Furthermore against all empirical evidence,
Hawtrey declares that the first symptom of all depressions is
a decline in sales in the sector of final consumer goods, thus
overlooking the fact that a much sharper drop in the price of
capital goods always comes first. Thus the prices of consumer
goods fluctuate relatively little throughout the cycle when
compared to those of capital goods produced in the stages fur-
thest from consumption. Moreover, in keeping with his mon-
etarist position, Hawtrey believes credit expansion gives rise
to excess monetary demand which is uniformly distributed
among all goods and services in society21
20To be precise, Hawtrey stated that Hayek's book was "so difficult and
obscure that it is impossible to understand." See R.G. Hawtrey, "Review
of Hayek's Prices and Production," Economica 12 (1932): 119-25. Hawtrey
was an officer of the British Treasury and a monetarist who competed
with Keynes in the 1930s for prominence and influence on government
economic policy. Even today the Austrian theory of the cycle continues
to baffle monetarists. Modern monetarists keep repeating Hawtrey's
boutade: for instance, Allan Meltzer, in reference to Hayek's Prices and
Production, has stated:
The book is obscure and incomprehensible. Fortunately for all
of us, and for political economy and social science, Hayek did
not spend his life trying to explain what Prices and Production
tried to do. (Allan Meltzer, "Comments on Centi and
O'Driscoll," manuscript presented at the General Meeting of
the Mont Pelerin Society, Cannes, France, September 25-30,
1994, p. 1)
21R.G. Hawtrey, Capital and Employment (London: Longmans Green,
1937), p. 250. Hayek levels penetrating criticism against Hawtrey in his
review of Hawtrey's book, Great Depression and the Way Out, in Econom-
ica 12 (1932): 126-27. That same year Hayek wrote an article ("Das
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 525
More recently other monetarists have also revealed their
lack of an adequate capital theory and have thus expressed the
same bewilderment as Hawtrey with respect to studies on the
effects of monetary expansion on the productive structure. Mil-
ton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, in reference to the possible
effects of money on the productive structure, state:
We have little confidence in our knowledge of the transmis-
sion mechanism, except in such broad and vague terms as to
constitute little more than an impressionistic representation
rather than an engineering blueprint.22
Furthermore, surprisingly, these authors maintain that no
empirical evidence exists to support the thesis that credit
expansion exerts an irregular effect on the productive structure.
Therefore they disregard not only the theoretical analysis pre-
sented in detail here, but also the different empirical studies
reviewed in the last chapter. Such studies identify typical,
Schicksal der Goldwahrung," printed in the Deutsche Volkswirt 20 (Feb-
ruary 1932): 642-45, and no. 21, pp. 677-81; English translation entitled
"The Fate of the Gold Standard," chapter 5 of Money, Capital and Fluc-
tuations, pp. 118-35) in which he strongly criticizes Hawtrey for being,
along with Keynes, one of the key architects and defenders of the pro-
gram to stabilize the monetary unit. According to Hayek, such a pro-
gram, based on credit expansion and implemented in an environment
of rising productivity will inevitably cause profound discoordination
in the productive structure and a serious recession. Hayek concludes
that
Mr. Hawtrey seems to be one of the stabilization theorists
referred to above, to whose influence the willingness of the
managements of the central banks to depart more than ever
before from the policy rules traditionally followed by such
banks can be attributed. (Hayek, Money, Capital and Fluctations,
p. 120)
22See Milton Friedman, The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays
(Chicago: Aldine, 1979), p. 222, and the book by Milton Friedman and
Anna J. Schwartz, Monetary Trends in the United States and United King-
dom: Their Relation to Income, Prices and Interest Rates, 1867-1975
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), esp. pp. 26-27 and 30-31.
The mention of "engineering" and the "transmission mechanism"
betrays the strong scientistic leaning of these two authors.
526 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
empirical features which largely coincide with those observed
in all cycles from the time they began.
Friedrich A. Hayek stated that his
chief objection against [monetarist] theory is that, as what is
called a "macrotheory," it pays attention only to the effects
of changes in the quantity of money on the general price
level and not to the effects on the structure of relative prices.
In consequence, it tends to disregard what seems to me the
most harmful effects of inflation: the misdirection of
resources it causes and the unemployment which ultimately
results from it.23
It is easy to understand why a theory such as the one mon-
etarists hold, which is constructed in strictly macroeconomic
terms with no analysis of underlying microeconomic factors,
must ignore not only the effects of credit expansion on the
productive structure, but also, in general, the ways in which
"general price level" fluctuations influence the structure of rel-
ative prices.24 Rather than simply raise or lower the general
23Hayek, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of
Ideas, p. 215. Near the end of his life, Fritz Machlup commented on the
same topic:
I don't know why a man as intelligent as Milton Friedman
doesn't give more emphasis to relative prices, relative costs,
even in an inflationary period. (Joseph T. Salerno and Richard
M. Ebeling, "An Interview with Professor Fritz Machlup,"
Austrian Economics Newsletter 3, no. 1 [Summer, 1980]: 12)
24 The main fault of the old quantity theory as well as the math-
ematical economists' equation of exchange is that they have
ignored this fundamental issue. Changes in the supply of
money must bring about changes in other data too. The mar-
ket system before and after the inflow or outflow of a quan-
tity of money is not merely changed in that the cash holdings
of the individuals and prices have increased or decreased.
There have been effected also changes in the reciprocal
exchange ratios between the various commodities and serv-
ices which, if one wants to resort to metaphors, are more ade-
quately described by the image of price revolution than by
the misleading figure of an elevation or sinking of the "price
level." (Mises, Human Action, p. 413)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 527
price level, fluctuations in credit constitute a "revolution"
which affects all relative prices and eventually provokes a cri-
sis of malinvestment and an economic recession. The inability
to perceive this fact led the American economist Benjamin M.
Anderson to assert that the fundamental flaw in the quantity
theory of money is merely that it conceals from the researcher
the underlying microeconomic phenomena influenced by
variations in the general price level. Indeed monetarists con-
tent themselves with the quantity theory's equation of
exchange, deeming all important issues to be adequately
addressed by it and subsequent microeconomic analyses to be
unnecessary25
The above sheds light on monetarists' lack of a satisfactory
theory of economic cycles and on their belief that crises and
depressions are caused merely by a "monetary contraction."
This is a naive and superficial diagnosis which confuses the
cause with the effect. As we know, economic crises arise
because credit expansion and inflation first distort the pro-
ductive structure through a complex process which later man-
ifests itself in a crisis, monetary squeeze, and recession.
Attributing crises to a monetary contraction is like attributing
measles to the fever and rash which accompany it. This expla-
nation of cycles can only be upheld by the scientistic, ultra-
empirical methodology of monetarist macroeconomics, an
approach which lacks a temporal theory of capital.26
25 The formula of the quantity theorists is a monotonous "tit-tat-
toe" — money, credit, and prices. With this explanation the
problem was solved and further research and further investi-
gation were unnecessary and consequently stopped — for
those who believed in this theory. It is one of the great vices
of the quantity theory of money that it tends to check investi-
gation for underlying factors in a business situation.
Anderson concludes:
The quantity theory of money is invalid. . . . We cannot accept
a predominantly monetary general theory either for the level
of commodity prices or for the movements of the business
cycle. (Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare, pp. 70-71)
26The Spanish monetarist Pedro Schwartz once stated:
528 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Furthermore not only are monetarists incapable of
explaining economic recessions except by resorting to the
effects of the monetary contraction;27 they have also been
unable to present any valid theoretical argument against the
Austrian theory of economic cycles: they have simply ignored
it or, as Friedman has done, have only mentioned it in passing,
falsely indicating that it lacks an "empirical" basis. Thus
David Laidler, in a recent critique of the Austrian theory of the
cycle, had no choice but to turn to the old, worn-out Keyne-
sian arguments which center on the supposedly healthy
influence of effective demand on real income. The basic idea
is this: that an increase in effective demand could ultimately
give rise to an increase in income, and hence, supposedly, in
savings, and that therefore the artificial lengthening based
on credit expansion could be maintained indefinitely, and
the process of poor allocation of resources would not neces-
sarily reverse in the form of a recession.28 The essential error
There is no proven theory of cycles: it is a phenomenon we
simply do not understand. However with money becoming
elastic and expansions and recessions leaving us speechless, it
is easy to see how we macroeconomists became unpopular.
(Pedro Schwartz, "Macro y Micro," Cinco Dias [April 12,
1993], p. 3)
It is regrettable that the effects of credit "elasticity" on the real economy
continue to befuddle monetarists, and that they still insist on disregard-
ing the Austrian theory of economic cycles, which not only fully inte-
grates the "micro" and "macro" aspects of economics, but also explains
how credit expansion, a product of fractional-reserve banking, invari-
ably provokes a widespread poor allocation of resources in microeco-
nomic terms, a situation which inevitably leads to a macroeconomic
recession.
27See, for instance, Leland Yeager, The Fluttering Veil: Essays on Monetary
Disequilibrium, George Selgin, ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund,
1997).
28 It is now a commonplace that, if saving depends upon real
income, and if the latter is free to vary, then variations in the
rate of investment induced by credit creation, among other
factors, will bring about changes in the level of real income
and therefore the rate of voluntary saving as an integral part
of the mechanisms that re-equilibrate intertemporal choices.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 529
in Laidler's argument was clearly exposed by Hayek already
in 1941, when he explained that the only possible way for pro-
duction processes financed by credit expansion to be main-
tained without a recession would be for economic agents to
voluntarily save all new monetary income created by banks
and used to finance such processes. The Austrian theory of the
cycle suggests that cycles occur when any portion of the new
monetary income (which banks create in the form of loans and
which reaches the productive structure) is spent on consumer
goods and services by the owners of capital goods and the
original means of production. Thus the spending of a share on
consumption, which is surely always the case, is sufficient to
trigger the familiar microeconomic processes which irrevoca-
bly lead to a crisis and recession. In the words of Hayek him-
self:
All that is required to make our analysis applicable is that,
when incomes are increased by investment, the share of the
additional income spent on consumers' goods during any
period of time should be larger than the proportion by
which the new investment adds to the output of consumers'
goods during the same period of time. And there is of course
no reason to expect that more than a fraction of the new
income, and certainly not as much as has been newly
invested, will be saved, because this would mean that
practically all the income earned from the new investment
would have to be saved.29
(See David Laidler, "Hayek on Neutral Money and the
Cycle," printed in Money and Business Cycles: The Economics of
F.A. Hayek, M. Colonna and H. Hagemann, eds., vol. 1, p. 19.)
29In other words, it would be necessary for economic agents to save all
monetary income corresponding to the shaded area in Chart V-6, which
reflects the portion of the productive structure lengthened and widened
as a result of credit expansion. Understandably it is nearly impossible
for such an event to occur in real life. The above excerpt appears on p.
394 of The Pure Theory of Capital. In short, credit expansion provokes a
maladjustment in the behavior of the different productive agents, and the
only remedy is an increase in voluntary saving and a decrease in artifi-
cially-lengthened investments, until the two can again become coordi-
nated. As Lachmann eloquently puts it:
530 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
It is interesting to note that one of today's most prominent
monetarists, David Laidler, is forced to resort to Keynesian
arguments in a fruitless attempt to criticize the Austrian theory
of economic cycles. Nevertheless the author himself correctly
recognizes that from the standpoint of the Austrian theory the
differences between monetarists and Keynesians are merely
trivial and mostly apparent, since both groups apply very sim-
ilar "macroeconomic" methodologies in their analyses.30
The above reflections on monetarism (its lack of a capital
theory and the adoption of a macroeconomic outlook which
masks the issues of true importance) would not be complete
without a criticism of the equation of exchange, MV=PT, on
which monetarists have relied since Irving Fisher proposed it
in his book, The Purchasing Power of Money.31 Clearly this
What the Austrian remedy — increasing voluntary savings —
amounts to is nothing but a change of data which will turn data
which originally were purely imaginary — entrepreneurs'
profit expectations induced by the low rate of interest — into
real data. (Lachmann, "On Crisis and Adjustment," Review of
Economics and Statistics [May 1939]: 67)
30David Laidler, The Golden Age of the Quantity Theory (New York: Philip
Allan, 1991). Laidler specifically concludes:
I am suggesting, more generally, that there is far less differ-
ence between neoclassical and Keynesian attitudes to policy
intervention, particularly in the monetary area, than is com-
monly believed. The economists whose contributions I have
analyzed did not regard any particular set of monetary
arrangements as sacrosanct. For most of them, the acid test of
any system was its capacity to deliver price level stability and
hence, they believed, output and employment stability too.
Laidler adds:
The consequent adoption of Keynesian policy doctrines, too,
was the natural product of treating the choice of economic
institutions as a political one, to be made on pragmatic
grounds, (p. 198)
Laidler 's book is essential for understanding current monetarist doc-
trines and their evolution.
31Irving Fisher, The Purchasing Power of Money, esp. pp. 25ff. in the 1925
edition. Mises, with his customary insight, points out that defenders of
the quantity theory of money have done it more damage than their
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 531
"equation of exchange" is simply an ideogram which rather
awkwardly represents the relationship between growth in the
money supply and a decline in the purchasing power of
money. The origin of this "formula" is a simple tautology which
expresses that the total amount of money spent on transactions
conducted in the economic system during a certain time period
must be identical to the quantity of money received on the same
transactions during the same period (MV=£pt). However
monetarists then take a leap in the dark when they assume the
other side of the equation can be represented as PT, where T is
an absurd "aggregate" which calls for adding up heterogeneous
opponents. This is due to the fact that the great majority of the theory's
defenders have accepted the mechanistic equation of exchange which,
at best, merely represents a tautology: that the income and expenditure
involved in all transactions must be equal. Furthermore they attempt to
supply a comprehensive explanation of economic phenomena by
adding up the prices of goods and services exchanged in different time
periods and assuming the value of the monetary unit is determined by,
among other factors, the "velocity" of circulation of money. They fail to
realize that the value of money originates with humans' subjective
desire to maintain certain cash balances, and to focus exclusively on
aggregate concepts and averages like the velocity of money conveys the
impression that money only fulfils its function when transactions are
carried out, and not when it remains "idle" in the form of cash balances
held by economic agents. Nonetheless economic agents' demand for
money comprises both the cash balances they retain at all times, as well
as the additional amounts they demand when they make a transaction.
Thus money performs its function in both cases and always has an
owner; in other words, it is included in the cash balance of an economic
agent, regardless of whether the agent plans to increase or decrease the
balance at any point in the future. According to Mises, another crucial
defect of the equation of exchange is that it conceals the effects varia-
tions in the quantity of money have on relative prices and the fact that
new money reaches the economic system at very specific points, dis-
torting the productive structure and favoring certain economic agents,
to the detriment of the rest. Ludwig von Mises, "The Position of Money
Among Economic Goods," first printed in Die Wirtschaftstheorie der
Gegenwart, Hans Mayer, ed. (Vienna: Julius Springer, 1932), vol. 2. This
article has been translated into English by Albert H. Zlabinger and pub-
lished in the book, Money, Method, and the Market Process: Essays by Ludwig
von Mises, Richard M. Ebeling, ed. (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1990), pp. 55ff.
532 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
quantities of goods and services exchanged over a period of
time. The lack of homogeneity makes this an impossible sum.32
Mises also points out the absurdity of the concept of "velocity
of money," which is defined simply as the variable which,
dependent on the others, is necessary to maintain the balance
of the equation of exchange. The concept makes no economic
sense because individual economic agents cannot possibly act
as the formula indicates.33
Therefore the fact that monetarists' equation of exchange
makes no mathematical or economic sense reduces it to a mere
ideogram at most, or, as the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
puts it, "a character or figure symbolizing the idea of a thing
without expressing the name of it, as the Chinese characters,
etc."34 This ideogram contains an undeniable element of truth
inasmuch as it reflects the notion that variations in the money
supply eventually influence the purchasing power of money
(i.e., the price of the monetary unit in terms of every good and
32Murray N. Rothbard argues that the "general price level," P, is a
weighted average of prices of goods which vary in quantity and quality
in time and space, and the denominator is intended to reflect the sum of
heterogeneous amounts expressed in different units (the year's total pro-
duction in real terms). Rothbard's brilliant, perceptive critical treatment
of monetarists' equation of exchange appears in his book, Man, Econ-
omy, and State, pp. 727-37.
33"For individual economic agents, it is impossible to make use of the for-
mula: total volume of transactions divided by velocity of circulation."
Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 154. The concept of velocity of
money only makes sense if we intend to measure the general price level
over a certain time period, which is patently absurd. It is pointless to con-
sider the prices of goods and services over a period of time, e.g., a year,
during which the quantity and quality of goods and services produced
vary, as does the purchasing power of the monetary unit. It so happens
that from an individual's point of view prices are determined in each
transaction, each time a certain amount of money changes hands, so an
"average velocity of circulation" is inconceivable. Moreover from a
"social" standpoint, at most we might consider a "general price level" with
respect to a certain point in time (not a period), and thus the "velocity of cir-
culation of money" concept is totally meaningless in this case as well.
3477ze Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1973), vol. 1, p. 1016.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 533
service). Nevertheless its use as a supposed aid to explaining
economic processes has proven highly detrimental to the
progress of economic thought, since it prevents analysis of
underlying microeconomic factors, forces a mechanistic inter-
pretation of the relationship between the money supply and the
general price level, and in short, masks the true microeconomic
effects monetary variations exert on the real productive struc-
ture. The harmful, false notion that money is neutral results.
However, as early as 1912, Ludwig von Mises demonstrated
that all increases in the money supply invariably modify the
structure of relative prices of goods and services. Aside from
the purely imaginary case in which the new money is evenly
distributed among all economic agents, it is always injected into
the economy in a sequential manner and at various specific
points (via public expenditure, credit expansion, or the discov-
ery of new gold reserves in particular places). To the extent this
occurs, only certain people will be the first to receive the new
monetary units and have the chance to purchase new goods
and services at prices not yet affected by monetary growth.
Thus begins a process of income redistribution in which the first
to receive the monetary units benefit from the situation at the
expense of all other economic agents, who find themselves pur-
chasing goods and services at rising prices before any of the
newly-created monetary units reach their pockets. This process
of income redistribution not only inevitably alters the "struc-
ture" of economic agents' value scales but also their weights in
the market, which can only lead to changes in society's entire
structure of relative prices. The specific characteristics of these
changes in cases where monetary growth derives from credit
expansion have been covered in detail in previous chapters.35
35Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 162 ff. Mises concludes:
The prices of commodities after the rise of prices will not bear
the same relation to each other as before its commencement;
the decrease in the purchasing power of money will not be
uniform with regard to different economic goods, (p. 163)
Before Mises, the same idea was also expressed by Cantillon, Hume,
and Thornton, among others. For instance, see "Of Money" one of
Hume's essays contained in Essays, pp. 286ff. Hume takes the idea from
Cantillon who was the first one to express it in his Essai sur la nature du
commerce en general, chap. VII, part II, pp. 232-39.
534 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
What policy do monetarists advocate to prevent and
counter crises and economic recessions? They generally con-
fine themselves to recommending policies that merely treat
the symptoms, not the ultimate causes, of crises. In other
words they suggest increasing the quantity of money in circu-
lation, and thus reinflating the economy to fight the monetary
contraction which, to a greater or lesser degree, always takes
place following the crisis. They fail to realize that this macro-
economic policy hinders the liquidation of projects launched
in error, prolongs the recession and may eventually lead to
stagflation, a phase we have already analyzed.36 In the long
run, as we know, the expansion of new loans during a crisis
can, at most, only postpone the inevitable arrival of the
recession, making the subsequent readjustment even more
severe. As Hayek quite clearly states:
Any attempt to combat the crisis by credit expansion will,
therefore, not only be merely the treatment of symptoms as
causes, but may also prolong the depression by delaying the
inevitable real adjustments.37
Finally, some monetarists propose the establishment of a
constitutional rule which would predetermine the growth of
the money supply and "guarantee" monetary stability and
economic growth. However this plan would also be ineffec-
tive in averting economic crises if new doses of money con-
tinued, to any degree, to be injected into the system through
credit expansion. In addition whenever a rise in general pro-
ductivity "required" increased credit expansion to stabilize
36Hans F. Sennholz, Money and Freedom (Spring Mills, Perm.: Libertarian
Press, 1985), pp. 38-39. Sennholz explains Friedman's lack of a true the-
ory of the cycle and his attempt to disguise this gap by designing a pol-
icy aimed simply at breaking out of a recession by monetary means,
without accounting for its causes.
37F.A. Hayek, "A Rejoinder to Mr. Keynes," Economica 11, no. 34
(November 1931): 398-404. Reprinted as chapter 5 of Friedrich A. Hayek:
Critical Assessments, John Cunningham Wood and Ronald N. Woods,
eds. (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), vol. 1, pp. 82-83; see also
Contra Keynes and Cambridge, pp. 159-64.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 535
the purchasing power of money, this action would trigger and
intensify all of the processes which inexorably lead to invest-
ment errors and crisis, and which monetarists are incapable of
understanding, due to the obvious deficiencies in the macro-
economic analytical tools they use.38
A Brief Note on the Theory of Rational Expectations
The analysis carried out here can also be applied to make
some comments on both the hypothesis of rational expecta-
tions and other contributions of new classical economics.
According to the hypothesis of rational expectations, eco-
nomic agents tend to make correct predictions based on an
appropriate use of all relevant information and on scientific
knowledge made available by economic theory. Those who
accept this hypothesis argue that government attempts to
influence production and employment through monetary and
fiscal policy are fruitless. Supporters therefore hold that, to the
extent that economic agents foresee the consequences of tradi-
tional policies, these policies are ineffective in influencing real
production or employment.39
Nevertheless there are serious flaws in the economic logic
of these analytical developments in new classical economics.
On the one hand, we must take into account that economic
agents cannot possibly obtain all of the relevant information,
both with respect to the particular circumstances of the cur-
rent cycle (practical knowledge), and with respect to which
economic theory best explains the course of events (scientific
knowledge). This is due, among other factors, to a lack of
unanimity as to which theory of cycles is the most valid:
though the arguments presented here indicate that the correct
explanation is the one provided by the Austrian theory of the
business cycle, as long as the scientific community as a whole
fails to accept it, we cannot expect all other economic agents
38See section 9 of chapter 6 (pp. 424-31), which covered the harmful
effects of policies to stabilize the purchasing power of money.
39See the explanation on the evolution of the school of rational expecta-
tions in Garrison, Time and Money, chap. 2, pp. 15-30.
536 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
to recognize it as an acceptable explanation.40 Furthermore for
exactly the same reasons the economic theory of socialism has
proven it is impossible for a hypothetical benevolent dictator-
scientist to obtain all practical information concerning his sub-
jects, it is equally impossible for each economic agent to obtain
all practical information concerning his fellow citizens, and all
scientific knowledge available at any one time.41
On the other hand, even if, for the sake of argument, we
allow that economic agents can obtain the relevant informa-
tion and hit the mark with respect to the theoretical explana-
tion of the cycle (unanimously understanding the essential
elements of our circulation credit theory), "rational expecta-
tions" theorists are still incorrect when they conclude that
government fiscal and monetary policies can produce no real
consequences. This is the strongest argument against the the-
ory of rational expectations. Even if entrepreneurs have "per-
fect" knowledge of events to come, they cannot shy away
from the effects of an expansion of credit, since their very
40As Leijonhufvud eloquently states:
When theorists are not sure they understand, or cannot agree,
it is doubtful that they are entitled to the assumption that pri-
vate sector agents understand and agree. (Axel Leijonhufvud,
"What Would Keynes Have Thought of Rational Expecta-
tions?" UCLA Department of Economics Discussion Paper
No. 299 [Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles,
1983], p. 5)
41This argument parallels the one we employ in Socialismo, cdlculo
economico y funcion empresarial, to explain the theoretical impracticability
of socialism. This reasoning is based on the radical difference between
practical (subjective) information or knowledge and scientific (objec-
tive) information or knowledge. Therefore rational expectations theo-
rists commit the same type of error as the neoclassical theorists who
sought to prove socialism was possible. There is only one difference:
instead of assuming a scientist or dictator can obtain all practical infor-
mation concerning his subjects, new classical economists start from the
premise that the subjects themselves are capable of obtaining all rele-
vant information, both practical (concerning the rest of the economic
agents), and scientific (concerning the valid theories on the evolution of
the cycle). See Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico y funcion
empresarial, pp. 52-54 and 87-110.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 537
profit motive will inevitably lead them to take advantage of
the newly-created money. In fact even if they understand the
dangers of lengthening the productive structure without the
backing of real savings, they can easily derive large profits
by accepting the newly-created loans and investing the
funds in new projects, provided they are capable of withdrawing
from the process in time and of selling the new capital goods at
high prices before their market value drops, an event which heralds
the arrival of the crisis A1 Indeed entrepreneurial profits arise
42In light of the above considerations, the following remark Ludwig von
Mises makes seems a bit exaggerated (see his article, "Elastic Expecta-
tions in the Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle," published in Econom-
ica [August 1943]: 251-52):
The teachings of the monetary theory of the trade cycle are
today so well known even outside of the circle of economists,
that the naive optimism which inspired the entrepreneurs in
the boom periods has given way to a greater skepticism. It
may be that businessmen will in the future react to credit
expansion in another manner than they did in the past. It may
be that they will avoid using for an expansion of their opera-
tions the easy money available, because they will keep in
mind the inevitable end of the boom. Some signs forebode
such a change. But it is too early to make a positive statement.
Although it is obvious that "correct" expectations of the course events
will take will hasten their arrival and make credit expansion less "effec-
tive" than it would be under other circumstances, even if entrepreneurs
have "perfect" knowledge of the typical characteristics of the cycle, they
cannot forgo the profits which, in the short run, credit expansion gives
them, especially if they believe they are capable of predicting the appro-
priate time to sell their capital goods and avoid the corresponding losses.
Mises himself, in Human Action (p. 871), makes the following clarifica-
tion:
What the individual businessman needs in order to avoid
losses is knowledge about the date of the turning point at a
time when other businessmen still believe that the crash is
farther away than is really the case. Then his superior knowl-
edge will give him the opportunity to arrange his own oper-
ations in such a way as to come out unharmed. But if the end
of the boom could be calculated according to a formula, all
businessmen 'would learn the date at the same time. Their
endeavors to adjust their conduct of affairs to this informa-
tion would immediately result in the appearance of all the
538 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
from knowledge of specific conditions with respect to time and
place, and entrepreneurs may well discover significant oppor-
tunities for profit in each historical process of credit expan-
sion, despite their theoretical knowledge of the processes
which inexorably lead to a depression, a stage they may quite
legitimately expect to escape from, due to their superior
knowledge as to when the first symptoms of the recession will
appear. Gerald P. O'Driscoll and Mario J. Rizzo make a similar
observation:
Though entrepreneurs understand this [theory] at an
abstract (or macro-) level, they cannot predict the exact fea-
tures of the next cyclical expansion and contraction. That is,
they do not know how the unique aspects of one cyclical
episode will differ from the last such episode or from the
"average" cycle. They lack the ability to make micro-predic-
tions, . . . even though they can predict the general sequence
of events that will occur. These entrepreneurs have no rea-
son to foreswear the temporary profits to be garnered in an
inflationary episode. In the end, of course, all profits are
purely temporary. And each individual investment oppor-
tunity carries with it a risk. For one thing, other entrepre-
neurs may be quicker. Or so many may have perceived an
opportunity that there is a temporary excess supply at some
point in the future.43
phenomena of the depression. It would be too late for any of
them to avoid being victimized. If it were possible to calculate
the future state of the market, the future would not be uncertain.
There would be neither entrepreneurial loss nor profit. What peo-
ple expect from the economists is beyond the power of any
mortal man. (Italics added)
43Gerald P. O'Driscoll and Mario J. Rizzo, The Economics of Time and Igno-
rance, p. 222. Further criticism of the theory of rational expectations
appears in Gerald P. O'Driscoll's article, "Rational Expectations, Politics
and Stagflation," chapter 7 of the book, Time, Uncertainty and Disequilib-
rium: Exploration of Austrian Themes, Mario J. Rizzo, ed. (Lexigton, Mass.:
Lexington Books, 1979), pp. 153-76. Along the same lines, Roger Garri-
son has remarked:
Feedback loops, multiple alternatives for inputs, and multiple
uses of outputs . . . are complexities [that] preclude the hedg-
ing against crisis and downturn on a sufficiently widespread
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 539
In addition rational expectations theorists still do not com-
prehend the Austrian theory of the cycle, and, like monetarists,
they lack an adequate capital theory. In particular they fail to see
how credit expansion affects the productive structure and why a
recession inevitably results, even when expectations regarding
the general course of events are flawless. After all, if entrepreneurs
think they possess more (subjective) information than all other
economic agents and believe themselves capable of withdrawing
from an expansionary process before they sustain any losses, it
would go against the grain for them to dismiss the possibility of
making short-term gains in a market where such a process had
been initiated. In other words, no one is going to turn his nose up
at created money just because it will ultimately usher in a reces-
sion. One does not look a gift horse in the mouth, especially if one
plans to get rid of the horse before the catastrophe hits.
The role of expectations in the cycle is much more subtle
than new classical economists assert, as Mises and Hayek
reveal in their treatment of the Austrian theory of the cycle,
covered in chapter 6. Indeed Mises explains that there is often
a certain time lag between the beginning of credit expansion
basis as to actually nullify the process that would have led to
the crisis. The idea that entrepreneurs know enough about
their respective positions to hedge against the central bank is
simply not plausible. It all but denies the existence of an eco-
nomic problem that requires for its solution a market process.
(Roger W. Garrison, "What About Expectations?: A Challenge
to Austrian Theory" an article presented at the 2nd Austrian
Scholars Conference [Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama,
April 4-5, 1997, manuscript pending publication], p. 21; see
also Time and Money, pp. 15-30)
Our stance on the theory of rational expectations is, however, even more
radical than that of O'Driscoll and Rizzo. As we have already stated,
even if economic agents know not only the typical shape of the cycle,
but also the specific moments and values at which the most important
changes are to come about, they will still be inclined to accept the
newly-created money to cash in on the myriad of opportunities for
profit which crop up throughout the capital goods structure as the mar-
ket process advances through the different stages in the cycle. See an
illustration of this strategy in Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth, "Rid-
ing the South Sea Bubble," American Economic Review 94, no. 5 (Decem-
ber 2004): 1654-68, esp. p. 1666.
540 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and the appearance of expectations regarding its conse-
quences. In any case the formation of realistic expectations
merely speeds up the processes that trigger the crisis and
makes it necessary for new loans to be granted at a progres-
sively increasing speed, if the policy of loan creation is to con-
tinue producing its expansionary effect. Therefore, other
things being equal, the more accustomed economic agents
become to a stable institutional environment, the more dam-
aging credit expansion will be, and the more maladjustments
it will cause in the stages of the production process. (This par-
ticularly applies to the expansion of the 1920s, which led to the
Great Depression). Moreover, ceteris paribus, as economic
agents become more and more accustomed to credit expan-
sion, larger and larger doses of it will have to be injected into
the economic system to induce a boom and avoid the rever-
sion effects we are familiar with. This constitutes the only ele-
ment of truth in the hypothesis of rational expectations. (In the
well-chosen words of Roger W. Garrison, it is "the kernel of
truth in the rational expectations hypothesis."44) Nevertheless
the assumptions on which the theory rests are far from being
proven right, and entrepreneurs will never be able to com-
pletely refrain from taking advantage of the immediate profit
opportunities which arise from the newly-created money they
receive. Thus even with "perfect" expectations, credit expan-
sion will always distort the productive structure.45
In short the underlying thesis behind the theory of rational
expectations is that money is neutral, given that agents tend to
44Garrison, "What About Expectations?, p. 1.
45 The crucial question devolves around the source of errors in
cyclical episodes. In Hayek's analysis, misallocations and
errors occur as economic actors respond to genuine price sig-
nals. . . . Entrepreneurs are being offered a larger command
over the real resources in society; the concomitant changes in
relative prices make investing in these real resources gen-
uinely profitable. There is surely nothing "irrational" in entre-
preneurs grasping real profit opportunities. (O'Driscoll,
"Rational Expectations, Politics and Stagflation," in Time,
Uncertainty and Disequilibrium, p. 166)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 541
precisely predict the course of events.46 Defenders of this
hypothesis fail to realize that, as Mises correctly explained, the
concept of neutral money is a contradiction in terms:
The notion of a neutral money is no less contradictory than
that of a money of a stable purchasing power. Money with-
out a driving force of its own would not, as people assume,
be a perfect money; it would not be money at all.47
Under these circumstances it is not surprising that new
classical economists lack a satisfactory theory of the cycle, as
did their monetarist predecessors, that their only explanation
for the cycle is based on mysterious, unpredictable, real
shocks,48 and that they are ultimately incapable of explaining
46See Robert E. Lucas's, refined and concise exposition in his "Nobel
Lecture: Monetary Neutrality," Journal of Political Economy 104, no. 4
(August 1996): 661-82. Lucas has described cycles as the real results of
monetary shocks unanticipated by economic agents. Consequently var-
ious authors have pointed out supposed similarities between the theo-
rists of the Austrian School and those of new classical economics. In
view of the fact that new classical economists lack a capital and malin-
vestment theory, and that Austrians consider the equilibrium model,
maximizing representative agent and aggregates their new classical
economist colleagues use unrealistic and /or meaningless, we may rea-
sonably conclude that the "similarities" are more apparent than real. See
Richard Arena, "Hayek and Modern Business Cycle Theory," in Money
and Business Cycles: The Economics of F.A. Hayek, M. Colonna and H.
Hagemann, eds., vol. 1, chap. 10, pp. 203-17; see also Carlos Usabiaga
Ibahez and Jose Maria O'Kean Alonso, La nueva macroeconomia cldsica
(Madrid: Ediciones Piramide, 1994), pp. 140-44. A detailed analysis of
the profound differences between the Austrian approach and the neo-
classical perspective, which constitutes the microeconomic basis for
Lucas's views, appears in Huerta de Soto, "The Ongoing Methoden-
streit of the Austrian School"; see also Garrison, Time and Money, esp.
chaps. 10-12.
47Mises, Human Action, p. 418. We must emphasize that Austrians do
not consider money neutral even in the long term, since the productive
structure which remains following all of the readjustments credit expan-
sion provokes bears no resemblance to the one which would have
formed in the absence of inflation.
48See Finn E. Kydland and Edward C. Prescott, "Time to Build and
Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica 50 (November 1982): 1345-70;
542 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
why such shocks recur regularly and consistently exhibit the
same typical features.49
3
Criticism of Keynesian Economics
After our examination of monetarism, it seems appropriate
to embark on a critical analysis of Keynesian theory. We have
chosen this approach for two reasons. First, the "Keynesian rev-
olution" erupted after old neoclassical monetarism (a mechanis-
tic conception of the quantity theory of money, the lack of a cap-
ital theory, etc.) had gained a firm foothold. Second, nowadays
Keynesian economics has undoubtedly been pushed into the
background with respect to the Monetarist School. Despite these
facts, we must emphasize that from the analytical viewpoint we
adopt in this book, i.e., that of the Austrian School, monetarists
and Keynesians use very similar approaches and methodolo-
gies. Like monetarists, Keynes held no capital theory to enable
him to understand the division of economic processes into pro-
ductive stages and the role time plays in such processes. Fur-
thermore his macroeconomic theory of prices rests on such con-
cepts as the general price level, the overall quantity of money,
and even the velocity of circulation of money50 Nevertheless
and also "Business Cycles: Real Facts and Monetary Myth," Federal
Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 14 (1990): 3-18. Authors of
these and the other explanations for the economic cycle which are not
based on the effects of credit expansion are obliged to acknowledge, at
least implicitly, that credit expansion is always a factor and is a neces-
sary element in any explanation for the sustained growth of an expan-
sionary boom. See Mises, "The Fallacies of the Nonmonetary Explana-
tions of the Trade Cycle," in Human Action.
^Furthermore if rational expectations theorists are right and any gov-
ernment economic measure is "useless," what sense is there in adopting
expansionary policies again and again? The answer lies in the (seem-
ingly beneficial) short-term effects, which always reverse, sabotaging
the economy in the medium and long term.
50John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and
Money (London: Macmillan, 1936 and 1970), chap. 21, pp. 292-309. It is
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 543
certain significant peculiarities of Keynesian thought warrant
discussion.
Before we begin, however, let us remember that Keynes
possessed only a very limited knowledge of economics in gen-
eral, and of the market processes of entrepreneurial coordina-
tion in particular. According to F.A. Hayek, Keynes's theoreti-
cal background was limited almost exclusively to the work of
Alfred Marshall, and he was unable to understand economics
books written in foreign languages (with the possible excep-
tion of those in French). Hayek wrote:
obvious in Keynes's book, The General Theory, that his macroeconomic
theory of prices is simply a variant of the monetarist conception. In his
book Keynes makes the following explicit assertion:
The Theory of Prices, that is to say, the analysis of the relation
between changes in the quantity of money and changes in the
price-level with a view to determining the elasticity of prices
in response to changes in the quantity of money, must, there-
fore, direct itself to the five complicating factors set forth
above. (Keynes, The General Theory, pp. 296-97; italics are
added)
The best modern exposition of Keynes's theoretical framework is that of
Roger Garrison (Time and Money, chaps. 7-9), who shows that Keynes
was ultimately a socialist who did not believe in free markets for invest-
ment. Keynes himself acknowledged this fact when he wrote that his
theories were "more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian
state" (Collected Writings [London: Macmillan, 1973], vol. 7, p. xxvi).
This statement appears in the prologue (which Keynes wrote on Sep-
tember 7, 1936) to the German edition of The General Theory. The exact
words follow:
Trotzdem kann die Theorie der Produktion als Ganzes, die
den Zweck des folgenden Buches bildet, viel leichter den
Verhaltnissen eines totalen Staates angepasst werden als die
Theorie der Erzeugung und Verteilung einer gegebenen,
unter Bedingungen des freien Wettbewerbes und eines
grossen Masses von Laissez-faire erstellten Produktion. (See
John Maynard Keynes, Allgemeine Theorie der Beschdftigung,
des Zinses und des Geldes [Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, 1936
and 1994], p. ix)
Footnote 76 of this chapter contains Keynes's explicit acknowledge-
ment of his lack of an adequate theory of capital.
544 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Keynes was not a highly trained or a very sophisticated
economic theorist. He started from a rather elementary
Marshallian economics and what had been achieved by
Walras and Pareto, the Austrians and the Swedes was very
much a closed book to him. I have reason to doubt whether
he ever fully mastered the theory of international trade; I
don't think he had ever thought systematically on the the-
ory of capital, and even in the theory of the value of money
his starting point — and later the object of his criticism —
appears to have been a very simple, equation-of-exchange-
type of the quantity theory rather than the much more
sophisticated cash-balances approach of Alfred Marshall.51
Keynes himself admitted there were gaps in his training,
especially with respect to his inferior ability to read German.
When referring to Mises's works in his book, A Treatise on
Money, Keynes had no choice but to confess that his poor
knowledge of German had prevented him from grasping their
content as fully as he would have liked. He went on to say:
In German I can only clearly understand what I know
already! — so that new ideas are apt to be veiled from me by
the difficulties of language.52
Say's Law of Markets
John Maynard Keynes begins his book, The General Theory,
by condemning Say's law as one of the fundamental principles
51F.A. Hayek, A Tiger by the Tail: A 40-Years' Running Commentary on Key-
nesianism by Hayek, compiled and edited by Sudha R. Shenoy (London:
Institute of Economic Affairs, 1972), p. 101.
52John Maynard Keynes, A Treatise on Money, vol. 1 : The Pure Theory of
Money, in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes (London:
Macmillan, 1971), vol. 5, p. 178, footnote 2. In the last piece of writing he
published before his death, Haberler commented ironically on the
weakness of the critical remarks Keynes directs at Mises in his review of
the book, Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel, printed in The Eco-
nomic Journal (September 1914) and republished on pp. 400-03 of vol-
ume 11 of The Collected Writings. See Gottfried Haberler, "Reviewing a
Book Without Reading It," Austrian Economics Newsletter 8 (Winter,
1995); also Journal of Economic Perspectives 10, no. 3 (Summer, 1996): 188.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 545
upon which the classical analysis rests. Nonetheless Keynes
overlooked the fact that the analysis carried out by Austrian
School theorists (Mises and Hayek) had already revealed that
processes of credit and monetary expansion ultimately distort
the productive structure and create a situation in which the
supply of capital goods and consumer goods and services no
longer corresponds with economic agents' demand for them.
In other words a temporal maladjustment in the economic sys-
tem results.53 In fact the entire Austrian theory of the eco-
nomic cycle merely explains why, under certain circum-
stances, and as a consequence of credit expansion, Say's law
repeatedly fails to hold true. The theory also accounts for the
spontaneous reversion effects which, in the form of a crisis
and the necessary recession or readjustment of the productive
system, tend to cause the system to again become coordinated.
Thus upon receiving from Keynes a copy of The General The-
ory, Hayek responded that although
I fully agree about the importance of the problem which you
outline at the beginning, I cannot agree that it has always
been as completely neglected as you suggest.54
When members of the Austrian School developed the the-
ory of capital, they shed light for the first time on the malad-
justment process the productive structure often goes through.
Hence the Austrians were the first to identify the microeco-
nomic processes by which an increase in saving manifests itself
in a lengthening and widening of the productive structure of
53 Say's law is violated in the short run by a fiat credit inflation.
Of course, the short run may take some time to work itself
out! True, the larger supply created by the fiat money also cre-
ates its own excessive demand, but it is the wrong kind of
demand in the case of a business credit expansion, an
ephemeral demand which cannot last. (Skousen, The Structure
of Production, p. 325)
54Letter from EA. Hayek to John Maynard Keynes, dated February 2,
1936 and printed on p. 207 of vol. 29 of The Collected Writings of John
Maynard Keynes: The General Theory and After: A Supplement (London:
Macmillan, 1979), p. 207.
546 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
capital goods. Therefore it is not surprising that the absence of
an elaborate capital theory in Marshallian economics and
Keynes's ignorance of Austrian contributions led Keynes to
criticize all classical economists for assuming that "supply
must always automatically create its own demand." Indeed,
according to Keynes, classical economists
are fallaciously supposing that there is a nexus which unites
decisions to abstain from present consumption with deci-
sions to provide for future consumption; . . . whereas the
motives which determine the latter are not linked in any
simple way with the motives which determine the former.55
Although this assertion may be justified with respect to
the neoclassical economics of Keynes's time, it in no way
applies to Austrian economics, if we consider the level of
development Austrians had already reached with their theory
of capital and cycles when The General Theory was published.
Thus Keynes was mistaken when he called Hayek a neoclassi-
cal author.56 Hayek came from a subjectivist tradition which
differed sharply from Marshall's neoclassical background.
Furthermore, aided by Mises's subjective theory of money,
capital and cycles (a theory typically Austrian), he had already
closely analyzed the extent to which Say's law is temporally
unsound and had studied the disruptive effect on the eco-
nomic system of regular, credit-related shocks.
Keynes's Three Arguments on Credit Expansion
Keynes conspicuously attempted to deny bank credit
plays any role in disrupting the relationship between saving
55Keynes, The General Theory, p. 21.
56John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory and After, part 2: Defence and
Development, in The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol. 14
(London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 24 and 486. Here Keynes refers to
"recent figures like Hayek, whom I should call 'neoclassicals'" (p. 24)
and to "the neo-classical school of Professor Hayek and his followers"
(p. 486).
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 547
and investment. Indeed by the time Keynes published The
General Theory, he had already debated enough with Hayek to
identify Hayek's main argument: that credit expansion gives
rise to a temporal, unsustainable separation between entrepre-
neurial investment and society's real, voluntary saving. If
Hayek's thesis is correct, it deals a fatal blow to Keynes's the-
ory. Thus it was crucial for Keynes to invalidate Hayek's
argument. Nevertheless Keynes's reasoning on the issue of
bank credit was too confused and faulty to refute Hayek's the-
ory. Let us review his arguments one by one.
First, Keynes claims bank credit has no expansionary effect
whatsoever on aggregate investment. He bases this assertion
on the absurd accounting argument that the corresponding
creditor and debtor positions cancel each other out:
We have, indeed, to adjust for the creation and discharge of
debts (including changes in the quantity of credit or money); but
since for the community as a whole the increase or decrease
of the aggregate creditor position is always exactly equal to
the increase or decrease of the aggregate debtor position,
this complication also cancels out when we are dealing with
aggregate investment.57
Nonetheless a statement like this one cannot obscure the
strong distorting influence credit expansion exerts on invest-
ment. It is indeed true that a person receiving a loan from a
bank is the bank's debtor for the amount of the loan, and cred-
itor for the amount of the deposit. However, as B.M. Anderson
points out, the borrower's debt with the bank is not money,
whereas his credit is a demand deposit account which clearly
is money (or to be more precise, a perfect money substitute, as
Mises maintains). Once the borrower decides to invest the
loan funds in capital goods and in services offered by the fac-
tors of production, he uses the money (created ex nihilo by the
bank) to increase investment, while no corresponding increase
in voluntary saving takes place. He does so without altering
the stability of his debt with the bank.58
57Keynes, The General Theory, p. 75; italics added.
58Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare, p. 391.
548 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Second, Keynes, realizing the great weakness of his
"accounting argument," puts forward an even more prepos-
terous one. He maintains that new loan funds the bank creates
and grants its customers are not used to finance new investment
above the level of voluntary saving, since the newly-created
money borrowers receive could be used to purchase consumer
goods instead. To the extent the new money is not used to pur-
chase consumer goods and services, Keynes reasons, it is
implicitly "saved" and thus when invested, its amount corre-
sponds exactly to that of "genuine, prior" savings. This is how
Keynes himself expresses this argument:
[T]he savings which result from this decision are just as gen-
uine as any other savings. No one can be compelled to own
the additional money corresponding to the new bank-credit,
unless he deliberately prefers to hold more money rather
than some other form of wealth.59
Keynes clearly relies on the ex post facto equivalence
between saving and investment to ward off the harmful
effects credit expansion exerts on investment and the produc-
tive structure.60 Nevertheless all saving requires discipline
and the sacrifice of the prior consumption of goods and serv-
ices, not merely the renunciation of the potential consumption
afforded by new monetary units created ex nihilo. Otherwise
59Keynes, The General Theory, p. 83.
60Benjamin Anderson, in reference to Keynes's theory that credit expan-
sion does not lead to a disproportion between investment and voluntary
savings, since new money invested could be spent on consumer goods
and services instead and therefore must first be "saved," concludes:
One must here protest against the dangerous identification of
bank expansion with savings, which is part of the Keynesian
doctrine. . . . This doctrine is particularly dangerous today
when we find our vast increase in money and bank deposits
growing out of war finance described as "savings," just
because somebody happens to hold them at a given moment
of time. On this doctrine, the greater the inflation, the greater
the savings! (Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare, pp.
391-92)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 549
any increase in the money supply via credit expansion
would be tantamount to an "increase in saving," which is
sheer nonsense.61 Even if we concede for the sake of argument
that all investment financed by new credit has been immedi-
ately and simultaneously "saved," a problem still faces us.
Once the new money reaches its final holders (workers and
owners of capital goods and original means of production), if
these people decide to spend all or part of it on consumer
goods and services, the productive structure will be revealed
as too capital-intensive and recession will hit. For all his
sophistry, Keynes cannot deny the obvious fact that artificial
credit expansion does not guarantee economic agents will be
compelled to save and invest more than they normally
would.62 Furthermore it is paradoxical that Keynes should
insist that voluntary saving does not guarantee more invest-
ment, while at the same time claiming all investment implies
prior saving. If we admit that the agents who save and those
who invest are different, and that a lack of coordination in
their decisions may prevent equilibrium, then we must admit
that such discoordination may exist not only on the side of
6lGeorge Selgin essentially bases his doctrine of monetary equilibrium
on this second argument of Keynes's (without specifically citing it). We
will critically examine Selgin's doctrine in the next chapter. It is para-
doxical that Selgin, an economist from an Austrian background, should
fall into the Keynesian trap in an attempt to prove that credit expansion
in the context of a free-banking system would be harmless for the eco-
nomic system. Perhaps this fact provides the clearest evidence that the
Old Banking School has been reincarnated today in the figures of theo-
rists like Selgin, defenders of fractional-reserve free banking. See George
A. Selgin, The Theory of Free Banking: Money Supply under Competitive
Note Issue (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988), esp. pp. 54-55.
62In other words, although ex post facto all invested resources have been
saved (I=S), Keynes overlooks the fact that, microeconomically speak-
ing, saved resources can be invested either wisely or foolishly. In fact
credit expansion misleads entrepreneurs with respect to the true rate of
voluntary saving. Thus society's meager savings are unwisely invested
in processes which are excessively capital-intensive and cannot be com-
pleted or sustained, and society grows poorer as a result (see pp. 375-84
of chapter 5).
550 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
voluntary saving (more voluntary saving without invest-
ment), but also on that of investment (more investment with-
out prior saving). In the first case there is an increase in the
demand for money. As we saw in the last chapter, such an
increase provokes several overlapping effects: both those
characteristic of all voluntary saving (changes in the relative-
price structure which lead to a lengthening of investment
processes) and those due to a rise in the purchasing power of
money63 In the second case (more investment without prior
saving) an artificially long structure of production is created.
It is one which cannot be maintained indefinitely, since eco-
nomic agents are not willing to save enough. It also accounts
for the onset of crises and recessions following periods of
credit expansion.
In his attempt to counteract the Austrian hypothesis on the
harmful effects of credit expansion, Keynes puts forward a
third and final argument. He alleges that credit expansion may
ultimately be used to finance an increase in investment
63Jacques Rueff has pointed out that in an economy on a pure gold stan-
dard, an increase in the demand for money (or "hoarding") does not
push up unemployment at all. In fact, in accordance with the price sys-
tem, it channels a greater proportion of society's productive resources
(labor, capital equipment, and original means of production) into the
mining, production, and distribution of more monetary units (gold).
This is the market's natural, spontaneous reaction to economic agents'
new desire for higher cash balances. Therefore it is not necessary to ini-
tiate a program of public works (even if, as Keynes ironically remarked,
it consisted merely of digging ditches and then filling them in again),
since society will spontaneously use its productive resources to dig
deeper mines and extract gold, thus more effectively satisfying the
desires of consumers and economic agents for higher cash balances.
Hence an increased "liquidity preference" cannot possibly produce a
situation of permanent, combined equilibrium and unemployment. A
combination of equilibrium and unemployment can only stem from a
rigid labor market in which the coercive power of the state, the unions
or both, prevents flexibility in wages and other employment contract
and labor market conditions. See Jacques Rueff 's article, "The Fallacies
of Lord Keynes' General Theory," printed in The Critics of Keynesian Eco-
nomics, Henry Hazlitt, ed. (New York: Arlington House, 1977), pp.
239-63, esp. p. 244.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 551
which would lead to a rise in income and therefore eventu-
ally also boost saving. Thus Keynes believes entrepreneurs
cannot possibly invest loaned funds at a rate faster than that at
which the public decides to increase savings. In Keynes's own
words:
The notion that the creation of credit by the banking system
allows investment to take place to which "no genuine sav-
ing" corresponds can only be the result of isolating one of
the consequences of the increased bank-credit to the exclu-
sion of the others. If the grant of a bank credit to an entre-
preneur additional to the credits already existing allows him
to make an addition to current investment which would not
have occurred otherwise, incomes will necessarily be
increased and at a rate which will normally exceed the rate of
increased investment. Moreover, except in conditions of full
employment, there will be an increase of real income as well
as of money-income. The public will exercise a "free choice"
as to the proportion in which they divide their increase of
income between saving and spending; and it is impossible that
the intention of the entrepreneur who has borrowed in order to
increase investment can become effective . . . at a faster rate than
the public decide to increase their savings.^
Keynes clearly states that it is impossible for the rate of
investment to exceed the rate of saving. His claim is condi-
tioned by his tautological belief that investment and saving
are always equal, a concept which keeps him from appreciat-
ing the disruptive effect investment financed by newly-cre-
ated loans exerts on the productive structure. Nonetheless if a
rise in investment leads hypothetically to an increase in real
income, we may still wonder whether or not such an increase
in income could stimulate enough growth in saving to perma-
nently sustain new investments initially financed by credit
expansion.
We must remember that Hayek showed it to be practically
impossible for the income growth which arises from invest-
ment financed by new credit expansion to provoke enough
voluntary saving to sustain initial investment. Indeed if such
64Keynes, The General Theory, pp. 82-83; italics added.
552 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
investment is to be upheld by a subsequent rise in voluntary
saving, economic agents will ultimately have to save absolutely all
monetary income derived from the new investment. In other words
when the portion of gross income shaded in Chart V-6 reaches
the pockets of consumers, they will have to save all of it. (The
shaded portion reflects the artificial lengthening and widen-
ing of the productive structure, modifications made possible
by new loans the bank creates from nothing.) Obviously con-
sumers will almost never save all such income, since they will
spend at least part (and usually the largest part) of the new
monetary income created by banks on consumer goods and
services. In accordance with the theory presented in detail in
the last two chapters, such spending will necessarily reverse
the new investment processes of monetary origin, and the cri-
sis and recession will hit. In Hayek's own words:
[S]o long as any part of the additional income thus created
is spent on consumers' goods {i.e. unless all of it is saved),
the prices of consumers' goods must rise permanently in
relation to those of various kinds of input. And this, as will
by now be evident, cannot be lastingly without effect on the
relative prices of the various kinds of input and on the meth-
ods of production that will appear profitable.
Elsewhere in the same work Hayek concludes:
All that is required to make our analysis applicable is that,
when incomes are increased by investment, the share of the
additional income spent on consumers' goods during any
period of time should be larger than the proportion by
which the new investment adds to the output of consumers'
goods during the same period of time. And there is of course
no reason to expect that more than a fraction of the new
income [created by credit expansion], and certainly not as
much as has been newly invested, will be saved, because
this would mean that practically all the income earned from
the new investment would have to be saved.65
65Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, pp. 378 and 394. In the footnote on
page 395 of the original English edition of The Pure Theory of Capital,
Hayek emphasizes his thesis even more when he states:
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 553
Keynesian Analysis as a Particular Theory
As Austrian economists in general and Mises in particular
demonstrated as early as 1928, in the specific event that idle
resources and unemployment are widespread, entrepreneurs,
relying on new loans, may continue to lengthen the produc-
tive structure without provoking the familiar reversion effects,
until the moment one of the complementary factors in the pro-
duction process becomes scarce.66 At the very least, this fact
shows Keynes's so-called general theory to be, in the best case,
a particular theory, applicable only when the economy is in the
deepest stages of a depression with generalized idle capacity
in all sectors.67 However, as we saw in the last chapter, even
under these conditions credit expansion will stimulate a wide-
spread malinvestment of resources. This malinvestment will
add to previous errors not yet liquidated owing to the institu-
tional rigidity of the labor market and of the other productive
resources. If holders of the new jobs created in these stages of
acute depression begin to spend their earnings on consumer
goods and services at a pace more rapid than that at which
final consumer goods are arriving on the market (due to a rel-
ative shortage of some factor or to bottlenecks related to any
of the complementary factors or resources of production), the
familiar microeconomic processes which tend to reverse the
initial expansionary effects of new bank-credit will be trig-
gered. Under such conditions, it will be possible to create new
jobs only if real wages fall, a phenomenon we observe when
[T]he essential thing ... is that we must always compare the
result of investment embodied in concrete goods with the
money expenditure on these goods. It is never the invest-
ment which is going on at the same time as the saving, but
the result of past investment, that determines the supply of
capital goods to which the monetary demand may or may
not correspond.
66Mises, On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, p. 125 (p. 49 of Geldw-
ertstabilisierung und Konjunkturpolitik, the German edition).
67For Roger Garrison, the true general theory is that of the Austrians
and "Keynesian theory [we would also say monetarist theory] becomes
a special case of Austrian theory." See Garrison, Time and Money, p. 250.
554 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the price of consumer goods and services begins to rise faster
than wages.68
68It is interesting to remember how Keynes defines "involuntary"
unemployment:
Men are involuntarily unemployed if, in the event of a small
rise in the price of wage-goods relative to the money-wage,
both the aggregate supply of labour willing to work for the
current money-wage and the aggregate demand for it at that
wage would be greater than the existing volume of employ-
ment. (Keynes, The General Theory, p. 15; italics deleted)
By this convoluted definition, Keynes simply means that "involuntary"
unemployment exists whenever a drop in relative wages would give
rise to an increase in employment. However there are two possible
routes to a relative reduction in wages: either a worker may accept
lower nominal wages, or he may agree to work in an environment
where nominal wages remain unchanged, but the prices of consumer
goods rise. The latter is the more indirect route. In neither case is unem-
ployment involuntary: it is purely voluntary in both. In the first, a
worker remains unemployed because he voluntarily chooses not to
work for a lower nominal wage. In the second, he only agrees to work
if he has deceived himself, since his real wages fall even though his
nominal wages remain the same. (In other words, in the second case he
agrees to work in an environment in which the prices of consumer
goods and services increase faster than wages). In fact most of Keynes's
policy prescriptions amount to an attempt to reduce unemployment by
lowering real wages via the indirect route of increasing inflation, and
thus the prices of consumer goods, while maintaining nominal wages
constant. This remedy has failed, not only because workers are no
longer fooled by the money illusion and demand nominal wage
increases which at least compensate for decreases in the purchasing
power of money, but also because the proposed "medicine," apart from
being ineffective, entails the enormous social cost of the economic crises
and recessions credit expansion provokes. Furthermore we must realize
that to a great extent, Keynes's own prescriptions, which consist of
boosting effective demand through fiscal and monetary measures, are
the main culprits in keeping labor markets rigid and even in making
them gradually more so, since economic agents, specifically workers
and unions, have come to believe that adjustments in real wages must
always take the form of increases in the general price level. Hence Key-
nesian doctrine, rather than a "remedy" for the disease, has become an
aggravating factor which worsens it. It will take much time and effort
for economic agents to again become accustomed to living in a stable
environment where the price system can again operate without the
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 555
The So-Called Marginal Efficiency of Capital
We find another indication that Keynes's is a specific the-
ory, rather than a general one, in his definition of the "mar-
ginal efficiency of capital," which he expresses as
that rate of discount which would make the present value of
the series of annuities given by the returns expected from
the capital-asset during its life just equal to its supply
price.69
The most important error Keynes commits is to consider
investment determined by the "marginal efficiency of capital"
as defined above, viewing the supply price of the capital good as a
given, an unchanging, constant amount, even when entrepre-
neurs' profit outlook varies. Indeed Keynes, succumbing to
the classical "objectivist" tradition passed down by Marshall,
believes the supply price of capital goods does not fluctuate
when entrepreneurs' profit outlook improves or worsens. This
belief is based on the implicit notion that such prices are ulti-
mately determined by the historical cost of producing the cap-
ital good. Thus Keynes clings to a remnant of the old objective
theory of value, according to which value is determined by
cost. This doctrine, clearly on the decline in relation to the
Austrian subjectivist conception, was partially revived by
inflexibility that hinders it today. On this topic see Hans-Hermann
Hoppe's article, "Theory of Employment, Money Interest and the Cap-
italist Process: The Misesian Case Against Keynes," chapter 5 in The Eco-
nomics of Ethics and Private Property (London: Kluwer Academic Pub-
lishers, 1993), pp. 111-38, esp. pp. 124-26.
Similarly in the banking sector, as Jorg Guido Hulsmann has written,
[t]he public no longer perceives business cycles and break-
down of the entire banking system as upshots of the frac-
tional-reserve principle run amok under the protection of the
law, but as a "macroeconomic" problem requiring action by
the central-bank managers.
See his article, "Has Fractional-Reserve Banking Really Passed the Mar-
ket Test?" p. 416.
69Keynes, The General Theory, p. 135.
556 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Marshall, at least regarding the supply side of price determi-
nation.70
Hayek has conclusively demonstrated that the entire Key-
nesian doctrine of the "marginal efficiency of capital" as the
determining factor in investment is acceptable only if we
assume that there is absolutely no shortage of capital goods,
and hence that any quantity can be acquired at a constant,
set price. However, this would only be conceivable in a
mythical economy in which no shortage ever occurs, or in a
hypothetical economy in the deepest stages of an extraordi-
narily severe depression, and thus where an immense
degree of excess capacity exists. In real life at least some of
the complementary goods necessary to produce a capital
good will always become relatively scarce at some point,
and entrepreneurs, in keeping with their profit expectations,
will increase the amount they are willing to pay for the good
in question until the marginal efficiency or productivity of
capital becomes equal to the interest rate. In other words, as
Hayek indicates, competition among entrepreneurs will ulti-
mately lead them to push up the cost or offering price of cap-
ital goods to the exact point where it coincides with the pres-
ent value (the value discounted by the interest rate) of the
marginal productivity of the equipment in question. Hence
the "marginal efficiency of capital" will always tend to coin-
cide with the interest rate.71 This is precisely the essence of the
Austrian theory on the influence of the interest rate on the
70 Mr. Keynes ... is presumably . . . under the influence of the
"real cost" doctrine which to the present day plays such a
large role in the Cambridge tradition, he assumes that the
prices of all goods except the more durable ones are even in
the short run determined by costs. (Hayek, The Pure Theory of
Capital, p. 375, footnote 3)
71 Entrepreneurs will still tend to bid up the prices of the various
kinds of input to the discounted value of their respective mar-
ginal products, and, if the rate at which they can borrow money
remains unchanged, the only way in which this equality
between the price of the input and the discounted value of its
marginal product can be restored, is evidently by reducing that
marginal product. (Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 383)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 557
productive structure, a theory we covered in chapter 5. In fact
we know that the interest rate is the price of present goods in
terms of future goods, and that it tends to manifest itself
throughout the productive structure in the accounting profit
differential which arises between the different stages in the
production process. To put it another way, the interest rate
expresses itself in the difference between income and costs at
each stage, and there is always an inexorable tendency for the
profits at each stage to match the interest rate (that is, for the
cost of production at each stage to equal the present value of
the stage's marginal productivity).
Keynes's Criticism of Mises and Hayek
In light of the above, the explicit criticism Keynes levels
against Mises and Hayek on pages 192 and 193 of The General
Theory is absurd. Keynes accuses Mises and Hayek of confus-
ing the interest rate with the marginal efficiency of capital. As
we know, the Austrians believe that the interest rate is deter-
mined independently by the value scales of time preference
(the supply and demand of present goods in exchange for
future goods), and that the marginal productivity or efficiency
of capital merely affects the present value of capital goods. In
the market, the price (cost) of a capital good tends to equal the
value (discounted by the interest rate) of its future flow of
rents, or the series of values corresponding to the marginal
productivity of the capital equipment. The Austrians therefore
consider that the marginal productivity of capital tends to fol-
low the interest rate and not vice versa, and that only in equi-
librium (which is never reached in real life) do the two become
equal. Keynes's fundamental error lies in his failure to realize
that the purchase price of capital goods will vary when expec-
tations of the profit or productivity associated with them
improve. This is how events unfold in real life, and Austrian
economists have always taken this fact into account in their
analysis. Hence when Keynes boldly claims Austrian econo-
mists "confuse" the interest rate with the marginal productiv-
ity of capital, he scandalously twists the facts.72
72Denis H. Robertson, among others, agrees. When critically analyzing
The General Theory, Robertson wrote the following directly to Keynes:
558 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Criticism of the Keynesian Multiplier
Keynes commits such errors because he lacks a capital the-
ory to help him grasp how saving converts into investment
through a series of microeconomic processes he overlooks
entirely. Therefore it is not surprising that Keynes is simply
incapable of understanding the Hayekian argument, and that,
when referring to the schools of economic thought which, like
the Austrian School, analyze the effects credit expansion
exerts on the productive structure, he concludes: "I can make
I don't think these pages (192-93) are at all a fair account of
Hayek's own exposition. In his own queer language he is
saying that the fall in the rate of interest will so much
increase the demand price for machines (in spite of the fall
in the price of their products) as to make it profitable to pro-
duce more machines. (See the letter from Denis H. Robert-
son to John Maynard Keynes dated February 3, 1935 and
reprinted on pp. 496ff. of volume 13 of The Collected Writings
of John Maynard Keynes. The above excerpt appears on page
504)
In his correspondence with Robertson (February 20, 1935), Keynes actu-
ally admitted that in the above-mentioned paragraphs of The General
Theory he misinterpreted Hayek's words:
Thanks for the reference to Hayek which I will study. I do not
doubt that Hayek says somewhere the opposite to what I am
here attributing to him. (Ibid., p. 519)
Nonetheless Keynes lacked sufficient intellectual honesty to correct the
manuscript prior to its definitive publication in 1936. Ludwig M. Lach-
mann also comments on the criticism Keynes directs at Mises and
Hayek on pages 192 and 193 of The General Theory, where Keynes con-
cludes that "Professor von Mises and his disciples have got their con-
clusions exactly the wrong way round." Lachmann responds:
In reality, however, the Austrians were merely following
Wicksell in drawing a distinction between the "natural rate of
interest" and the money rate, and Keynes' own distinction
between marginal efficiency of capital and the latter is exactly
parallel to it. The charge of simple confusion of terms is
groundless. (Ludwig M. Lachmann, "John Maynard Keynes:
A View from an Austrian Window," South African journal of
Economics 51, no. 3 (1983): 368-79, esp. pp. 370-71)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 559
no sense at all of these schools of thought."73 Keynes's lack of
an adequate theory of capital also explains his development of
a mechanistic conception of the investment multiplier, which
he defines as the reciprocal of one minus the marginal propen-
sity to consume. Thus according to Keynes, the greater the
marginal propensity to consume, the more an increase in
investment will boost the national income. However the
investment multiplier hinges on a purely mathematical argu-
ment which contradicts the most basic economic logic of cap-
ital theory. Indeed the multiplier indicates that any increase in
credit expansion will cause a rise in real national income equal
to the reciprocal of the marginal propensity to save (one
minus the marginal propensity to consume). Hence according
to Keynesian logic, the less people save, the more real income
will grow. Nevertheless we know that the mathematical
automatism which lies at the root of the multiplier concept
bears no relation to the real processes at work in the produc-
tive structure. Credit expansion will stimulate investment that
will drive up the price of the factors of production and bring
about a subsequent, more-than-proportional increase in the
price of consumer goods and services. Even if gross income in
money terms rises as a result of the injection of new money
created by the banking system, the multiplier, owing to its
mechanical and macroeconomic nature, is inadequate to depict
the disruptive microeconomic effects credit expansion always exerts on
the productive structure. Consequently the multiplier masks the
widespread malinvestment of resources which in the long run
impoverishes society as a whole (rather than enriching it, as
Keynes alleges). We agree with Gottfried Haberler when he
concludes that the multiplier
turns out to be not an empirical statement which tells us
something about the real world, but a purely analytical
statement about the consistent use of an arbitrarily chosen
terminology — a statement which does not explain anything
about reality. . . . Mr. Keynes' central theoretical idea about
73Keynes, The General Theory, p. 329. Monetarist writers such as
Hawtrey, Friedman, and Meltzer have made the same explicit acknowl-
edgement.
560 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the relationships between the propensity to consume and
the multiplier, which is destined to give shape and strength
to those observations, turns out to be not an empirical state-
ment which tells us something interesting about the real
world, but a barren algebraic relation which no appeal to
facts can either confirm or disprove.74
Hayek, in his detailed critique of both volumes of
Keynes's A Treatise on Money (1930), accuses Keynes of
entirely ignoring the theory of capital and interest, particu-
larly the work of Bohm-Bawerk and the other theorists of the
Austrian School in this regard.75 According to Hayek,
Keynes's lack of knowledge in this area accounts for the fact
that he overlooks the existence of different stages in the pro-
ductive structure (as Clark had done and Knight later would)
and that he ultimately fails to realize that the essential deci-
sion facing entrepreneurs is not whether to invest in consumer
74Gottfried Haberler, "Mr. Keynes' Theory of the 'Multiplier': A
Methodological Criticism," originally published in the Zeitschrift fur
Nationalokonomie 7 (1936): 299-305, and reprinted in English as chapter
23 of the book Selected Essays of Gottfried Haberler, Anthony Y. Koo, ed.
(Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1985), pp. 553-60, and esp. pp.
558-59. It is interesting to note that Hawtrey, a monetarist, was a fore-
runner of Keynes in the development of the multiplier theory. See
Robert B. Dimand's account in "Hawtrey and the Multiplier," History of
Political Economy 29, no. 3 (Autumn, 1997): 549-56.
75Hayek wrote three articles in which he criticizes the monetary theories
Keynes includes in his book, A Treatise on Money. The articles are:
"Reflections on The Pure Theory of Money of Mr. J.M. Keynes (1)," pub-
lished in Economica 11, no. 33 (August 1931): 270-95; "A Rejoinder to Mr.
Keynes," pp. 398-403; and finally, "Reflections on The Pure Theory of
Money of Mr. J.M. Keynes (continued) (2)," also published in Economica
12, no. 35 (February 1932): 22-44. These articles and Keynes's responses
to them appear in Friedrich A. Hayek: Critical Assessments, John Cun-
ningham Wood and Ronald N. Woods, eds. (London: Routledge, 1991),
pp. 1-86 and also in The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, vol. 9: Contra
Keynes and Cambridge: Essays, Correspondence (London: Routledge, 1995).
In the first of these articles (Wood and Woods, eds., p. 7), Hayek con-
cludes that Keynes's main problem is methodological and stems from
the fact that the macroeconomic aggregates which form the basis of his
analysis conceal from him the microeconomic processes essential to
understanding changes in the productive structure.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 561
goods or in capital goods, but whether to invest in production
processes which will yield consumer goods in the near future or in
those which will yield them in a more distant future. Thus Keynes's
notion of a productive structure comprised of only two stages
(one of consumer goods and another of capital goods) and his
failure to allow for the temporal aspect of the latter, nor for the
consecutive stages which compose it, lead him into the trap of
the "paradox of thrift," the fallacious theoretical rationale
which we explained in chapter 5.76
Hence Keynesians hold no theory to explain why crises
recur in a hampered market economy that suffers credit
expansion (that is, one in which traditional legal principles are
violated). Keynesians simply attribute crises to sudden halts in
investment demand, interruptions caused by irrational behav-
ior on the part of entrepreneurs or by an unexpected loss of
confidence and optimism on the part of economic agents.
Moreover Keynesians neglect to recognize in their analyses
that crises are an endogenous consequence of the very credit
expansion process which first feeds the boom. Unlike their fel-
low macroeconomists, the monetarists, Keynesians believe the
results of monetary expansion policies to be relatively less
effective and important than those of fiscal policy, and they
advocate public spending as the means to directly increase
effective demand. They fail to comprehend that such a policy
76It is important to remember that John Maynard Keynes himself explic-
itly and publicly admitted to Hayek that he lacked an adequate theory
of capital. In Keynes's own words:
Dr. Hayek complains that I do not myself propound any sat-
isfactory theory of capital and interest and that I do not build
on any existing theory. He means by this, I take it, the theory
of capital accumulation relatively to the rate of consumption
and the factors which determine the natural rate of interest.
This is quite true; and I agree with Dr. Hayek that a develop-
ment of this theory would be highly relevant to my treatment
of monetary matters and likely to throw light into dark cor-
ners. (John Maynard Keynes, "The Pure Theory of Money: A
Reply to Dr. Hayek," Economica 11, no. 34 [November 1931]:
394; p. 56 in the Wood and Woods edition)
562 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
further complicates the process by which the productive struc-
ture readjusts, and it worsens the outlook for the stages fur-
thest from consumption. As a result of Keynesian "remedies,"
entrepreneurs will surely encounter even greater difficulty in
consistently financing these stages using voluntary savings.
As to the likelihood that Keynesian policies could cure "secu-
lar" unemployment through the complete socialization of
investment, the Austrian theorem on the impossibility of eco-
nomic calculation under socialism is entirely applicable, as
illustrated by the massive industrial malinvestment accumu-
lated during the decades of government-directed investments
in the former socialist economies of Eastern Europe.
Short-term unemployment can only be eliminated
through "active" policies if workers and unions let themselves
be deceived by the money illusion, and thus maintain nominal
salaries constant in an inflationary atmosphere of soaring con-
sumer prices. Experience has shown that the Keynesian rem-
edy for unemployment (the reduction of real wages through
increases in the general price level) has failed: workers have
learned to demand raises which at least compensate them for
decreases in the purchasing power of their money. Therefore
the expansion of credit and effective demand, an action Key-
nesians supported, has gradually ceased to be a useful tool for
generating employment. It has also entailed a cost: increasingly
grave distortions of the productive structure. In fact a stage of
deep depression combined with high inflation (stagflation)
followed the crisis of the late seventies and was the empirical
episode which most contributed to the invalidation of all Key-
nesian theory77
77This is not the appropriate place to carry out an exhaustive analysis of
the rest of the Keynesian theoretical framework, for instance his con-
ception of the interest rate as a strictly monetary phenomenon deter-
mined by the money supply and "liquidity preference." Nonetheless
we know that the supply of and demand for money determine its
price or purchasing power, not the interest rate, as Keynes maintains,
concentrating merely on the effects credit expansion exerts on the credit
market in the immediate short term. (Besides, with his liquidity prefer-
ence theory, Keynes resorts to the circular reasoning characteristic of the
functional analysis of mathematician-economists. Indeed first he asserts
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 563
Hence we must concur with Hayek's statement that the
doctrines of John Maynard Keynes take us
back to the pre-scientific stage of economics, when the whole
working of the price mechanism was not yet understood, and
only the problems of the impact of a varying money stream
on a supply of goods and services with given prices aroused
interest.78
that the interest rate is determined by the demand for money or liquid-
ity preference, and then he states that the latter in turn depends on the
former.) Another considerable shortcoming of Keynesian doctrine is the
assumption that economic agents first decide how much to consume
and then, from the amount they have decided to save, they determine
what portion they will use to increase their cash balances and then what
portion they will invest. Nevertheless economic agents simultaneously
decide how much they will allot to all three possibilities: consumption,
investment and the increase of cash balances. Hence if there is a rise in
the amount of money each economic agent hoards, the additional
amount could come from any of the following: (a) funds previously allo-
cated for consumption; (b) funds previously allocated for investment; or
(c) any combination of the above. It is obvious that in case (a) the inter-
est rate will fall; in case (b) it will rise; and in case (c) it may remain con-
stant. Therefore no direct relationship exists between liquidity prefer-
ence or demand for money and the interest rate. An increase in the
demand for money may not affect the interest rate, if the relationship
between the value allotted for present goods and that allotted for future
goods (time preference) does not vary. See Rothbard, Man, Economy, and
State, p. 690. A list of all relevant critical references on Keynesian theory,
including various articles on its different aspects, appears in Dissent on
Keynes: A Critical Appraisal of Keynesian Economics, Mark Skousen, ed.
(New York and London: Praeger, 1992). See also the previously cited
chapters 7-9 of Garrison's Time and Money.
78Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, pp. 409-10. Hayek concludes:
It is not surprising that Mr. Keynes finds his views anticipated
by the mercantilist writers and gifted amateurs: concern with
the surface phenomena has always marked the first stage of the
scientific approach to our subject. But it is alarming to see that
after we have once gone through the process of developing a
systematic account of those forces which in the long run deter-
mine prices and production, we are now called upon to scrap
it, in order to replace it by the short-sighted philosophy of the
business man raised to the dignity of a science. Are we not even
564 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In fact Keynesian remedies which consist of increasing
effective demand and credit expansion do not begin to relieve
unemployment. Instead they inevitably worsen it, as they
result in a poor allocation of jobs and factors of production
throughout a series of productive stages which consumers do
not wish to maintain in the long run.79
told that, "since in the long run we are all dead," policy should
be guided entirely by short-run considerations? I fear that these
believers in the principle of apres nous le deluge may get what
they have bargained for sooner than they wish. (p. 410)
79Hayek's main objection to macroeconomics (both Keynesian and
monetarist versions) is that macroeconomists work with macroaggre-
gates and thus do not take into account the harmful microeconomic
effects of credit expansion, which as we have seen, leads to the malin-
vestment of resources and ultimately, to crisis and unemployment.
Moreover, as Keynesians assume excess availability of all factors exists
(due to idle capacity and unemployment of resources), they tend to ignore
the price system, the functioning of which they consider unnecessary. The price
system is therefore rendered a vague, incomprehensible redundancy. To the
extent that all is determined by macroaggregate functions, the tradi-
tional microeconomic theory of relative-price determination and the
theory of capital, interest and distribution, which are the backbone of
economic theory, become unintelligible. Unfortunately, as Hayek points
out, an entire generation of economists have learned nothing other than
Keynesian [and monetarist] macroeconomics ("I fear the theory will
still give us a lot of trouble: it has left us with a lost generation of econ-
omists who have learnt nothing else," RA. Hayek, "The Campaign
against Keynesian Inflation," in New Studies, p. 221). Hayek believes
Keynes was aware he had developed a weak theoretical framework.
Hayek indicates that the last time he saw Keynes prior to his death, he
asked him if he was becoming alarmed at the poor use most of his dis-
ciples were making of his theories:
His reply was that these theories had been greatly needed in
the 1930s; but if these theories should ever become harmful, I
could be assured that he would quickly bring about a change
in public opinion. (Hayek, "Personal Recollections of Keynes
and the Keynesian Revolution," p. 287)
Hayek states that Keynes died two weeks later without ever having the
chance to alter the course of events. Hayek criticizes him for giving the
name "general theory" to an erroneous conceptual framework which, as
its own author eventually recognized, had been conceived ad hoc based
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 565
Criticism of the "Accelerator" Principle
Our theory on the impact of credit expansion on the struc-
ture of production rests on a capital theory we examined in
detail in chapter 5. According to this theory, a healthy, perma-
nent "lengthening" of the productive structure is contingent
on a prior increase in saving. Therefore we must criticize the
so-called "accelerator principle," developed by the Keynesian
School. Those who accept this principle assert that any
increase in consumption leads to a more-than-proportional
increase in investment, which is contrary to what our theory
suggests.
In fact, according to the accelerator principle, a rise in the
demand for consumer goods and services provokes an exag-
gerated upsurge in the demand for capital goods. The argu-
ment centers around the notion that a fixed relationship exists
between the output of consumer goods and the number of
machines necessary to produce them. Thus any rise in the
demand for consumer goods and services causes a proportional
increase in the number of machines necessary to produce
them. When we compare this new number with that normally
demanded to compensate for the customary depreciation of
the machines, we see an upturn in the demand for capital
goods which is far more than proportional to the rise in the
demand for consumer goods and services.80
on the specific circumstances of the 1930s. Today so-called "new Keyne-
sian macroeconomists" (Stiglitz, Shapiro, Summers, Romer, etc.) focus
on the analysis of the real and monetary rigidities they observe in the
market. However they still do not understand that such rigidities and
their chief effects appear and worsen precisely as a result of credit
expansion and government intervention, nor do they recognize that cer-
tain spontaneous, microeconomic forces exist in the market which, in
the absence of government intervention, tend to reverse, coordinate,
and resolve maladjustments by a process of crisis, recession, and recov-
ery. On the new Keynesians, see also upcoming footnote 94.
80Samuelson provides the following example to illustrate the accelera-
tor principle:
Imagine a typical textile firm whose stock of capital equip-
ment is always kept equal to about 2 times the value of its
566 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
We know that according to the accelerator principle, an
increase in the demand for consumer goods and services
brings about tremendously magnified growth in the demand
for capital goods. However the principle also implies that if
the demand for capital goods is to remain constant, the
demand for consumer goods and services will have to con-
tinue to rise at a progressively increasing rate. This is due to
the fact that a steady demand for consumer goods and serv-
ices, i.e., a demand which does not increase, will provoke a
marked contraction in the demand for equipment goods. The
demand for these goods will return to the level necessary
for replacements only. The accelerator principle clearly and
perfectly fits the Keynesian prescriptions of an unlimited
expansion of consumption and aggregate demand: indeed,
the accelerator doctrine indicates that any rise in consumption
causes a huge upsurge in investment, and that saving is of no
importance! Thus the accelerator principle acts as a false sub-
stitute for the capital theory the Keynesian model lacks; it
eases the theoretical conscience of Keynesians, and it rein-
forces their belief that voluntary saving is counterproductive
and unnecessary for economic development (the "paradox of
yearly sales of cloth. Thus, when its sales have remained at
$30 million per year for some time, its balance sheet will show
$60 million of capital equipment, consisting of perhaps 20
machines of different ages, with 1 wearing out each year and
being replaced. Because replacement just balances deprecia-
tion, there is no net investment or saving being done by the
corporation. Gross investment takes place at the rate of $3 mil-
lion per year, representing the yearly replacement of 1
machine. . . . Now let us suppose that, in the fourth year, sales
rise 50 per cent — from $30 to $45 million. Then the number of
machines must also rise 50 per cent, or from 20 to 30
machines. In that fourth year, instead of 1 machine, 11
machines must be bought — 10 new ones in addition to the
replacement of the worn-out one. Sales rose 50 per cent. How
much has machine production gone up? From 1 machine to
11; or by 1,000 percent! (Samuelson, Economics, 11th ed. [New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1980], pp. 246-47)
Interestingly, the analysis of the accelerator principle was eliminated
from the 15th edition of the book, published in 1992.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 567
thrift"). Therefore it is particularly important that we thor-
oughly expose the errors and fallacies which form the basis of
the principle.81
The theory based on the accelerator not only omits the
most elementary principles of capital theory; it was also
developed based on a mechanistic, automatic and fallacious
conception of economics. Let us analyze each of the reasons
behind this assertion.
First, the accelerator theory excludes the real functioning
of the entrepreneurial market process and suggests that entre-
preneurial activities are nothing more than a blind, automatic
response to momentary impulses in the demand for consumer
goods and services. However entrepreneurs are not robots,
and their actions are not mechanical. On the contrary, entre-
preneurs predict the course of events, and with the purpose of
obtaining a profit, they act in light of what they believe may
happen. Hence no transmitter mechanism automatically and
instantaneously determines that growth in the demand for consumer
goods and services will trigger an immediate, proportional increase
in the demand for capital goods. Quite the opposite is true. In
view of potential variations in the demand for consumer
goods and services, entrepreneurs usually maintain a certain
amount of idle capacity in the form of capital equipment.
This idle capacity allows them to satisfy sudden increases in
demand when they occur. The accelerator principle proves to
be much less sound when, as in real life, companies keep some
capital goods in reserve.
Therefore it is obvious that the accelerator principle would
only be sound if capital goods were in full use, such that it
would be impossible to raise the output of consumer goods at
all without increasing the number of machines. Nevertheless,
and second, the great fallacy of the accelerator principle is that
it depends on the existence of fixed, unchanging proportions
between capital goods, labor and the output of consumer
81 Antecedents of the "accelerator principle" appear in the works of Karl
Marx, Albert Aftalion, J.M. Clark, A.C. Pigou, and Roy F. Harrod. See
P.N. Junankar, "Acceleration Principle," in The New Palgrave: A Dictio-
nary of Economics, EatwelL Milgate and Newman, eds., vol. 1, pp. 10-11.
568 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
goods and services. The accelerator principle fails to take into
account that the same result in terms of consumer goods and serv-
ices can be achieved using many different combinations of fixed cap-
ital, variable capital and especially, labor. The specific combina-
tion an entrepreneur may choose in any given case depends
on the structure of relative prices. Hence, to assume fixed pro-
portions exist between the output of consumer goods and
services and the quantity of capital goods necessary to pro-
duce them is an error, and it contradicts the basic principles of
the theory of prices in the factor market. Indeed, as we saw
when we analyzed the "Ricardo Effect," a drop in the relative
price of labor will lead companies to produce consumer goods
and services in a more labor-intensive manner, i.e., using
fewer capital goods in relative terms. The reverse is also true:
a rise in the relative cost of labor will trigger a relative increase
in the use of capital goods. Because the accelerator principle
rests on the assumption that fixed proportions exist between
the factors of production, it totally excludes the role entrepre-
neurship, the price system and technological change play in
market processes.
Furthermore, and third, even if, for the sake of argument,
we suppose fixed ratios exist between consumption and capi-
tal equipment used, and we even assume there to be no idle
capacity with respect to capital goods, we must ask ourselves
the following question: How can the output of capital goods pos-
sibly rise in the absence of the saving necessary to finance such an
investment? It is an insoluble logical contradiction to consider
that an increase in the demand for consumer goods and
services will automatically and instantaneously provoke a
much-more-than-proportional rise in the output of capital
goods, given that in the absence of excess capacity the pro-
duction of these goods is contingent on growth in voluntary
saving. Moreover such growth inevitably entails a momentary
drop in the demand for consumer goods (which clearly con-
tradicts the premise on which the accelerator theory is based).
Therefore the accelerator theory contradicts the most funda-
mental principles of capital theory.
Fourth, it is important to realize that an investment in cap-
ital goods which is far more than proportional to the increase
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 569
in the demand for consumer goods can only be financed if
substantial credit expansion is initiated and sustained. In
other words, the accelerator principle ultimately presupposes
that the increase in credit expansion necessary to stimulate an
enormously exaggerated investment in capital goods takes
place. We are already familiar with the effects such credit
expansion exerts on the productive structure and with the
way in which the relative-price system invariably limits the
expansion and forces a reversal that manifests itself in a crisis
and recession.82
Fifth, it is absurd to expect a rise in the demand for con-
sumer goods and services to cause an instantaneous upsurge
in the output of capital goods. We know that during the boom,
which is financed by credit expansion, companies and indus-
trial sectors devoted to the production of equipment and cap-
ital goods operate at maximum capacity. Orders pile up and
companies are unable to satisfy the increased demand, except
with very lengthy time lags and dramatic increases in the price
of equipment goods. Therefore it is impossible to imagine that
a rise in the output of capital goods could take place as soon
as the accelerator principle presupposes.
Sixth, the accelerator theory rests on peculiar mechanistic
reasoning by which an attempt is made to relate growth in the
demand for consumer goods and services, measured in mone-
tary terms, with a rise, in physical terms, in the demand for
equipment and capital goods. Entrepreneurs never base their
decisions on a comparison between monetary and physical
magnitudes; instead they always compare estimated income
and costs, measured strictly in monetary terms. To compare
82
[I]f, for the sake of argument, we were ready to admit that
capitalists and entrepreneurs behave in the way that the dis-
proportionality doctrines describe, it remains inexplicable
how they could go on in the absence of credit expansion. The
striving after such additional investments raises the prices of
the complementary factors of production and the rate of
interest on the loan market. These effects would curb the
expansionist tendencies very soon if there were no credit
expansion. (Mises, Human Action, p. 586)
570 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
heterogeneous magnitudes is absurd and makes entrepre-
neurial economic calculation utterly impossible. Obviously, if
the price of capital goods begins to increase, entrepreneurial
decisions will not mechanically manifest themselves in "fixed
proportions" of inputs. Instead entrepreneurs will carefully
monitor the evolution of costs to determine the extent to
which production will continue at the old proportions, or they
will start using a higher proportion of alternative factors,
specifically labor.83
Seventh, William Hutt has shown that the entire accelerator
theory rests on the choice of a purely arbitrary time period of
analysis.84 Indeed, why calculate the supposed relative increase
in the demand for capital goods based on a one-year period?
The shorter the time period chosen, the more "amplified" the
supposed automatic rise in the demand for machines, an
upsurge which results from any fixed ratio between the output
of consumer goods and services and capital goods. However if
we consider a longer time period, such as the estimated life of
the machine, the marked oscillations which appear to arise
from the accelerator principle disappear altogether. In addition,
this long-term perspective is always the one considered by
entrepreneurs. In order to be able to momentarily raise output
if necessary in the future, they usually increase their demand
for capital goods more than would be strictly necessary to pro-
duce a certain volume of consumer goods. Thus when we take
into account society as a whole and entrepreneurial expecta-
tions, increases in the demand for equipment and machines in
the stages closest to consumption are much more modest than
the doctrine of the accelerator principle indicates.
In short the accelerator principle rests on fallacious,
mechanistic reasoning which excludes the most elementary
principles of the market process, specifically the nature of
entrepreneurship. The doctrine ignores the functioning and
83See, for instance, Jeffrey M. Herbener's interesting article, "The Myths
of the Multiplier and the Accelerator," chapter 4 of Dissent on Keynes, pp.
63-88, esp. pp. 84-85.
84William H. Hutt, The Keynesian Episode: A Reassessment (Indianapolis,
Ind.: Liberty Press, 1979), pp. 404-08.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 571
effects of the price system, the possibility of substituting cer-
tain inputs for others, the most essential aspects of capital the-
ory and of the analysis of the productive structure, and finally,
the microeconomic principles which govern the relationship
between saving and the lengthening of the productive struc-
ture.85
4
The Marxist Tradition and the Austrian
Theory of Economic Cycles. The Neo-Ricardian
Revolution and the Reswitching Controversy
In his critical analysis of capitalism, Karl Marx accepts the
Classical School's objectivist conception of two essential fac-
tors of production (capital and labor) and a production process
comprised of only two stages (consumption and production).
Nevertheless in Friedrich Engels's preface to the third volume
of Karl Marx's Capital, Engels makes explicit reference to the
different stages in the production process. He portrays them in
a manner similar to that of the Austrian School, though he uses
the argument with the purpose of better illustrating the sup-
posed injustice of the capitalist economic system. Engels states:
The capitalist sellers, such as the producer of raw materials,
the manufacturer, the wholesale dealer, the retail dealer, all
make a profit on their transactions, each selling his product
at a higher price than the purchase price, each adding a cer-
tain percentage to the price paid by him. The laborer alone
is unable to raise the price of his commodity, he is com-
pelled, by his oppressed condition, to sell his labor to the
capitalist at a price corresponding to its cost of production,
that is to say, for the means of his subsistence.86
85Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, pp. 759-64.
86Friedrich Engels, Preface to the English edition of Karl Marx's Capital:
A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 3: The Process of Capitalist Production
as a Whole, Frederick Engels, edv Ernest Untermann, trans. (Chicago:
Charles H. Kerr and Company, 1909), pp. 19-20.
572 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Marxist theorist Mijail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovsky
later expanded on and reworked Engels's comments with the
aim of developing a theory of economic cycles based on the
phenomenon of "overproduction" in the stages of investment.
As we have already indicated, this theory is very closely
related to the Austrian theory of economic cycles presented
here. Indeed though Tugan-Baranovsky is unable to identify
the monetary origin (credit expansion) of overinvestment and
disequilibrium between the different stages in the production
process, his interpretation is basically correct with respect to
capital theory, and Hayek himself has recognized it as an
antecedent to the Austrian theory of economic cycles.87
Therefore it is not surprising that an author such as
Howard J. Sherman, of clear Marxist leanings, has maintained
that Hayek's theory on the different stages in the production
process fits in perfectly with the Marxist theoretical frame-
work. This framework has traditionally highlighted a ten-
dency toward a significant disproportion between the differ-
ent industrial stages in the capitalist system. As one might
expect, the purpose has not been to demonstrate the harmful
effects credit expansion and government and central banks'
monetary policy exert on the productive structure, but merely
to illustrate the supposed inherent instability in the capitalist
system.88 According to the Austrian School, Marxists' error
lies not in their diagnosis of the symptoms of the disease (basi-
cally accurate), but in their analysis of its causes, which Aus-
trians see in the credit expansion which derives from the vio-
lation of legal principles in the monetary bank-deposit
contract (fractional-reserve cash ratio).
In addition, the neo-Ricardian and neoclassical contro-
versy regarding the possibility of technique reswitching also
has favorable implications for the Austrian theory of eco-
nomic cycles. Indeed the reswitching debate has emphasized
87Hayek's explicit reference to Tugan-Baranovsky appears in Prices and
Production, p. 103, and also in The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 426. See also
chapter 6, footnote 71.
88See Howard J. Sherman's book, Introduction to the Economics of Growth,
Unemployment and Inflation (New York: Appleton, 1964), esp. p. 95.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 573
the heterogeneous, complementary nature of different capital
goods (in the purest Austrian tradition), versus the neoclassi-
cal conception of capital as a homogeneous fund. Furthermore
Austrians, and Hayek in particular, showed from the begin-
ning that the lengthening of the productive structure could
often provoke seemingly paradoxical instances of reswitching
which nevertheless, when interpreted prospectively, are sim-
ply another manifestation of the normal lengthening
process.89
The jump between two alternate production techniques, an
occurrence which may accompany continuous variations in
the interest rate, and which has quite dismayed neoclassical
theorists, presents no difficulties whatsoever for the Austrian
theory of capital. In fact an increase in saving, and thus a
decrease in the interest rate, always manifests itself in a change
in the temporal perspective of consumers, who begin to view
their actions in terms of a more distant future. Hence the pro-
ductive structure is lengthened regardless of whether changes
or even reswitching occur with respect to the different spe-
cific production techniques. In other words, within the Aus-
trian School model, if, at a drop in the interest rate, a former
technique is revived in connection with a new investment
89 It is evident and has usually been taken for granted that
methods of production which were made profitable by a fall
of the rate of interest from 7 to 5 per cent may be made
unprofitable by a further fall from 5 per cent to 3 per cent,
because the former method will no longer be able to compete
with what has now become the cheaper method. ... It is only
via price changes that we can explain why a method of pro-
duction which was profitable when the rate of interest was 5
per cent should become unprofitable when it falls to 3 per
cent. Similarly it is only in terms of price changes that we
can adequately explain why a change in the rate of interest
will make methods of production profitable which were pre-
viously unprofitable. (Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, pp.
388-89 [also pp. 76-77, 140ff., 191ff., and 200])
Augusto Graziani, for his part, asserts that Hayek "had shown the pos-
sibility of reswitching." See Graziani's book review of "Hayek on Hayek:
An Autobiographical Dialogue," in The European Journal of the History of
Economic Thought 2, no. 1 (Spring, 1995): 232.
574 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
project, this occurrence is merely a concrete sign, in the con-
text of a particular production process, that this process has
become longer as a result of the rise in saving and the fall in
the interest rate.90
Therefore we must not be deceived by the "comparative
static equilibrium analysis" carried out by neoclassical theorists
who, like Mark Blaug, consider that the reswitching contro-
versy somehow refutes the Austrian theory of capital.91 On the
contrary, we know that the real world Austrian theorists study
is one of continual change and that growth in voluntary saving
always causes, in prospective terms, a "lengthening" of the
productive structure, irrespective of whether techniques
which were only profitable at higher interest rates are read-
opted in certain new investment processes.92 From the point
of view of an individual actor or entrepreneur, once the
prospective decision has been made to lengthen production
90O'Driscoll and Rizzo, The Economics of Time and Ignorance, p. 183.
91Mark Blaug mistakenly calls the reswitching theorem "the final nail in
the coffin of the Austrian theory of capital." Blaug, Economic Theory in
Retrospect, p. 552. Blaug fails to comprehend that once the objectivist
remains Bohm-Bawerk brought to the Austrian theory of capital (the
concept of a measurable average production period) are eliminated and
the production process is viewed in strictly prospective terms, the Aus-
trian theory of capital becomes immune to the attack of the reswitching
theorists and is even strengthened by it. On this topic see Ludwig M.
Lachmann, "On Austrian Capital Theory" published in The Foundations
of Modern Austrian Economics, Edwin E. Dolan, ed. (Kansas City: Sheed
and Ward, 1976), p. 150; see also Israel M. Kirzner, "Subjectivism,
Reswitching Paradoxes and All That," in Essays on Capital and Interest,
pp. 7-10. Kirzner concludes that
we should understand that comparing the complex, multidi-
mensional waiting requirements for different techniques sim-
ply does not permit us to pronounce that one technique involves
unambiguously less waiting than a second technique, (p. 10)
92The chief inadequacy of the neo-Ricardian theory of reswitching is not
only that it rests on a comparative static equilibrium analysis which
does not entail a prospective approach to dynamic market processes,
but also that it fails to identify the ultimate causes of the interest-rate
variations which provoke the supposed reswitching in the most prof-
itable techniques. An increase in saving (and thus a decrease in the
interest rate, other things being equal) may result in the replacement of
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 575
plans (due to a rise in saving), all initial factors (land, labor, and
existing capital goods) are subjectively deemed to be "original
means of production" which merely determine the starting point
of the production process. It is therefore irrelevant whether or not the
new investment process incorporates techniques which, considered
individually, may have been profitable at higher rates of interest.93
a certain technique (the Roman plow, for instance) by a more capital-
intensive one (the tractor). Even so, a subsequent drop in the interest
rate may permit the reintroduction of the Roman plow in new produc-
tion processes formerly prevented by a lack of saving (in other words,
the established processes are not affected and still involve the use of
tractors). Indeed a new lengthening of production processes may give
rise to new stages in agriculture or gardening that incorporate tech-
niques which, even assuming that production processes are effectively
lengthened, may appear less capital-intensive when considered sepa-
rately in a comparative static equilibrium analysis.
93We must not forget that although neo-Ricardians may have been cir-
cumstantial allies to the Austrians in their criticism of the neoclassical
trend, the neo-Ricardians' stated objective is precisely to neutralize the
influence (which is not yet strong enough, in our opinion) exerted on
economics since 1871 by the subjectivist revolution Menger started. The
Ricardian counterrevolution erupted with Piero Sraffa's review of
Hayek's book, Prices and Production (see "Doctor Hayek on Money and
Capital," Economic journal 42 [1932]: 42-53), as Ludwig M. Lachmann
points out in his article, "Austrian Economics under Fire: The Hayek-
Sraffa Duel in Retrospect," printed in Austrian Economics: History and
Philosophical Background, Wolfgang Grassl and B. Smith, eds. (London
and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 225-42. We should also mention
Joan Robinson's work published in 1953 and devoted to criticizing the
neoclassical production function (see Joan Robinson, Collected Economic
Papers [London: Blackwell, 1960], vol. 2, pp. 114-31). Of particular rele-
vance is chapter 12 of Piero Sraffa's book, Production of Commodities by
Means of Commodities: Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1960). The entire chapter deals with the
"switch in methods of production." On the neoclassical side, see the
famous article by Paul A. Samuelson, who declared his unconditional
surrender to the Cambridge Switching Theorem. The article appeared in
Quarterly journal of Economics 80 (1966): 568-83, and was entitled "Para-
doxes in Capital Theory: A Summing Up." On this point another inter-
esting resource is Geoffrey C. Harcourt's book, Some Cambridge Contro-
versies in the Theory of Capital (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1972). Finally see also Ludwig Lachmann, Macroeconomic Thinking and the
Market Economy (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1973).
576 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
5
Conclusion
From the standpoint of our analysis, it is clear that there
are far greater similarities than possible differences between
monetarists and Keynesians. Indeed Milton Friedman himself
has acknowledged: "We all use the Keynesian language and
apparatus. None of us any longer accept the initial Keynesian
conclusions."94 Peter F Drucker, for his part, indicates that
Milton Friedman is essentially and epistemologically a Key-
nesian:
94Milton Friedman, Dollars and Deficits (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice
Hall, 1968), p. 15. The new Keynesians have in turn built on the foun-
dations of neoclassical microeconomics to justify the existence of wage
rigidities in the market. Specifically they have formulated the efficiency-
wage hypothesis, according to which wages tend to determine a
worker's productivity and not vice versa. See, for example, Robert Gor-
don, "What is New-Keynesian Economics?" journal of Economic Litera-
ture 28 (September 1990); and Lawrence Summers, Understanding
Unemployment (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1990). Our criticism
of the new Keynesians (for whom a more fitting name would be the
"new monetarists," according to Garrison in Time and Money, p. 232)
centers on the fact that their models, like those of monetarists, are
largely based on the concepts of equilibrium and maximization, and
their hypotheses are almost as unreal (experience teaches us that very
often, if not always, the wages of those talents in greatest demand are
the ones which tend to rise) as those of the new classical economists
who hold the theory of rational expectations. Peter Boettke, in reference
to both schools, concludes:
Like rational-expectations theorists who developed elaborate
"proofs" of how the (Neo-) Keynesian picture could not be
true, the New Keynesians start with the assumption that it
must be true, and then try to explain how this "reality" might
have come to be. In the end, then, the New Keynesians are as
ideological as the Chicago School. In the hands of both, eco-
nomics is reduced to a game in which preconceived notions
about the goodness or badness of markets are decked out in
spectacular theory. (See Peter Boettke, "Where Did Economics
Go Wrong? Modern Economics as a Flight From Reality,"
Critical Review 1 [Winter, 1997]: 42-43)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 577
His economics is pure macroeconomics, with the national
government as the one unit, the one dynamic force, control-
ling the economy through the money supply. Friedman's
economics are completely demand -focused. Money and
credit are the pervasive, and indeed the only, economic real-
ity. That Friedman sees money supply as original and inter-
est rates as derivative, is not much more than minor gloss on
the Keynesian scriptures.95
Furthermore even before the appearance of Keynes's The
General Theory, the principal monetarist theorists of the
A good overview of the trends in diffuse modern macroeconomics
appears in Olivier J. Blanchard and Stanley Fischer, Lectures on Macro-
economics (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1990); see also David
Romer, Advanced Macroeconomics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996).
95Peter F. Drucker, "Toward the Next Economics," published in The Cri-
sis in Economic Theory, Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol, eds. (New York:
Basic Books, 1981), p. 9. Therefore, as Mark Skousen points out, it is not
surprising that one of the most prominent monetarists of the 1930s,
Ralph G. Hawtrey, allied himself with Keynes against Hayek, defending
an anti-saving position and adopting viewpoints very similar to those
of Keynesians with respect to capital theory and macroeconomics (see,
among other sources, Hawtrey's Capital and Employment, pp. 270-86,
and Skousen's Capital and its Structure, p. 263). The entire "consump-
tion function" debate again reveals the obvious Keynesian and macro-
economic influence on monetarists. In fact Milton Friedman, while pre-
serving all of the Keynesian analytical and theoretical tools, attempted
with his "permanent-income hypothesis" to introduce an empirical
variant which would make it possible to modify the conclusions reached
through macroeconomic analysis. Indeed if economic agents plan their
consumption in view of long-term permanent income, then according to
Keynesian logic, more-than-proportional increases in saving will not
accompany rises in income, and therefore the underconsumption issues
Keynes analyzed will disappear. Nonetheless the use of this type of
"empirical argument" suggests implicit acknowledgement of the valid-
ity of Keynesian hypotheses regarding the harmful effects of saving and
the capitalist tendency toward underconsumption. Nevertheless we
have already exposed the analytical errors of such a viewpoint, and we
have based our reasoning on the microeconomic arguments which
explain that certain market forces lead to the investment of saved
amounts, regardless of the apparent historical form of the supposed
consumption function. See Milton Friedman, A Theory of the Consump-
tion Function (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957).
578 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Chicago School were already prescribing the typical Keyne-
sian remedies for depression and fighting for large budget
deficits.96
Table VII- 1 recapitulates the differences between the Aus-
trian perspective and the major macroeconomic schools. The
table contains twelve comparisons that reveal the radical dif-
ferences between the two approaches.97
96 Frank H. Knight, Henry Simons, Jacob Viner and their
Chicago colleagues argued throughout the early 1930's for
the use of large and continuous deficit budgets to combat the
mass unemployment and deflation of the times. (J. Ronnie
Davies, "Chicago Economists, Deficit Budgets and the Early
1930's," American Economic Review 58 [June 1968]: 476)
Even Milton Friedman confesses:
So far as policy was concerned, Keynes had nothing to offer
those of us that had sat at the feet of Simons, Mints, Knight
and Viner. (Milton Friedman, "Comment on the Critics,"
included in Robert J. Gordon, ed., Milton Friedman's Monetary
Framework [Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1974], p. 163)
Skousen, commenting on both perspectives, states:
No doubt one of the reasons why the Chicago school gained
greater acceptance was that there were some things they had
in common with the Keynesians: they both used aggregate
concepts; they both relied on empirical studies to support
their models; and they both favoured some form of govern-
ment involvement in the macroeconomic sphere. Granted, the
Chicagoites favored monetary policy, while the Keynesians
emphasized fiscal policy, but both involved forms of state inter-
ventionism. (Mark Skousen, "The Free Market Response to
Keynesian Economics," included in Dissent on Keynes, p. 26;
italics added)
On this topic see also Roger W. Garrison's article, "Is Milton Friedman
a Keynesian?" published as chapter 8 of Dissent on Keynes, pp. 131-47.
Also, Robert Skidelsky confirmed that the Keynesian "remedies" for
recession were nothing new to the theorists of the Chicago School in the
1930s. See Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Fhe Economist as Sav-
iour, 1920-1937 (London: Macmillan, 1992), p. 579. Finally, see the more
recent, well-documented article by George S. Tavlas, "Chicago, Harvard
and the Doctrinal Foundations of Monetary Economics," Journal of Polit-
ical Economy 105, no. 1 (February 1997): 153-77.
97This table appeared in our preface to the Spanish edition of FA.
Hayek's Contra Keynes and Cambridge [Contra Keynes y Cambridge, p. xii].
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 579
Table VII- 1 groups monetarists and Keynesians together
because their similarities far outweigh their differences. Nev-
ertheless we must acknowledge that certain important differ-
ences do separate these schools. Indeed, though both lack a
capital theory98 and apply the same "macro" methodology to
the economy" monetarists concentrate on the long term and
It is a personal adaptation of the tables included in Hayek's The Pure
Theory of Capital, pp. 47-49, and Skousen's The Structure of Production, p.
370. Huerta de Soto, "The Ongoing Methodenstreit of the Austrian
School," p. 96, also includes a table which contrasts the Austrian and
neoclassical viewpoints, and the information contained there is essen-
tially reproduced here as well.
98 Except for the Austrian school and some sectors of the
Swedish and early neoclassical school, the contending macro-
economic theories are united by a common omission. They
neglect to deal with capital or, more pointedly, the economy's
intertemporal capital structure in any straightforward and
satisfactory way. Yet capital theory offers the richest and most
promising forum for the treatment of the critical time element
in macroeconomics. (Roger W. Garrison, "The Limits of
Macroeconomics," in The Cato Journal: An Interdisciplinary
Journal of Public Policy Analysis 12, no. 1 [1993]: 166)
"Luis Angel Rojo states:
On the whole, the current macroeconomic outlook is charac-
terized by a high degree of confusion. Keynesian economics
is in the grip of a deep crisis, as it has failed to adequately
explain, much less control, the course of events. At the same
time, new ideas have not yet taken root and are still an easy
target in light of the empirical evidence.
Though we believe Rojo's diagnosis is correct, and he refers to the theo-
retical failings of both Keynesians and monetarists, it is unfortunate that
he neglects to mention the need to base macroeconomics on an adequate
capital theory which permits the correct integration of the "micro" and
"macro" aspects of economics. See Luis Angel Rojo, Keynes: su tiempo y
el nuestro (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1984), pp. 365ff. In the same book
Rojo makes a brief and largely insufficient reference to the Austrian the-
ory of the economic cycle (see pp. 324-25). Ramon Febrero provides a
useful summary of the current state of macroeconomics and attempts to
bring some order to its chaotic and diffuse condition in his article, "El
mundo de la macroeconomia: perspectiva general y concepciones orig-
inarias," in Que es la economia, Ramon Febrero, ed. (Madrid: Ediciones
Piramide, 1997), chap. 13, pp. 383-424. Unfortunately Febrero does not
580 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
see a direct, immediate and effective connection between
money and real events. In contrast Keynesians base their
analysis on the short term and are very skeptical about a pos-
sible connection between money and real events, a link capa-
ble of somehow guaranteeing equilibrium will be reached and
sustained. In comparison, the Austrian analysis presented
here and the elaborate capital theory on which it rests suggest
a healthy middle ground between monetarist and Keynesian
extremes. In fact for Austrians, monetary assaults (credit
expansion) account for the system's endogenous tendency to
move away from "equilibrium" toward an unsustainable
path. In other words they explain why the capital supply
structure tends to be incompatible with economic agents'
demand for consumer goods and services (and thus Say's law
temporarily fails to hold true). Nonetheless certain inexorable,
microeconomic forces, driven by entrepreneurship, the desire
for profit, and variations in relative prices, tend to reverse the
unbalancing effects of expansionary processes and return
coordination to the economy. Therefore Austrians see a certain
connection — a loose joint, to use Hayek's terminology100 —
between monetary phenomena and real phenomena, a link
which is neither absolute, as monetarists claim, nor totally
non-existent, as Keynesians assert.101
do justice to the alternative Austrian approach, which he hardly men-
tions at all.
100Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 408.
101 The conception of money as a loose joint suggests that there
are two extreme theoretical constructs to be avoided. To
introduce money as a "tight joint" would be to deny the spe-
cial problem of intertemporal coordination. ... At the other
extreme, to introduce money as a "broken joint" would be to
deny even the possibility of a market solution to the problem
of intertemporal coordination. . . . Monetarism and Keyne-
sianism, have tended to adopt one of the two polar positions
with the result that, as a first approximation, macroeconomic
problems are seen to be either trivial or insoluble. Between
these extreme conceptions is Hayek's notion of loose-jointed
money, which serves to recognize the problem while leaving
the possibility of a market solution to it an open question.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 581
In short, Austrians believe money is never neutral (not in
the short, medium, nor long run), and institutions that deal
with it (banks in particular) must be founded on universal
legal principles which prevent a "falsification" of relative
prices due to strictly monetary factors. Such falsifications lead
to the widespread malinvestment of resources, and inevitably,
to crisis and recession. Thus Austrian theorists consider the
following to be the three essential principles of macroeco-
nomic policy, in order of importance:
1. The quantity of money must remain as constant as
possible (i.e., as in a pure gold standard), and credit
expansion must be particularly avoided. These objec-
tives require a return to the traditional legal principles
which govern the monetary bank-deposit contract and
the establishment of a 100-percent reserve requirement
in banking.
2. Every attempt should be made to insure that the rela-
tive prices of different goods, services, resources, and
factors of production remain flexible. In general the
greater the credit and monetary expansion, the more
rigid relative prices will tend to be, the more people
will fail to recognize the true cost of a lack of flexibil-
ity, and the more corrupt the habits of economic
agents will become. Agents will eventually come to
accept the misconceived idea that the vital adjust-
ments can and should always take the form of an
increase in the quantity of money in circulation. In
(Roger W. Garrison, "Time and Money: The Universals of
Macroeconomic Theorizing," Journal of Macroeconomics 6, no.
2 [Spring, 1984]: 203)
According to Garrison, the Austrians adopt a healthy middle ground in
the area of expectations as well:
Assuming either superrational expectations or subrational
expectations detract from the equally crucial role played by
the market process itself, which alone can continuously
inform expectations, and subtracts from the plausibility of the
theory in which these unlikely expectational schemes are
employed. (Garrison, "What About Expectations?, p. 22.)
582
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Table VII-1
Two Contrasting Approaches to Economics
The Austrian School
Macroeconomists
(Monetarists and Keynesians)
1. Time plays an essential role
1.
The influence of time is ignored
2. "Capital" is viewed as a heteroge-
2.
Capital is viewed as a homogeneous
neous set of capital goods which
fund which reproduces on its own
receive constant wear and must be
replaced
3. The production process is dynamic
3.
There is a notion of a one-dimensional,
and is divided into multiple, vertical
horizontal productive structure in equi-
stages
librium (circular flow of income)
4. Money affects the process by modi-
4.
Money affects the general level of
fying the structure of relative prices
prices. Changes in relative prices are
not considered
5. Macroeconomic phenomena are
5.
Macroeconomic aggregates prevent the
explained in microeconomic terms
analysis of underlying microeconomic
(variations in relative prices)
factors (malinvestment)
6. Austrians hold a theory on the
6.
An endogenous theory of cycles is
endogenous causes of economic crises
lacking. Crises have exogenous causes
which explains their recurrent nature
(psychological, technological and/or
(corrupt institutions: fractional-
errors in monetary policy)
reserve banking and artificial credit
expansion)
7. Austrians hold an elaborate capital
7.
A theory of capital is lacking
theory (structure of production)
8. Saving plays a decisive role. It
8.
Saving is not important. Capital repro-
causes a longitudinal change in the
duces laterally (more of the same), and
productive structure and determines
the production function is fixed and is
the sort of technology to be used
determined by the state of technology
9. There is an inverse relationship
9.
The demand for capital goods is
between the demand for capital
directly related to the demand for con-
goods and the demand for con-
sumer goods
sumer goods. All investment
requires saving and thus a tempo-
rary relative drop in consumption
10. It is assumed that production costs
10. Production costs are objective, real and
are subjective and not predetermined
predetermined
11. Market prices tend to determine
11. Historical costs of production tend to
production costs, not vice versa
determine market prices
12. The interest rate is a market price
12. The interest rate tends to be deter-
determined by subjective valuations
mined by the marginal productivity or
of time preference. The interest rate
efficiency of capital, understood as the
is used to arrive at the present value
internal rate of discount at which the
(toward which the market price of
expected flow of returns is equal to the
each capital good tends) by dis-
historical cost of producing each capi-
counting its expected future flow of
tal good (which is considered invari-
returns
able and predetermined). The short-
term interest rate is believed to have a
predominantly monetary origin
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 583
any case, as we have already argued, the indirect,
underlying cause of economic maladjustments lies in
credit expansion, which provokes a generalized mal-
investment of resources, which in turn creates unem-
ployment. The more rigid the markets, the higher the
unemployment.
3. When economic agents enter into long-term contracts
negotiated in monetary units, they must be able to
adequately predict changes in the purchasing power
of money. This last requirement appears the easiest to
satisfy, both when the purchasing power of the mon-
etary unit declines continuously, as has occurred since
World War II, and when it gradually and predictably
rises, as would occur following the adoption of a pol-
icy to maintain the quantity of money in circulation
constant. In fact the condition is even more likely to be
met in the second case.102
l°2See Hayek's article, "On Neutral Money," published as chapter 7 of
Money, Capital and Fluctuations, pp. 159-62, esp. p. 161. This is the Eng-
lish translation of the original German article, "Uber 'Neutrales Geld'"
in Zeitschrift fiir Nationalokonomie 4 (1933): 659-61. Donald C. Lavoie has
revealed that at any rate, the disruptive effects a simple variation in the
general price level may provoke are less damaging and much easier to
predict than those exerted on the productive structure by the type of
monetary injection bank credit expansion entails:
My own judgment would be that the price-level effects are
less damaging and easier to adjust to than the injection
effects; thus the optimal policy for monetary stability would
be as close to zero money growth as can be practically
attained. In my view the gradual deflation that this policy
would permit would be preferable to the relative price dis-
tortion which would be caused by attempting to inject
enough money into the economy to keep the price level con-
stant.
He adds:
Even gold money would undergo gradual increases in its
supply over time. Some have estimated that about a two per-
cent increase per year would be likely. To me this appears to
be the best we can do. (Don C. Lavoie, "Economic Calculation
584 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
6
Appendix on Life Insurance Companies
and Other Non-Bank Financial Intermediaries
The analysis of the last four chapters has put us in a posi-
tion to understand the important role true financial interme-
diaries play in the economy. Logically we use the term true to
describe those non-bank financial intermediaries which create
ex nihilo neither loans nor the corresponding deposits, and
which merely act as middlemen in the market in which pres-
ent goods are exchanged for future goods. In other words,
financial intermediaries simply take money from lenders
offering present goods and hand it over to borrowers. In
return for their service as mere intermediaries they receive a
profit, which is generally small. This slender profit margin
contrasts with the disproportionate gains the aggregate of
banks accumulate when they create money ex nihilo in the
form of deposits, an activity they pursue thanks to the legal
privilege which permits them to make self-interested use of
most of the money deposited with them on demand.
Although with tiresome insistence banks are claimed to be
the most important financial "intermediaries" in the economy,
this is a baseless, unrealistic notion. Banks are essentially not
financial intermediaries. Their main activity consists of creat-
ing loans and deposits from nothing (and is apart from their
function as true financial intermediaries, a role of secondary
importance, both quantitatively and qualitatively speak-
ing).103 In fact banks and the banking system have not taken
and Monetary Stability," printed in Cato Journal 3, no. 1
[Spring, 1983]: 163-70, esp. p. 169)
In chapter 9 we suggest a process for reforming the monetary and
banking system. Upon its culmination, this process would obviate the
need to design and implement any more "macroeconomic policies."
103Luis Angel Rojo has correctly pointed out that banks' central activity
does not involve their function as financial intermediaries, but their
ability to create loans and deposits from nothing. However he still refers
to banks as financial "intermediaries" and overlooks the prominent role
true financial intermediaries (which he describes as "non-bank") would
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 585
on a major role in modern economies because they act as
financial intermediaries, but because they typically create
loans, and thus deposits, ex nihilo, thereby increasing the
money supply. Hence it is not surprising that banks are capa-
ble of distorting the productive structure and the behavior of
economic agents, who find the great relative ease of acquiring
present goods from a bank enormously tempting. In compar-
ison, it is more difficult to obtain resources drawn from real
voluntary savings. Saving always involves greater initial sac-
rifice and discipline on the part of third-party savers, and it is
comparatively much harder to accomplish.
Therefore it is absurd to maintain, as is sometimes heard,
that owing to the insufficient development of the capital mar-
ket and of non-bank financial intermediaries, banks "have had
no choice" but to take on a prominent role in the financing of
production processes. Indeed the exact opposite is true.
Banks' expansionary capacity to grant loans from nothing
inevitably robs the capital market and non-bank financial
intermediaries of a significant part of their economic promi-
nence, since the banking system, which can expand loans
without anyone's having to first sacrifice immediate con-
sumption by voluntarily saving, is always much more likely
to grant a loan.
Once the general public begins to correctly identify the
evils of bank credit expansion, to understand that the expan-
sion process depends on a legal privilege no other economic
agent enjoys, and to see that the process inevitably provokes
consecutive cycles of boom and depression, the public will be
able to instigate a reform of the banking system. Such a reform
will be founded on the reestablishment of a 100-percent
reserve requirement for demand deposits, i.e., on the applica-
tion of traditional legal principles to banking operations. Once
this reform has been introduced, the proper status will be
restored to the capital market and to true financial intermedi-
aries, i.e., non-bank intermediaries, who by their very nature,
play in an economy free of special privileges for banks. See Luis Angel
Rojo, Teoria economica III, Class Notes and Syllabus, year 1970-1971
(Madrid, 1970), pp. 13ff., and 90-96.
586 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
are those entrepreneurs who specialize in convincing eco-
nomic agents of the importance and necessity of short-,
medium- and long-term saving, as well as in efficiently con-
necting lenders and borrowers, spreading risk and taking
advantage of the corresponding economies of scale.
Life Insurance Companies
as True Financial Intermediaries
The social significance of life insurance companies sets
them apart from other true financial intermediaries. In fact the
contracts offered by these institutions make it possible for
broad layers of society to undertake a genuine, disciplined
effort to save for the long term. Indeed life insurance provides
the perfect way to save, since it is the only method which
guarantees, precisely at those moments when households
experience the greatest need (in other words, in the case of
death, disability, or retirement), the immediate availability of
a large sum of money which, by other saving methods, could
only be accumulated following a very prolonged period of
time. With the payment of the first premium, the policy-
holder's beneficiaries acquire the right to receive, in the event
of this person's death, for instance, a substantial amount of
money which would have taken the policyholder many years
to save via other methods.
Moreover life insurers develop and operate large commer-
cial networks which specialize in emphasizing to families the
fundamental importance of committing to long-term, disci-
plined saving, not only to prepare for the possible misfortunes
associated with death, disability, or illness, but also to guaran-
tee a decent income in case of survival beyond a certain age.
Thus we could conclude that life insurance companies are the
quintessential "true financial intermediaries," because their
activity consists precisely of encouraging long-term saving in
families and channeling saved funds into very secure long-
term investments (mainly blue-chip bonds and real estate).104
l°4Austrian economists have always recognized the major role life
insurance plays in facilitating voluntary saving among broad sections of
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 587
The fact that life insurance companies do not expand credit
nor create money is obvious, especially if one compares the
contracts they market with banks' demand deposit opera-
tions. The accounting entries typical of a life insurance com-
pany are as follows:
Once the company has convinced its customers of the
importance of initiating a long-term plan of disciplined sav-
ing, the customers pay a premium to the company each year
for the duration of the life insurance contract. The premiums
are considered part of the insurance company's income, as
shown below:
(76) Debit Credit
Cash Life insurance premiums
(On the revenues side of
the income statement)
Life insurance companies use the premiums they
receive to meet a series of operational costs, primarily
claims costs, marketing and administrative expenses, and
other expenses involved in the technical coverage of the
risk of death, disability and survival. The entry which follows
the payment of these technical costs appears below:
society. Thus Richard von Strigl makes explicit reference to the "life
insurance business, which is of such extraordinary importance in capital
formation." Strigl indicates that, in order for voluntary saving in general
and life insurance in particular to prosper, it must be clear that the pur-
chasing power of the monetary unit will at least remain constant. See
Richard von Strigl, Curso medio de economia, pp. 201-02. In addition, in
his classic article on saving, EA. Hayek refers to life insurance and the
purchase of a home as two of the most important sources of voluntary
saving (see EA. Hayek, "Saving," originally published for the 1933 edi-
tion of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, and reprinted as chapter 5
of Profits, Interest and Investment, esp. pp. 169-70).
588 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(77) Debit Credit
Operational costs Cash
(Claims, administrative
expenses, etc.)
We should point out that operational costs absorb only a
portion of the total amount paid in premiums to life insurance
companies, which must reserve a significant part of their pre-
mium income to cover not only future risks (since companies
charge constant annual premiums for the coverage of risks
which increase in probability as policyholders grow older),
but also the important saving component usually incorpo-
rated in the most popular types of life insurance. This second
share of the premium total generates reserves in the form of
long-term investments recorded as the insurer's assets and
counterbalanced on the liability side by a mathematical reserve
account, which shows the present actuarial value of the future
commitments the insurance company makes to its policyhold-
ers. The corresponding entries are as follows:
(78) Debit Credit
Long-term investments Cash
(79) Portion of premium Mathematical reserves
income which is invested (future commitments to
(expenses) policyholders)
The life insurance company's balance sheet would look
like this:
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 589
(80) Life Insurance Company E
Balance Sheet
(End of the year)
Assets Liabilities
Long-term investments Mathematical reserves
Obviously no money is created, and mathematical
reserves, which represent the book value of future obligations
to policyholders, correspond to the fact that the insured have
handed over a certain quantity of present goods in exchange
for a larger quantity of goods at an undetermined point in the
future (when the contingency insured against — death, disabil-
ity, or survival — takes place). Until the anticipated event
occurs, policyholders lose the availability of their money,
which becomes available to borrowers who receive it from the
insurance companies. These borrowers are the issuers of the
corresponding bonds and fixed-income securities the life
insurance companies acquire. When life insurance companies
invest in real estate, they do so directly, thus taking on the role
of important real estate owners devoted to renting their prop-
erties to the public.
The income statement of the life insurance company
appears as follows:
(81) Life Insurance Company E
Income Statement for the year
Expenses Revenues
Operational costs Premiums
Mathematical reserves Financial income
(allowance)
Profit
590 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
It is clear that insurers' accounting profit arises from the
difference between revenues (premiums and financial
income) and expenses (operational costs and those resulting
from increases in mathematical reserves). Insurance compa-
nies usually make a very modest profit which has three possi-
ble sources: claim profit (i.e., the company may overestimate
the number of claims in its calculation of premiums), profit
derived from operational, administrative costs (administra-
tive expenses included in the calculation of premiums may be
greater than the company's real costs), and finally, financial,
profit (financial revenues may exceed the "technical interest
rate" used in the calculation of premiums). Furthermore com-
petition in the market has led life insurance companies to pass
on a large part of their yearly profits to their policyholders,
since life insurance contracts now commonly include profit-
sharing clauses, which increase customers' insured capital
annually without increasing premiums. Thus from an eco-
nomic standpoint, regardless of its legal status (whether a cor-
poration or a mutual company), a life insurance company
becomes, at least partially, a sort of "mutual company" in
which the policyholders themselves share in the company's
profits.
The institution of life insurance has gradually and sponta-
neously taken shape in the market over the last two hundred
years. It is based on a series of technical, actuarial, financial
and juridical principles of business behavior which have
enabled it to perform its mission perfectly and survive eco-
nomic crises and recessions which other institutions, especially
banking, have been unable to overcome. Therefore the high
"financial death rate" of banks, which systematically suspend
payments and fail without the support of the central bank, has
historically contrasted with the health and technical solvency
of life insurance companies. (In the last two hundred years, a
negligible number of life insurance companies have disap-
peared due to financial difficulties.)
The following technical principles are traditional in the life
insurance sector: assets are valued at historical cost, and pre-
miums are calculated based on very prudent technical inter-
est rates, which never include a component for inflation
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 591
expectations. Thus life insurance companies tend to underes-
timate their assets, overestimate their liabilities, and reach a
high level of static and dynamic solvency which makes them
immune to the deepest stages of the recessions that recur with
economic cycles. In fact when the value of financial assets and
capital goods plunges in the most serious stages of recession
in every cycle, life insurance companies are not usually
affected, given the reduced book value they record for their
investments. With respect to the amount of their liabilities,
insurers calculate their mathematical reserves at interest rates
much lower than those actually charged in the market. Hence
they tend to overestimate the present value of their commit-
ments on the liabilities side. Moreover policyholders take
advantage of the profits insurance companies bring in, as long
as the profits are distributed a posteriori, in accordance with
the above-mentioned profit-sharing clauses. Logically the
amounts of such profits cannot be guaranteed a priori in the
corresponding contracts.105
Surrender Values and the Money Supply
Life insurance contracts commonly offer an option by
which the company, at the request of the policyholder, redeems
the policy via the payment of a certain sum in cash. This
l°5We have attempted elsewhere to integrate the Austrian theory of eco-
nomic cycles with an explanation of insurance techniques and have
explained how insurance methods have spontaneously evolved to
counter the harmful effects of recessions. At the same time, insurance
companies have striven to constantly guarantee the fulfillment of their
commitments to their customers (widows, orphans, and retired people).
We conclude that this approach, which has been consistently successful,
should be adopted with respect to uninsured "pension funds" as well,
if we expect them to accomplish their purpose and be as immune as pos-
sible to the damaging consequences of the cycle. See our article,
"Interes, ciclos economicos y planes de pensiones," published in the
Anales del Congreso International de Fondos de Pensiones, which took place
in Madrid in April 1984, pp. 458-68. Jesus Huerta Pena has studied the
essential principles behind the financial stability of life insurance com-
panies in his book, La estabilidad financiera de las empresas de seguros
(Madrid, 1954).
592 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
option, which is generally included in all types of life insur-
ance, with the exception of those which cover solely the risk of
death or survival, can be exercised whenever the policyholder
desires, following the initial period stipulated in the policy
(normally two or three years). This contractual clause could
give the impression that a life insurance policy could also
serve as a tool for legally implementing a monetary demand-
deposit contract. Nevertheless we know that demand-
deposit contracts are characterized by their essential cause,
which lies in the safekeeping obligation and in the deposi-
tor's ability to withdraw the money deposited at any time.
Therefore life insurance differs fundamentally from demand
deposits. The following factors prevent any confusion
between the two:106
First, life insurers have traditionally sold their products as
long-term saving tools. Hence when customers buy life insur-
ance they are undoubtedly motivated by a desire to begin set-
ting aside and saving a portion of their income for the long
term, in order to build up capital for use when their families
need it most. From the standpoint of the contract's cause, as
well as the policyholder's subjective ends, present goods are
106 [T]he cash surrender values of life insurance policies are not
funds that depositors and policy holders can obtain and
spend without reducing the cash of others. These funds are in
large part invested and thus not held in a monetary form.
That part which is in banks or in cash is, of course, included
in the quantity of money which is either in or out of banks
and should not be counted a second time. Under present
laws, such institutions cannot extend credit beyond sums
received. If they need to raise more cash than they have on
hand to meet customer withdrawals, they must sell some of
their investments and reduce the bank accounts or cash
holdings of those who buy them. Accordingly they are in no
position to expand credit or increase the nation's quantity of money
as can commercial and central banks, all of which operate on a frac-
tional reserve basis and can lend more money than is entrusted to
them. (Percy L. Greaves, in his Introduction to Mises's book,
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, pp. xlvi-xlvii; italics
added)
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 593
clearly handed over and the full availability of them lost, in
exchange for the guarantee of a substantial income or capital
under certain future circumstances (those in which a family's
need may be greatest, such as the death of a provider or sur-
vival beyond a certain age).
Second, most life insurance operations do not permit the
possibility of obtaining the surrender value immediately, i.e.,
from the moment the contract is signed and the money is paid.
Instead there is generally a waiting period, which, depending
upon the market and legislation, varies in length from two to
three years. Only after this initial period does the customer
acquire the right to a surrender value.
Third, surrender values do not approximate the total
amount paid to the insurance company in premiums, since
they are reduced by the initial costs of the policy, which are
amortized over the entire duration of the policy and which,
for technical and business reasons, tend to be rather high and
are paid when the policy is purchased. Moreover the surren-
der value normally includes a penalty fee in favor of the
insurer to further encourage customers to carry their policies
to maturity. Thus it is obvious that life insurance operations
have been designed to discourage the surrender option as
much as possible, so that policyholders are only willing to
exercise it in situations of urgent family need or when they
wish to change insurance companies. Therefore subjectively
speaking, we must conclude that for most customers traditional
life-insurance operations do not mask deposit contracts.107
l°7Although the arguments expressed in the text are more than suffi-
cient to show that traditional life insurance is not a mask for demand
deposits, from a legal and economic standpoint we cannot be absolutely
certain unless insurers cease to guarantee a predetermined surrender
value and limit this amount to the market value acquired at any specific
point by the investments corresponding to the mathematical reserves of
any particular policy. In this case no one would be able to claim a right
to a predetermined surrender value; a customer would only be entitled
to the liquidation value of his policy at secondary market prices. Nev-
ertheless the difficulties insurers encounter in assigning specific invest-
ments to each policy difficulties which stem from the long-term nature
594 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Corruption of Traditional Life-Insurance Principles
Despite the above considerations, we must acknowledge
that in recent times, under the pretext of a supposedly beneficial
"deregulation of financial markets," the distinct boundaries
between the institution of life insurance and the banking sec-
tor have often been blurred in many western countries. This
blurring of boundaries has permitted the emergence of vari-
ous supposed "life insurance" operations which, instead of
following the traditional principles of the sector, have been
designed to mask true demand-deposit contracts which
involve an attempt to guarantee the immediate, complete avail-
ability to the policyholder of the money deposited as "premi-
ums" and of the corresponding interest.108 This corruption,
of life insurance contracts, have led companies to develop, from a legal
and actuarial point of view, a series of contractual clauses (waiting peri-
ods, penalty fees in the event of surrender, etc.) which, de facto, have the
same deterrent effect as the receipt of a reduced value at secondary mar-
ket prices should the customer terminate the policy during an economic
recession. A summary of the most typical surrender clauses appears in
Jesus Huerta Ballester, A Brief Comparison Between the Ordinary Life Con-
tracts of Ten Insurance Companies (Madrid, 1954).
108Thus traditional life insurance can also be corrupted, especially when
its basic principles are to different degrees abandoned under the pretext
of "financial deregulation" or when an attempt is made to combine the
institution with a sector as foreign to life insurance as banking. John
Maynard Keynes provided a historical example of this corruption of life
insurance during the years he was chairman of the National Mutual Life
Assurance Society of London. See related comments in chapter 3, foot-
note 47. While chairman, Keynes embraced an ad hoc investment policy
centered on variable-yield securities, as opposed to the traditional pol-
icy of investing in fixed-yield securities. Furthermore he favored the use
of unorthodox accounting principles, e.g., he valued assets at market
prices, not at their historical cost, and he even authorized the distribu-
tion of profits to policyholders against unrealized gains. All of these typ-
ically Keynesian assaults on traditional insurance principles nearly cost
him the solvency of his company with the arrival of the Great Depres-
sion. The negative influence Keynes exerted on the British life insurance
industry can still be felt today, and to a certain extent, it has spread to
the American insurance market as well. Those within the sector are now
attempting to free themselves from such unhealthy influences and
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 595
which we touched on in chapter 3, has exerted a very negative
influence on the insurance sector as a whole and has made it
possible for some life insurance companies to market deposits
in violation of traditional legal principles and thus to act, in
different degrees, as banks, i.e., to loan money actually placed
with them on demand deposit. Hence various life insurance
companies have begun to take part in the banking process of
credit expansion, which damages the productive structure
return to the traditional principles which from the beginning have guar-
anteed the smooth operation and solvency of the industry. On these
issues, see the following references: Nicholas Davenport, "Keynes in the
City," published in Essays on John Maynard Keynes, Milo Keynes, ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 224-25; Skidelsky,
John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour, 1920-1937, esp. pp. 25-26
and 524; and D.E. Moggridge, Maynard Keynes: An Economist's Biography
(London: Routledge, 1992), esp. pp. 410 and 411. Keynes had a direct cor-
rupting effect as a highly influential leader in the British insurance
industry of his time. However he also had a much more damaging indi-
rect effect on the insurance sector in general in the sense that his eco-
nomic theory helped to push up inflation and to discredit and destroy
the saving habits of ordinary people, in keeping with his "euthanasia of
the rentier" philosophy, which exerted a very harmful influence on the
development of the life insurance and pension market worldwide. In
this respect, the fact that Keynes was chairman of a life insurance com-
pany for many years constitutes one of the most remarkable ironies in
the history of life insurance. See Ludwig von Mises, "Pensions, the Pur-
chasing Power of the Dollar and the New Economics," included in Plan-
ning for Freedom and Twelve Other Addresses (South Holland, 111.: Liber-
tarian Press, 1974), pp. 86-93. See also the speeches Keynes delivered at
the seventeen general meetings (1922-1938) while chairman of the
National Mutual Life Assurance Society. The speeches make fascinating
reading and superbly illustrate the highly disruptive effects which, by
the irony of fate, followed from giving a speculative "wolf" and enemy
of saving, like Keynes, power over some peaceful "sheep" (his life insur-
ance company). See volume 12 of The Collected Writings of John Maynard
Keynes (London: Macmillan, 1983), pp. 114-254. Hermann Heinrich
Gossen was another famous economist involved in the insurance sector.
Apart from his role as advisor in a financially-doomed crop-and-live-
stock insurance company, Gossen designed a blueprint for a German
savings bank devoted to the life insurance business. The project never
came to fruition, however. See the article EA. Hayek wrote on Gossen
and which appears in Hayek's The Trend of Economic Thinking, vol. 3, p.
356.
596 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and causes economic cycles and recessions. Furthermore these
companies have done serious harm to the insurance industry
itself, which has been the object of increasing state and cen-
tral-bank intervention and has lost many of the fiscal advan-
tages it had always enjoyed in the past, advantages justified in
light of the considerable benefit the institution produces in
fostering long-term saving among broad sectors of society109
At any rate we intend the theoretical analysis performed in
this book to give life insurers back their self-confidence and
their trust in the positive nature of the traditional institution
of which they form a part and to encourage a clear separation
between life insurance and the banking "business," which is
foreign to it. As we know, this "business" not only lacks the
necessary juridical foundation, but also provokes economic
effects highly detrimental to society. In contrast the institution
of life insurance rests on an extraordinarily solid legal, techni-
cal-actuarial, and financial foundation. When life insurance
companies are faithful to the traditional principles of the sec-
tor, not only do they not hamper peaceful economic growth;
they are actually essential and extremely beneficial in terms of
109To the extent economic agents begin to subjectively view the surren-
der value of their policies as money available to them at all times, the
recent "confusion" between the insurance and banking sectors warrants
considering surrender values (which are generally lower than insurers'
mathematical reserves) as part of the money supply. This is the thesis
Murray N. Rothbard presents in his article, "Austrian Definitions of the
Supply of Money" in New Directions in Austrian Economics, pp. 143-56,
esp. pp. 151-52. Nevertheless we disagree with Rothbard's opinion that
surrender values should automatically be included in the money sup-
ply since this ultimately depends on whether actors in general subjec-
tively regard the surrender value of their policies as part of their imme-
diately-available cash balances, something which does not yet occur in
most markets. Moreover we should note that confusion between the
institutions of insurance and banking has not been complete, and even
in those markets in which it was greatest, companies appear to be
returning to traditional insurance principles, in particular the radical sep-
aration between insurance and banking. Regarding new life insurance
operations and their similarities with bank deposits, see the book by
Thierry Delvaux and Martin E. Magnee, Les nouveaux produits d 'assurance-
vie (Brussels: Editions de L'Universite de Bruxelles, 1991).
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 597
fostering long-term saving and investment and hence, the sus-
tainable economic development of society.
Other True Financial Intermediaries: Mutual Funds
and Holding and Investment Companies
Other true financial intermediaries which would become
even more developed if the privileges currently enjoyed by
banks were eliminated are mutual funds, holding and invest-
ment companies, leasing and finance corporations, etc. All of
these institutions receive present goods from savers and, in
their capacity as intermediaries, transfer these goods to final
borrowers. Though none of these institutions has the ability of
life insurance to guarantee a substantial income from the first
moment should a fortuitous event occur (death, disability, sur-
vival), it is obvious that they would all become more promi-
nent, even more than they are now, if banks were obligated to
maintain a 100-percent reserve ratio, and thus were to lose their
power to create deposits and grant loans from nothing. In par-
ticular, mutual funds would take on a very important role, in
the sense that economic agents would invest their excess cash
balances through them and would be able to obtain immediate
liquidity by selling their shares, though at secondary-market
prices, never at their nominal value. The same applies to hold-
ing companies and other financial and investment institutions,
which have on many occasions gone through a process of cor-
ruption and assault very similar to that of life insurance, a
process of "innovation" consisting of the design of different for-
mulas for "guaranteeing" the corresponding "investors" the
immediate availability of their money, i.e., the possibility of
retrieving their "savings" at the nominal value at any time. For
instance, as we saw in chapter 3 in connection with different
types of financial operations, clauses containing agreements of
repurchase at a predetermined price are among the abusive
legal devices generally used to mask true "demand deposit"
contracts in other institutions completely unrelated to bank-
ing.110 From an economic standpoint, as such procedures
110Economically speaking, it is easy to show that a financial operation
which involves an agreement of guaranteed repurchase at any time at
598 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
have spread, the contracts and institutions in question have
begun to produce the same harmful effects as fractional-
reserve banking. Therefore as we will see in the following
chapters, any proposal to reform the banking system must
include a plan to quickly identify different abusive legal proce-
dures which could be conceived to mask true fractional-reserve,
demand-deposit contracts. Such procedures must be curtailed,
as they go against general legal principles and seriously disrupt
the harmonious process of economic coordination.
Specific Comments on Credit Insurance
Finally we should briefly mention credit insurance opera-
tions, which have spontaneously emerged in developed
economies. In exchange for a premium, these policies guaran-
tee that in the event that the customers of insured business
and industrial enterprises cannot pay their debts, which are
usually paid within a certain period (thirty, sixty, ninety days,
etc.) using a given financial instrument (for example, a bill of
exchange), the insurance company will pay a percentage of
the total corresponding debt (between 75 and 95 percent), thus
taking it over and later collecting the amount from the delin-
quent customer. Therefore credit insurance addresses a real
need which arises in markets. It responds to a set of circum-
stances which derives from the credit that different industrial
and business enterprises habitually extend to their customers.
Such credit corresponds, economically speaking, to a tradi-
tional operation in which savers, generally capitalists who
own a business, advance financial resources for a time to
its nominal value (not at the unpredictable, oscillating price of the sec-
ondary market) constitutes a demand deposit which requires a 100-per-
cent reserve ratio. Indeed the only way for a company to guarantee at
all times its ability to honor all its repurchase agreements is to keep
available a monetary reserve equal in value to the total that would have
to be paid if all agreements were exercised at once (100-percent reserve
ratio). As long as companies fail to maintain such a reserve, they will
always run the risk of being unable to immediately comply with the
exercise of the repurchase option, a possibility which, during stages of
recession in the economic cycle, will almost become a certainty without
the unconditional support of a central bank to act as lender of last resort.
A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories 599
workers and owners of the original means of production, as
well as to their customers, whom they grant a period of sev-
eral days or months to pay their debts. Logically, this credit
customers receive always requires a prior sacrifice on the part
of certain economic agents, who must reduce their consump-
tion and save the corresponding resources to make these easy
payment terms possible. Hence customer credit cannot be
generated from nothing, but always obliges someone (the
owners of the company offering the credit) to save first. In the
absence of distortions caused by bank credit expansion, credit
insurance fulfills a particularly important economic function.
The large databases of credit insurance companies enable
them to classify customers according to their default risk.
These credit insurance companies also provide legal collection
services, taking advantage of significant economies of scale
beyond the scope of their individual clients.
The problem emerges when bank credit expansion distorts
all credit markets and provokes recurrent cycles of boom and
recession. In fact in the boom stage fed by credit expansion,
multiple unrealistic investment projects are artificially
launched, and many market operations are financed in install-
ments and covered by credit insurance. As a result, companies
specializing in credit insurance take on systematic risks which,
by their very nature, are not technically insurable. Indeed the
process of expansion must reverse sooner or later, and wide-
spread bankruptcies, suspensions of payments, and liquida-
tions of unsuccessful investment projects will reveal the errors
committed. Consequently, in modern economies subject to the
distorting effects of credit expansion, credit insurance is of a
cyclical nature, which prevents it from surviving recession
stages in the absence of a series of safeguard clauses to protect
it from the same fate suffered on a large scale by overoptimistic
entrepreneurs who unduly lengthen their investment projects
in the expansionary boom stage. Of these clauses the following
stand out: those which establish deductibles and waiting peri-
ods on the payment of claims, depending upon the amount,
and that which requires an adjudication of bankruptcy, which,
due to the sheer length of bankruptcy proceedings, tends to
involve a long delay, which allows the insurance company,
600 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
meanwhile, to make the necessary collections and maintain the
necessary financial stability111
Successive cycles of boom and depression invariably pose
a formidable challenge to credit insurance companies, which
apart from their traditional services (collections, customer risk
classification, etc.), perform an additional one: during eco-
nomic booms they accumulate important financial reserves,
which they later use in crises and recessions to systematically
satisfy the much larger claims filed during these periods. In
any case we must recognize that the legal precautionary meas-
ures adopted to this point have been insufficient to prevent
the failure and liquidation of some of the most prominent
credit insurers in the western world during each of the recent
crises which have erupted in the West. We must also acknowl-
edge that the institution of credit insurance will always be
highly vulnerable to stages of recession, particularly while
banks continue to operate with a fractional reserve.112
^Francisco Cabrillo, Quiebra y liquidation de empresas (Madrid: Union
Editorial, 1989).
112It is obviously impossible for credit insurance companies to techni-
cally insure loans the banking system itself grants during its expansion-
ary phase, since, as we have already shown, the necessary independ-
ence between the existence of the insurance and the results of the
hypothetically insured event is lacking. Indeed if bank loans were
insured, there would be no limit to their expansion, and in the inevitable
recession which credit expansion always causes, a systematic increase in
the number of defaulters would render the policy technically unviable.
Thus, for the same reasons the law of large numbers and a fractional-
reserve ratio are inadequate to insure demand deposits, it is technically
impossible to insure banks' credit operations through the credit insur-
ance industry.
8
Central and Free
Banking Theory
This chapter contains a theoretical analysis of the argu-
ments raised for and against both central and free
banking throughout the history of economic thought.
To begin we will review the theoretical debate between those
in favor of a privileged banking system, i.e., one not subject to
traditional legal principles and therefore capable of expanding
credit (the Banking School), and those theorists who have
always contended that banks should follow universal rules
and principles (the Currency School).1 The analysis and eval-
uation of the theoretical contributions of both schools will
^The definitions of "Banking School" and "Currency School" offered in
the text basically coincide with those Anna J. Schwartz proposes.
According to Schwartz, theorists of the Currency School believe mone-
tary policy should be disciplined and subject to general legal rules and
principles, while members of the Banking School generally advocate
granting bankers (and eventually the central bank) complete discre-
tionary freedom to act and even to disregard traditional legal principles.
In fact Anna J. Schwartz notes that the whole controversy centers on
whether
policy should be governed by rules (espoused by adherents
of the Currency School), or whether the authorities should
allow discretion (espoused by adherents of the Banking
School). (Anna J. Schwartz's article, "Banking School, Cur-
rency School, Free Banking School," which appeared in vol-
ume 1 of The New Palgrave: Dictionary of Money and Finance
[London: Macmillan, 1992], pp. 148-51)
601
602 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
also provide us with a chance to study the controversy
between supporters of the central bank and defenders of a
free banking system. We will see that at first members of the
Currency School by and large defended the central bank, and
Banking School theorists favored a free banking system, yet
in the end the inflationist doctrines of the Banking School
prevailed, ironically under the auspices of the central bank.
Indeed one of the most important conclusions of our analy-
sis is that the central bank, far from being a result of the
spontaneous process of social cooperation, emerged as the
inevitable consequence of a fractional-reserve private bank-
ing system. In a fractional-reserve context it is private
bankers themselves who eventually demand a lender of last
resort to help them weather the cyclical economic crises and
recessions such a system provokes. We will wrap up the
chapter with a look at the theorem of the impossibility of
socialist economic calculation. When applied to central bank
operations, this theorem explains the problems of administra-
tive banking laws as we know them. Finally we will argue that
current free-banking advocates usually make the mistake of
accepting and justifying fractional-reserve practices and fail to
see that such a concession would not only inevitably lead to
the resurgence of central banks, but would also trigger cycli-
cal crises harmful to the economy and society.
1
A Critical Analysis of the Banking School
In this section we will examine the theoretical arguments
advocates of fractional-reserve banking have constructed to
justify such a system. Although these arguments have tradi-
tionally been considered a product of the Banking and Cur-
rency School controversy which arose in England during the
first half of the nineteenth century, the earliest arguments on
fractional-reserve banking and the two opposing sides (the
banking view versus the currency view) can actually be
traced back to contributions made by the theorists of the
School of Salamanca in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies.
Central and Free Banking Theory 603
The Banking and Currency Views and the
School of Salamanca
The theorists of the School of Salamanca made important
contributions in the monetary field which have been studied
in detail.2
The first Spanish scholastic to produce a treatise on money
was Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva, who published Veterum
collatio numismatum ("Compilation on old moneys") in 1550.
In this work the famous Segovian bishop examines the history
of the devaluation of the Castilian maravedi and compiles a
large quantity of statistics on the evolution of prices. Although
the essential elements of the quantity theory of money are
already implicit in Covarrubias's treatise, he still lacks an
explicit monetary theory3 It was not until 1556, several years
later, that Martin de Azpilcueta unequivocally declared the
increase in prices, or decrease in the purchasing power of
money, to be the result of a rise in the money supply, an
increase triggered in Castile by the massive influx of precious
metals from America.
Indeed Martin de Azpilcueta's description of the relation-
ship between the quantity of money and prices is faultless:
2See especially the research Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson published under
the direction of F.A. Hayek, The School of Salamanca: Readings in Spanish
Monetary Theory, 1544-1605; Rothbard, "New Light on the Prehistory of
the Austrian School," pp. 52-74; Alejandro A. Chafuen, Christians for
Freedom: Late-Scholastic Economics (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986),
pp. 74-86. On Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson see the laudatory comments
Fabian Estape makes in his introduction to the third Spanish edition of
Schumpeter's book, The History of Economic Analysis (FFistoria del andlisis
economico [Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1994], pp. xvi-xvii).
3We have used the Omnia opera edition, published in Venice in 1604. Vol-
ume 1 includes Diego de Covarrubias's treatise on money under the
complete title, Veterum collatio numismatum, cum his, quae modo expen-
duntur, publica, et regia authoritate perpensa, pp. 669-710. Davanzati often
quotes this piece of writing, and Ferdinando Galiani does so at least
once in chapter 2 of his famous work, Delia moneta, p. 26. Carl Menger
also refers to the treatise of Covarrubias in his book, Principles of Eco-
nomics (New York and London: New York University Press, 1981), p.
317; p. 257 in the original version, Grundsatze der Volkswirthschaftslehre.
604 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In the lands where there is a serious shortage of money, all
other saleable items and even the labor of men are given for
less money than where money is abundant; for example,
experience shows that in France, where there is less money
than in Spain, bread, wine, cloth and labor cost much less;
and even when there was less money in Spain, saleable
items and the labor of men were given for much less than
after the Indies were discovered and covered Spain with
gold and silver. The reason is that money is worth more when
and where it is scarce, than when and where it is abundant.4
In comparison with the profound and detailed studies
which have been conducted on the monetary theory of the
School of Salamanca, up to this point very little effort has been
made to analyze and evaluate the position of the scholastics on
banking.5 Nevertheless the theorists of the School of Sala-
manca carried out a penetrating analysis of banking prac-
tices, and by and large, they were forerunners of the different
theoretical positions which more than two centuries later
reappeared in the debate between members of the "Banking
School" and those of the "Currency School."
As a matter of fact, in chapter 2 we mentioned the severe
criticism of fractional-reserve banking voiced by Doctor Sar-
avia de la Calle in the final chapters of his book, Instruction de
mercaderes. In a similar vein, though not as strongly critical as
Saravia de la Calle, Martin de Azpilcueta and Tomas de Mer-
cado undertake a rigorous analysis of banking which includes
4 Azpilcueta, Comentario resolutorio de cambios, pp. 74-75; italics added.
However Nicholas Copernicus preceded Martin de Azpilcueta by
almost thirty years, since he formulated a (more embryonic) version of
the quantity theory of money in his book, De monetae cudendae ratio
(1526). See Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 165.
5See, for instance, the comments Francisco Gomez Camacho makes in
his introduction to Luis de Molina's work, La teoria del justo precio
(Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1981), pp. 33-34; the remarks Sierra Bravo
makes in El pensamiento social y economico de la escoldstica desde sus ori-
genes al comienzo del catolicismo social, vol. 1, pp. 214-37; the article by
Francisco Belda which we cover in detail on the following pages; and
the more recent article by Huerta de Soto, "New Light on the Prehistory
of the Theory of Banking and the School of Salamanca."
Central and Free Banking Theory 605
a catalog of the requirements for a fair and lawful monetary
bank deposit. These early authors could be viewed as mem-
bers of an incipient "Currency School," which had long been
developing at the very heart of the School of Salamanca. These
scholars typically adopt a consistent, firm stance on the legal
requirements for bank-deposit contracts, as well as a generally
critical, wary attitude toward banking.
A distinct second group of theorists is led by Luis de
Molina and includes Juan de Lugo and Leonardo de Lesio
and, to a lesser extent, Domingo de Soto. As stated in chapter
2, these authors follow Molina's example and, like him, they
demand only a weak legal basis for the monetary bank-
deposit contract and accept fractional-reserve practices, argu-
ing that such a contract is more a "precarious" loan or
mutuum than a deposit. We will not repeat here all arguments
against Molina's position on the bank-deposit contract. Suffice
it to say that underlying his position is a widespread miscon-
ception which dates back to the medieval glossators and their
comments on the institution of the depositum confessatum.
What concerns us now is the fact that this second group of
scholastics was much more lenient in their criticism of bankers
and went as far as to justify fractional-reserve banking. It is
not, then, altogether far-fetched to consider this group an
early "Banking School" within the School of Salamanca. As
their English and Continental heirs would do several cen-
turies later, members of this school of thought not only justi-
fied fractional-reserve banking, in clear violation of traditional
legal principles, but also believed it exerted a highly beneficial
effect on the economy.
Though Luis de Molina's arguments concerning the bank
contract rest on a very shaky theoretical foundation and in a
sense constitute a regression with respect to other attitudes
held by members of the School of Salamanca, it should be
noted that Molina was the first in the "Banking School" tradi-
tion to realize that checks and other documents which author-
ize the payment, on demand, of certain quantities against
deposits fulfill exactly the same function as cash. Therefore it
is not true, though it is widely believed, that the nineteenth-
century theorists of the English Banking School were the first
606 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
to discover that demand deposits in banks form part of the
money supply in their entirety and thus affect the economy in
the same way as bank bills. Luis de Molina had already clearly
illustrated this fact over two centuries earlier in Disputation
409 of his work, Tratado sobre los cambios ["Treatise on
exchanges"]. In fact, Molina states:
People pay bankers in two ways: both in cash, by giving
them the coins; and with bills of exchange or any other type
of draft, by virtue of which the one who must pay the draft
becomes the bank's debtor for the amount which the draft
indicates will be paid into the account of the person who
deposits the draft in the bank.6
Specifically, Molina is referring to certain documents which
he calls chirographis pecuniarum ("written money"), and which
were used as payment in many market transactions. Thus:
Though many transactions are conducted in cash, most are
carried out using documents which attest either that the
bank owes money to someone or that someone agrees to
pay, and the money stays in the bank.
Moreover Molina indicates that these checks are consid-
ered "on demand": "The term 'demand' is generally used to
describe these payments, because the money must be paid the
moment the draft is presented and read."7
Most importantly, long before Thornton in 1797 and Pen-
nington in 1826, Molina expressed the essential idea that the
total volume of monetary transactions conducted at a market
could not be carried out with the amount of cash which
changes hands at the market, were it not for the money banks
create with their deposit entries, and depositors' issuance of
checks against these deposits. Hence banks' financial activities
result in the ex nihilo creation of a new sum of money (in the
form of deposits) which is used in transactions. Indeed Molina
expressly tells us:
6Molina, Tratado sobre los cambios, p. 145.
7Ibid., p. 146.
Central and Free Banking Theory 607
Most of the transactions made in advance [are concluded]
using signed documents, since there is not enough money to
permit the huge number of goods for sale at the market to be paid
for in cash, if they must be paid for in cash, or to make so many
business deals possible?
Finally, Molina distinguishes sharply between those oper-
ations which do involve the granting of a loan, since the pay-
ment of a debt is temporarily postponed, from those carried
out in cash via check or bank deposit. He concludes:
We must warn that an item cannot be considered purchased
on credit if the price is withdrawn from a bank account,
even if an immediate cash payment is not made; for the
banker will pay the amount owed in cash when the market
is over, if not sooner.9
Juan de Lugo, for his part, strictly adheres to Molina's doc-
trine and views the monetary bank deposit as a "precarious"
loan or mutuum which the banker may use in his private busi-
ness dealings as long as the depositor does not claim it.10
Molina and Lugo are so confused as to the legal basis of
the bank deposit contract that they actually claim it can have
a distinct legal nature for each of the parties involved (i.e., that
it can simultaneously be a deposit to the depositor and a loan
to the banker). These two theorists apparently see no contra-
diction in this position, and with respect to bankers' activities,
content themselves with cautioning bankers to act "pru-
dently," so that, in keeping with the law of large numbers,
their liquidity will always be sufficient to allow them to satisfy
"customary" requests for deposit returns. They fail to realize
8Ibidv p. 147; italics added.
9Ibidv p. 149.
10 Quare magis videntur pecuniam precario mutuo accipere,
reddituri quotiscumque exigetur a deponente. Communiter
tamen, pecunia ilia interim negotiantur, et lucrantur, sine ad
cambium dando, sine aliud negotiationis genus exercendo.
This is a direct quotation taken from p. 406, section 5, no. 60, "De Cam-
biis," by Lugo Hispalensis, Disputationum de iustitia et hire.
608 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
that their standard of prudence is not an objective criterion ade-
quate to direct the actions of bankers. It certainly does not
coincide with bankers' ability to return all deposits in their
keeping at any time, and Molina and Lugo themselves are
careful to point out that bankers commit "mortal sin" when
they use their depositors' funds speculatively and impru-
dently, even if such actions end well and they are able to return their
depositors' money in time.11 Moreover the standard of prudence
is not a sufficient condition: a banker may be very prudent yet
not very perceptive, or he may even have bad luck in business,
so that when the time comes to pay he lacks ample liquidity
and cannot return deposits.12 What, then, is an acceptable
standard of prudence? This question clearly has no objective
answer capable of serving as a guide in banking. Furthermore
as we saw in earlier chapters, the law of large numbers is
inapplicable to fractional-reserve banking, since the credit
expansion involved in such banking practices leads to recur-
rent cycles of boom and recession which invariably cause dif-
ficulties for bankers. Indeed the banking business itself cre-
ates the liquidity crises and thus, the widespread insolvency
of banks. At any rate, when the crisis hits it is highly likely that
the bank will be unable to pay, i.e., that it will suspend pay-
ments, and even if in the end all its creditors are lucky enough
to receive their money, in the best of circumstances this only
happens after a long liquidation process in which the deposi-
tors' role is altered. They lose immediate availability of their
money and become forced lenders with no choice but to post-
pone withdrawal of their deposits until the liquidation is over.
Tomas de Mercado was undoubtedly motivated by the
above considerations when he emphasized that Molina and
^Perhaps it is Juan de Lugo who most clearly and concisely expresses
this principle, as we saw in footnote 102 of chapter 2.
12In other words a banker may commit pure or genuine entrepreneurial
errors (ones not insurable by the law of large numbers) which result in
serious entrepreneurial losses, regardless of the degree of prudence he
has shown. On the concept of "genuine error," see Israel Kirzner, "Eco-
nomics and Error," in Perception, Opportunity and Profit (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1979), chap. 8, pp. 120-36.
Central and Free Banking Theory 609
Lugo's principles of prudence were an objective no bank ful-
filled in practice. It seems as if Tomas de Mercado was aware
that such principles do not constitute a practical guide to
guaranteeing the solvency of banks. Moreover if these princi-
ples are ineffectual in consistently achieving the goal of sol-
vency and liquidity, the fractional-reserve banking system will
not be capable of honoring its commitments in all situations.
Two Jesuit economists recently examined the doctrine of
the scholastics on banking; one did so from the perspective of
the Banking School, and the other from that of the Currency
School. The first is the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Belda, the
author of an interesting paper entitled, "Etica de la creacion de
creditos segiin la doctrina de Molina, Lesio y Lugo" ["The
ethics of the creation of loans, according to the doctrine of
Molina, Lesio and Lugo"].13 Indeed Father Belda considers it
obvious that:
It can be gathered from Molina's description that in the case
of bankers there is a true creation of loans. The intervention
of banks has lead to the creation of new purchasing power
previously nonexistent. The same money is simultaneously
used twice; the bank uses it in its business dealings, and the
depositor uses it as well. The overall result is that the media
of exchange in circulation are several times greater in quan-
tity than the real amount of cash at their origin, and the bank
benefits from all these operations.
Furthermore according to Belda, Molina believes
banks can reasonably do business with the deposits of their
clients, as long as they do so prudently and do not risk being
unable to honor their own obligations on time.14
In addition, Belda states that Juan de Lugo offers
13Published in Pensamiento, a quarterly journal of philosophical research
and information, published by the Facultades de Filosofia de la Com-
pania de Jesus en Espana 73, no. 19 (January-March 1963): 53-89.
14Belda, pp. 63 and 69.
610 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
a thorough description of the practices of money changers
and bankers. Here we do find explicit approval of credit
creation, though not with the formal appearance of created
credit. Banks do business with the deposits of their clients,
who at the same time do not give up the use of their own
money. Banks expand the means of payment through loans,
trade-bill discounting and other economic activities they
carry out with the money of third parties. The final result is
that the purchasing power in the market is pushed far
beyond that represented by the cash deposits at its origin.15
Belda obviously concludes correctly that of all the scholas-
tics' doctrines, those of Molina and Lugo are the most favorable
to banking. Nevertheless we must criticize Father Belda for not
explaining the positions of the other members of the School of
Salamanca, for example Tomas de Mercado, and especially
Martin de Azpilcueta and Saravia de la Calle, who as we know,
are much harsher and more critical judges of the institution of
banking. Furthermore Belda bases his analysis of the contribu-
tions of Molina and Lugo on a Keynesian view of economics, a
perspective which not only ignores all the damaging effects
credit expansion exerts on the productive structure, but also
presents such practices as highly beneficial because they
increase "effective demand" and national income. Therefore
Belda adopts the Keynesian and Banking-School view and only
analyzes the contributions of those members of the School of
Salamanca who are the least strict concerning the legal justifi-
cation for the monetary bank deposit and, thus, the most
inclined to defend fractional-reserve banking.
Nonetheless another prominent Jesuit, Father Bernard W.
Dempsey, is the author of an economic treatise, entitled Inter-
est and Usury,16 in which he also examines the position of the
members of the School of Salamanca on the banking business.
15Ibid., p. 87. Belda refers to Juan de Lugo, Disputationum de iustitia et
iure, vol. 2, provision 28, section 5, nos. 60-62.
16Dempsey, Interest and Usury. We must note that Father Belda actually
intended his article to be a Keynesian criticism of the ideas Father
Dempsey presents in this book. Our thanks to Professor James Sad-
owsky, of Fordham University, for supplying a copy of Dempsey's book,
which we were unable to find in Spain.
Central and Free Banking Theory 611
Father Dempsey's theoretical knowledge of money, capital
and cycles serves as the foundation of his study and repre-
sents a much sounder basis than the one Father Belda builds
upon.17
Strangely, Dempsey does not develop his thesis with an
analysis of the views of those members most against banking
(Saravia de la Calle, Martin de Azpilcueta, and Tomas de Mer-
cado), but instead focuses on the writings of those most favor-
able to the banking business (Luis de Molina, Juan de Lugo
and Lesio). Dempsey carries out an exegesis on the works of
these authors and concludes that fractional-reserve banking
would not be legitimate even from the standpoint of their own doc-
trines. These Salamancan authors defend certain traditional
principles concerning usury, and Dempsey supports his con-
clusion by applying such principles to banking and its eco-
nomic consequences, which, though unknown in the age of
these scholastics, had been revealed in the theories of Mises
and Hayek before Dempsey produced his treatise. Indeed
though we must acknowledge Molina and Lugo's more favor-
able treatment of banking, Dempsey expressly states that the
loans banks generate ex nihilo in the course of their operation
with a fractional-reserve entail the creation of buying power
backed by no prior voluntary saving or sacrifice. As a result,
considerable harm is done to a vast number of third parties,
who see the purchasing power of their monetary units fall
owing to the inflationary expansion of banks.18 According to
17In his introduction to Father Dempsey's book, Schumpeter strongly
emphasizes Dempsey's deep theoretical knowledge of and complete
familiarity with the economic doctrines of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich
A. Hayek, Wicksell, Keynes and others. Moreover, in his monumental
work, The History of Economic Analysis, Schumpeter makes laudatory
mention of Dempsey.
18 The credit expansion results in the depreciation of whatever
circulating medium the bank deals in. Prices rise; the asset
appreciates. The bank absolves its debt by paying out on the
deposit a currency of lesser value. . . . No single person would be
convicted by a Scholastic author of the sin of usury. But the
process has operated usuriously; again we meet systematic or
612 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Dempsey, this ex nihilo generation of buying power, which
implies no previous loss of purchasing power to other people,
violates the essential legal principles Molina and Lugo them-
selves lay down and in this sense is reprehensible. Specifically,
Dempsey asserts:
We may conclude from this that a Scholastic of the seven-
teenth century viewing the modern monetary problems
would readily favor a 100-percent reserve plan, or a time
limit on the validity of money. A fixed money supply, or a
supply altered only in accord with objective and calculated
criteria, is a necessary condition to a meaningful just price of
money.19
Dempsey insists that bank credit expansion drives down
the purchasing power of money, and that therefore banks tend
to return deposits in monetary units of increasingly reduced
purchasing power. This leads him to conclude that if members
of the School of Salamanca had possessed a detailed, theoretical
understanding of the functioning and implications of the eco-
nomic process which fractional-reserve banking triggers, then
even Molina, Lesio, and Lugo would have condemned it as a
vast, harmful, and illegitimate process of institutional usury.
Now that we have analyzed the main postures members
of the School of Salamanca adopted on banking, we will see
how their ideas were collected and developed in later cen-
turies by both continental European and Anglo-Saxon
thinkers.
institutional usury. . . . The modern situation to which theo-
rists have applied the concepts of diversion of natural and
money interest, diversion of saving and investment, diver-
sion of income disposition from tenable patterns by involun-
tary displacements, all these have a sufficient common
ground with late medieval analysis to warrant the expression,
"institutional usury," for the movements heretofore described
in the above expressions. (Dempsey, Interest and Usury, pp.
225 and 227-28; italics added)
In short, Dempsey simply applies to banking the thesis Juan de Mariana
presents in his work, Tratado y discurso sobre la moneda de vellon.
19Dempsey, Interest and Usury, p. 210.
Central and Free Banking Theory 613
The Response of the English-Speaking World
to these Ideas on Bank Money
Although a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of
monetary thought from the scholastics to the English Classical
School would exceed the scope of this book,20 it is fitting that
we should comment briefly on the evolution of ideas concern-
ing fractional-reserve banking up to the time the controversy
between the Banking and Currency Schools officially arose, in
nineteenth-century Britain.
The seminal monetary ideas conceived by members of the
School of Salamanca later won the support of Italians Bernardo
Davanzati21 and Geminiano Montanari, whose book, La mon-
eta, was published in 1683.22 In their treatises these theorists
take the contributions of the School of Salamanca as a start-
ing point and go on to develop the quantity theory of
money as presented by Azpilcueta and other scholastics.
Although the influence of this intellectual monetary trend
soon spread to England, basically through the works of Sir
William Petty (1623-1687),23 John Locke (1632-1704) ,24 and
20A brilliant, concise summary of this monetary history appears with
the title, "English Monetary Policy and the Bullion Debate," in chapters
9-14 (part 3) of volume 3 of F.A. Hayek's The Collected Works. See also
D.P. O'Brien, The Classical Economists (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1975), chap. 6; and Rothbard, Classical Economics, chaps. 5 and 6.
21An English translation of Davanzati's book, entitled A Discourse upon
Coins, was published in 1696 (London: J. D. and J. Churchill, 1696).
22Montanari's book was originally entitled La zecca in consulta di stato
and was reprinted as La moneta in Scrittori classici italiani di economia
politica (Milan: G. Destefanis, 1804), vol. 3.
23See Sir William Petty's Quantulumcumque Concerning Money, 1682,
included in The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty (New York: Augus-
tus M. Kelley, 1964), vol. 1, pp. 437-48.
24Locke's writings on monetary theory include "Some Considerations of
the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of
Money" (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1692) and his "Further
Considerations Concerning Raising the Value of Money" (London:
Awnsham and John Churchill, 1695). Both of these pieces were reprinted
in The Works of John Locke, 12th ed. (London: C. and J. Rivington, 1824),
614 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
others, it was not until John Law, Richard Cantillon, and
David Hume had made their contributions that we find
express reference to the problems posed by fractional-reserve
banking with respect to both monetary issues and the real eco-
nomic framework.
We have already referred to John Law (1671-1729) else-
where in this book: in chapter 2 we pointed out his unusual
personality, as well as his Utopian, inflationist monetary pro-
posals. Although he made some valuable original contribu-
tions, such as his opposition to Locke's nominalist, conven-
tional theory on the origin of money,25 John Law also made
the first attempt to give a veneer of theoretical respectability to
the fallacious and popular idea that growth in the quantity of
money in circulation always stimulates economic activity. In
fact, from the correct initial premise that money as a widely-
accepted medium of exchange boosts commerce and encour-
ages the division of labor, Law arrives at the erroneous con-
clusion that the greater the amount of money in circulation,
the larger the number of transactions and the higher the level
of economic activity. What follows would constitute another
fatal error in his doctrine, namely the belief that the money
supply must at all times match the "demand" for it, specifi-
cally the number of inhabitants and the level of economic
activity. This implies that unless the amount of money in cir-
culation keeps pace with economic activity, the latter will
decline and unemployment will rise.26 This theory of Law's,
vol. 4; and also in Several Papers Relating to Money, Interest, and Trade,
Etcetera (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968). Locke was the first in
England to introduce the idea that the value of the monetary unit is ulti-
mately determined by the amount of money in circulation.
25We must remember that, according to Carl Menger, Law was the first
to correctly formulate the evolutionist theory on the origin of money.
26See John Law, Money and Trade Considered: With a Proposal for Supply-
ing the Nation with Money (Edinburgh: A. Anderson, 1705; New York:
Augustus M. Kelley, 1966). In Law's own words:
The quantity of money in a state must be adjusted to the num-
ber of its inhabitants, . . . One million can create employment
for only a limited number of persons ... a larger amount of
money can create employment for more people than a smaller
Central and Free Banking Theory 615
later discredited by Hume and Austrian School monetary the-
orists, has in one form or another survived up to the present,
not only through the work of nineteenth-century Banking-
School theorists, but also through many modern-day mone-
tarists and Keynesians. In short, Law attributes Scotland's
poor level of economic activity in his time to the "reduced"
money supply and thus carries the ideas of the Mercantilist
School to their logical conclusion. For this reason, Law claims
the primary objective of any economic policy must be to
increase the amount of money in circulation, an aim he
attempted to accomplish in 1705 by introducing paper money
backed by what then was the most important real asset:
land.27 Law later changed his mind and centered all his eco-
nomic-policy efforts on the establishment of a fractional-
reserve banking system which, through the issuance of paper
money redeemable in specie, was expected to increase the
money supply as needed in any given situation to sustain and
foster economic activity. We will not dwell here on the details
of the inflationary boom Law's proposals generated in eigh-
teenth-century France, nor on the collapse of his entire system,
which brought great social and economic harm to that nation.
A contemporary of John Law was fellow banker Richard
Cantillon (c. 1680-1734), whose life and adventures we have
already covered. Cantillon, also a speculator and banker, was
endowed with great insight for theoretical analysis. He pro-
duced a highly significant study of the influence an increase
in the quantity of money in circulation exerts on prices, an
influence which first becomes evident in the prices of certain
goods and services and gradually spreads throughout the
entire economic system. Therefore Cantillon argued, as Hume
later would, that variations in the quantity of money mainly
affect the relative price structure, rather than the general price
amount, and each reduction in the money supply lowers the
employment level to the same extent. (Quoted by Hayek in
"First Paper Money in Eighteenth-century France," chapter
10 of The Trend of Economic Thinking, p. 158)
27See John Law's Essay on a Land Bank, Antoin E. Murphy ed. (Dublin:
Aeon Publishing, 1994).
616 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
level. Cantillon, a banker first and foremost, justified frac-
tional-reserve banking and his self-interested use of any
money or securities his customers entrusted to him as an
irregular deposit of fungible goods indistinguishable from
one another. In fact chapter 6 ("Des Banques, et de leur
credit") of part 3 of his notable work, Essai sur la nature du com-
merce en general, contains the first theoretical analysis of frac-
tional-reserve banking, in which Cantillon not only justifies
the institution but also draws the conclusion that banks, under
normal conditions, can smoothly conduct business with a 10-
percent cash reserve. Cantillon states:
If an individual has to pay a thousand ounces to another, he
will pay him with a banker's note for that sum. Possibly this
other person will not claim the money from the banker, but
will keep the note and, when the occasion requires it, hand
it over to a third person as payment. Thus the note in ques-
tion may be exchanged many times to make large payments,
without anyone's thinking of demanding the money from
the banker for a long time. There will hardly be anyone who,
due to a lack of complete trust or to a need to make small
payments, will demand the sum. In this first case, a banker's
cash does not represent as much as 10 percent of his business.
(Italics added)28
28 Si un particulier a mille onces a pai'er a un autre, il lui donnera
en paiement le billet du Banquier pour cette somme: cet autre
n'ira pas peut-etre demander l'argent au Banquier; il gardera le
billet et le donnera dans l'occasion a un troisieme en paiement,
et ce billet pourra passer dans plusieurs mains dans les gros
paiements, sans qu'on en aille de long-temps demander l'argent
au banquier: il n'y aura que quelqu'un qui n'y a pas une parfaite
confiance, ou quelqu'un qui a plusieurs petites sommes a pai'er
qui en demandera le montant. Dans ce premier exemple la caisse
d'un Banquier nefait que la dixieme partie de son commerce. (Cantil-
lon, Essai sur la nature du commerce en general, pp. 399-400)
Cantillon obviously makes the same observation the theorists of the
School of Salamanca had almost two centuries earlier with respect to
bankers in Seville and other cities. Because these bankers enjoyed the
public's trust, they could consistently conduct their business while
maintaining only a small fraction in cash to cover current payments.
And, most importantly that loans extended against deposits increase
the money supply and create "disorders" (pp. 408-13).
Central and Free Banking Theory 617
After Cantillon, and aside from some interesting monetary
analysis by Turgor, Montesquieu, and Galiani,29 no important
references to banking appear until Hume makes his essential
contributions.
David Hume's (1711-1776) treatment of monetary matters
is contained in three brief but comprehensive and illuminating
essays entitled "Of Money," "Of Interest" and "Of the Balance
of Trade."30 Hume deserves special recognition for having
successfully refuted John Law's mercantilist fallacies by prov-
ing that the quantity of money in circulation is irrelevant to eco-
nomic activity. Indeed Hume argues that the volume of money
in circulation is unimportant and ultimately influences only
the trend in nominal prices, as stated by the quantity theory of
money. To quote Hume: "The greater or less plenty of money is
of no consequence; since the prices of commodities are always
proportioned to the plenty of money"31 Nevertheless Hume's
29Ferdinando Galiani follows in Davanzati and Montanari's footsteps,
and his writings, included in Delia moneta, rival even the works of Can-
tillon and Hume.
30These essays have been reprinted in splendid editions by Liberty Clas-
sics. See Hume, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, pp. 281-327.
3lSee "Of Money," ibid., p. 281. Even today this essential observation of
Hume's escapes some highly distinguished economists, as is clear from
the following assertion Luis Angel Rojo makes:
From a social standpoint, the real money balances held by the
public should be at a level where the social marginal produc-
tivity of the money is equal to the social marginal cost of pro-
ducing it — a cost which is very low in a modern economy.
From a private perspective, the overall possession of real
money balances will reach a level where their private mar-
ginal productivity — which, for the sake of simplicity, we may
assume to be equal to their social marginal productivity — is
equal to the private opportunity cost of holding riches in
money form. As the public will decide, based on personal
standards, the volume of real money balances they wish to
maintain, the amount actually held will tend to be lower than
that which would be ideal from a social viewpoint. (Luis
Angel Rojo, Renta, precios y balanza de pagos [Madrid: Alianza
Universidad, 1976], pp. 421-22)
618 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
unqualified acknowledgment that the volume of money is
inconsequential does not prevent him from correctly recogniz-
ing that rises and falls in the amount of money in circulation do
have a profound effect on real economic activity, since these
changes always influence primarily the structure of relative
prices, rather than the "general" price level. Indeed certain
businessmen are always the first to receive the new money (or
to experience a slump in their sales as a result of a decrease in
the money supply), and thus begins an artificial process of
boom (or recession) with far-reaching consequences for eco-
nomic activity. Hume maintains:
In my opinion, it is only in this interval or intermediate sit-
uation, between the acquisition of money and rise of prices,
that the encreasing quantity of gold and silver is favourable
to industry.32
Although Hume lacks a theory of capital to show him how
artificial rises in the quantity of money damage the productive
structure and trigger a recession, the inevitable reversal of the
initial expansionary effects of such rises, he correctly intuits
the process and doubts that increases in credit expansion and
in the issuance of paper money offer any long-term economic
advantage: "This has made me entertain a doubt concerning
the benefit of banks and paper-credit, which are so generally
esteemed advantageous to every nation."33 For this reason
Hume condemns credit expansion in general and fractional-
reserve banking in particular and advocates a strict 100-per-
cent reserve requirement in banking, as we saw in chapter 2.
Hume concludes:
[T]o endeavour artificially to encrease such a credit, can
never be the interest of any trading nation; but must lay them
In this excerpt Luis Angel Rojo not only views money as if it were a sort
of factor of production, but he also fails to take into account that money
fulfills both its individual and social functions perfectly regardless of its
volume. As Hume established, any amount of money is optimal.
32Hume, Essays, p. 286.
33Ibid., p. 284; italics added.
Central and Free Banking Theory 619
under disadvantages, by encreasing money beyond its natu-
ral proportion to labour and commodities, and thereby
heightening their price to the merchant and manufacturer.
And in this view, it must be allowed, that no bank could be
more advantageous, than such a one as locked up all the
money it received [this is the case with the Bank of AMS-
TERDAM], and never augmented the circulating coin, as is
usual, by returning part of its treasure into commerce.34
Equally valuable is Hume's essay, "Of Interest," devoted
entirely to criticizing the mercantilist (now Keynesian) notion
that a connection exists between the quantity of money and
the interest rate. Hume's reasoning follows:
For suppose, that, by miracle, every man in GREAT
BRITAIN should have five pounds slipt into his pocket in
one night; this would much more than double the whole
money that is at present in the kingdom; yet there would not
next day, not for some time, be any more lenders, nor any
variation in the interest.35
According to Hume, the influence of money on the inter-
est rate is only temporary (i.e., short-term) when money is
increased through credit expansion and a process is initiated
which, once completed, causes interest to revert to the previ-
ous rate:
The encrease of lenders above the borrowers sinks the
interest; and so much the faster, if those, who have
acquired those large sums, find no industry or commerce in
the state, and no method of employing their money but by
lending it at interest. But after this new mass of gold and silver
has been digested, and has circulated through the whole state,
affairs will soon return to their former situation; while the land-
lords and new money-holders, living idly, squander above
their income; and the former daily contract debt, and the
latter encroach on their stock till its final extinction. The
whole money may still be in the state, and make itself felt
34Ibid., pp. 284-85.
35Hume, "Of Interest," Essays, p. 299.
620 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
by the encrease of prices: But not being now collected into
any large masses or stocks, the disproportion between the
borrowers and lenders is the same as formerly and conse-
quently the high interest returns.36
Hume's two brief essays constitute as concise and correct
an economic analysis as can be found. We may wonder how
different economic theory and social reality would have been
if Keynes and other such writers had read and understood
from the start these important contributions of Hume's, and
had thus become immune to the outdated mercantilist ideas
which, time and again, reappear and gain new acceptance.37
Compared to Hume's, Adam Smith's contributions must
largely be considered an obvious step backward. Not only
does Smith express a much more positive opinion of paper
money and bank credit, but he also openly supports frac-
tional-reserve banking. In fact Smith claims:
What a bank can with propriety advance to a merchant or
undertaker of any kind, is not, either the whole capital with
which he trades, or even any considerable part of that capital;
but that part of it only, which he would otherwise be obliged to
keep by him unemployed, and in ready money for answering
occasional demands.38
The only restriction Smith places on the granting of
loans against demand deposits is that banks must use
36Ibid., pp. 305-06; italics added.
37Hayek has pointed out the surprising gaps in Keynes's knowledge of
the history of economic thought concerning monetary matters in eigh-
teenth- and nineteenth-century England and has indicated that, had
Keynes's knowledge been deeper, we would have been spared much of
the clear regression Keynesian doctrines have represented. See EA.
Hayek, "The Campaign against Keynesian Inflation," in New Studies in
Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, p. 231.
38Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations, vol. 1, p. 304; italics added. On the evolution of Adam Smith's
ideas on banking, see James A. Gherity, "The Evolution of Adam Smith's
Theory of Banking," History of Political Economy 26, no. 3 (Autumn,
1994): 423-41.
Central and Free Banking Theory 621
deposits "prudently," for if they abandon caution, they lose
the confidence of their customers and fail. As was the case
with those Salamancan scholastics (Molina and Lugo) whose
views were closest to those of the Banking School, nowhere
does Smith define his criterion of "prudence," nor does he
ever comprehend the devastating effects temporary credit
expansion (beyond the level of voluntary saving) exerts on the
productive structure.39
After Adam Smith, the most important thinkers on bank-
ing activities are Henry Thornton and David Ricardo. In 1802
Thornton, a banker, published a noteworthy book on mone-
tary theory entitled An Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the
Paper Credit of Great Britain.40 Thornton produced a highly pre-
cise analysis of the effects credit expansion exerts on prices in
the different stages of the productive structure. He even
guesses that whenever banks' interest rate is lower than the
"average rate" of profit companies derive, an undue increase
in the issuance of bills results, triggering inflation and, in the
long run, recession. Thornton's intuitions foreshadowed not
39Edwin G. West has noted that Perlman believes Smith was aware of
the problems of expanding credit beyond voluntary saving, even
though Smith was unable to resolve the contradiction between his
favorable treatment of fractional-reserve banking and his sound thesis
that only investment financed by voluntary saving is beneficial for the
economy. See Edwin G. West, Adam Smith and Modern Economics: From
Market Behaviour to Public Choice (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1990),
pp. 67-69. Pedro Schwartz mentions that "Adam Smith did not express
his thoughts on credit and monetary matters as clearly as Hume did"
and that, in fact, "he misled several of his followers ... by not always
identifying his institutional assumptions." Pedro Schwartz also indi-
cates that Adam Smith knew much less about banking and paper
money than James Steuart and even states: "Some of the criteria in
Smith's presentation may have come from reading Steuart's book, Polit-
ical Economy." See the article by Pedro Schwartz, "El monopolio del
banco central en la historia del pensamiento economico: un siglo de
miopia en Inglaterra," printed in Homenaje a Lucas Beltrdn (Madrid: Edi-
torial Moneda y Credito, 1982), p. 696.
40See EA. Hayek's edition of this book and the introduction (New York:
Augustus M. Kelley, 1978).
622 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
only Wicksell's theory on the natural rate of interest, but also
much of the Austrian theory of the economic cycle.41
After Thornton's, the most notable work was produced by
David Ricardo, whose distrust of banks parallels Hume's.
Ricardo may be regarded as the official father of the English
Currency School. In fact Ricardo strongly disapproved of the
abuses committed by bankers in his day and particularly
resented the harm done to the lower and middle classes when
banks were unable to honor their commitments. He deemed
such phenomena the result of banking offenses, and while he
did not anticipate the precise development of the Austrian, or
circulation credit theory of the business cycle, he at least
understood that artificial processes of expansion and depres-
sion stem from certain banking practices, namely the
unchecked issuance of paper money unbacked by cash and
the injection of this money into the economy via credit expan-
sion.42 In the following section we will examine in detail the
key principles of the Currency School, started by Ricardo, as
well as the main postulates of the Banking School.43
The Controversy Between the Currency School
and the Banking School
The popular arguments raised by defenders of fractional-
reserve banking from the days of the School of Salamanca
41Hayek, The Trend of Economic Thinking, pp. 194-95.
42Schwartz, "El monopolio del banco central en la historia del pen-
samiento economico: un siglo de miopia en Inglaterra," p. 712.
43Ricardo's chief banking contributions appear in his well-known book,
Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency (1816), which has been
reprinted in The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Piero Sraffa,
ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951-1973), vol. 4, pp.
34-106. Ricardo's criticism of banks is present in, among other docu-
ments, a letter he wrote to Malthus on September 10, 1815. This letter is
included in volume 4 of The Works, edited by Sraffa, p. 177. Again, we
must remember that Ricardo would never have advised a government to
restore the parity of its devalued currency to predepreciation levels, as he
clearly implies in his letter to John Wheatley of September 18, 1821 (con-
tained in volume 9 of The Works, pp. 71-74). Hayek himself wrote in 1975:
Central and Free Banking Theory 623
became more widespread and systematic in England during
the first half of the nineteenth century, owing to the efforts of
the so-called Banking School.44 During that period a sizeable
group of theorists (Parnell, Wilson, MacLeod, Tooke, Fullar-
ton, etc.) formed, bringing together and systematizing the
three main tenets of the Banking School, namely: (a) that frac-
tional-reserve banking is juridically and doctrinally justified
and highly beneficial to the economy; (b) that the ideal mone-
tary system is one which permits the expansion of the money
supply as required by the "needs of trade," and particularly to
adjust to population and economic growth (this is the idea
John Law initially developed); and (c) that the fractional-
reserve banking system, through credit expansion and the
I ask myself often how different the economic history of the
world might have been if in the discussion of the years pre-
ceding 1925 one English economist had remembered and
pointed out this long-before published passage in one of
Ricardo's letters. (Hayek, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics,
Economics and the History of Ideas, p. 199)
In fact the fatal mistake manifest in the British post-war attempt to
return to the gold standard abandoned during the First World War and
to restore the pound to its previous value, lowered by wartime inflation,
had already been revealed in a remarkably similar situation (following
the Napoleonic wars) by David Ricardo a hundred years earlier. Ricardo
stated at that time that he
never should advise a government to restore a currency
which had been depreciated 30 percent to par; I should rec-
ommend, as you propose, but not in the same manner, that
the currency should be fixed at the depreciated value by low-
ering the standard, and that no farther deviations should take
place. (David Ricardo, in the above-mentioned letter to John
Wheatley dated September 18, 1821, included in The Works
and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Sraffa, ed., vol. 9, p. 73;
see also chap. 6, footnote 46)
44 Actually, the main doctrines of the Banking School had already been
put forward, at least in embryonic form, by theorists of the Anti-Bul-
lionist School in eighteenth-century England. See chapter 5 ("The Early
Bullionist Controversy") from Rothbard's book, Classical Economics
(Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar 1995), pp. 159-274; and Hayek, The
Trend of Economic Thinking, vol. 3, chaps. 9-14.
624 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
issuance of paper bills unbacked by commodity-money, per-
mits increases in the money supply to meet the "needs of
trade" without producing inflationary effects or distortions in
the productive structure.
John Fullarton (c. 1780-1849) was undoubtedly the most
prominent of Banking School representatives. He was among
the school's most persuasive authors and in 1844 published a
widely-read book entitled On the Regulation of Currencies.45
Here Fullarton puts forward what would become a famous
doctrine, Fullarton's law of reflux of banknotes and credit.
According to Fullarton, credit expansion in the form of bills
issued by a fractional-reserve banking system poses no danger
of inflation because the bills banks issue are injected into the
economic system as loans, rather than direct payment for
goods and services. Thus, Fullarton reasons, when the econ-
omy "needs" more means of payment it demands more loans,
and when it needs less, loans are repaid and flow back to
banks, and therefore credit expansion has no negative effects
whatsoever on the economy. This doctrine became quite pop-
ular, yet it was a clear step backward with respect to advances
Hume and other authors had already made in monetary the-
ory. Nevertheless it surprisingly gained the unexpected sup-
port of even John Stuart Mill, who eventually, by and large,
endorsed Fullarton's theories on the issue.
We have already explained at length why the essential
principles of the Banking School are fundamentally unsound.
Only ignorance of the simplest basics of monetary and capital
45John Fullarton, On the Regulation of Currencies, being an examination of
the principles on which it is proposed to restrict, within certain fixed limits, the
future issues on credit of the Bank of England and of the other banking estab-
lishments throughout the country (London: John Murray, 1844; 2nd rev.
ed., 1845). Fullarton's law of reflux appears on p. 64 of the book. In con-
tinental Europe, Adolph Wagner (1835-1917) popularized Fullarton's
version of the Banking School inflationist creed. John Fullarton was a
surgeon, publisher, tireless traveler, and also a banker. On the influence
Fullarton exerted on such diverse authors as Marx, Keynes, and
Rudolph Hilferding, see Roy Green's essay published in The New Pal-
grave: A Dictionary of Economics, vol. 2, pp. 433-34.
Central and Free Banking Theory 625
theory might make the inflationist fallacies of this school
appear somewhat credible. The main error in Fullarton's law
of reflux lies in its failure to account for the nature of fiduciary
loans. We know that when a bank discounts a bill or grants a
loan, it exchanges a present good for a future good. Since
banks which expand loans create present goods ex nihilo, a
natural limit to the volume of fiduciary media the banking
system could create would only be conceivable under one
condition: if the quantity of future goods offered in the market
in exchange for bank loans were somehow limited. However,
as Mises has eloquently pointed out, this is never the case.46 In
fact banks may expand credit without limit simply by reducing
the interest rate they apply to the corresponding loans. More-
over, given that loan recipients pledge to return a greater
amount of monetary units at the end of a certain time period,
there is no limit to credit expansion. Indeed borrowers can
repay their loans with new monetary units the banking sys-
tem itself creates ex nihilo in the future. As Mises puts it,
"Fullarton overlooks the possibility that the debtor may pro-
cure the necessary quantity of fiduciary media for the repay-
ment by taking up a new loan."47
Although the monetary theories of the Banking School
were invalid, in one particular respect they were accurate.
Banking School theorists were the first to recover a monetary
doctrine of the "banking" sector of the School of Salamanca,
namely that bank deposit balances fulfil exactly the same eco-
nomic function as banknotes. As we will later see, throughout
the debate between the Banking and Currency Schools, in
which the latter focused solely on the damaging effects of
unbacked paper bills, Banking School defenders correctly
argued that if the recommendations of the Currency School
were sensible (and they were), they should also be applied to
all bank deposits, since, as bank money, deposits play a role
identical to that of unbacked banknotes. Even though this
46Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, pp. 340-41.
47Ibid., p. 342. For more on Mises's criticism of the Banking School, see
On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, pp. 118-19 and Human Action,
pp. 429-40.
626 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
doctrine (i.e., that bank deposits are part of the monetary sup-
ply) had already been espoused by the Salamancan group
most favorable to banking (Luis de Molina, Juan de Lugo,
etc.), in nineteenth-century England it had been practically
forgotten when Banking School theorists rediscovered it. Per-
haps the first to refer to this point was Henry Thornton him-
self, who, on November 17, 1797, before the Committee on the
Restriction of Payments in Cash by the Bank, testified: "The bal-
ances in the bank are to be considered in very much the same
light with the paper circulation."48 Nonetheless, in 1826 James
Pennington made the clearest assertion on this matter:
The book credits of a London banker, and the promissory
notes of a country banker are essentially the same thing, that
they are different forms of the same kind of credit; and that they are
employed to perform the same function . . . both the one and the
other are substitutes for a metallic currency and are suscep-
tible of a considerable increase or diminution, without the
corresponding enlargement or contraction of the basis on
which they rest. (Italics added)49
In the United States, in 1831, Albert Gallatin revealed the
economic equivalence of bank bills and deposits and did so
more explicitly than even Condy Raguet. Specifically, Gallatin
wrote:
48Reprinted in the Records from Committees of the House of Commons, Mis-
cellaneous Subjects, 1782, 1799, 1805, pp. 119-31.
49James Pennington's contribution is dated February 13, 1826 and enti-
tled "On Private Banking Establishments of the Metropolis." It appeared
as an appendix to Thomas Tooke's book, A Letter to Lord Grenville; On the
Effects Ascribed to the Resumption of Cash Payments on the Value of the Cur-
rency (London: John Murray, 1826); it was also included in Tooke's work,
History of Prices and of the State of the Circulation from 1793-1837, vol. 2, pp.
369 and 374. Murray N. Rothbard points out that before Pennington,
Pennsylvania Senator Condy Raguet, an American theorist of the Cur-
rency School and defender of a 100-percent reserve requirement, had
already shown (in 1820) that paper money is equivalent to deposits cre-
ated by banks which operate with a fractional reserve. On this topic see
Rothbard, The Panic of 1819, p. 149 and footnote 52 on pp. 231-32, as well
as p. 3 of Rothbard 's book, The Mystery of Banking.
Central and Tree Banking Theory 627
The credits in current accounts or deposits of our banks are
also in their origin and effect perfectly assimilated to bank-
notes, and we cannot therefore but consider the aggregate
amount of credits payable on demand standing on the
books of the several banks as being part of the currency of
the United States.50
Nevertheless despite this valuable contribution from the
Banking School, i.e., the rediscovery that bank deposits and
paper money perform exactly the same economic function as
specie and cause the same problems, the rest of the Banking
School doctrines were, as Mises asserted, seriously faulty.
Banking School theorists were unable to coherently defend
their contradictory ideas; they tried in vain to refute the quan-
tity theory of money; and they failed in their attempt to
develop an articulate interest rate theory51
These Banking School doctrines met with fierce opposition
from defenders of the Currency School, who carried on a time-
honored tradition which dates back not only to the Salaman-
can scholastics who were most uncompromising in their views
on banking (Saravia de la Calle, Martin Azpilcueta and, to a
lesser extent, Tomas de Mercado), but also, as we have seen, to
Hume and Ricardo. The leading theorists of the nineteenth-
century Currency School were Robert Torrens, S.J. Lloyd (later
Lord Overstone), J.R. McCulloch, and George W. Norman.52
50Albert Gallatin, Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the
United States (Philadelphia: Carey and Lea, 1831), p. 31.
51 It was the only merit of the Banking School that it recognized
that what is called deposit currency is a money-substitute no
less than banknotes. But except for this point, all the doctrines
of the Banking School were spurious. It was guided by con-
tradictory ideas concerning money's neutrality; it tried to
refute the quantity theory of money by referring to a deus ex
machina, the much talked about hoards, and it misconstrued
entirely the problems of the rate of interest. (Mises, Human
Action, p. 440)
52The most valuable contributions from these authors are covered in
Hayek's recently-published summary of the controversy between the
Banking and Currency Schools. See chapter 12 of The Trend of Economic
628 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Currency School theorists provided a valid explanation of the
recurring phases of boom and recession which plagued the
British economy in the 1830s and 1840s: the booms had their
roots in credit expansion which the Bank of England initiated
and the other British banks continued. Gold systematically
flowed out of the United Kingdom whenever her trading part-
ners either did not engage in credit expansion or did so at a
slower pace than Britain, where the fractional-reserve banking
system was comparatively more developed. Each of the argu-
ments Banking School theorists devised in their attempt to
refute the Currency School's central idea (i.e., that the outflow
of gold and cash from Great Britain was the inevitable conse-
quence of domestic credit expansion) failed miserably. How-
ever defenders of the Currency School position made three
serious mistakes which in the long run proved fatal. First, they
failed to realize that bank deposits play exactly the same role
as banknotes unbacked by specie. Second, they were unable to
combine their sound monetary theory with a complete expla-
nation of the trade cycle. They merely scratched the surface of
the problem, and, lacking an adequate theory of capital, were
unable to perceive that bank credit expansion exerts a nega-
tive influence on the different capital-goods stages in a
nation's productive structure. They did not analyze in detail
the existing relationship between variations in the money sup-
ply and the market rate of interest, and thus they implicitly
relied on the naive, mistaken assumption that money could be
Thinking. In particular we must cite the following: Samuel Jones Lloyd
(Lord Overstone), Reflections Suggested by a Perusal of Mr. J. Horseley
Palmer's Pamphlet on the Causes and Consequences of the Pressure on the
Money Market (London: P. Richardson 1837); later reprinted by J.R.
McCulloch in his Tracts and Other Publications on Metallic and Paper Cur-
rency, by the Right Hon. Lord Overstone (London: Harrison and Sons
1857). Also George Warde Norman, Remarks upon some Prevalent Errors
with respect to Currency and Banking, and Suggestions to the Legislature and
the Public as to the Improvement in the Monetary System (London: P.
Richardson 1838); and especially Robert Torrens (perhaps the finest Cur-
rency School theorist), A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Melbourne,
on the Causes of the Recent Derangement in the Money Market, and on Bank
Reform (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1837).
Central and Free Banking Theory 629
neutral, an idea today's monetarists have supported. There-
fore it was not until 1912, when Ludwig von Mises reformu-
lated Currency School teachings, that monetary theory was
finally fully integrated with capital theory, within a general
theory of the economic cycle. The third fatal error of the Cur-
rency School lay in the notion that, in keeping with Ricardo's
suggestions, the best way to curtail the Banking School's infla-
tionary excesses was to grant an official central bank a monop-
oly on the issuance of banknotes.53 Currency School theorists
failed to realize that in the long run such an institution was
bound to be used by Banking School members themselves to
speed up credit expansion in the form of banknotes and
deposits in circulation.
These three mistakes of the Currency School proved fatal:
they were the reason Sir Robert Peel's famous Bank Charter
Act (passed on July 19, 1844), despite the highly honorable
intentions of its drafters, failed to ban the creation of fiduciary
media (deposits unbacked by metallic money) though it did
ban the issuance of unbacked bills. As a result, even though
Peel's Act marked the beginning of a central bank monopoly
on the issuance of paper currency, and although the central
bank theoretically issued only banknotes fully backed by
specie (100 percent reserve), private banks were free to expand
money by granting new loans and creating the corresponding
deposits ex nihilo. Hence expansionary booms and the subse-
quent stages of crisis and depression continued, and during
these periods the Bank of England was obliged time and again
to suspend the provisions of the Peel Act and to issue the
paper currency necessary to satisfy private banks' demand for
liquidity, thus, when possible, saving them from bankruptcy.
Therefore it is ironic that the Currency School supported the
creation of a central bank which, gradually and due mainly to
political pressures and the negative influence of predominant
Banking School theorists, was eventually used to justify and
53Nevertheless Ricardo foresaw the importance of making the central
bank independent of the government. See Jose Antonio de Aguirre, El
poder de emitir dinero: de }. Law a J.M. Keynes (Madrid: Union Editorial,
1985), pp. 52-62 and footnote 16.
630 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
encourage policies of monetary recklessness and financial
excesses much worse than those it was originally designed to
prevent.54
Consequently, even though in terms of theory the Banking
School was utterly defeated, in practice it ultimately triumphed.
Indeed Peel's Bank Charter Act failed because it did not pro-
hibit the issuance of new loans and deposits in the absence of
a 100 percent reserve. As a result, recurrent cycles of boom and
recession continued, and the proposals and theories of the
Currency School understandably lost a tremendous amount of
prestige. Therefore popular demands for inflationary policies
which facilitate credit expansion, demands backed by the ever
handy mercantilist theories of the Banking School, found a
breeding ground in the central-bank-based system, which ulti-
mately became an essential instrument of an interventionist,
planned credit and monetary policy invariably aimed at vir-
tually unchecked monetary and credit expansion.
Only Modeste, Cernuschi, Hiibner, and Michaelis, fol-
lowed by Ludwig von Mises and his much more profound
analysis, saw that the Currency School's recommendation of
central banking was mistaken and that the best, indeed the
only, way to uphold the school's principles of sound money
was to adopt a free banking system subject to private law (i.e.,
to a 100-percent reserve requirement) and unbenefited by
privileges. However we will study this point in greater detail
in the next section, in which we will examine the debate
between supporters of free banking and those of central bank-
ing.
54We agree entirely with Pedro Schwartz when he classifies Keynes (and
to a lesser extent, Marshall) as "Banking School" theorists who nonethe-
less defended the central bank system (precisely to gain the maximum
"flexibility" to expand the money supply). See Schwartz's article, "El
monopolio del banco central en la historia del pensamiento economico:
un siglo de miopia en Ingla terra," pp. 685-729, esp. p. 729.
Central and Free Banking Theory 631
2
The Debate Between Defenders of the
Central Bank and Advocates of Free Banking
An analysis of the nineteenth-century debate between
defenders of the central bank and advocates of free banking
must begin with an acknowledgment of the indisputable,
close connection which initially existed between the Banking
School and the Free-Banking School, on the one hand, and
between the Currency School and the Central-Banking School,
on the other.55 Indeed it is easy to understand why supporters
of fractional-reserve banking, on the whole, initially champi-
oned a banking system free from any kind of interference: they
wished to continue to do business based on a fractional reserve.
Likewise it was only natural for Currency School theorists,
ever distrustful of bankers, to naively embrace government
55See Vera C. Smith, The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking
Alternative. Leland B. Yeager has written the preface to this magnificent
edition. This work is a doctoral thesis written by the future Vera Lutz
under the direction of FA. Hayek. In fact Hayek had already devoted
some time to a projected book on money and banking when, following
his famous lecture series at the London School of Economics which
yielded his book Prices and Production, he was appointed Tooke Profes-
sor of Economic Science and Statistics at that prestigious institution and
was forced to interrupt his research. Hayek had completed four chap-
ters: the history of monetary theory in England, money in eighteenth-
century France, the evolution of paper currency in England, and the
controversy between the Banking and Currency Schools. It was at this
point he decided to hand over the work he had completed thus far, as
well as the notes for a fifth and final chapter, to one of his most brilliant
students, Vera C. Smith (later Vera Lutz), who, as a doctoral thesis,
expanded on them and produced the above-mentioned book. Fortu-
nately Hayek's original manuscript was recovered by Alfred Bosch and
Reinhold Weit, and an English translation by Grete Heinz has been pub-
lished as chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 of volume 3 of The Collected Works of
F.A. Hayek. See FA. Hayek, The Trend of Economic Thinking. On pp. 112-13
(2nd English ed.) of her book, Vera C. Smith mentions the initial general
agreement between the Banking and Free-Banking Schools, and
between the Currency and Central-Banking Schools. On this matter see
also Rothbard, Classical Economics, vol. 2, chap 7.
632 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
regulation in the form of a central bank intended to avoid the
abuses the Banking School attempted to justify.
Parnell's Pro-Free-Banking Argument and the
Responses of McCulloch and Longfield
We will not embark here on a comprehensive account of
the controversy between the Free-Banking and Central-Bank-
ing Schools: Vera C. Smith and others have already come up
with excellent studies on this topic. Nonetheless a few addi-
tional points merit discussion. One thought we must keep in
mind is that most advocates of free banking based their doc-
trine on the spurious, inflationist Banking School arguments
covered in the last section. Therefore, regardless of the effects a
free-banking system might actually exert on the economy, the
theoretical foundation on which most free-banking advocates
built their arguments was either entirely fallacious or, at best,
highly questionable. Consequently, during this period the
Free-Banking School made few contributions of any doctrinal
value. One such contribution was the correct acknowledgment
that, economically speaking, deposits and unbacked bills play
the same role. Another, one of particular analytical interest,
was made by Sir Henry Parnell as early as 1827. According to
Parnell, a free-banking system would place natural limits on
the issuance of banknotes, due to the influence of the corre-
sponding interbank clearing house, which, on the model of the
Scottish banking system, Parnell believed would develop
wherever banks freely competed in the issuance of banknotes.
Parnell argued that banks in a totally free banking system
would be unable to endlessly expand their paper-money
base without prompting their competitors to demand pay-
ment of the bills, in specie, through a clearing house. Thus
banks, for fear of being unable to weather the corresponding
outflow of gold, would, in their own interest, adopt strict
limitations on the issuance of fiduciary media.56 Parnell's
56Henry Parnell, Observations on Paper Money, Banking and Other Trading,
including those parts of the evidence taken before the Committee of the House
of Commons which explained the Scotch system of banking (London: James
Ridgway, 1827), esp. pp. 86-88.
Central and Free Banking Theory 633
analysis has considerable merit and lies at the heart of the
arguments invoked to date in favor of free banking. His analy-
sis was used and developed even by certain authors of the
Currency School (like Ludwig von Mises) who were nonethe-
less highly skeptical of the central-bank system.57
A False Start for the Controversy Between
Central Banking and Free Banking
Two distinguished theorists of the Currency School, J.R.
McCulloch and S.M. Longfield, challenged Parnell's claim.
McCulloch argued that the mechanism Parnell described
would not curb inflation if all banks in a free-banking system
should collectively yield to a wave of expansion in the
issuance of banknotes.58 Samuel Mountifort Longfield carried
McCulloch's objection even further and contended that even if
a single bank expanded its paper-money base, in a free-bank-
ing system the rest would inevitably be forced to follow suit
lest their financial-market share or their profits drop.59 Long-
field's argument contains an important kernel of truth, since
the liquidation of excess banknotes through a clearing house
57See, for example, Mises, "The Limitation of the Issuance of Fiduciary
Media," section 12 of chapter 17 of Human Action, pp. 434-48; see esp.
"Observations on the Discussions Concerning Free Banking," p. 444.
58J.R. McCulloch, Historical Sketch of the Bank of England with an Exami-
nation of the Question as to the Prolongation of the Exclusive Privileges of that
Establishment (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831).
See also his A Treatise on Metallic and Paper Money and Banks (Edinburgh:
A. and C. Black, 1858).
59Longfield's contributions appeared in a series of four articles on
"Banking and Currency" published by the Dublin University Magazine in
1840. Vera C. Smith concludes:
The point raised by the Longfield argument is by far the most
important controversial point in the theory of free banking.
No attempt was made in subsequent literature to reply to it.
(Smith, The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking
Alternative, p. 88)
See also our analysis supporting the initial Longfield insight on pp.
664-71.
634 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
takes time, and there is always a (perhaps irresistible) tempta-
tion to overissue on the assumption that all other banks will
sooner or later do the same. In this way the first bank to
launch an expansionary policy derives the most profit and
eventually establishes a position of advantage over its com-
petitors.
Regardless of the theoretical basis for the arguments of
Parnell, or for those of McCulloch and Longfield, one thing
seems certain: their debate sparked off a false controversy
between central-bank and free-banking supporters. We use
the term "false" because the theoretical discussion between
these two sides misses the heart of the whole problem. Indeed
Parnell is correct when he states that in a free-banking context,
the clearinghouse system tends to act as a buffer against iso-
lated cases of expansion in the issuance of banknotes. At the
same time, McCulloch, and Longfield as well, are right in
pointing out that Parnell's argument fails if all banks simulta-
neously embark on a policy of expansion. Nevertheless Cur-
rency School theorists felt their arguments against Parnell's
views lent prima facie support to the establishment of a central
bank, which they believed would offer the most effective pro-
tection against the abuses of fractional-reserve banking. Par-
nell, for his part, contented himself with defending free bank-
ing, though with the limits the interbank clearinghouse
system would set as a safeguard against banks' reckless
expansion of their paper-money base. Nonetheless he failed to
realize that, regardless of the arguments of McCulloch and
Longfield, a return to traditional legal principles and a 100-
percent reserve requirement would be much simpler and
more effective than any clearinghouse system. Having over-
looked this option, at least with regard to bank deposits, is the
most crucial error committed by McCulloch and Longfield's
branch of the Currency School as well. By endorsing the cre-
ation of a central bank, this faction inadvertently paved the
way for the future strengthening of the very inflationary poli-
cies its adversaries favored.60
60A debate parallel to this one took place in Belgium and France between
proponents of Free-Banking and the Banking School (Courcelle-Seneuil,
Central and Tree Banking Theory 635
The Case for a Central Bank
Thus began a prolonged controversy between free-bank-
ing champions and central-bank promoters. The latter offered
the following arguments to support their case against the
position of the Banking and Free-Banking School:
First, a free-banking system, by its very nature, even under
optimal conditions, would be prone to occasional, isolated
bank crises which would harm customers and holders of ban-
knotes and deposits. Therefore, under such circumstances,
there is a need for an official central bank with the power to
step in to protect noteholders and depositors in the event of a
crisis. This argument is clearly paternalistic and aimed at jus-
tifying the existence of a central bank. It ignores the fact that
when support is provided to those hit by a crisis, in the long
run such support merely tends to further hamper the smooth
running of the banking system, which requires constant and
active supervision and confidence on the part of the public.
Supervision is relaxed and confidence bolstered when the
general public takes for granted the intervention of the central
bank to avoid any damage in the case of a bank failure. More-
over bankers actually tend to exercise less responsibility when
they too are sure of the central bank's support should they
need it. Hence it is quite credible that the existence of a central
bank tends to aggravate bank crises, as has been revealed even
recently in several cases. The "deposit insurance" system in
many countries has played a major role in fostering perverse
behavior among bankers and in facilitating and aggravating
bank crises. Nevertheless, from a political standpoint the
above paternalistic argument can become extremely influen-
tial, even nearly irresistible, in a democratic environment. At
any rate, this first argument marks the beginning of the false
Coquelin, Chevalier, and others) and Currency School theorists in favor
of a central bank (such as Lavergne, D'Eichtal, and Wolowsky). In Ger-
many the quarreling factions were led by Adolph Wagner and Lasker,
on the side of free banking, and Tellkampf, Geyer, Knies, and Neisser, on
the side of the pro-central-bank Currency School. On this matter, see
chapters 8 and 9 of Smith, The Rationale of Central Banking, pp. 92-132.
636 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
start in the free-banking/ central-banking debate, in the sense
that the argument would be meaningless if traditional legal
principles were respected and a 100-percent reserve require-
ment were reestablished for banking. Under these conditions,
no harm would be done to holders of banknotes and deposits,
who would always be able to withdraw their money, regard-
less of the fate of their bank. Therefore the paternalistic argu-
ment that a central bank is necessary to protect the interests of
injured parties makes no sense. If we follow the logic of a frac-
tional-reserve banking system, this first argument in favor of
a central bank is at least very doubtful, while in the context of
a free-banking system based on traditional legal principles
and a 100-percent reserve requirement, it is completely irrele-
vant.
The second argument expressed in favor of central banks
rests on the notion that a banking system controlled by a cen-
tral bank provokes fewer economic crises than a free-banking
system. This argument, like the first one, represents an inap-
propriate approach to the debate. We already know that the
fractional-reserve free-banking system may stimulate growth
in the money supply in the form of loans, and that this growth
invariably distorts the productive structure of capital goods
and endogenously and repetitively triggers a reversion
process that manifests itself as an economic recession that hits
banks particularly hard. In fact it was the very desire to pro-
tect banks from the effects of the repetitive crises created by
fractional-reserve banking which prompted bankers themselves
to demand the establishment of a central bank to loan them
money as a last resort. Experience has shown that far from
defusing economic crises, the advent of the central bank has
exacerbated them. In a fractional-reserve free-banking system
(with no central bank), even though the expansionary
processes which provoke crises cannot be avoided, the rever-
sion mechanisms which lead to the necessary readjustment
and correction of economic errors operate much sooner and
more quickly than in the central-bank-based system. Indeed the
loss of public confidence is not the only factor to endanger the
most expansionist banks, the reserves of which rapidly dimin-
ish as the holders of their bills withdraw their countervalue in
specie. Interbank clearing mechanisms related to deposits also
Central and Free Banking Theory 637
jeopardize those banks which expand their credit base faster
than the rest. Even if most banks expand their deposits and
bills simultaneously, the spontaneous processes identified by
the theory of economic cycles soon gather momentum and
tend to reverse the initial expansionary effects and bankrupt
marginally less solvent banks. In contrast, the existence of a
central bank, a lender of last resort, may prolong the process
of credit and monetary expansion much further in relation to
the independent process which would be set in motion in a
free-banking system. It is impossible to ignore the contradiction
inherent in the institution of the central bank, which was theo-
retically created to curb monetary expansion, maintain eco-
nomic stability and prevent crises, but which in practice is
devoted to providing new liquidity on a massive scale when
banks face crises and panics. If we also consider political influ-
ences and the inflationary desires of the public, we will under-
stand why inflationary processes and their distortion of the
productive structure have been aggravated and the historical
result has been much more severe and profound economic
crises and recessions than those which would have arisen in a
free-banking system. Therefore we can conclude that this sec-
ond argument in favor of the central bank is groundless, since
the very existence of the central bank tends to exacerbate
economic crises and recessions. Nevertheless we must also
acknowledge that crises would erupt even in a fractional-
reserve free-banking system, though they would not cause as
many repercussions as in a monetary system directed by a
central bank. We have made this point in previous chapters
and will demonstrate it further on. In any case, we do not have
to resign ourselves to living with recurrent economic crises
and recessions, since the mere re-establishment of general
legal principles (100-percent reserve requirement) would pre-
vent a free-banking system from exerting any negative effects
on economic processes, and in this way the most common pre-
text for creating a central bank would disappear.
The third argument in favor of a central bank is that in
supplying the liquidity necessary, it provides the best way to
deal with crises once they have hit. Again it is evident that the
failure to clearly identify the essential root of the economic
problems of banking leads theorists to err substantially in
638 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
their approach to the debate between central-banking and
free-banking supporters. Although interbank clearing mecha-
nisms and continuous public supervision would tend to limit
credit expansion in a fractional-reserve free-banking system,
they would be unable to prevent it completely, and bank crises
and economic recessions would inevitably arise. There is no
doubt that crises and recessions provide politicians and tech-
nocrats with an ideal opportunity to orchestrate central-bank
intervention. Therefore it is obvious that the very existence of a
fractional-reserve banking system invariably leads to the emergence
of a central bank as a lender of last resort. Until traditional legal
principles are reestablished, along with a 100-percent reserve
requirement in banking, it will be practically inconceivable for
the central bank to disappear (in other words, it will
inevitably arise and endure).
At the same time, the establishment of a central bank to
meet crises tends to worsen economic recessions. The exis-
tence of a lender of last resort aggravates expansionary
processes and makes them much more rapid and lengthy than
they would be in a fractional-reserve free-banking system
(i.e., with no central bank). Therefore it is paradoxical to
claim that the correct treatment of economic and bank crises
depends on the existence of a central bank, when the central
bank is ultimately the main culprit in dragging out and exac-
erbating crises. Nevertheless let us remember that even if the
introduction of a fractional-reserve free-banking system were
to tame crises somewhat, it could not completely eliminate
them, and the different economic agents involved (mainly the
bankers and citizens potentially harmed in each crisis)
would inevitably urge the establishment of a central bank.
The only way to end this vicious circle is to recognize that the ori-
gin of the entire problem lies in fractional-reserve banking. In fact
the reestablishment of a 100-percent reserve requirement
would not only avoid bank crises and recurrent economic
recessions, but it would also invalidate this third argument,
one of the stalest invoked to justify the existence of the central
bank.
Finally, two additional, subsidiary arguments in favor of
the central bank have been expressed. The first refers to the
Central and Free Banking Theory 639
supposed "need" for a "rational" monetary policy imposed
from above through the central bank. The second argument is
related to the first and centers around the need to establish an
adequate policy of monetary cooperation among different
countries. Supposedly this goal also requires the existence of
different, coordinated central banks. We will examine the the-
oretical impossibility of implementing a monetary and bank-
ing policy in a centralized, coercive manner through a central
bank in a forthcoming section, where we will apply the theory
of the impossibility of socialism to the banking and financial
sector. Therefore we will refrain from analyzing these last two
arguments in depth here.
The Position of the Currency School Theorists
who Defended a Free-Banking System
Unfortunately, due to their inability to equate the eco-
nomic effects of deposits with those of banknotes, and to their
naivete in proposing the creation of a central bank to check the
abuses of fractional-reserve banking, Currency School theo-
rists were unable to foresee that the remedy they prescribed
would necessarily prove much worse than the sickness they
had correctly diagnosed. Only a handful of Currency School
theorists understood that their goals of monetary stability
and solvency would be at much greater risk if a central bank
were created, and as a lesser evil and in order to prevent
abuses as far as possible, these theorists recommended the
maintenance or establishment of a free-banking system with
no central bank. Nonetheless most Currency School writers
who defended free banking were not deceived as to the
expansionary possibilities of such a system, and they always
maintained that the final solution to the problems posed would
only be achieved with the prohibition of the issuance of new
fiduciary media (i.e., with the prohibition of credit expansion
unbacked by an increase in real voluntary saving). In proposing
a system in which banks could freely issue bills and deposits,
they basically hoped that interbank clearing mechanisms, cus-
tomer supervision and control through the market, and the
immediate failure of banks which lost public confidence
would serve to more effectively limit the issuance of unbacked
640 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
banknotes and deposits.61 By this indirect route, they planned
an effective move toward the objective of a 100-percent
reserve requirement (for both bills and deposits), an aim to be
pursued by all legal means available in each historical context.
This idea was first defended in France by Victor Mod-
este.62 With the same goal in mind, Henri Cernuschi, on Octo-
ber 24, 1865, before a commission appointed to investigate
banking activities, stated:
I believe that what is called freedom of banking would
result in a total suppression of banknotes in France. I want
to give everybody the right to issue banknotes so that
nobody should take any banknotes any longer.63
6lThe future development of payment and clearing systems through the
Internet and other forms of computer-based communications will make
the "emptying" of those banks which operate with a fractional reserve
almost immediate upon the emergence of the slightest doubt concerning
their solvency. In this respect the technological revolution in the field of
computer communications will tend to promote private banking with a
reserve requirement close to 100 percent (assuming the current system
were to be completely privatized and the central bank were to disap-
pear). See the paper by our pupil, Jesper N. Katz, "An Austrian Per-
spective on the History and Future of Money and Banking," Erasmus
Programme in Law and Economics, Summer 1997. See also The Future of
Money in the Information Age, James A. Dorn, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Cato
Institute, 1997). As for credit cards, or "plastic" or "electronic" money, as
they are commonly known, we should note that they are not money, but
mere instruments which, like paper checks, provide the ability to pay by
charging to real money (or perfect money substitutes, such as bank
deposits).
62Victor Modeste, "Le billet des banques d'emission et la fausse mon-
naie," Le Journal des Economistes n.s. 3 (August 15, 1866).
63 Je crois que ce qu'on appelle liberte bancaire aurait pour
resultat la disparition complete des billets de banque en
France. Je souhaite donner a tout le monde le droit d'emettre
des billets, de sorte que plus personne desormais n'en
accepterait. (Henri Cernuschi, Contre le billet de banque [Paris:
Guillaumin, 1866], p. 55)
See also Cernuschi's interesting work, Mecanique de Vechange (Paris: A.
Lacroix, 1865). Ludwig von Mises fully accepts Modeste's and Cer-
nuschi's views as expressed above and includes the excerpt in Human
Central and Tree Banking Theory 641
Cernuschi's doctrine had only two flaws: it referred
merely to banknotes and ignored bank deposits. And further-
more, it was not so radical as Modeste's who considered frac-
tional-reserve free banking a fraudulent business that should
not be allowed at all.
While the French Currency School was establishing this
position in favor of free banking and a 100-percent reserve
ratio, a number of German economists, among them Hubner
and Michaelis, were carrying out a more in-depth theoretical
analysis which led to the same conclusions. In the United
States, the panic of 1819 had sparked the formulation of a doc-
trine against both fractional-reserve banking and the estab-
lishment of a central bank, and this doctrine strongly influ-
enced the above school of German-speakers. As we already
know, in the U.S., Condy Raguet and others (William M.
Gouge, John Taylor, John Randolph, Thomas Hart Benton,
Martin Van Buren, etc.) developed a body of monetary doc-
trine highly critical of banking.64 These men correctly identi-
fied fractional-reserve banking as the ultimate cause of crises
and concluded that a return to a 100-percent reserve ratio was
Action, with the following comment: "[F]reedom in the issuance of bank-
notes would have narrowed down the use of banknotes considerably if
it had not entirely suppressed it." Mises, Human Action, p. 446. Banking
School theorists in favor of free banking opposed Cernuschi. In France
this school was led by Jean-Gustav Courcelle-Seneuil. See especially his
book, La banque libre: expose des fonctions du commerce de banque et de son
application a I 'agriculture suivi de divers ecrits de controverse sur la liberte des
banques (Paris: Guillaumin, 1867). The best account of Modeste's and
Cernuschi's doctrines (including an analysis of their differences) is that
of Oskari Juurikkala's "The 1866 False Money Debate, in the journal des
Economistes: Deja Vu for Austrians?" Quarterly Journal of Austrian Eco-
nomics 5, no. 4 (Winter, 2002): 43-55.
64 Another voice in support of a banking system subject to a 100-percent
reserve requirement was that of the famous Davy Crockett, the frontier
hero-turned-senator, for whom fractional-reserve banking systems were
"species of swindling on a large scale" (Skousen, The Economics of a Pure
Gold Standard, p. 32). Similar views were held by Andrew Jackson, the
above-cited Martin Van Buren, Henry Harrison, and James K. Polk, all
of whom would later become U.S. presidents.
642 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the only way to eradicate them.65 Tellkampf, who had visited
the U.S. as a young man, witnessed the abuses and highly
damaging effects of fractional-reserve banking there and was
imbued with the rigorous monetary doctrine being developed
in America at the time. When he returned to Germany and
was appointed professor of economics at Breslau, he wrote
several papers in which he called for a ban on banks' issuance
of fiduciary media.66 Otto Hiibner also shared some of the
65An outline of the evolution of this school in the United States during the
first half of the nineteenth century appears in James E. Philbin's article,
"An Austrian Perspective on Some Leading Jacksonian Monetary Theo-
rists," The Journal of Libertarian Studies: An Interdisciplinary Review 10, no. 1
(Autumn 1991): 83-95. Another book which covers the different Banking
and Monetary Schools which emerged in the first half of the nineteenth
century in the United States is Harry E. Miller's Banking Theory in the
United States Before 1860 (1927; New York: Augustus M. Kelley 1972).
66Johann Ludwig Tellkampf, Essays on Law Reform, Commercial Policies,
Banks, Penitentiaries, etc., in Great Britain and the United States of America
(London: Williams and Norgate, 1859). See also his Die Prinzipien des
Geld- und Bankwesens (Berlin: Puttkammer and Miihlbrecht, 1867). As
early as 1912 Mises made reference to Tellkampf 's (and Geyer's) pro-
posals in the following rather puzzling passage:
The issue of fiduciary media has made it possible to avoid the
convulsions that would be involved in an increase in the objec-
tive exchange value of money, and reduced the cost of the mon-
etary apparatus. (Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 359)
This does not seem to square with other comments made by Mises, who
at the end of the book proposes a return to a 100-percent reserve ratio
and a ban on the creation of new fiduciary media, just as Tellkampf and
Geyer (among the defenders of a central bank), and Hiibner and
Michaelis (among the defenders of free banking) do. As we observed in
chapter 7, a parallel contradiction exists between the Hayek of Monetary
Theory and The Trade Cycle (1929) and that of Prices and Production (1931).
The only explanation lies in the process of intellectual development fol-
lowed by the two authors, who were at first reluctant to vigorously
defend the implications of their own analysis. Moreover we must keep in
mind that, as we will see in the next chapter, Mises defends the establish-
ment of a 100-percent reserve requirement, but only on newly-created ban-
knotes and deposits, in the same vein as Peel's Bank Charter Act. There-
fore it is somewhat comprehensible that he should mention the
"advantages" of the past issuance of fiduciary media, though it is surpris-
ing that he neglects to explain why the system he considers most suitable
Central and Free Banking Theory 643
views of Tellkampf and the American school. Hiibner
observed that the less regulated banks were, the less frequent
their solvency problems tended to be. He felt the choice was
between a system of privileged banks protected by a central
bank and apt to encourage irresponsible practices, and a free-
banking system with no central bank to confer any privileges
or protection. In this second system, each bank would neces-
sarily be responsible for its own policies, and consequently
bankers would act in a more prudent way. According to Hiib-
ner, the final objective should be an end to the issuance of
banknotes not backed 100 percent by specie. Nevertheless, in
light of the current situation, he believed the fastest and most
effective way to move toward the ideal system was through
free banking, in which each bank would be required to fulfill
its obligations entirely67
As early as 1867, the notable theorist Philip Joseph Geyer
formulated a theory to explain economic cycles (a precursor to
the theory proposed in this book) which Mises and Hayek
would later carry to its logical conclusion. In fact Geyer impec-
cably summarises the defects of the fractional-reserve banking
system and describes how it provokes economic crises. Accord-
ing to Geyer, the banking system produces "artificial capital"
(kunstliches Kapital), which refers precisely to fiduciary media
generated by banks and unbacked by real wealth from volun-
tary saving. Geyer explains why a boom follows and must
inevitably reverse in the form of a bank crisis and an economic
recession.68 Finally, like Hiibner, Otto Michaelis defended a
for the future would not also have been best in the past. We believe the
advantages of the issuance of fiduciary media in the past were few com-
pared with the severe damage it caused in the form of economic crises
and recessions, and especially with the gross inadequacies of our cur-
rent financial system, which is a result of those past errors.
67See Otto Hiibner, Die Banken, published by the author in Leipzig in
1853 and 1854.
68Philip Geyer, Theorie und Praxis des Zettelbankwesens nebst einer Charak-
teristik der Englischen, Franzosischen und Preussischen Bank (Munich:
Fleischmann's Buchhandlung, 1867). See also Geyer's book, Banken und
Krisen (Leipzig: T.O. Weigel, 1865). Vera C. Smith criticizes Geyer and
Tellkampf's proposal to abolish the issuance of fiduciary media and
644 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
free-banking system as a means to curb abuses and move
toward the ideal of a 100-percent reserve requirement.69
The tradition of Modeste, Cernuschi, Hubner, and
Michaelis was continued by Ludwig von Mises, who in 1912
conclusively upheld the tenets of the Currency School. He not
only asserted that both banknotes and deposits were fiduciary
media, but he also grounded monetary theory on that of mar-
ginal utility and Bohm-Bawerk's theory of capital. The result
was, for the first time, a complete, coherent and integrated
theory of economic cycles. Thus Mises realized that English
Currency School theorists were mistaken in recommending a
central bank and that the best, in fact the only, way to achieve
the school's goals of monetary solvency was through the
establishment of a free-banking system subject, without privi-
leges, to private law (i.e., to a 100-percent reserve require-
ment). Furthermore Mises recognized that in the end most
advocates of Banking School principles cheerfully accepted
the establishment of a central bank which, as lender of last
resort, would guarantee and perpetuate the expansionary
privileges of private bankers. These individuals made an
increasing effort to shirk their commitments and devote them-
selves to the lucrative "business" of creating fiduciary money
via credit expansion, and central-bank support allowed them
to do so without having to worry too much about liquidity
problems. Not surprisingly, Mises is especially critical of the
fact that Peel's Bank Charter Act of 1844, despite the excellent
establish a 100-percent reserve requirement. Smith claims such an action
would involve a deflationary process, but she fails to take into account
that, as we will see in the next chapter when we consider the process of
transition toward a 100 percent-based system, it is not necessary to re-
establish the relationship which existed between banknotes and specie
prior to the issuance of fiduciary media. On the contrary any healthy
transition process demands the avoidance of deflation and the redefini-
tion of the relationship between fiduciary media and specie in light of
the total quantity of banknotes and deposits already issued by the bank-
ing system. Therefore the point is not to trigger a monetary contraction,
but to prevent any subsequent credit expansion.
69Otto Michaelis, Volksivirthschaftliche Schriften (Berlin: Herbig, 1873),
vols. 1 and 2.
Central and Free Banking Theory 645
intentions with which it was drafted, failed to ban the expan-
sionary creation of fiduciary deposits as it did with banknotes.
Mises also condemns the use of the law to constitute and rein-
force a central-bank system which, as we know, was eventu-
ally used to justify and promote policies of monetary chaos
and financial excess much more damaging than the ones it
was designed to prevent.
Mises's essential contribution to the study of money and
economic cycles appears in his work, The Theory of Money and
Credit, first published in 1912. 70 It was not until eight years
70Mises, Theorie des Geldes und der Umlaufsmittel. H.E. Batson translated
the work into English, and Jonathan Cape published the first English
edition (in London) in 1934. Thus it may have influenced Vera Smith's
doctoral thesis, which was published two years later. It is interesting to
note that Smith includes Mises, along with Hiibner, Michaelis, and Cer-
nuschi, in the double-entry table on pp. 144-45 of her book. She lists
them in the section corresponding to the strictest Currency School theo-
rists, who nevertheless defend a free-banking system as the best route to
a 100-percent reserve ratio, given the circumstances. Perhaps one of the
most valuable aspects of Smith's book is that it reveals that the Banking
School and Free-Banking School do not exactly and automatically coin-
cide, nor do the Currency School and Central-Banking School. Instead
theorists fall into four distinct groups which can be outlined in a dou-
ble-entry table. Because Vera Smith's table is relevant and illuminating,
we include a revised version here.
TABLE VIII- 1
Free-Banking School Central-Banking School
Banking School Most nineteenth-century Banking-School theorists. Keynesians and most
(fractional reserve) White, Selgin, Dowd and David Friedman in the twentieth-century
1 twentieth century. monestarists.
(Natural evolution of the Banking School)
Currency School Modeste The proposal made by the Chicago
(100 percent Cernuschi School In the 1930s.
' " I lubner Maurice Mais.
reserve ratio) Michaelis
Mises, possibly Hayek in 1925 and 1937
Rothbard, Huerta de Soto
Joseph Salerno, Hans-Hermann Hoppe
and ]6rg Guido Hiilsmann
(Natural evolution of the Currency School)
646 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
later, in 1920, that he expounded his famous theorem of the
impossibility of socialist economic calculation, initiating the
important debate that would surround this topic in the follow-
ing decades. No explicit evidence suggests Mises was aware
that the fundamental arguments he raised in 1920 on the
impossibility of socialism were also directly applicable to frac-
tional-reserve banking, and especially to the establishment and
operation of a central bank. However in the next section we
will defend the thesis that our analysis on fractional-reserve
banking and the central bank is simply a specific case which
arises when the general theorem of the theoretical impossibil-
ity of socialism is applied to the financial sphere.71
The classification of theorists into four schools (Fractional-Reserve
Free Banking, Fractional-Reserve Central Banking, Free Banking with a
100 percent reserve, and Central Banking with a 100 percent reserve) is
much clearer and more accurate than the method chosen by (among
others) Anna J. Schwartz and Lawrence H. White, who identify only
three schools, the Currency School, the Banking School, and the Free-
Banking School. (See Anna J. Schwartz, "Banking School, Currency
School, Free Banking School," pp. 148-52.)
71On the development in Spain of the doctrine in favor of the central
bank and on this doctrine's influence on the establishment of the Spanish
bank of issue, see Luis Coronel de Palma, La evolution de un banco central
(Madrid: Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislation, 1976), and the
references cited therein. See also the writings of Rafael Anes, "El Banco
de Espana, 1874-1914: un banco nacional," and Pedro Tedde de Lorca,
"La banca privada espanola durante la Restauracion, 1874-1914." Both
appear in volume 1 of La banca espanola en la Restauracion (Madrid: Ser-
vicio de Estudios del Banco de Espana, 1974). Despite the valuable ref-
erences included in these works, a history of Spanish economic
thought on the debate between central- and free-banking supporters
has yet to be written. The most important (fractional-reserve) free bank-
ing theorist in Spain was Luis Maria Pastor (1804-1872). See his book
Libertad de Bancos y Cola del de Espana (Madrid: B. Carranza, 1865).
Central and Free Banking Theory 647
3
The "Theorem of the Impossibility of Socialism"
and its Application to the Central Bank
In chapter 2 we saw that throughout history central banks
have emerged not as a result of the spontaneous, evolutionary
free-market process, but as a consequence of deliberate gov-
ernment intervention in the banking sector. In fact the institu-
tion of the central bank is rooted in the failure of public
authorities to adequately define and defend depositors' prop-
erty rights; in other words, to put an end to bankers' misuse of
the money their customers entrust to them on deposit. This
failure gave rise to the development of fractional-reserve
banking, a practice which, as we know, permits bankers to cre-
ate new monetary instruments ex nihilo, and thus to generate
large profits. We are already familiar with the harmful effects
such banking activity exerts on the economic structure in the
form of malinvestment, severe crises, and recessions which
should, in principle, justify particularly diligent care on the
part of governments to guarantee the fulfillment of traditional
legal principles (a 100-percent reserve requirement on
demand deposits). Nevertheless throughout history, far from
increasing their zeal to ensure compliance with the law in
banking, governments have been the first to take advantage of
the banking business, granting bankers many privileges. In
order to cope with the perpetual fiscal difficulties created by
their financial carelessness, governments have not only legal-
ized fractional-reserve banking via the corresponding privi-
lege, but they have throughout history continually attempted
to take advantage of this set-up, either by requiring that a
large number of the loans created ex nihilo by the fractional-
reserve banking system be given to the government itself, or
by reserving all or part of the highly lucrative fractional-
reserve banking business for themselves.
For their part, private bankers themselves did not fail to
notice that their industry underwent recurrent panics and liq-
uidity crises which regularly endangered the continuity of
bankers' lucrative business. Hence private bankers have been
the first to request the establishment of a central bank which,
648 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
as lender of last resort, would guarantee their survival in
times of trouble. In this way the interests of private bankers
came to coincide with those of the state and its central bank,
and a symbiosis formed between the two. The state obtains
easy financing in the form of loans and inflation, the cost of
which goes unnoticed by the citizens, who do not initially
experience a heavier tax burden. Private bankers gladly accept
the central bank's existence and the rules it imposes, since
bankers realize the entire framework of their business would
ultimately collapse without the support of an official institu-
tion to provide the necessary liquidity once the "inevitable"
bank crises and economic recessions hit.
Therefore we can conclude with Vera Smith that the cen-
tral bank is not a spontaneous result of the market process.
Instead the state has coercively imposed it in order to achieve
certain objectives (particularly easy financing and the orches-
tration of inflationary policies, which are always very popu-
lar), all with the acquiescence or support of private banks,
which in this area have almost always acted as the govern-
ment's accomplices in the past.72
72 A central bank is not a natural product of banking develop-
ment. It is imposed from outside or comes into being as the
result of Government favours. This factor is responsible for
marked effects on the whole currency and credit structure
which brings it into sharp contrast with what would happen
under a system of free banking from which Government pro-
tection was absent. (Smith, The Rationale of Central Banking and
the Free Banking Alternative, p. 169)
Thus we accept the hypothesis of Professor Charles Goodhart (see foot-
note 73), who believes the emergence of the central bank to be a neces-
sary consequence of the shift from a system of commodity money to a
system of fiduciary money. We accept this hypothesis as long as
acknowledgment is made to the effect that such a shift is not a sponta-
neous result of the market, but on the contrary, an inevitable outcome of
the violation of traditional legal principles (100-percent reserve ratio on
demand deposits), which are essential to the correct functioning of any
free market. The only serious flaw we see in Vera Smith's book lies in the
author 's failure to fully recognize that the central-bank system is simply
the logical and unavoidable consequence of private bankers' gradual
Central and Free Banking Theory 649
The above explains the historical appearance of the central
bank, which is founded on the complicity and community of
interests which have traditionally united governments and
bankers and which fully account for the intimate "under-
standing" and "cooperation" between these two types of insti-
tutions. Nowadays this relationship, with only slight varia-
tions, is evident in all western countries and in almost all
situations. The survival of private banks is guaranteed by the
central bank, and thus this institution, and ultimately the gov-
ernment itself, exercises close supervision and political and
economic control over banks. Moreover the central bank is
intended to direct the monetary and credit policy of every
country, with the aim of achieving certain economic policy
goals. In the next section we will see why it is theoretically
impossible for a central bank to sustain a monetary and credit
system which produces no severe economic maladjustments
and disturbances.73
and surreptitious introduction (in historical complicity with govern-
ments) of the fractional-reserve banking system. It is unfortunate that
Smith neglects to devote some attention to the proposals for a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement which were already circulating at the time she
wrote the book. If she had examined these proposals, she would have
realized that a true system of free-banking requires the re-establishment
of a 100-percent reserve ratio on demand deposits. As we will see, many
present-day theorists who defend the free-banking system commit the
same error.
73The classic work on the evolution of central banks is Charles Good-
hart's The Evolution of Central Banks, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 1990), esp. pp. 85-103. A brief, helpful outline of the emergence
and development of central banks appears on pp. 9ff. of Tedde de
Lorca's book, El Banco de San Carlos, 1782-1822. Ramon Santillana pro-
vides a good illustration of the formation of the central bank in nine-
teenth-century Spain to cope with the financial difficulties of the state,
which was continually forced to take advantage of the privileges of
money creation (banknotes and deposits) enjoyed by the fractional-
reserve banking industry. See Santillana's book, Memoria historica sobre
los bancos Nacional de San Carlos, Espanol de San Fernando, Isabel II, Nuevo
de San Fernando, y de Espana (reprinted by the Banco de Espana [Madrid,
1982]), esp. pp. 1, 3, 132, 236 and 237.
650 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Theory of the Impossibility of Coordinating
Society Based on Institutional Coercion or the
Violation of Traditional Legal Principles
Elsewhere we have defended the thesis that socialism
should be redefined as any system of institutional aggression
on the free exercise of entrepreneurship.74 This aggression
may take the form of direct physical violence (or the threat of
it) perpetrated by government authorities or of privileges
granted to certain social groups (unions, bankers, etc.) so that
they may violate traditional legal principles with state sup-
port. To attempt to coordinate society via institutional coer-
cion is an intellectual error, because it is theoretically impossi-
ble for an agency in charge of committing this type of
aggression (a central planning board) to obtain the informa-
tion it would need to establish social coordination with its
decrees.75 The above is true for the following four reasons:
first, it is impossible for the agency to constantly assimilate the
enormous volume of practical information stored in the minds
of different human beings; second, the subjective, practical,
tacit, and nonverbal nature of most of the necessary informa-
tion precludes its transmission to the central organ; third,
information which actors have not yet discovered or created
and which simply arises from the free market process, itself a
product of entrepreneurship subject to the law, cannot be
transmitted; and fourth, coercion keeps entrepreneurs from
discovering or creating the information necessary to coordi-
nate society.
This is precisely the essence of the argument Mises origi-
nally raised in 1920 on the impossibility of socialism and, in
general, of state intervention in the economy. The argument
theoretically explains the failure of economies of the former
Eastern bloc, as well as the growing tensions, maladjustments
74Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico yfuncion empresarial, p. 87.
See also Jesus Huerta de Soto, "The Economic Analysis of Socialism," in
Gerrit Meijer, edv New Perspectives on Austrian Economics (London and
New York: Routledge, 1995), chap. 14.
75Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico yfuncion empresarial, p. 95.
Central and Free Banking Theory 651
and inefficiency which stem from the interventionist welfare
state characteristic of western economies.
Likewise, the granting of privileges which conflict with
traditional legal principles prevents coordinated cooperation
among the different agents in society. Indeed traditional legal
principles are essential to the coordinated, peaceful exercise of
entrepreneur ship. Their systematic violation hinders the free
creativity of entrepreneurs, as well as the creation and trans-
mission of the information necessary to coordinate society.
When these principles are disregarded, social maladjustments
remain hidden and tend to worsen systematically76
The inevitable outcome of states' systematic coercion of
society and of the concession of privileges against traditional
legal principles is widespread social disorder and lack of
adjustment in all areas and at all levels of society which are
affected by such coercion and privileges. In fact both coercion
and privileges encourage inaccurate information and irre-
sponsible acts, and both lead to the corruption of individual
behavioral habits subject to the rule of law, favor the develop-
ment of the underground economy and, in short, cause and
sustain all sorts of social maladjustments and conflicts.
The Application of the Theorem of the
Impossibility of Socialism to the Central Bank
and the Fractional-Reserve Banking System
One of the central theses of this book is that the theorem of
the impossibility of socialism, and the Austrian analysis of the
social discoordination which inevitably follows institutional
coercion and the granting of privileges at variance with the
law, are directly applicable to the financial and banking sys-
tem which has evolved in our economies. This system is based
on private fractional-reserve banking and is controlled by an
official institution (the central bank) which has become the
architect of monetary policy.
76 A detailed analysis of all the theoretical conclusions outlined above
appears in the first three chapters of Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo
economico y funcion empresarial, pp. 21-155.
652 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Indeed the modern financial and banking system of mar-
ket economies is entirely based on systematic coercion against
the free exercise of entrepreneurship in the financial sector
and on the concession to private banks of privileges which
conflict with traditional legal principles and allow banks to
operate with a fractional reserve.
We need not dwell on the juridical nature of the "odious"
privilege involved in fractional-reserve banking, since we
studied this aspect in detail in the first three chapters. As to
the systematic exercise of coercion in the field of banking and
finance, it is easy to understand that such manipulation is car-
ried out via the legal tender regulations which compel the
acceptance, as a liberatory medium of exchange, of the mone-
tary unit issued by the monopolistic central bank.77 The insti-
tutional coercion the central bank applies also manifests itself
in an entire network of administrative banking legislation
designed to rigorously control the operations of banks and, on
a macroeconomic level, to define and implement the mone-
tary policy of each country78
In short we can hardly avoid concluding that "the organ-
ization of the banking system is much closer to a socialist
economy than to a market economy"79 Therefore in banking
77For example, see article 15 of autonomy statute 13/1994 of the Bank of
Spain, July 1. The statute reads:
The Bank of Spain shall have exclusive authority to issue bills
in pesetas, which, notwithstanding the status applied to
coinage, shall be the only legal tender with full, unlimited libera-
tory power in Spanish territory. (Spain's Official Gazette, July 2,
1994, p. 15404; italics added)
Logically, with Spain's entrance into the European Monetary Union as
of January 1, 2002, the euro and the European Central Bank have
replaced the peseta and the Bank of Spain, respectively.
78See, for example, the general list of central-bank duties included in
article 7 of the above autonomy statute of the Bank of Spain.
79See the paper written by our student Elena Sousmatzian Ventura,
"^Puede la intervention gubernamental evitar las crisis bancarias?"
Revista de la Superintendencia de bancos y otras instituciones financieras 1
(April-June 1994): 66-87. In this paper Elena Sousmatzian adds that
Central and Free Banking Theory 653
and credit matters, our situation matches that which prevailed
in the socialist countries of the former Eastern bloc, which
attempted to coordinate their economic decisions and
processes through a system of central planning. In other
words "central planning" has become commonplace in the
banking and credit sector of market economies, so it is natural
that in this area we should see the same discoordination and
inefficiency which plagues socialism. Let us now examine
three separate instances of interventionism and /or privileges
in the organization of banking. The theorem of the impossibil-
ity of socialism applies in each, namely: (a) the most wide-
spread case of a central bank which oversees a fractional-
reserve banking system; (b) the case of a central bank which
manages a banking system that operates with a 100-percent
reserve ratio; and finally, (c) the case of a free-banking system
(with no regulation and no central bank) which nevertheless
exercises the privilege of maintaining only a fractional reserve.
though the notion that the current banking system shares the character-
istics of a socialist or controlled economy may initially surprise many, it
is easy to understand when we remember that: (a) the entire system
rests on the government monopoly on currency; (b) the system is based
on the privilege which permits banks to create loans ex nihilo by holding
only a fractional reserve on deposits; (c) the management of the whole
system is performed by the central bank, as an independent monetary
authority which acts as a true planning agency with respect to the finan-
cial system; (d) from a legal standpoint, the principle which applies to
the government, i.e., that it may act only within its jurisdiction, also
applies to banks, in contrast to the rule for other private entities, who
may always do anything that is not prohibited; (e) banks are commonly
excluded from the general bankruptcy proceedings stipulated in mer-
cantile law and are instead subject to administrative law procedures
such as intervention and the replacement of management; (f) bank fail-
ures are prevented by externalizing the effects of banks' liquidity crises,
the costs of which are met by the citizenry through loans from the cen-
tral bank at prime rates or non-recoverable contributions from a deposit
guarantee fund; (g) a vast, inordinately complicated set of regulations
applies to banking and closely resembles that which controls govern-
ment; and (h) there is little or no supervision of government interven-
tion in bank crises. In many cases such intervention is determined ad
hoc, and principles of rationality, efficiency, and effectiveness are disre-
garded.
654 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
(a) A system based on a central bank which controls and oversees a
network of private banks that operate with a fractional reserve
The system made up of a central bank and private bank-
ing with a fractional reserve is the most disruptive example of
"central planning" in the financial sphere.80 Indeed this sys-
tem is founded upon a privilege which private bankers enjoy
(the use of a fractional-reserve ratio) and which naturally
causes distortions in the form of credit expansion, malinvest-
ment and recurrent cycles of boom and recession. Moreover
the entire system is orchestrated, managed, and supported by
a central bank which acts as lender of last resort and exercises
systematic, institutional coercion in the field of banking,
finance and money.
In providing banks with the necessary liquidity in times of
crisis, the central bank tends to counteract the mechanisms
which work in a free market to spontaneously reverse the
expansionary effects of banking. (Such mechanisms consist
precisely of the rapid failure of the most expansionary and
least solvent banks.) Consequently the process of deposit cre-
ation and credit expansion (i.e., without the backing of real,
voluntary savings) may be prolonged indefinitely, thus aggra-
vating its distortion of the productive structure and exacer-
bating the inevitable economic crises and recessions it creates.
The system of financial planning which rests on the central
bank cannot possibly eliminate recurring economic cycles.
The most it can do is to delay their appearance by creating
new liquidity and providing support to endangered banks in
times of crisis, at the cost of aggravating the inevitable eco-
nomic recessions. Sooner or later, the market always tends to
spontaneously react and to reverse the effects of monetary
aggression unleashed on it, and therefore deliberate attempts
to prevent such effects via coercion (or the granting of privi-
leges) are condemned to failure. The most these attempts can
achieve is the postponement, and consequent worsening, of
the necessary reversion and recovery, or economic crisis. They
80We obviously exclude completely nationalized banking systems
(China, Cuba, etc.), which at any rate are of little significance nowadays.
Central and Free Banking Theory 655
cannot prevent it. In a fractional-reserve free-banking system
(with no central bank), the reversion tends to occur much ear-
lier, due to spontaneous interbank clearing processes (though
the productive structure is still somewhat distorted). The cre-
ation of a central bank to act as lender of last resort and supply
the liquidity necessary in times of crisis tends to neutralize the
market's spontaneous reversion and recovery processes, and as
a result expansionary policies can become much more lasting
and damaging.81
The central bank, as the "financial central-planning
board," embodies an intrinsic contradiction. Indeed, as F.A.
Hayek has revealed, all central banks face a fundamental dilemma,
since they invariably wield great discretionary power in the admin-
istration of their policies, yet they do not have all the information
they need to reach their objectives. The central bank exercises its
power over private banks mainly by threatening to not pro-
vide them with the liquidity they need. And at the same time
it is believed that the chief duty and purpose of the central
bank consists precisely of not refusing to supply the liquidity
necessary when bank crises hit.82
^Furthermore the central bank cannot guarantee all customers of pri-
vate banks the recovery of their deposits in monetary units of unaltered
purchasing power. The belief that central banks "guarantee" all citizens
the return of their deposits, regardless of the actions of the private banks
involved, is pure fiction, since the most central banks can do is to create
new liquidity ex nihilo to meet all deposit demands private banks are
confronted with. Nevertheless, by doing so they trigger an inflationary
process which often significantly lowers the purchasing power of the
monetary units withdrawn from the corresponding deposits.
82 There is one basic dilemma, which all central banks face,
which makes it inevitable that their policy must involve much
discretion. A central bank can exercise only an indirect and
therefore limited control over all the circulating media. Its
power is based chiefly on the threat of not supplying cash
when it is needed. Yet at the same time it is considered to be
its duty never to refuse to supply this cash at a price when
needed. It is this problem, rather than the general effects of
policy on prices or the value of money, that necessarily pre-
occupies the central banker in his day-to-day actions. It is a
task which makes it necessary for the central bank constantly
656 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The above accounts for the great difficulty central bankers
face in eliminating economic crises, despite their effort and
dedication. It also explains the tight control the central bank
maintains over private banking, through administrative legis-
lation and direct coercion.83
Moreoever, like Gosplan, the most important economic-
planning agency of the now extinct Soviet Union, the central
bank is obliged to make an unceasing effort to collect an
extremely vast quantity of statistical information on the bank-
ing business, the different components of the money supply,
and the demand for money. This statistical information does
not include the qualitative data the central bank would need
to harmlessly intervene in banking affairs. For such informa-
tion is not only extraordinarily profuse; but what is more
important, it is also subjective, dynamic, constantly changing,
to forestall or counteract developments in the realm of credit,
for which no simple rules can provide sufficient guidance.
(Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, p. 336)
83The various systems and agencies designed to "insure" created
deposits in many western countries tend to produce an effect which is
the exact opposite of that intended when they were established. These
"deposit guarantee funds" encourage less prudent and responsible poli-
cies in private banking, since they give citizens the false assurance that
their deposits are "guaranteed" and thus that they need not take the
effort to study and question the trust they place in each institution.
These funds also convince bankers that ultimately their behavior cannot
harm their direct customers very seriously. The leading role deposit
guarantee or "insurance" systems played in the eruption of the Ameri-
can bank crisis of the 1990s is covered in, among other sources, The Cri-
sis in American Banking, Lawrence H. White, ed. (New York: New York
University Press, 1993). It is therefore disheartening that the process of
harmonizing European banking law has included the approval of Direc-
tive 94/19 C. E. of May 30, 1994, with respect to deposit guarantee sys-
tems. This directive establishes that each member state must officially
recognize a deposit guarantee system and requires each European
credit institution to affiliate itself to one of the agencies created for this
purpose in each country. The directive also establishes that guarantee
systems will insure coverage of up to 24,000 ecus on all deposits made
by any one depositor, and that the European Commission will revise
this figure every five years.
Central and Free Banking Theory 657
and particularly difficult to obtain in the financial sector.
Hence it is painfully obvious that the central bank cannot pos-
sibly acquire all the information it would need to act in a coor-
dinated manner, and its inability to do so is one more illustra-
tion of the theorem of the impossibility of socialism, in this
case applied to the financial realm.
Knowledge of the different components of the supply of
and demand for money is never available for objective accu-
mulation. On the contrary, it is of a practical, subjective, dif-
fuse nature and is difficult to articulate. Such knowledge
arises from economic agents' subjective desires, which change
constantly and depend largely on the evolution of the money
supply itself. We already know that any quantity of money is
optimal. Once any changes in the money supply have exerted
their effects on the relative-price structure, economic agents
can take full advantage of the purchasing power of their
money, regardless of its absolute volume. It is when the quan-
tity and distribution of money changes, via the expansion of
loans (unbacked by saving) or the direct spending of new
monetary units in certain sectors of the economy, that a seri-
ous disturbance occurs and widespread maladjustments and
discoordination appear in the behavior of the different eco-
nomic agents.
Therefore it is unsurprising that the central-bank system
of our analysis is marked by having triggered the most
severe intertemporal discoordination in history. We have
seen that the monetary policies adopted by central banks,
especially that of England and the Federal Reserve of the
United States, with the purpose of "stabilizing" the purchas-
ing power of the monetary unit, encouraged a process of
great credit and monetary expansion throughout the "roar-
ing" twenties, a process which led to the most acute eco-
nomic depression of the last century. Following World War
II, economic cycles have been recurrent, and some have
approached even the Great Depression in severity: for exam-
ple, the recession of the late seventies and, to a lesser extent,
that of the early nineties. These events have occurred despite
many political declarations concerning the need for govern-
ments and central banks to conduct a stable monetary policy,
and despite the massive efforts made, in terms of human,
658 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
statistical, and material resources, to realize this objective.
Nevertheless the failure of such efforts could not be more
obvious.84
It is impossible for the central bank, as a financial central-
planning agency, to somehow carry out the exact function
private money would fulfill in a free market subject to legal
principles. The central bank not only lacks the necessary
information, but its mere existence tends to amplify the dis-
torting, expansionary effects of fractional-reserve banking,
giving rise in the market to severe intertemporal discoordi-
nation which, in most cases, not even the central bank is able
to detect until it is too late. Even central-bank defenders, like
Charles Goodhart, have been obliged to admit that, contrary
to the implications of their equilibrium models, and despite
all efforts made, in practice it is almost impossible for cen-
tral-bank officials to adequately coordinate the supply of and
demand for money, given the highly changeable, unpre-
dictable, seasonal behavior of the multiple variables they
work with. For it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to
manipulate the so-called "monetary base" and other aggre-
gates and guides, such as the price index and rates of inter-
est and exchange, without instigating erratic and destabiliz-
ing monetary policies. Furthermore Goodhart acknowledges
that central banks are subject to the same pressures and
forces that influence all other bureaucratic agencies, forces
84Thus the monetary-policy error which most contributed to the appear-
ance of the Great Depression was that committed by European central
banks and the American Federal Reserve during the 1920s. It was not,
as Stephen Horwitz indicates and Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz
did before him, that the central bank, following the stock-market crash
of 1929, failed to properly respond to a 30 percent decrease in the quan-
tity of money in circulation. As we know, the crisis erupted because prior
credit and monetary expansion caused distortions in the productive
structure, not because the corresponding reversion process invariably
brought deflation with it. Horwitz's error in interpretation, along with his
defense of the arguments invoked by members of the modern Fractional-
Reserve Free-Banking School, appear in his article, "Keynes' Special The-
ory," in Critical Review: A journal of Books and Ideas 3, nos. 3 and 4 (Sum-
mer-Autumn, 1989): 411-34, esp. p. 425.
Central and Tree Banking Theory 659
which have been studied by the Public Choice School.
Indeed central-bank officials are human and are affected by
the same incentives and restrictions as all other public offi-
cials. Therefore they may be somewhat swayed in their deci-
sion-making by groups with a vested interest in influencing
the central bank's monetary policy. These include politicians
eager to secure votes, private banks themselves, stock-mar-
ket investors and numerous other special interest groups.
Goodhart concludes:
There is a temptation to err on the side of financial laxity.
Raising interest rates is (politically) unpopular, and lower-
ing them is popular. Even without political subservience,
there will usually be a case for deferring interest rate
increases until more information on current developments
becomes available. Politicians do not generally see them-
selves as springing surprise inflation on the electorate.
Instead, they suggest that an electorally inconvenient
interest rate increase should be deferred, or a cut 'safely'
accelerated. But it amounts to the same thing in the end.
This political manipulation of interest rates, and hence of
the monetary aggregates, leads to a loss of credibility and
cynicism about whether the politicians' contra-inflation
rhetoric should be believed.85
Acknowledgment of the harmful behavior (analyzed by
the Public Choice School) of central-bank officials and of the
"perverse" influence politicians and interest groups exert on
85Charles A.E. Goodhart has written an accurate summary of the insur-
mountable theoretical and practical difficulties the central bank encoun-
ters in implementing its monetary policy. See his article, "What Should
Central Banks Do? What Should be their Macroeconomic Objectives and
Operations?" published in Economic journal 104 (November 1994):
1424-36. The above excerpt appears on pp. 1426-27. Other interesting
works by Goodhart include: The Business of Banking 1891-1914 (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972), and The Evolution of Central Banks.
Thomas Mayer also referred to the inevitable political influences exerted
on the decisions of central banks, even those banks most independent of
the executive branch from a legal standpoint. See Mayer's book, Mone-
tarism and Macroeconomic Policy (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1990),
pp. 108-09.
660 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
them has led to the consensus that central banks should be as
"independent" as possible of the political decisions of the
moment and that this independence should even be incorpo-
rated into legislation.86 This constitutes a small step forward
in the reformation of the financial system. However, even if
rhetoric for the independence of central banks finds its way
into legislation or the constitution itself, and even if it is effec-
tive in practice (which is more than doubtful in most cases),
many pub lie -choice arguments regarding the behavior of cen-
tral-bank officials would remain unrefuted. Moreover, and
more importantly, the central bank would continue to gener-
ate massive, systematic intertemporal maladjustments even
when appearing to pursue a more "stable" monetary policy87
Oddly enough, the controversy over the independence of
central banks has provided the context for the discussion on
which structure of incentives would best motivate central-bank
officials to develop the correct monetary policy. Thus, in con-
nection with the "financial central-planning agency," the ster-
ile debate about incentives has revived, a debate which in the
1960s and 1970s prompted theorists from the economies of the
former Eastern bloc to expend a veritable river of ink. In fact
the proposal of making the salary of central-bank officials con-
ditional upon their performance with respect to set goals of
price stability is strongly reminiscent of the incentive mecha-
nisms which were introduced in socialist countries in an unsuc-
cessful attempt to motivate the managers of state companies to
act more "efficiently." Such proposals for reforming the incen-
tive system failed, just as the latest, similar, well-intentioned
86 A helpful overview of the different positions on this point and of the
most recent related literature has been prepared by Antonio Erias Rey
and Jose Manuel Sanchez Santos in "Independencia de los bancos cen-
trales y politica monetaria; una sintesis," Hacienda Publica Espanola 132
(1995): 63-79.
87On the positive effect which the independence of the central bank has
on the financial system, see Geoffrey A. Wood et al., Central Bank Indepen-
dence: What is it and What Will it Do for Us? (London: Institute for Eco-
nomic Affairs, 1993). See also Otmar Issing's book, Central Bank Indepen-
dence and Monetary Stability (London: Institute for Economic Affairs, 1993).
Central and Free Banking Theory 661
propositions regarding the central bank are bound to fail. They
will be unsuccessful because from the start they ignore the
essential fact that the officials responsible for government
agencies, whether state-owned companies or central banks,
cannot in their daily lives escape from the bureaucratic envi-
ronment in which they work, nor can they overcome the inherent
ignorance of their situation. Janos Kornai makes the following
appropriate, critical comments concerning attempts to develop
an artificial incentive system to make the behavior of func-
tionaries more efficient:
An artificial incentive scheme, supported by rewards and
penalties, can be superimposed. A scheme may support
some of the unavowed motives just mentioned. But if it
gets into conflict with them, vacillation and ambiguity may
follow. The organization's leaders will try to influence
those who impose the incentive scheme or will try to evade
the rules. . . . What emerges from this procedure is not a
successfully simulated market, but the usual conflict
between the regulator and the firms regulated by the
bureaucracy. . . . Political bureaucracies have inner conflicts
reflecting the divisions of society and the diverse pressures
of various social groups. They pursue their own individual
and group interests, including the interests of the particular
specialized agency to which they belong. Power creates an
irresistible temptation to make use of it. A bureaucrat must
be interventionist because that is his role in society; it is dic-
tated by his situation.88
(b) A banking system which operates with a 100-percent
ratio and is controlled by a central bank
reserve
In this system the distortion and discoordination which
arise from the central bank's systematic attack on the finan-
cial market would be lessened, since private banks would no
longer enjoy the privilege of functioning with a fractional
reserve. In this sense bank loans would necessarily reflect
88Janos Kornai, "The Hungarian Reform Process," Journal of Economic
Literature 24, no. 4 (December 1986): 1726-27.
662 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
economic agents' true desires with regard to saving, and the
distortion caused by credit expansion (i.e., unbacked by a
prior increase in real, voluntary saving) would be checked.
Nevertheless we cannot conclude that all discoordination gen-
erated by the central bank would disappear, since the mere
existence of the central bank and its reliance on systematic
coercion (the imposition of legal-tender regulations and a set
monetary policy) would still have a damaging effect on the
processes of social coordination.
In this example the most critical discoordination would be
infratemporal, rather than intertemporal,89 because new money
created by the central bank and placed in the economic system
would tend to affect the relative-price structure "horizontally."
In other words it would tend to engender a productive structure
which, horizontally speaking, would not necessarily coincide
with the one consumers wish to sustain. A poor allocation of
resources would ensue, along with a need to reverse the effects
new injections of money would exert on the economic system.90
89Nonetheless we cannot completely rule out the possibility of intertem-
poral distortions in this case. Even if banks are required to maintain a
100 percent reserve, intertemporal distortions will inevitably occur if the
central bank injects new money into the economic system via massive
open-market purchases which directly affect securities markets, rates of
return, and hence, indirectly, the interest rate in the credit market.
90F.A. Hayek has explained that unemployment often stems from the
existence of infratemporal discrepancies between the distribution of the
demand for different consumer goods and services and the allocation of
labor and the other productive resources necessary to produce these
goods. The creation and injection of new money by the central bank at
different points in the economic system tends to produce and aggravate
such qualitative discoordination. This argument, which is illustrated
and reinforced by fractional-reserve banking to the extent that it com-
bines intratemporal distortion with far more acute intertemporal disco-
ordination, would still carry weight even if the central bank were to
direct a banking system which operated with a 100-percent reserve
ratio. In this case any increase in the money supply brought about by the
central bank to achieve its monetary-policy goals would always hori-
zontally or intratemporally distort the productive structure, unless (and
this is inconceivable in real life) the new money were equally distrib-
uted among all economic agents. In this case the rise in the quantity of
Central and Free Banking Theory 663
Furthermore, although we cannot refer to any true
instance in which a central bank has overseen a system of pri-
vate banks which have operated with a 100 percent reserve,
such a system would also be subject to the political influences
and lobby pressures studied by the Public Choice School. It
would be naive to believe that central bankers with the power
to issue money would desire and be able to develop a stable,
undistorted monetary policy, even if they supervised a private
banking system which functioned with a 100-percent reserve
requirement. The authority to issue money poses such an
overwhelming temptation that governments and special inter-
est groups would be unable to resist taking advantage of it.
Therefore, even if the central bank did not compound its
errors through a fractional-reserve banking system, it would
still face the constant risk of succumbing to pressure from
politicians and lobbyists eager to take advantage of the central
bank's power in order to accomplish the political goals
deemed most appropriate at any particular moment.
In short we must acknowledge that because the privilege
of fractional-reserve banking is absent in the model covered in
this section, most of the intertemporal discoordination behind
economic cycles is absent there as well. Nevertheless multiple
possibilities of intratemporal discoordination remain, owing
to the injection into the economic system of new monetary
units created by the central bank, and regardless of the specific
method used to inject this new money into society (financing
public spending, etc.). In addition, the effects examined by the
Public Choice School would play a key role in these intratem-
poral maladjustments. Indeed it is almost inevitable that the
central bank's power to issue money should be politically
exploited by different social, economic, and political groups,
with the resulting distortion of the productive structure.
Though monetary policy would certainly be more predictable
and less distorting if private banks maintained a 100 percent
money in circulation would exert no effect, except to proportionally
boost the prices of all goods, services and factors of production. All real
conditions which could initially be cited as justification for an increase
in the money supply would remain unaltered.
664 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
reserve, theorists who defend the conservation of the central
bank under these circumstances are naive in that they con-
sider that the government and different social groups would
desire and be able to develop a stable, and (as far as possible)
"neutral," monetary policy. Even if banks kept a 100 percent
reserve, the very existence of the central bank, with its tremen-
dous power to issue money, would attract all sorts of perverse
political influences like a powerful magnet.91
(c) A fractional-reserve free-banking system
The third and last system we will analyze in light of the
theory of the impossibility of socialism is a privileged free-
banking system, i.e., one with no central bank, but with per-
mission to operate with a fractional reserve. The theory of the
impossibility of socialism also explains that the concession of
privileges which allow certain social groups to violate tradi-
tional legal principles produces the same widespread discoor-
dination as socialism, understood as any system of regular,
institutional aggression toward the free exercise of entrepre-
neurship. We have devoted a significant portion of this book
(chapters 4-7) to examining how the infringement of tradi-
tional legal principles in connection with the monetary bank-
deposit contract offers banks the possibility of expanding their
credit base even when society's voluntary saving has not
increased. We have also seen that as a consequence, discoor-
dination arises between savers and investors and must reverse
in the form of a bank crisis and economic recession.
The main clarification to be made concerning a fractional-
reserve free-banking system is that the spontaneous market
processes which reverse the distorting effects of credit expan-
sion tend to begin sooner in this system than in the presence
91The principal defenders of a private banking system based on a 100-
percent reserve requirement and managed by a central bank include the
members of the Chicago School in the 1930s and, currently Maurice
Allais, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. In the next chapter
we will analyze their proposals in detail.
Central and Free Banking Theory 665
of a central bank, and therefore abuses and distortions cannot
become as severe as they often do when a lender of last resort
exists and orchestrates the entire expansionary process.
Thus it is conceivable that in a free-banking system, iso-
lated attempts to expand bank credit would be curbed rela-
tively quickly and spontaneously by customers' vigilance
toward banks' operations and solvency, the constant reassess-
ment of the trust placed in banks, and, more than anything,
the effect of interbank clearing houses. In fact any isolated
bank expanding its credit faster than the sector average or
issuing notes more rapidly than most would see the volume of
its reserves drop quickly, due to interbank clearing mecha-
nisms, and the banker would be forced to halt expansion to
avoid a suspension of payments, and eventually, failure.92
Nonetheless, even though this definite market reaction
tends to check the abuses and isolated expansionary schemes
of certain banks, there is no doubt that the process only works
a posteriori and cannot prevent the issuance of new fiduciary
media. As we saw in chapter 2, the emergence of fractional-
reserve banking (which in its early days was unaccompanied
by a central bank) marked the beginning of substantial, sus-
tained growth in fiduciary media, first in deposits and loans
unbacked by saving, and later, in banknotes unbacked by
reserves of specie. This process has continually distorted the
productive structure and generated cycles of boom and reces-
sion which have been historically recorded and studied in
many situations in which private banks have functioned with a
fractional reserve and without the existence and supervision of a
central bank. Some of the earliest of such studies can be traced
back to the economic and bank crises which hit fourteenth-
century Florence. Just as the theory of free banking indicates,
the great majority of these expansionary banks did eventually
fold, but only after issuing fiduciary media for a varying
length of time, an activity which never failed to exert crippling
92It is precisely this process that Parnell originally described in 1826 and
Ludwig von Mises later developed further in chapter 12 of Human
Action: "The Limitation on the Issuance of Fiduciary Media," pp.
434-48.
666 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
effects on the real economy by provoking bank crises and eco-
nomic recessions.93
Not only is fractional-reserve free-banking incapable of
avoiding credit expansion and the appearance of cycles, but it
actually tempts bankers in general to expand their loans, and
the result is a policy in which all bankers, to one extent or
another, are carried away by optimism in the granting of loans
and in the creation of deposits.94 It is a well-known fact that
whenever property rights are not adequately defined — and
this is the case with fractional-reserve banking, which by def-
inition involves the violation of depositors' traditional prop-
erty rights — the "tragedy of the commons" effect tends to
appear.95 Thus a banker who expands his loans brings in a
handsome, and larger, profit (if his bank does not fail), while
93Charles A.E. Goodhart states: "There were plenty of banking crises
and panics prior to the formation of central banks" and cites O.B.W.
Sprague's book, History of Crises and the National Banking System, first
published in 1910 and reprinted in New Jersey by Augustus M. Kelley
in 1977. See Charles A.E. Goodhart, "What Should Central Banks Do?
What Should be their Macroeconomic Objectives and Operations?" p.
1435. See also the article by the same author, "The Free Banking Chal-
lenge to Central Banks," published in Critical Review 8, no. 3 (Summer
1994): 411-25. A collection of the most important writings of Charles
A.E. Goodhart has been published as The Central Bank and the Financial
System (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995).
94On banks' optimism and the "passive inflationism" which arises from
bankers' fear of aborting artificial expansion in time, see Mises, Human
Action, pp. 572-73. Moreover Mises argues that benefits derived from
privileges tend to run out (in the realm of banking this is due to an
increase in branches, expenses, etc.), thus sparking demands for further
doses of inflation (ibid., p. 749).
95The expression "tragedy of the commons" came into use following
Garret Hardin's article, "The Tragedy of the Commons," Science (1968);
reprinted on pp. 16-30 of Managing the Commons, Garret Hardin and
John Baden, eds. (San Francisco: Freeman, 1970). However the process
had already been fully described twenty-eight years earlier by Ludwig
von Mises in his "Die Grenzen des Sondereigentums und das Problem
der external costs und external economies," section 6 of chapter 10 of
part 4 of Nationalokonomie: Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens
(Geneva: Editions Union, 1940; Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1980), pp.
599-605.
Central and Free Banking Theory 667
the cost of his irresponsible act is shared by all other economic
agents. It is for this reason that bankers face the almost irre-
sistible temptation to be the first to initiate a policy of expan-
sion, particularly if they expect all other banks to follow suit
to one degree or another, which often occurs.96
The above example differs only slightly from Hardin's
classic illustration of the "tragedy of the commons," in which
he points to the effects an inadequate recognition of property
rights may exert on the environment. Unlike in Hardin's
example, in fractional-reserve free banking a spontaneous
mechanism (interbank clearing houses) tends to limit the pos-
sibility that isolated expansionary schemes will reach a suc-
cessful conclusion. Table VIII-2 outlines the dilemma banks
encounter in such a system.
TABLE VIII-2
Bank A
Does not expand Expands
Does not expand
Bank B
Expands
The survival of both The failure of A
(reduced profits) The survival of B
The failure of B Large profits for both
The survival of A
96Selgin and White have criticized our application of the "tragedy of the
commons" theory to fractional-reserve free banking. They claim that
what occurs in this sector is a pecuniary externality (i.e., one derived
from the price system), which has nothing to do with the technological
externality on which the "tragedy of the commons" rests. See George A.
Selgin and Lawrence H. White "In Defense of Fiduciary Media, or We
are Not (Devo)lutionists, We are Misesians!" Review of Austrian Econom-
ics 9, no. 2 (1996): 92-93, footnote 12. Nevertheless Selgin and White do
not seem to fully grasp that the issuance of fiduciary media stems from
the violation of traditional property rights in connection with the mon-
etary bank-deposit contract, and that hence fiduciary media are not a
spontaneous phenomenon of a legally based free-market process.
Hoppe, Hiilsmann, and Block, for their part, have come to our defense
with the following assertion:
668 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
This table reflects the existence of two banks, Bank A and
Bank B, both of which have two options: either to refrain from
expanding credit or to adopt a policy of credit expansion. If
both banks simultaneously initiate credit expansion (assum-
ing there are no other banks in the industry), the ability to
issue new monetary units and fiduciary media will yield the
same large profits to both. If either expands credit alone, its
viability and solvency will be endangered by interbank clear-
ing mechanisms, which will rapidly shift its reserves to the
other bank if the first fails to suspend its credit expansion pol-
icy in time. Finally it is also possible that neither of the banks
may expand and both may maintain a prudent policy of loan
concession. In this case the survival of both is guaranteed,
though their profits will be quite modest. It is clear that given the
choices above, the two banks will face a strong temptation to arrive at
an agreement and, to avoid the adverse consequences of acting inde-
pendently, initiate a joint policy of credit expansion which will protect
both from insolvency and guarantee handsome profits.97
In lumping money and money substitutes together under the
joint title of "money" as if they were somehow the same
thing, Selgin and White fail to grasp that the issue of fiduci-
ary media — an increase of property titles — is not the same
thing as a larger supply of property and that relative price
changes effected through the issue of fiduciary media are an
entirely different "externality" matter than price changes
effected through an increase in the supply of property. With
this the fundamental distinction between property and a
property title in mind, Huerta de Soto's analogy between
fractional reserve banking and the tragedy of the commons
makes perfect sense. (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jorg Guido
Hiilsmann and Walter Block, "Against Fiduciary Media," The
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 1, no. 1 (1998): 23, foot-
note 6)
Furthermore Mises emphasizes that the chief economic effect of nega-
tive external costs is to complicate economic calculation and discoordi-
nate society, phenomena which clearly take place in the case of credit
expansion in fractional-reserve banking. See Mises, Human Action, pp.
655ff.; and Philipp Bagus, "La tragedia de los bienes comunales y la
escuela austriaca: Hardin, Hoppe, Huerta de Soto, y Mises," Procesos de
Mercado 1 , no . 2 (2004) : 1 25-29 .
97Table VIII-2 does not include any "weights" or values and is typically
used to illustrate both cooperative games and "prisoner's dilemmas"
Central and Free Banking Theory 669
The above analysis extends to a large group of banks
which operate in a free-banking system and maintain a frac-
tional reserve. The analysis shows that under such circum-
stances, even if interbank clearing mechanisms limit isolated
expansionary schemes, these spontaneous mechanisms actu-
ally encourage implicit or explicit agreements between the
majority of banks to jointly initiate the process of expansion.
Thus in a fractional-reserve free-banking system, banks tend
to merge, bankers tend to arrive at implicit and explicit agree-
ments among themselves, and ultimately, a central bank tends
to emerge. Central banks generally appear as a result of
requests from private bankers themselves, who wish to insti-
tutionalize joint credit expansion via a government agency
(as when a prudent and honest bank refuses to cooperate, or an irre-
sponsible one wants to be the first one to expand). The reasoning behind
our application of the "tragedy of the commons" to the fractional-
reserve free-banking system parallels the argument originally offered by
Longfield, though he attempts, without much justification, to apply his
case even to isolated instances of expansion by a few banks, while in our
analysis such instances are limited by the interbank clearing mecha-
nism, a factor Longfield fails to consider. The tragedy of the commons
also accounts for the forces which motivate banks in a fractional-reserve
free-banking system to merge and to request the creation of a central
bank, with the aim of establishing general, common policies of credit
expansion. The first time we explained this typical "tragedy of the com-
mons" process in this context was at the regional meeting of the Mont
Pelerin Society which took place in Rio de Janeiro September 5-8, 1993.
At this meeting, Anna J. Schwartz also pointed out that modern frac-
tional-reserve free-banking theorists cannot seem to grasp that the inter-
bank clearing mechanism they refer to does not curb credit expansion if
all banks decide to simultaneously expand their credit to one degree or
another. See her article, "The Theory of Free Banking," presented at the
above meeting, esp. p. 5. At any rate, the process of expansion obviously
stems from a privilege which conflicts with property rights, and each
bank clearly reserves for itself all the benefits of its credit expansion and
allows the costs to be shared by the entire system. Moreover if most
bankers implicitly or explicitly agree to "optimistically" join in the cre-
ation and granting of loans, the interbank clearing mechanism does not
effectively curtail abuses.
670 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
designed to orchestrate and organize it. In this way, the "unco-
operative" behavior of a significant number of relatively more
prudent bankers is prevented from endangering the solvency
of the rest (those who are more "cheerful" in granting loans).
Therefore our analysis enables us to conclude the follow-
ing: (1) that the interbank clearing mechanism does not serve
to limit credit expansion in a fractional-reserve free-banking
system if most banks decide to simultaneously expand their
loans in the absence of a prior rise in voluntary saving; (2) that
the fractional-reserve banking system itself prompts bankers
to initiate their expansionary policies in a combined, coordi-
nated manner; and (3) that bankers in the system have a pow-
erful incentive to demand and obtain the establishment of a
central bank to institutionalize and orchestrate credit expan-
sion for all banks, and to guarantee the creation of the neces-
sary liquidity in the "troublesome" periods which, as bankers
know from experience, inevitably reappear.98
The privilege which allows banks to use a significant
portion of the money placed with them on demand deposit,
i.e., to operate with a fractional reserve, cyclically can result
in a dramatic discoordination of the economy. A similar effect
appears when privileges are granted to other social groups
in other areas (unions in the labor market, for example).
98precjsejy for thg reasons given I cannot agree with my friend Pascal
Safin, who concludes that "the problem is [central bank] monetary
monopoly not fractional reserve." See Pascal Safin, "In Defense of Frac-
tional Monetary Reserves." Even the most prominent defenders of frac-
tional-reserve free banking have recognized that the interbank clearing
system which would emerge in a free-banking environment would be
incapable of checking a widespread expansion of loans. For example,
see George Selgin's article, "Free Banking and Monetary Control,"
printed in Economic journal 104, no. 427 (November 1994): 1449-59, esp.
p. 1455. Selgin overlooks the fact that the fractional-reserve banking sys-
tem he supports would create an irresistible trend not only toward
mergers, associations and agreements, but also (and even more impor-
tantly) toward the establishment of a central bank designed to orches-
trate joint credit expansion without compromising the solvency of indi-
vidual banks, and to guarantee necessary liquidity as a lender of last
resort with the power to assist any bank in times of financial difficulties.
Central and Tree Banking Theory 671
Fractional-reserve banking distorts the productive structure
and provokes widespread, intertemporal discoordination in
the economy, a situation bound to spontaneously reverse in
the form of an economic crisis and recession. Although in a
fractional-reserve free-banking system independent reversion
processes tend to curb abuses sooner than in a system con-
trolled and directed by a central bank, the most harmful effect of
fractional-reserve free banking is that it provides banks with an
immensely powerful incentive to expand loans jointly and, particu-
larly, to urge authorities to create a central bank aimed at offering
support in times of economic trouble and organizing and
orchestrating widespread, collective credit expansion.
Conclusion: The Failure of Banking Legislation
Society's market process is made possible by a set of cus-
tomary rules of which it is also the source. These rules consti-
tute the behavioral patterns embodied in criminal law and pri-
vate contract law. No one has deliberately formulated them.
Instead such rules are evolutionary institutions which emerge
from practical information contributed by a huge number of
actors over a very prolonged period of time. Substantive or
material law, in this sense, comprises a series of general,
abstract rules or laws. They are general because they apply
equally to all people, and they are abstract because they estab-
lish only a broad scope of action for individuals and do not
point to any concrete result of the social process. In contrast to
this substantive conception of law, we find legislation, under-
stood as a set of coercive, statutory, and ad hoc orders or com-
mands which are the materialization of the illegitimate privi-
leges and the systematic, institutional aggression with which
the government attempts to dominate the processes of human
interaction." This concept of legislation implies the abandon-
ment of the traditional notion of the law (explained above),
and the replacement of it with "spurious law" composed of a
conglomeration of administrative orders, regulations and
"Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation and Liberty. See also
Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico y funcion empresarial, chap.
3.
672 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
commands which dictate exactly how the supervised eco-
nomic agent should behave. Thus to the extent that privileges
and institutional coercion spread and develop, traditional
laws cease to act as standards of behavior for individuals, and
the role of these laws is taken over by the coercive orders and
commands of the regulatory agency, in our case, the central
bank. In this way the law gradually loses its scope of imple-
mentation, and as economic agents are robbed of the criteria
of substantive law, they begin to unconsciously alter their per-
sonalities and even lose the custom of adapting to general,
abstract rules. Under these conditions, to "elude" commands
is in many cases simply a matter of survival, and in others it
reflects the success of corrupt or perverse entrepreneurship.
Hence, from a general standpoint, people come to see devia-
tion from the rules as an admirable expression of human
ingenuity, rather than a violation of a regulatory system which
seriously jeopardizes life in society.
The above considerations are fully applicable to banking
legislation. Indeed the fractional-reserve banking system,
which has spread to all countries with a market economy, pri-
marily entails (as we saw in the first three chapters) the viola-
tion of an essential legal principle in relation to the monetary
bank-deposit contract and the granting of an ius privilegium to
certain economic agents: private banks. This privilege allows
banks to disregard legal principles and make self-interested
use of most of the money citizens have entrusted to them via
demand deposits. Banking legislation mainly constitutes the
abandonment of traditional legal principles in connection
with the monetary demand-deposit contract, the heart of
modern banking.
Furthermore banking legislation takes the form of a tan-
gled web of administrative orders and commands which
emanate from the central bank and are intended to strictly
control the specific activities of private bankers. This welter of
injunctions has not only been incapable of preventing the
cyclical appearance of bank crises, but (and this is much more
significant) it has also fostered and aggravated recurrent
stages of great artificial boom and profound economic reces-
sion. Such stages have regularly seized western economies
and entailed a great economic and human cost. Thus:
Central and Free Banking Theory 673
Each time a new crisis hits, a complete set of new laws or
amendments to prior ones is swiftly enacted under the
naive assumption that the former laws were insufficient and
that the new, more detailed and all-encompassing ones will
better avoid future crises. This is how the government and
the central bank excuse their unfortunate inability to avert
crises, which nevertheless arise again and again, and the
new regulations last only until the next bank crisis and eco-
Therefore we can conclude that banking legislation is con-
demned to failure and will continue to be so unless the pres-
ent form is thoroughly abolished and replaced by a few sim-
ple articles to be included in the commercial and penal codes.
These articles would establish the regulation of the monetary
bank-deposit contract according to traditional legal principles
(a 100-percent reserve requirement) and would prohibit all
contracts which mask fractional-reserve banking. In short, in
100gee p. 2 of our student Elena Sousmatzian Ventura's article, "^Puede
la intervencion gubernamental evitar las crisis bancarias?" Ms. Sous-
matzian quotes the following description (offered by Tomas-Ramon Fer-
nandez) of the crisis-legislation cycle:
Banking legislation has always developed in response to
crises. When crises have hit, existing legislation has always
been found inadequate and devoid of the necessary answers
and solutions. Thus it has always been necessary to come up
with hasty emergency solutions which, despite the context of
their "invention," at the end of each crisis have been incorpo-
rated into a new general legal framework, which has lasted
only until the following shock, when a similar cycle has
begun. (Tomas-Ramon Fernandez, Comentarios a la ley de disci-
plina de intervencion de las entidades de credito [Madrid: Serie de
Estudios de la Fundacion Fondo para la Investigacion
Economica y Social, 1989], p. 9)
Elena Sousmatzian expresses the problem in this way: if bank crises are
preventable, government intervention has proven unequal to the task of
preventing them; and if crises are inevitable, government intervention
in this area is superfluous. Both positions have truth to them, since frac-
tional-reserve banking makes crises inescapable, regardless of the
banking legislation which governments insist on drafting and which
often does more to further aggravate cyclical problems than it does to
lessen them.
674 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
keeping with Mises's view, the above proposal entails the sub-
stitution of several clear, simple articles, to appear in the com-
mercial and penal codes, for the current web of administrative
banking legislation, which has not achieved the objectives set
for it.101
It is interesting to note that modern defenders of frac-
tional-reserve free banking wrongly believe, due in part to
their lack of legal preparation, that a 100-percent reserve
requirement would amount to an unfair administrative
restriction of individual freedom. Nevertheless, as the analy-
sis of the first three chapters shows, nothing could be further
from the truth. For these theorists do not realize that such a
rule, far from being an example of systematic, administrative
government coercion, merely constitutes the recognition of
traditional property rights in the banking sector. In other
words, theorists who endorse a fractional-reserve free-bank-
ing system, which would infringe traditional legal principles,
fail to see that "free trade in banking is synonymous with free
trade in swindling," a famous phrase attributed to an anony-
mous American and reiterated by Tooke.102 Moreover if a
free-banking system must ultimately be defended as a "lesser
evil" in comparison with central banking, the motive should
101Mises, Human Action, p. 443.
l°2To be specific, Tooke remarked:
As to the free trade in banking in the sense which it is some-
times contended for, I agree with a writer in one of the Amer-
ican papers, who observes that free trade in banking is syn-
onymous with free trade in swindling. Such claims do not
rest in any manner on grounds analogous to the claims of
freedom of competition in production. It is a matter of regu-
lation by the State and comes within the province of police.
(Thomas Tooke, A History of Prices, 3 vols. [London: Longman,
1840], vol. 3, p. 206)
We agree with Tooke in that if free banking implies freedom to operate
with a fractional reserve, then essential legal principles are violated and
the state, if it is to have any function at all, should diligently attempt to
prevent such violations and punish them when they occur. This appears
to be precisely what Ludwig von Mises had in mind when, in Human
Action (p. 666), he quoted this excerpt of Tooke's.
Central and Free Banking Theory 675
not be to permit the exploitation of the lucrative possibilities
which always arise from credit expansion. Instead free banking
should be seen as an indirect route to the ideal free-banking sys-
tem, one subject to legal principles, i.e., a 100-percent reserve
requirement. All legal means available in a constitutional state
should be applied at all times in the direct pursuit of this goal.
4
A Critical Look at the Modern
Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking School
The last twenty years have seen a certain resurgence of the
old economic Banking School doctrines. Defenders of these
views claim that a fractional-reserve free-banking system
would not only give rise to fewer distortions and economic
crises than central banking, but would actually tend to elimi-
nate such problems. Given that these theorists base their rea-
soning on different variations of the Old Banking School argu-
ments, some more sophisticated than others, we will group
the theorists under the heading, "Neo-Banking School," or
"modern pro-Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking School." This
school is composed of a curious alliance of scholars,103 among
l°3As David Laidler accurately points out, recent interest in free bank-
ing and the development of the Neo-Banking School originated with
Friedrich A. Hayek's book on the denationalization of money (EA.
Hayek, Denationalization of Money: The Argument Refined, 2nd ed. [Lon-
don: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1978]). Prior to Hayek, Benjamin
Klein offered a similar proposal in his article, "The Competitive Supply
of Money" published in the journal of Money, Credit and Banking 6
(November 1974): 423-53. Laidler's reference to the above two authors
appears in his brief but stimulating article on banking theory "Free
Banking Theory" found in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Money and
Finance (London and New York: Macmillan Press, 1992), vol. 2, pp.
196-97. According to Oskari Juurikkala, the current debate among free-
banking theorists (pro-100-percent reserve requirement versus pro-frac-
tional reserve) is strictly parallel to the nineteenth century French debate
between Victor Modeste (and Henry Cernuschi) and J. Gustave Cour-
celle-Seneuil. See his article, "The 1866 False-Money Debate in the Jour-
nal des Economistes: Deja Vu for Austrians?"
676 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
whom we could mention certain members of the Austrian
School who, in our opinion, have missed some of Mises's and
Hayek's teachings on monetary matters and the theory of cap-
ital and economic cycles, members like White,104 Selgin105 and,
more recently, Horwitz;106 members of the English Subjectivist
School, like Dowd;107 and finally, theorists with a monetarist
background, like Glasner,108 Yeager109 and Timberlake.110 Even
104Lawrence H. White, Free Banking in Britain: Theory, Experience and
Debate, 1800-1845 (London and New York: Cambridge University Press,
1984); Competition and Currency: Essays on Free Banking and Money (New
York: New York University Press, 1989); and also the articles written
jointly with George A. Selgin: "How Would the Invisible Hand Handle
Money?" Journal of Economic Literature 32, no. 4 (December 1994):
1718-49, and more recently, "In Defense of Fiduciary Media — or, We are
Not Devo(lutionists), We are Misesians!" Review of Austrian Economics 9,
no. 2 (1996): 83-107. Finally, Lawrence H. White has compiled the most
important writings from a Neo-Banking School standpoint in the fol-
lowing work: Free Banking, vol. 1: 19th Century Thought; vol. 2: History;
vol. 3: Modern Theory and Policy (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1993).
105George A. Selgin, "The Stability and Efficiency of Money Supply
under Free Banking," printed in the Journal of Institutional and Theoreti-
cal Economics 143 (1987): 435-56, and republished in Free Banking, vol. 3:
Modern Theory and Policy, Lawrence H. White, ed., pp. 45-66; The Theory
of Free Banking: Money Supply under Competitive Note Issue (Totowa, N.J.:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1988); the articles written jointly with
Lawrence H. White and cited in the preceding footnote; and "Free Bank-
ing and Monetary Control," pp. 1449-59. I am not very sure if Selgin
does still consider himself a member of the Austrian School.
106Stephen Horwitz, "Keynes' Special Theory" pp. 411-34; "Misread-
ing the 'Myth': Rothbard on the Theory and History of Free Banking,"
published as chapter 16 of The Market Process: Essays in Contemporary
Austrian Economics, Peter J. Boettke and David L. Prychitko, eds. (Aider-
shot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1994), pp. 166-76; and also his books, Mone-
tary Evolution, Free Banking and Economic Order and Microfoundations and
Macroeconomics (London: Routledge, 2000).
l°7Kevin Dowd, The State and the Monetary System (New York: Saint Mar-
tin's Press, 1989); The Experience of Free Banking (London: Routledge, 1992);
and Laissez-Faire Banking (London and New York, Routledge, 1993).
l°8David Glasner, Free Banking and Monetary Reform (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1989); "The Real-Bills Doctrine in the Light of
the Law of Reflux," History of Political Economy 24, no. 4 (Winter, 1992):
867-94.
Central and Free Banking Theory 677
Milton Friedman,111 though he cannot be considered a member
of this new school, has been gradually leaning toward it, espe-
cially following his failure to convince central bankers that
they should put his famous monetary rule into practice.
Modern fractional-reserve free-banking theorists have
developed an economic theory of "monetary equilibrium."
They base their theory on certain typical elements of the mon-
etarist and Keynesian analysis112 and intend it to demonstrate
that a fractional-reserve free-banking system would simply
adjust the volume of fiduciary media created (banknotes and
deposits) to public demand for them. In this way they argue
that fractional-reserve free banking would not only preserve
"monetary equilibrium" better than other, alternative systems
but would also most effectively adjust the supply of money to
the demand for it.
10^Leland B. Yeager and Robert Greenfield, "A Laissez-Faire Approach
to Monetary Stability," journal of Money, Credit and Banking 15, no. 3
(August 1983): 302-15, reprinted as chapter 11 of volume 3 of Free Bank-
ing, Lawrence H. White, ed., pp. 180-95; Leland B. Yeager and Robert
Greenfield, "Competitive Payments Systems: Comment," American Eco-
nomic Review 76, no. 4 (September 1986): 848-49. And finally Yeager's
book, The Fluttering Veil: Essays on Monetary Disequilibrium.
110Richard Timberlake, "The Central Banking Role of Clearinghouse
Associations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 16 (February 1984):
1-15; "Private Production of Scrip-Money in the Isolated Community,"
Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 19, no. 4 (October 1987): 437-47;
"The Government's Licence to Create Money," The Cato Journal: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Public Policy Analysis 9, no. 2 (Fall, 1989):
302-21.
^Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, "Has Government Any Role
in Money?" Journal of Monetary Economics 17 (1986): 37-72, reprinted as
chapter 26 of the book, The Essence of Friedman, Kurt R. Leube, ed. (Stan-
ford University, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), pp. 499-525.
112Thus Selgin himself states:
Despite . . . important differences between Keynesian analy-
sis and the views of other monetary-equilibrium theorists,
many Keynesians might accept the prescription for monetary
equilibrium. ( Selgin, The Theory of Free Banking, p. 56; see also
p. 59)
678 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In a nutshell, this argument centers around the hypotheti-
cal results of an increase in economic agents' demand for fidu-
ciary media, assuming reserves of specie in the banking sys-
tem remain constant. In that event, theorists reason, the pace
at which fiduciary media are exchanged for bank reserves
would slacken. Reserves would increase and bankers, aware
of this rise and eager to obtain larger profits, would expand
credit and issue more banknotes and deposits, and the growth
in fiduciary media would tend to match the prior increase in
demand. The opposite would occur should the demand for
fiduciary media decrease: Economic agents would withdraw
greater quantities of reserves in order to rid themselves of
fiduciary media. Banks would then see their solvency endan-
gered and be obliged to tighten credit and issue fewer bank-
notes and deposits. In this way a decrease in the supply of
fiduciary media would follow the prior decrease in the
demand for them.113
The theory of "monetary equilibrium" obviously echoes
Fullarton's law of reflux and, especially, the Old Banking
School arguments concerning the "needs of trade." According
to these arguments, private banks' creation of fiduciary media
is not detrimental if it corresponds to an increase in the
"needs" of businessmen. These arguments are repeated and
crystallized in the "new" theory of "monetary equilibrium,"
which states that private banks' creation of fiduciary media in
the form of notes and deposits does not generate economic
cycles if it follows a rise in public demand for such instruments.
Although Lawrence H. White does develop an embryonic ver-
sion of this reformed "needs of trade" doctrine in his book on
free banking in Scotland,114 credit for theoretically formulating
113The detailed analysis appears, among other places, in Selgin's book,
The Theory of Tree Banking, chaps. 4, 5 and 6, esp. p. 34 and pp. 64-69.
114Stephen Horwitz maintains that Lawrence White
explicitly rejects the real-bills doctrine and endorses a differ-
ent version of the "needs of trade" idea. For him the "needs
of trade" means the demand to hold bank notes. On this inter-
pretation, the doctrine states that the supply of bank notes
should vary in accordance with the demand to hold notes. As
Central and Tree Banking Theory 679
the idea goes to one of White's most noted students, George A.
Selgin. Let us now critically examine Selgin's theory of "mon-
etary equilibrium," or in other words, his revised version of
some of the Old Banking School doctrines.
The Erroneous Basis of the Analysis: The Demand
for Fiduciary Media, Regarded as an Exogenous Variable
Selgin's analysis rests on the notion that the demand for
money in the form of fiduciary media is a variable exogenous
to the system, that this variable changes with the desires of eco-
nomic agents, and that the main purpose of the free-banking
system is to reconcile the issuance of deposits and banknotes
with shifts in the demand for them.115 Nevertheless such demand
is not exogenous to the system, but endogenously determined by it.
It is no coincidence that theorists of the Fractional-Reserve
Free-Banking School begin their analysis by focusing on cer-
tain more or less mysterious variations in the demand for
fiduciary media, and that they neglect to explain the origin or
etiology of these variations.116 It is as if these theorists realized
I shall argue, this is just as acceptable as the view that the sup-
ply of shoes should vary to meet the demand for them. (Hor-
witz, "Misreading the 'Myth'," p. 169)
To be specific, White appears to defend the new version of the Old
Banking School's "needs of trade" doctrine on pp. 123-24 of his book,
Free Banking in Britain. In contrast to the thesis of Horwitz, Amasa
Walker indicates, in connection with fiduciary media:
The supply does not satisfy the demand: it excites it. Like an
unnatural stimulus taken into the human system, it creates an
increasing desire for more; and the more it is gratified, the
more insatiable are its cravings. (Amasa Walker, The Science of
Wealth: A Manual of Political Economy, 5th ed. [Boston: Little
Brown and Company, 1869], p. 156)
115"pree banking thus works against short-run monetary disequilibrium
and its business cycle consequences." Selgin and White, "In Defense of
Fiduciary Media — or, We are Not Devo(lutionists), We are Misesians!"
pp. 101-02.
116Joseph T. Salerno points out that for Mises, increases in the demand
for money do not pose any coordination problem whatsoever, as long as
the banking system does not attempt to adjust to them by creating new
680 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
that, on the side of the money supply, the Austrians have
demonstrated that credit expansion seriously distorts the
economy, a fact which in any case seems to warrant a rigid
monetary system117 capable of preventing the monetary
expansions and contractions typical of any fractional-reserve
banking system. Therefore on the side of supply, theoretical
arguments appear to support the establishment of a relatively
inelastic monetary system, such as a pure gold standard with
a 100-percent reserve requirement for banknotes and
deposits.118 Hence if defenders of the Neo-Banking School
loans. Even a rise in saving (that is, a fall in consumption) expressed
solely in increased cash balances (hoarding), and not in loans linked to
spending on investment goods, would lead to the effective saving of
consumer goods and services in the community and to a process by
which the productive structure would become longer and more capital-
intensive. In this case the rise in cash balances would simply boost the
purchasing power of money by pushing down the nominal prices of the
consumer goods and services of the different factors of production.
Nonetheless, in relative terms, the price disparities characteristic of a
period of rising saving and increasing capital intensity in the productive
structure would arise among the different stages of factors of produc-
tion. See Joseph T. Salerno, "Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized,"
printed in Review of Austrian Economics 6, no. 2 (1993): 113-46, esp. pp.
144ff. See also Mises, Human Action, pp. 520-21. In the same article,
Salerno strongly criticizes White for maintaining that Mises was the
forerunner of the modern free-banking theorists and for not realizing
that Mises always challenged the essential premises of the Banking
School and only defended free banking as a way to reach the final goal
of a banking system with a 100-percent reserve requirement. See pp.
137ff. in the above article. See also upcoming footnote 119.
117Let us remember that Hayek's objective in Prices and Production was
precisely
to demonstrate that the cry for an "elastic" currency which
expands or contracts with every fluctuation of "demand" is
based on a serious error of reasoning. (See p. xiii of Hayek's
preface to the first edition of Prices and Production)
118Mark Skousen states that a system based on a pure gold standard
with a 100-percent reserve requirement in banking would be more elas-
tic than the system Hayek proposes and would not have the defect of
conforming to the "needs of trade": decreases in prices would stimulate
the production of gold, thereby generating a moderate expansion of the
money supply without producing cyclical effects. Skousen concludes:
Central and Tree Banking Theory 681
wish to justify a fractional-reserve free-banking system in
which there may be substantial increases and decreases in the
money supply in the form of fiduciary media, they must inde-
pendently look to the side of demand in the hope of being able
to demonstrate that such modifications in the supply of fidu-
ciary media (which are inevitable in a fractional-reserve sys-
tem) correspond to prior variations in demand which are sat-
isfied by the reestablishment of a hypothetical, preexistent
state of "monetary equilibrium."
Growth in the money supply in the form of credit expan-
sion distorts the productive structure and gives rise to an eco-
nomic boom and subsequent recession, stages during which
significant variations in the demand for money and fiduciary
media take place. Hence the process is not triggered, as theo-
rists of the modern Free-Banking School suppose, by inde-
pendent, catalytic changes in the demand for fiduciary media,
but by the manipulation of the supply of them. All fractional-
reserve banking systems carry out such manipulation to one
degree or another by expanding credit.
It is true that in a system composed of a multiplicity of free
banks unsupported by a central bank, credit expansion would
stop much sooner than in a system in which the central bank
orchestrates widespread expansion and uses its liquidity to
aid those banks in jeopardy. This is the pro-free-banking argu-
ment Parnell originally developed and Mises later identified
as second-best.119 However it is one thing to assert that in a
Based on historical evidence, the money supply (the stock of
gold) under a pure gold standard would expand [annually]
between 1 to 5 percent. And, most importantly there would
be virtually no chance of a monetary deflation under 100 per-
cent gold backing of the currency. (Skousen, The Structure of
Production, p. 359)
U^Selgin himself recognizes that
Mises's support for free banking is based in part on his agree-
ment with Cernuschi, who (along with Modeste) believed
that freedom of note issue would automatically lead to 100
percent reserve banking;
and also that Mises "believed that free banking will somehow lead to
the suppression of fractionally-based inside monies." See Selgin, The
682 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
completely free banking system credit expansion would be
curbed sooner than in the current system, and it is quite another
to claim that credit expansion brought about in a fractional-
reserve free-banking system would never distort the produc-
tive structure, since a state of supposed "monetary equilib-
rium" would always tend to return. In fact Mises himself very
clearly indicates that all credit expansion distorts the productive
system. Hence Mises rejects the essence of the modern theory of
monetary equilibrium. Indeed Mises affirms:
The notion of "normal" credit expansion is absurd. Issuance
of additional fiduciary media, no matter what its quantity may be,
always sets in motion those changes in the price structure the
description of which is the task of the theory of the trade cycle.120
The chief failing of Selgin's theory of "monetary equilib-
rium" is that it ignores the fact that the supply of fiduciary media
Theory of Free Banking, pp. 62 and 164. Lawrence H. White attempts to
place a different interpretation on Mises's position and presents Mises
as the forerunner of modern fractional-reserve free banking defenders.
See Lawrence H. White, "Mises on Free Banking and Fractional
Reserves," in A Man of Principle: Essays in Honor of Hans F. Sennholz, John
W. Robbins and Mark Spangler, eds. (Grove City, Penn.: Grove City Col-
lege Press, 1992), pp. 517-33. Salerno, in agreement with Selgin, makes
the following response to White:
To the extent that Mises advocated the freedom of banks to
issue fiduciary media, he did so only because his analysis led
him to the conclusion that this policy would result in a money
supply strictly regulated according to the Currency principle.
Mises's desideratum was ... to completely eliminate the dis-
tortive influences of fiduciary media on monetary calculation
and the dynamic market process. (Salerno, "Mises and Hayek
Dehomogenized," pp. 137ff. and p. 145)
120Mises, Human Action, p. 442, footnote 17; italics added. Mises adds:
"Free banking . . . would . . . not hinder a slow credit expansion" (Human
Action, p. 443). Here Mises conveys an excessively optimistic impression
of fractional-reserve free banking, particularly in light of this earlier pas-
sage from Theory of Money and Credit (1924): "[I]t is clear that banking
freedom per se cannot be said to make a return to gross inflationary pol-
icy impossible." Mises, Theory of Money and Credit, p. 436 (p. 408 in the
German edition).
Central and Free Banking Theory 683
largely creates its own demand. In other words, modern free-
banking theory contains the Old Banking School's funda-
mental error, which, as Mises adeptly revealed, lies in a fail-
ure to reflect that public demand for credit depends precisely
on banks' inclination to lend. Thus those bankers who, in the
beginning, are not overly concerned about their future sol-
vency are in a position to expand credit and place new fidu-
ciary media in the market simply by reducing the interest
rate they ask for the new money they create and easing their
normal credit terms.121 Therefore, in contrast with the
assumptions of Selgin and the other theorists of his school,
bankers can initiate credit expansion in a free-banking system
if for some reason they disregard their own solvency, whether
or not a prior variation in the demand for fiduciary media has
occurred. Another factor explains why, during a prolonged
period, the increase in the quantity of deposits (from credit
expansion) actually tends to stimulate demand for fiduciary media.
In fact all economic agents who are unaware that an infla-
tionary process of expansion has begun, and that this process
will ultimately cause a relative decrease in the purchasing
power of money and a subsequent recession, will notice that
certain goods and services begin to rise in price faster than
others and will wait in vain for such prices to return to their
"normal" level. Meanwhile they will most likely decide to
increase their demand for fiduciary media. To again cite
Mises:
121 The Banking School failed entirely in dealing with these prob-
lems. It was confused by a spurious idea according to which
the requirements of business rigidly limit the maximum
amount of convertible banknotes that a bank can issue. They
did not see that the demand of the public for credit is a mag-
nitude dependent on the banks' readiness to lend, and that
banks which do not bother about their own solvency are in a
position to expand circulation credit by lowering the rate of
interest below the market rate. (Mises, Human Action, pp.
439-40)
Moreover let us remember that the process spreads and feeds upon
itself as debtors borrow more newly-created deposits to repay earlier
loans.
684 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
This first stage of the inflationary process may last for many
years. While it lasts, the prices of many goods and services
are not yet adjusted to the altered money relation. There are
still people in the country who have not yet become aware
of the fact that they are confronted with a price revolution
which will finally result in a considerable rise of all prices,
although the extent of this rise will not be the same in the
various commodities and services. These people still
believe that prices one day will drop. Waiting for this day,
they restrict their purchases and concomitantly increase their
cash holdings.122
Not only are banks in a fractional-reserve free-banking
system able to unilaterally instigate credit expansion, but dur-
ing a prolonged period the resulting increase in the supply of
fiduciary media (which can always be placed in the market
through an opportune reduction in the interest rate) tends to
create further demand. This increase in demand will last until
the public loses some of its unrealistic optimism, begins to dis-
trust the economic "bonanza," and foresees a widespread rise
in prices, followed by a crisis and profound economic reces-
sion.
We have argued that the origin of monetary changes lies
on the side of supply, that banks in a free-banking system are
able to manipulate the money supply, and that the correspon-
ding issuance of fiduciary media creates its own demand in
the short and medium term. If the above assertions are true,
then Selgin is utterly mistaken in claiming that the supply of
fiduciary media merely adjusts to the demand for them.
Indeed the demand for fiduciary media, at least during a con-
siderable period of time, adjusts to the increased supply
which banks create in the form of loans.123
122Mises, Human Action, pp. 427-28; italics added.
l^Curiously, like Keynesians and monetarists, modern free-banking
theorists are obsessed with supposed, sudden, unilateral changes in the
demand for money. They fail to see that such changes tend to be endoge-
nous and to occur throughout an economic cycle which is first triggered
by shifts in the supply of new money the banking system creates in the
form of loans. The only other situations capable of producing a sudden
Central and Free Banking Theory 685
The Possibility that a Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking
System May Unilaterally Initiate Credit Expansion
Various circumstances make it possible for a fractional-
reserve free-banking system to initiate credit expansion in the
absence of a corresponding, prior increase in the demand for
fiduciary media.
First, we must point out that the monetary equilibrium
analysis of modern free-banking theorists contains many of
the same limitations as the traditional neoclassical analysis,
which, both in a micro- and macroeconomic context, merely
deals with the final state of social processes (monetary equi-
librium), a state to which the rational, maximizing behavior of
economic agents (private bankers) supposedly leads. In con-
trast, the economic analysis of the Austrian School centers on
dynamic entrepreneurial processes, rather than on equilib-
rium. Each entrepreneurial act coordinates and establishes a
tendency toward equilibrium, which, nevertheless, is never
reached, because during the process itself circumstances
change and entrepreneurs create new information. Thus, from
this dynamic point of view, we cannot accept a static model
which, like that of monetary equilibrium, presupposes that
immediate, perfect adjustments between the demand for and
the supply of fiduciary media take place.
In real life, each banker, according to his insight and entre-
preneurial creativity, subjectively interprets the information
he receives from the outside world, both in terms of his level
of optimism in evaluating the course of economic events, and
in terms of the volume of reserves he considers "prudent"
with a view to maintaining his solvency. Hence each banker,
in an environment of uncertainty, decides each day what vol-
ume of fiduciary media he will issue. In the above entrepre-
neurial process, bankers will clearly commit many errors
which will manifest themselves in the unilateral issuance of
fiduciary media and will distort the productive structure.
rise in the demand for money are exceptional, like wars and natural dis-
asters. Seasonal variations are comparatively less important and a free-
banking system with a 100-percent reserve requirement could counter-
act them with a seasonal transfer of gold and slight price modifications.
686 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Granted, the process itself will tend to reveal and eliminate
the errors committed, but only following a period of varying
length, and damage to the real productive structure will not
be avoided. If we add that, as we saw in the last section, the
supply of fiduciary media tends to create its own demand, we
see it is highly unlikely that a fractional-reserve free-banking
system (or any other market) could reach the "monetary equi-
librium" that its theorists so desire. For in the best of cases, pri-
vate bankers will attempt through a process of trial and error to
adjust their supply of fiduciary media to the demand for them,
which is unknown to bankers and tends to vary as a conse-
quence of the very issuance of fiduciary media. Hence scholars
may debate whether or not the entrepreneurial coordination
process will bring the coveted state of "monetary equilibrium"
within bankers' reach, but scholars cannot deny that through-
out this process innumerable entrepreneurial errors will be
committed in the form of the unjustified issuance of fiduciary
media, and that these errors will inevitably tend to affect the
productive structure by provoking economic crises and reces-
sions, just as the Austrian theory of economic cycles explains.124
Second, a large or small group of bankers could also col-
lectively orchestrate the expansion of fiduciary media or
decide to merge in order to share and better "manage" their
reserves, thus increasing their capacity to expand credit and
improve profits.125 Unless fractional-reserve free-banking
theorists wish to prohibit this type of entrepreneurial strategy
(which we doubt), it will obviously result in credit expansion
and consequent economic recessions. It can be argued that in-
concert expansion will tend to correct itself, since, as Selgin
maintains, the total increase in interbank clearings will raise
the variance in the clearing of debits and credits.126 However,
aside from Selgin's assumption that the total volume of metal-
lic reserves in the banking system remains constant, and
124See Jorg Guido Hiilsmann, "Free Banking and Free Bankers," Review
of Austrian Economics 9, no. 1 (1996): 3-53, esp. pp. 40-41.
125Remember our analysis contained in pages 664-71. See Laidler, "Free
Banking Theory," p. 197.
126Selgin, The Theory of Tree Banking, p. 82.
Central and Free Banking Theory 687
despite the doubts of many authors regarding the effective-
ness of Selgin's mechanism,127 even if we allow for the sake of
argument that Selgin is correct, it can still be argued that the
adjustment will never be perfect nor immediate, and therefore
in-concert expansion and mergers may provoke significant
increases in the supply of fiduciary media, thus triggering the
processes which set economic cycles in motion.
Third and last, with every increase in the overall stock of
specie (gold) banks keep as a "prudent" reserve, a fractional-
reserve free-banking system would stimulate growth in the
issuance of fiduciary media which does not correspond to
prior rises in demand. If we remember that the world stock of
gold has been mounting at an annual rate of 1 to 5 percent128
due to the increased world production of gold, it is clear that
this factor alone will permit private bankers to issue fiduciary
media at a rate of 1 to 5 percent per year, regardless of the
demand for them. (Such creation of money will produce an
expansion followed by a recession.)129
In conclusion, significant (fiduciary) inflationary pro-
cesses130 and severe economic recessions131 may occur in any
fractional-reserve free-banking system.
127See, for example, Schwartz, "The Theory of Free Banking," p. 3.
128Skousen, The Structure of Production, chap. 8, pp. 269 and 359.
129We cannot rule out even greater credit expansion in the event of shocks
in the supply of gold, though Selgin tends to play down the importance
of this possibility. Selgin, The Theory of Free Banking, pp. 129-33.
130Let us remember that for Mises (see footnote 120 above): "Banking
freedom per se cannot be said to make a return to gross inflationary pol-
icy impossible," especially if an inflationary ideology prevails among
economic agents:
Many authors believe that the instigation of the banks' behav-
ior comes from outside, that certain events induce them to
pump more fiduciary media into circulation and that they
would behave differently if these circumstances failed to
appear. I was also inclined to this view in the first edition of
my book on monetary theory. I could not understand why the
banks didn't learn from experience. I thought they would cer-
tainly persist in a policy of caution and restraint, if they were
not led by outside circumstances to abandon it. Only later did
688 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Theory of "Monetary Equilibrium" in Free Banking
Rests on an Exclusively Macroeconomic Analysis
We must point out that the analysis of modern free-bank-
ing theorists ignores the microeconomic effects which arise from
increases and decreases in the supply of and demand for fidu-
ciary media instigated by the banking industry. In other
words, even if we admit for the sake of argument that the ori-
gin of all evil lies, as these theorists suppose, in unexpected
changes in economic agents' demand for fiduciary media, it is
clear that the supply of fiduciary media which the banking
system supposedly generates to adjust to changes in the
demand for them does not instantaneously reach precisely
those economic agents whose valuation of the possession of
new fiduciary media has altered. Instead this supply flows
into the market at certain specific points and in a particular
manner: in the form of loans granted via a reduction in the
interest rate and initially received by individual business-
men and investors who tend to use them to initiate new,
more capital-intensive investment projects which distort the
productive structure.
Therefore it is unsurprising that modern free-banking the-
orists overlook the Austrian theory of business cycles, since
I become convinced that it was useless to look to an outside
stimulus for the change in the conduct of the banks. . . . We
can readily understand that the banks issuing fiduciary
media, in order to improve their chances for profit, may be
ready to expand the volume of credit granted and the number
of notes issued. What calls for special explanation is why
attempts are made again and again to improve general eco-
nomic conditions by the expansion of circulation credit in
spite of the spectacular failure of such efforts in the past. The
answer must run as follows: According to the prevailing ide-
ology of businessman and economist-politician, the reduction
of the interest rate is considered an essential goal of economic
policy. Moreover, the expansion of circulation credit is
assumed to be the appropriate means to achieve this goal.
(Mises, On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, pp. 135-36)
131"Crises have reappeared every few years since banks . . . began to
play an important role in the economic life of people." Ibid., p. 134.
Central and Free Banking Theory 689
this theory does not fit in with their analysis of the issuance of
fiduciary media in a fractional-reserve free-banking system.
These theorists thus take refuge in an exclusively macroeco-
nomic analysis (monetarist or Keynesian, depending on the
case) and, at most, use instruments which, like the equation of
exchange or the "general price level," actually tend to conceal
the truly relevant microeconomic phenomena (variations in
relative prices and intertemporal discoordination in the
behavior of economic agents) which occur in an economy
upon the expansion of credit and growth in the quantity of
fiduciary media.
In normal market processes, the supply of consumer
goods and services tends to vary along with the demand for
them, and new goods generally reach precisely those con-
sumers whose subjective valuation of them has improved.
However where newly-created fiduciary media are con-
cerned, the situation is radically different: an increased supply
of fiduciary media never immediately and directly reaches the
pockets of those economic agents whose demand for them
may have risen. Instead, the money goes through a lengthy,
cumbersome temporal process, or transition phase, during
which it first passes through the hands of many other eco-
nomic agents and distorts the entire productive structure.
When bankers create new fiduciary media, they do not
deliver them directly to those economic agents who may
desire more. On the contrary, bankers grant loans to entrepre-
neurs who receive the new money and invest the entire
amount without a thought to the proportion in which the final
holders of fiduciary media will wish to consume and save or
invest. Hence it is certainly possible that a portion of the new
fiduciary media (supposedly issued in response to increased
demand) may ultimately be spent on consumer goods, and
thereby push up their relative price. We know (chap. 7, p. 552)
that according to Hayek:
[S]o long as any part of the additional income thus created
is spent on consumer's goods {i.e., unless all of it is saved),
the prices of consumer's goods must rise permanently in
relation to those of various kinds of input. And this, as will
by now be evident, cannot be lastingly without effect on the
690 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
relative prices of the various kinds of input and on the meth-
ods of production that will appear profitable.132
Hayek clarifies his position even further:
All that is required to make our analysis applicable is that,
when incomes are increased by investment, the share of the
additional income spent on consumer's goods during any
period of time should be larger than the proportion by
which the new investment adds to the output of consumer's
goods during the same period of time. And there is of course
no reason to expect that more than a fraction of the new
income [created by credit expansion], and certainly not as
much as has been newly invested, will be saved, because
this would mean that practically all the income earned from
the new investment would have to be saved.133
As a graphic illustration of our argument, let us suppose
that the demand for fiduciary media increases, while the pro-
portion in which economic agents wish to consume and invest
remains unchanged.134 Under these conditions, economic
agents must reduce their monetary demand for consumer
goods, sell bonds and other financial assets and, especially,
reinvest less money in the different stages of the productive
process until they can accumulate the greater volume of bank
deposits they wish to hold. Therefore if we suppose that the
social rate of time preference has not altered, and we use a
simplified version of the triangular diagrams from chapter 5
to represent society's real productive structure, we see that in
132Hayek, The Pure Theory of Capital, p. 378.
133Ibid., p. 394. This appears to be the extreme case of an increase in sav-
ing which manifests itself entirely as a rise in balances of fiduciary media,
the case Selgin and White use to illustrate their theory. See Selgin and
White, "In Defense of Fiduciary Media — or, We are Not Devo(lutionists),
We are Misesians!" pp. 104-05.
134Such a situation is definitely possible, as Selgin and White them-
selves recognize when they affirm: "An increase in savings is neither
necessary nor sufficient to warrant an increase in fiduciary media." Sel-
gin and White, "In Defense of Fiduciary Media — or, We are Not
Devo(lutionists), We are Misesians!" p. 104.
Central and Free Banking Theory 691
Chart VIII-1 the increase in the demand for fiduciary media
shifts the hypotenuse of the triangle toward the left. This
movement reflects a drop in the monetary demand for con-
sumer and investment goods, since the proportion of one to
the other (or time preference) has not varied. In this chart, sur-
face "A" represents economic agents' new demand for (or
"hoarding" of) fiduciary media (see Chart VIII-1).
The fundamental conclusion of the theory of monetary
equilibrium in a fractional-reserve free-banking system is that
banks would respond to this rise in the demand for fiduciary
media by expanding their issuance by a volume equal to that
of the new demand (represented by surface "A"), and the pro-
ductive structure, as shown in Chart VIII-2, would remain
intact (see Chart VIII-2).
Nonetheless we must remember that banks do not directly
transfer the new fiduciary media they create to their final users
(the economic agents whose demand for fiduciary media has
increased by the volume represented by surface "A" in Chart
VIII-1). Instead, the deposits are lent to entrepreneurs, who
spend it on investment goods and thereby initially create a more
capital-intensive structure, which we represent in Chart VIII-3.
Nevertheless this more capital-intensive productive struc-
ture cannot be maintained in the long term. For once the new
fiduciary media reach their final recipients (who in the very
beginning accumulated the bank money they needed, as sur-
face "A" in Chart VIII-1 indicates), they will spend them,
according to our postulate of unchanging time preference, on
consumer and investment goods in a proportion equal to that
shown in Charts VIII-1 and VIII-2. If we superimpose Chart
VIII-3 on Chart VIII-2 (see Chart VIII-4), the distortion of the
productive structure becomes clear. Shaded area "B" represents
the investment projects entrepreneurs have launched in error,
since all of the fiduciary media banks have issued to adjust to
the increase in the demand for them have been channeled into
investment loans.135 Shaded area "C" (with a surface identical
135Selgin and White implicitly acknowledge this point when they assert:
Benefits accrue ... to bank borrowers who enjoy a more ample
supply of intermediated credit, and to everyone who works
Chart VI 1 1-1
Monetary demand for
consumer goods
to "B") reflects the portion of the new fiduciary media which
the final holders spend on the goods closest to consumption.
The productive structure regains the proportions shown in
Chart VIII-1, but only following the inevitable, painful read-
justments which the Austrian theory of economic cycles
with the economy's consequently larger stock of capital equip-
ment. (Selgin and White, "In Defense of Fiduciary Media — or,
We are Not Devo(lutionists), We are Misesians!" p. 94)
Central and Free Banking Theory
693
explains and which a free-banking system, as we have just
seen, would be incapable of preventing. Therefore we must
conclude, in contrast to what Selgin and White suggest,136 that
even if the expansion of fiduciary media fully matches a prior
increase in the demand for them, it will provoke the typical
cyclical effects predicted by the theory of circulation credit.
136
We deny that an increase in fiduciary media matched by an
increased demand to hold fiduciary media is disequilibrating or
sets in motion the Austrian business cycle. (Ibid., pp. 102-03)
694 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Confusion Between the Concept of Saving
and that of the demand for money
The attempt to recover at least the essence of the old
"needs of trade" doctrine and to show that a fractional-reserve
free-banking system would not trigger economic cycles has
led George A. Selgin to defend a thesis similar to the one John
Maynard Keynes presents in connection with bank deposits.
Indeed let us remember that, according to Keynes, anyone
who holds additional money from a loan is "saving":
Moreover, the savings which result from this decision are
just as genuine as any other savings. No one can be com-
pelled to own the additional money corresponding to the
new bank-credit, unless he deliberately prefers to hold more
money rather than some other form of wealth.137
George Selgin's position resembles Keynes's. Selgin
believes public demand for cash balances in the form of bank-
notes and deposit accounts reflects the desire to offer short-
term loans for the same amount through the banking system.
Indeed, Selgin states:
To hold inside money is to engage in voluntary saving. . . .
Whenever a bank expands its liabilities in the process of
making new loans and investments, it is the holders of the
liabilities who are the ultimate lenders of credit, and what
they lend are the real resources they could acquire if,
instead of holding money, they spent it. When the expan-
sion or contraction of bank liabilities proceeds in such a
way as to be at all times in agreement with changing
demands for inside money, the quantity of real capital
funds supplied to borrowers by the banks is equal to the
quantity voluntarily offered to the banks by the public.
137Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, p. 83.
This thesis, which we covered in chapter 7, stems from the tautology of
equating saving with investment, an error which underlies all of
Keynes's work and which, according to Benjamin Anderson, is tanta-
mount to equating inflation with saving.
Central and Free Banking Theory 695
Under these conditions, banks are simply intermediaries of
loanable funds.138
Nonetheless it is entirely possible that the public may
simultaneously increase their balances of fiduciary media and
their demand for consumer goods and services, if they decide
to cut back on their investments. For economic agents can
employ their money balances in any of the following three
ways: they can spend them on consumer goods and services;
they can spend them on investments; or they can hold them as
cash balances or fiduciary media. There are no other options.
The decision on the proportion to spend on consumption or
investment is distinct and independent from the decision on the
amount of fiduciary media and cash to hold. Thus we cannot
conclude, as Selgin does, that any money balance is equal to
"savings," since a rise in the balance of fiduciary media may
very well depend on a drop in investment spending (via the
sale of securities on the stock market, for instance) which
makes it possible to increase final monetary expenditure on
consumer goods and services. Under these circumstances an
individual's savings would drop, while his balance of fiduci-
ary media would rise. Therefore it is incorrect to qualify as
savings all increases in fiduciary media.
To maintain, as Selgin does, that "every holder of demand
liabilities issued by a free bank grants that bank a loan for the
value of his holdings"139 is the same as asserting that any cre-
ation of money, in the form of deposits or notes, by a bank in
a fractional-reserve free-banking system ultimately amounts
to an a posteriori concession of a loan to the bank for the
amount created. However the bank generates loans from noth-
ing and offers additional purchasing power to entrepreneurs,
who receive the loans without a thought to the true desires of
all other economic agents regarding consumption and invest-
ment, when these other individuals will ultimately become
the final holders of the fiduciary media the bank creates.
Hence it is entirely possible, if the social time preference on
138Selgin, The Theory of Free Banking, pp. 54-55.
139Selgin, "The Stability and Efficiency of Money Supply under Free
Banking," p. 440.
696 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
consumption and investment remains unchanged, that the
new fiduciary media the bank creates may be used to step up
spending on consumer goods, thus pushing up the relative
prices of this type of good.
Fractional-reserve free-banking theorists generally con-
sider any note or deposit a bank issues to be a "financial asset"
which corresponds to a loan. From a legal standpoint, this
notion involves serious problems, which we examined in
the first three chapters. Economically speaking, the error of
these theorists lies in their belief that money is a "financial
asset" which represents the voluntary saving of an eco-
nomic agent who "loans" present goods in exchange for
future goods.140 Nevertheless money is itself a present good,ul
and the possession of cash balances (or deposits) says nothing
about the proportions in which the economic agent wishes to
consume and invest. Thus increases and decreases in his
l40How is it conceivable that banknotes and deposits, which are money
in themselves, are also "financial assets" that signify that the bearer has
turned over money to a third party today in exchange for a certain
amount of money in the future? The idea that notes and deposits are
"financial assets" exposes the fact that banks in a fractional-reserve
banking system duplicate means of payment ex nihilo: there is the
money lent to and enjoyed by a third party, and there is the financial
asset which represents the operation and is also considered money. To
put it another way financial assets are titles or certificates which signify
that someone has given up present money on handing it over to another
in exchange for a larger quantity of future money. If, at the same time,
financial assets are considered money (by the bearer), then an obvious,
inflationary duplication of means of payment takes place in the market
which originates in the granting of a new loan without anyone's having
to save the same amount first.
141Money is a perfectly liquid present good. With respect to the banking
system as a whole, fiduciary media are not "financial assets," since they
are never withdrawn from the system, but circulate indefinitely and, hence,
are money (or to be more precise, perfect money substitutes). In con-
trast, a financial asset represents the handing over of present goods
(generally money) in exchange for future goods (also generally mone-
tary units) on a specified date, and its creation corresponds to a rise in
an economic agent's real saving. See Gerald P. O'Driscoll, "Money:
Menger's Evolutionary Theory," History of Political Economy 4, no. 18
(1986): 601-16.
Central and Free Banking Theory 697
money balances are perfectly compatible with different com-
binations of simultaneous increases and decreases in the pro-
portions in which he consumes or invests. In fact his balances
of fiduciary media may rise simultaneously with his spending
on consumer goods and services, if he only disinvests some of
the resources saved and invested in the past. As Hans-Her-
mann Hoppe points out, the supply of and demand for money
determine its price or purchasing power, while the supply of
and demand for "present goods" in exchange for "future
goods" determine the interest rate or social rate of time pref-
erence and the overall volume of saving and investment.142
Saving always requires that an economic agent reduce his
consumption (i.e., sacrifice), thus freeing real goods. Saving
does not arise from a simple increase in monetary units. That
is, the mere fact that the new money is not immediately spent
on consumer goods does not mean it is saved. Selgin defends
142 First off, it is plainly false to say that the holding of money,
i.e., the act of not spending it, is equivalent to saving. ... In
fact, saving is not-consuming, and the demand for money
has nothing to do with saving or not-saving. The demand for
money is the unwillingness to buy or rent non-money
goods — and these include consumer goods (present goods)
and capital goods (future goods). Not-spending money is to
purchase neither consumer goods nor investment goods.
Contrary to Selgin, then, matters are as follows: Individuals
may employ their monetary assets in one of three ways. They
can spend them on consumer goods; they can spend them on
investment; or they can keep them in the form of cash. There
are no other alternatives. . . . [U]nless time preference is
assumed to have changed at the same time, real consumption
and real investment will remain the same as before: the addi-
tional money demand is satisfied by reducing nominal con-
sumption and investment spending in accordance with the
same pre-existing consumption/investment proportion,
driving the money prices of both consumer as well as pro-
ducer goods down and leaving real consumption and invest-
ment at precisely their old levels. (Hans-Hermann Hoppe,
"How is Fiat Money Possible? — or The Devolution of Money
and Credit," in Review of Austrian Economics 7, no. 2 (1994):
72-73)
698
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Chart VIII-3
this position when he criticizes Machlup's view143 that the
expansionary granting of loans creates purchasing power
which no one has first withdrawn from consumption (i.e.,
143Selgin's unjustified criticism of Machlup appears in footnote 20 on
p. 184 of his book, The Theory of Tree Banking. Selgin would consider the
entire volume of credit shown by surface "A" in our Chart VIII-2
"transfer credit," because it is "credit granted by banks in recognition of
people's desire to abstain from spending by holding balances of inside
Central and Free Banking Theory
699
saved). For credit to leave the productive structure undis-
torted, it logically must originate from prior saving, which
provides present goods an investor has truly saved. If such a
money" (ibid., p. 60). In contrast, for Machlup (and for us), at least sur-
face "B" of Chart VIII-4 would represent "created credit" or credit
expansion, since economic agents do not restrict their consumption by
the volume shown by surface "C".
700 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
sacrifice in consumption has not taken place, and investment
is financed by created credit, then the productive structure is
invariably distorted, even if the newly-created fiduciary
media correspond to a previous rise in the demand for them.
Hence Selgin is obliged to redefine the concepts of saving and
credit creation. He claims saving occurs ipso facto the moment
new fiduciary media are created, provided their initial holder
could spend them on consumer goods and does not. Selgin
also maintains that credit expansion does not generate cycles if
it tends to match a prior increase in the demand for fiduciary
media. In short these arguments resemble those Keynes
expresses in his General Theory, arguments refuted long ago, as
we saw in chapter 7.
The creation of fiduciary media also entails an increase in
the money supply and a consequent decrease in the purchas-
ing power of money. In this way banks collectively and almost
imperceptibly "expropriate" the value of citizens' monetary
units. It certainly smacks of a bad joke to declare that the eco-
nomic agents who suffer such expropriation are actually (vol-
untarily?) "saving." It is not surprising that these doctrines
have been defended by authors like Keynes, Tobin, Pointdex-
ter and, in general, all who have justified inflationism, credit
expansion and the "euthanasia of the rentier" for the sake of
aggressive economic policies geared to insure an "adequate"
level of "aggregate demand." What is surprising, however, is
that authors like Selgin and Horwitz, who belong (or at least
belonged) to the Austrian School and thus should be more
aware of the dangers involved, have had no alternative but to
resort to this sort of argument in order to justify their "frac-
tional-reserve free-banking" system.144
144As an additional advantage of the system he proposes, Selgin men-
tions that economic agents who maintain cash balances in the form of
fiduciary media created in a free-banking system can obtain a financial
yield on their money and use a series of banking facilities (payment,
bookkeeping, cashier, etc.) "free of charge." However Selgin fails to
mention certain costs of fractional-reserve free banking, such as artificial
booms, malinvestment of resources, and economic crises. He also fails to
touch on what we definitely consider the highest cost: the harmful effects
of the violation of legal principles in a free-banking system give rise to a
Central and Free Banking Theory 701
The Problem with Historical Illustrations of
Free-Banking Systems
Neo-banking authors devote strong efforts to historical
studies which they intend to support the thesis that a free-
banking system would protect economies from cycles of boom
and depression, owing to the "monetary equilibrium" mecha-
nism. Nevertheless the empirical studies produced thus far
have not focused on whether free-banking systems have pre-
vented credit expansion, artificial booms and economic reces-
sions. Instead they have centered on whether bank crises and
runs have been more or less frequent and severe in this type of
system than in a central-banking system (which is obviously
quite a different issue).145
tendency toward the establishment of a central bank as a lender of last
resort designed to support bankers and create the liquidity necessary to
insure citizens the recovery of their deposits at any time. As for the sup-
posed "advantage" of receiving interest on deposits and "free" cashier
and bookkeeping services, there is no telling whether, in net terms, the
interest economic agents would earn on funds truly saved and lent in a
system with a 100-percent reserve requirement, less the cost of the cor-
responding deposit, cashier and bookkeeping services, would be equal
to, higher than or lower than the real interest they currently receive on
their demand checking accounts (minus the decline which chronically
affects the purchasing power of money in the current banking system).
145To date, theorists have carefully examined around sixty free-banking
systems from the past. The conclusion they have generally drawn fol-
lows:
Bank failure rates were lower in systems free of restrictions on
capital, branching and diversification (e.g., Scotland and
Canada) than in systems restricted in these respects (England
and the United States).
However this matter is irrelevant from the standpoint of our thesis,
since the above studies do not specify whether cycles of expansion and
economic recession were set in motion. See The Experience of Free Bank-
ing, Kevin Dowd, ed., pp. 39-46. See also Kurt Schuler and Lawrence H.
White, "Free Banking History" The New Palgrave Dictionary of Money and
Finance, Peter Newman, Murray Milgate and John Eatwell, eds. (Lon-
don: Macmillan, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 198-200. The above excerpt appears
on p. 108 of this last article.
702 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
In fact George A. Selgin looks at the occurrence of bank
runs in different historical free-banking systems versus certain
systems controlled by a central bank and reaches the conclu-
sion that bank crises were more numerous and acute in the
second case.146 Moreover the main thesis of the main neo-
banking book on free banking in Scotland consists entirely of
the argument that the Scottish banking system, which was
"freer" than the English one, was more "stable" and subject to
fewer financial disturbances.147
However, as Murray N. Rothbard has indicated, the fact
that, in relative terms, fewer banks failed in the Scottish free-
banking system than in the English system does not necessar-
ily mean the former was superior.148 Indeed bank failures
have been practically eliminated from current central-banking
systems, and this does not make such systems better than a
free-banking system subject to legal principles. It actually
makes them worse. For bank failures in no way indicate that a
system functions poorly, but rather that a healthy, sponta-
neous reversion process has begun to operate in response to
fractional-reserve banking, which is a legal privilege and an
attack on the market. Therefore whenever a fractional-reserve
free-banking system is not regularly accompanied by bank
failures and suspensions of payments, we must suspect the
existence of institutional factors which shield hanks from the nor-
mal consequences of fractional-reserve hanking and fulfill a role sim-
ilar to the one the central hank currently fulfills as lender of last
resort. In the case of Scotland, banks had so encouraged the
use of their notes in economic transactions that practically no
one demanded payment of them in gold, and those who
occasionally requested specie at the window of their banks
met with general disapproval and enormous pressure from
146George A. Selgin, "Are Banking Crises a Free-Market Phenomenon?"
a manuscript presented at the regional meeting of the Mont Pelerin Soci-
ety, Rio de Janeiro, September 5-8, 1993, pp. 26-27.
147White, Free Banking in Britain.
148Rothbard, "The Myth of Free Banking in Scotland," Review of Austrian
Economics 2 (1988): 229-45, esp. p. 232.
Central and Free Banking Theory 703
their bankers, who accused them of "disloyalty" and threat-
ened to make it difficult for them to obtain loans in the future.
Furthermore, as Professor Sidney G. Checkland has shown,149
the Scottish fractional-reserve free-banking system still went
through frequent, successive stages of credit expansion and
contraction, which gave rise to economic cycles of boom and
recession in 1770, 1772, 1778, 1793, 1797, 1802-1803, 1809-1810,
1810-1811, 1818-1819, 1825-1826, 1836-1837, 1839, and
1845-1847. In other words, even though in relative terms
fewer bank runs occurred in Scotland than in England, the
successive stages of boom and depression were equally
severe, and despite its highly praised free-banking system,
Scotland was not free from credit expansion, artificial booms
and the subsequent stages of serious economic recession.150
The nineteenth-century Chilean financial system provides
another historical illustration of the inadequacy of fractional-
reserve free-banking systems to prevent artificial expansion
and economic recessions. In fact during the first half of the
nineteenth century, Chile had no central bank and imple-
mented a 100-percent reserve requirement in banking. For sev-
eral decades its citizens firmly resisted attempts to introduce a
fractional-reserve banking system, and during those years they
enjoyed great economic and financial stability. The situation
began to change in 1853, when the Chilean government hired
Jean-Gustav Courcelle-Seneuil (1813-1892), one of the most
prominent French fractional-reserve free-banking theorists, as
professor of economics at the University of Santiago de Chile.
149Sidney G. Checkland, Scottish Banking: A History, 1695-1973 (Glas-
gow: Collins, 1975). White himself recognizes in his book that Check-
land's is the definitive work on the history of the Scottish banking sys-
tem.
150Though much work remains to be done, historical studies on frac-
tional-reserve free-banking systems with very few (if any) legal restric-
tions and no central bank appear to confirm that these systems were capa-
ble of triggering significant credit expansion and provoking economic
recessions. This is what took place, for instance, in Italian and Spanish
financial markets in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries (see chapter
2, section 3), as Carlo M. Cipolla and others have revealed, as well as in
Scotland and Chile, as we indicate in the text.
704 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Courcelle-Seneuil's influence in Chile during the ten years he
taught there was so great that in 1860 a law permitting the
establishment of fractional-reserve free banking (with no cen-
tral bank) was enacted. At this point the traditional financial
stability of the Chilean system gave way to stages of artificial
expansion (based on the concession of new loans), followed
by bank failures and economic crises. The convertibility of the
paper currency was suspended on several occasions (1865,
1867, and 1879), and a period of inflation and serious eco-
nomic, financial and social maladjustment began. This period
resides in the collective memory of Chileans and explains
why they continue to mistakenly associate financial distur-
bances with the doctrinal economic liberalism of Courcelle-
Seneuil.151
151Albert O. Hirschman, in his article, "Courcelle-Seneuil, Jean-Gustav,"
The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, John Eatwell, Murray Mil-
gate, and Peter Newman (London: Macmillan, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 706-07,
states that Chileans have even come to demonize Courcelle-Seneuil and
to blame him for all the economic and financial evils which befell Chile
in the nineteenth century. Murray N. Rothbard believes this demoniza-
tion is unjust and stems from the fact that the poor functioning of the
free-banking system Courcelle-Seneuil introduced in Chile also discred-
ited the deregulating initiatives he launched in other areas (such as min-
ing), when these efforts had a positive effect. See Murray N. Rothbard,
"The Other Side of the Coin: Free Banking in Chile," Austrian Economics
Newsletter (Winter, 1989): 1-4. George Selgin responds to Rothbard's
article on free banking in Chile in his paper, "Short-Changed in Chile:
The Truth about the Free-Banking Episode," Austrian Economics Newslet-
ter (Spring-Winter, 1990): 5ff. Selgin himself acknowledges that the
period of free banking in Chile from 1866 to 1874 was an "era of remark-
able growth and progress," during which "Chile's railroad and tele-
graph systems were developed, the port of Valparaiso was enlarged and
improved, and fiscal reserves increased by one-quarter." According to
the Austrian theory, all of these phenomena are actually symptoms of
the substantial credit expansion which took place during those years
and was ultimately bound to reverse in the form of a recession (as, in
fact, occurred). However Selgin attributes the subsequent bank crises
(but not the recessions) to the Chilean government's maintenance of an
artificial parity between gold and silver. When gold rose in value, this
parity resulted in the massive outflow of gold reserves from the country
(see Selgin, "Short-Changed in Chile," pp. 5, 6 and footnote 3 on p. 7).
Central and Free Banking Theory 705
Moreover the fact that various historical studies appear to
indicate that fewer bank runs and crises arose in free-banking
systems than in central-banking systems does not mean the
former were completely free of such episodes. Selgin himself
mentions at least three instances in which acute bank crises
devastated free-banking systems: Scotland in 1797, Canada in
1837, and Australia in 1893. 152 If Rothbard is correct, and in
the rest of the cases institutional restrictions played the role of
central bank to at least some extent, then the number of bank
crises might have been much larger in the absence of these
restrictions.153 At any rate we must not consider the elimina-
tion of bank crises to be the definitive criterion for determin-
ing which banking system is the best. If this were the case,
even the most radical fractional-reserve free-banking theorists
would be obliged to admit that the best banking system is that
which requires the maintenance of a 100 percent reserve, since
by definition this is the only system which in all circumstances
prevents bank crises and runs.154
In short, historical experience does not appear to support
the thesis of modern fractional-reserve free-banking theorists.
Bank credit expansion gave rise to cycles of boom and depres-
sion in even the least controlled free-banking systems, which
were not free from bank runs and failures. The recognition of
this fact has led certain neo-banking authors, such as Stephen
Horwitz, to insist that though historical evidence against their
views is of some significance, it does not serve to refute the
theory that fractional-reserve free banking produces only
152Selgin, "Are Banking Crises a Free-Market Phenomenon?" Table 1(b),
p. 27.
153Raymond Bogaert appears to confirm Rothbard's thesis. According
to Bogaert, we have documented proof that of 163 banks created in
Venice starting at the end of the Middle Ages, at least 93 failed. Ray-
mond Bogaert, Banques et banquiers dans les cites grecques, p. 392 footnote
513.
154Thus Selgin himself recognizes: "A 100-percent reserve banking cri-
sis is an impossibility." See George A. Selgin, "Are Banking Crises a
Free-Market Phenomenon?" p. 2.
706 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
benign effects, since strictly theoretical procedures must be
used to refute this theory.155
Ignorance of Legal Arguments
Theorists of fractional-reserve banking tend to exclude
legal considerations from their analysis. They fail to see that
the study of banking issues must be chiefly multidisciplinary
and they overlook the close theoretical and practical connec-
tion between the legal and economic aspects of all social
processes.
Thus free-banking theorists lose sight of the fact that frac-
tional-reserve banking involves a logical impossibility from a
legal standpoint. Indeed at the beginning of this book we
explained that any bank loan granted against demand-deposit
funds results in the dual availability of the same quantity of
money: the same money is accessible to the original depositor
and to the borrower who receives the loan. Obviously the
same thing cannot be available to two people simultaneously
and to grant the availability of something to a second person
while it remains available to the first is to act fraudulently156
155With respect to methodology, we fully concur with Horwitz's posi-
tion (see his "Misreading the 'Myth', p. 167). However it is curious that
an entire school which emerged with the analysis of the supposedly
beneficial results of the Scottish free-banking system has been forced to
stop relying on historical studies of the free-banking system. Stephen
Horwitz, commenting on Rothbard's review of free-banking history,
concludes:
If Rothbard is correct about them, we should look more scep-
tically at Scotland as an example. But noting the existence of
government interference cannot by itself defeat the theoreti-
cal argument. The Scottish banks were neither perfectly free
nor a conclusive test case. The theory of free banking still
stands, and its opponents need to tackle it on both the histor-
ical and the theoretical level to refute it. (p. 168)
This is precisely what we have attempted in this book.
156Hoppe, "How is Fiat Money Possible? — or, The Devolution of Money
and Credit," p. 67.
Central and Free Banking Theory 707
Such an act clearly constitutes misappropriation and fraud,
offenses committed during at least the early stages in the
development of the modern banking system, as we saw in
chapter 2.
Once bankers obtained from governments the privilege of
operating with a fractional reserve, from the standpoint of
positive law this banking method ceased to be a crime, and
when citizens act in a system backed in this way by law, we
must rule out the possibility of criminal fraud. Nevertheless,
as we saw in chapters 1 through 3, this privilege in no way
provides the monetary bank-deposit contract with an appro-
priate legal nature. Quite the opposite is true. In most cases
this contract is null and void, due to a discrepancy concerning
its cause: depositors view the transaction as a deposit, while
bankers view it as a loan. According to general legal princi-
ples, whenever the parties involved in an exchange hold con-
flicting beliefs as to the nature of the contract entered into, the
contract is null and void.
Moreover even if depositors and bankers agreed that their
transaction amounts to a loan, the legal nature of the mone-
tary bank-deposit contract would be no more appropriate.
From an economic perspective, we have seen that it is theo-
retically impossible for banks to return, under all circum-
stances, the deposits entrusted to them beyond the amount of
reserves they hold. Furthermore this impossibility is aggra-
vated to the extent that fractional-reserve banking itself tends
to provoke economic crises and recessions which repetitively
endanger banks' solvency. According to general legal princi-
ples, contracts which are impossible to put into practice are also
null and void. Only a 100-percent reserve requirement, which
would guarantee the return of all deposits at any moment, or
the support of a central bank, which would supply all neces-
sary liquidity in times of difficulty, could make such "loan"
contracts (with an agreement for the return of the face value at
any time) possible and therefore valid.
The argument that monetary bank-deposit contracts are
impossible to honor only periodically and under extreme cir-
cumstances cannot redeem the legal nature of the contract
either, since fractional-reserve banking constitutes a breach of
708 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
public order and harms third parties. In fact, because frac-
tional-reserve banking expands loans without the support of
real saving, it distorts the productive structure and therefore
leads loan recipients, entrepreneurs deceived by the increased
flexibility of credit terms, to make ultimately unprofitable
investments. With the eruption of the inevitable economic cri-
sis, businessmen are forced to halt and liquidate these invest-
ment projects. As a result, a high economic, social, and per-
sonal cost must be borne by not only the entrepreneurs
"guilty" of the errors, but also all other economic agents
involved in the production process (workers, suppliers, etc.).
Hence we may not argue, as White, Selgin, and others do,
that in a free society bankers and their customers should be
free to make whatever contractual agreements they deem
most appropriate.157 For even an agreement found satisfactory
by both parties is invalid if it represents a misuse of law or
harms third parties and therefore disrupts the public order.
This applies to monetary bank deposits which are held with a
fractional reserve and in which, contrary to the norm, both
parties are fully aware of the true legal nature and implica-
tions of the agreement.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe158 explains that this type of con-
tract is detrimental to third parties in at least three different
ways. First, credit expansion increases the money supply and
thereby diminishes the purchasing power of the monetary
units held by all others with cash balances, individuals whose
monetary units thus drop in buying power in relation to the
value they would have had in the absence of credit expansion.
Second, depositors in general are harmed, since the credit
expansion process reduces the probability that, in the absence
of a central bank, they will be able to recover all of the mone-
tary units originally deposited; if a central bank exists, depos-
itors are wronged in that, even if they are guaranteed the
157See, for example, White, Competition and Currency (New York: New
York University Press, 1989), pp. 55-56, and Selgin, "Short-Changed in
Chile," p. 5.
158Hoppe, "How is Fiat Money Possible? — or, The Devolution of Money
and Credit," pp. 70-71.
Central and Free Banking Theory 709
repayment of their deposits at any time, no one can guarantee
they will be repaid in monetary units of undiminished pur-
chasing power. Third, all other borrowers and economic
agents are harmed, since the creation of fiduciary credit and
its injection into the economic system jeopardizes the entire
credit system and distorts the productive structure, thus
increasing the risk that entrepreneurs will launch projects
which will fail in the process of their completion and cause
untold human suffering when credit expansion ushers in the
stage of economic recession.159
In a free-banking system, when the purchasing power of
money declines in relation to the value money would have
were credit not expanded in a fractional-reserve environment,
participants (depositors and, especially, bankers) act to the
detriment of third parties. The very definition of money
reveals that any manipulation of it, society's universal
medium of exchange, will exert harmful effects on almost all
third-party participants throughout the economic system.
Therefore it does not matter whether or not depositors,
bankers, and borrowers voluntarily reach specific agreements
if, through fractional-reserve banking, such agreements influ-
ence money and harm the public in general (third parties).
Such damage renders the contract null and void, due to its
159The multidisciplinary nature inherent in the critical analysis of the
fractional-reserve banking system and the resulting importance of both
legal and economic considerations in this analysis not only comprise the
focal point of this book; Walter Block also highlights them in his article,
"Fractional Reserve Banking: An Interdisciplinary Perspective/' pub-
lished as chapter 3 of Man, Economy, and Liberty: Essays in Honor of Mur-
ray N. Rothbard, Walter Block and Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., eds.
(Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1988), pp. 24-32. Block
points out the curious fact that no theorist from the modern, Fractional-
Reserve Free-Banking School has built a critical, systematic case against
the proposal of a banking system with a 100-percent reserve require-
ment. In fact, except for a few comments from Horwitz, neo-banking
theorists have yet to even attempt to show that a banking system with a
100-percent reserve requirement would fail to guarantee "monetary
equilibrium" and an absence of economic cycles. See Horwitz, "Keynes'
Special Theory," pp. 431-32, footnote 18.
710 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
disruption of the public order.160 Economically speaking, the
qualitative effects of credit expansion are identical to those of
the criminal act of counterfeiting banknotes and coins, an
offense covered, for instance, by articles 386-389 of the new
Spanish Penal Code.161 Both acts entail the creation of money,
the redistribution of income in favor of a few citizens and to
the detriment of all others, and the distortion of the produc-
tive structure. Nonetheless, from a quantitative standpoint,
only credit expansion can increase the money supply at a fast
enough pace and on a large enough scale to feed an artificial
boom and provoke a recession. In comparison with the credit
expansion of fractional-reserve banking and the manipulation
of money by governments and central banks, the criminal act
of counterfeiting currency is child's play with practically
imperceptible social consequences.
The above legal considerations have not failed to influence
White, Selgin, and other modern free-banking theorists, who
have proposed, as a last line of defense to guarantee the sta-
bility of their system, that "free" banks establish a "safeguard"
clause on their notes and deposits, a clause to inform cus-
tomers that the bank may decide at any moment to suspend or
postpone the return of deposits or the payment of notes in
specie.162 Clearly the introduction of this clause would mean
160Our position on this point is even more radical than the one Alberto
Benegas Lynch takes in his book, Voder y razon razonable (Buenos Aires
and Barcelona: Libreria "El Ateneo" Editorial, 1992), pp. 313-14.
161 The following shall be punishable by a prison term of eight to
twelve years and a fine of up to ten times the face value of the
currency: 1. The creation of counterfeit currency. (Article 386
of the new Spanish Penal Code)
It is important to note that credit expansion, like the counterfeiting of
money, inflicts particularly diffuse damage on society, and therefore it
would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to fight this crime
based on each injured party's demonstration of harm suffered. The crime
of producing counterfeit currency is defined in terms of a perpetrator's
act and not in terms of the specific personal damage caused by the act.
162Such "option clauses" were in force in Scottish banks from 1730 to
1765 and reserved the right to temporarily suspend payment in specie
Central and Free Banking Theory 711
eliminating from the corresponding instruments an important
characteristic of money: perfect, i.e., immediate, complete, and
never conditional, liquidity. Thus not only would depositors
become forced lenders at the will of the banker, but a deposit
would become a type of aleatory contract or lottery, in which
the possibility of withdrawing the cash deposited would
depend on the particular circumstances of each moment.
There can be no objection to the voluntary decision of certain
parties to enter into such an atypical aleatory contract as that
mentioned above. However, even if a "safeguard" clause were
introduced and participants (bankers and their customers)
of the notes banks had issued. Thus, in reference to bank runs, Selgin
states:
Banks in a free banking system might however avoid such a
fate by issuing liabilities contractually subject to a 'restriction'
of base money payments. By restricting payments banks can
insulate the money stock and other nominal magnitudes from
panic-related effects. (Selgin, "Free Banking and Monetary
Control," p. 1455)
The fact that Selgin considers resorting to such clauses to avoid bank
runs is as significant in terms of the "solvency" of his own theory as it
is surprising from a legal perspective that the attempt is made to base a
system on the expropriation, albeit partial and temporary, of the prop-
erty rights of depositors and note holders, who, in a crisis, would be
transformed into forced lenders and would no longer be considered true
depositors and holders of monetary units, or more specifically, perfect
money substitutes. Let us remember a comment from Adam Smith him-
self:
The directors of some of those [Scottish] banks sometimes
took advantage of this optional clause, and sometimes threat-
ened those who demanded gold and silver in exchange for a
considerable number of their notes, that they would take
advantage of it, unless such demanders would content them-
selves with a part of what they demanded. (Smith, An Inquiry
into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book II,
chap. 2, pp. 394-95)
On option clauses, see Parth J. Shah, "The Option Clause in Free Bank-
ing Theory and History: A Reappraisal," a manuscript presented at the
2nd Austrian Scholars Conference (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises
Institute, April 4-5, 1997), later printed in the Review of Austrian Eco-
nomics 10, no. 2 (1997): 1-25.
712 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
were fully aware of it, to the extent that these individuals and
all other economic agents subjectively considered demand
deposits and notes to be perfect money substitutes, the clause
referred to would only be capable of preventing the immedi-
ate suspension of payments or failure of banks in the event of
a bank run. It would not prevent all of the recurrent processes
of expansion, crisis and recession which are typical of frac-
tional-reserve banking, seriously harm third parties and dis-
rupt the public order. (It does not matter which "option
clauses" are included in contracts, if the general public con-
siders the above instruments to be perfect money substi-
tutes.) Hence, at most, option clauses can protect banks, but
not society nor the economic system, from successive stages
of credit expansion, boom and recession. Therefore White
and Selgin's last line of defense in no way abolishes the fact
that fractional-reserve banking inflicts severe, systematic
damage on third parties and disrupts the public order.163
163It is interesting to note that many free-banking theorists fail to see
that fractional-reserve banking is illegitimate from the standpoint of
general legal principles, and instead of proposing the eradication of
fractional-reserve banking, they suggest the banking system be com-
pletely privatized and the central bank be eliminated. This measure
would certainly tend to check the practically unlimited abuses authori-
ties have committed in the financial field, but it would not prevent the
possibility of abuses (on a smaller scale) in the private sphere. This sit-
uation resembles that which would arise if governments were allowed
to systematically engage in murder, robbery, or any other crime. The
harm to society would be tremendous, given the enormous power and
the monopolistic nature of the state. The privatization of these criminal
acts (an end to governments' systematic perpetration of them) 'would
undoubtedly tend to "improve" the situation considerably, since the
great criminal power of the state would disappear and private economic
agents would be permitted to spontaneously develop methods to pre-
vent and defend themselves against such crimes. Nevertheless the pri-
vatization of criminal activity is no definitive solution to the problems
crime poses. We can only completely solve these problems by fighting
crime by all possible means, even when private agents are the perpetra-
tors. Thus we conclude with Murray N. Rothbard that in an ideal free-
market economic system:
[F]ractional-reserve bankers must be treated not as mere
entrepreneurs who made unfortunate business decisions but
Central and Tree Banking Theory 713
5
Conclusion: The False Debate Between
Supporters of Central Banking and Defenders
of Fractional-Reserve Free Banking
The traditional approach to the debate between advocates
of central banking and those of fractional-reserve free banking
is essentially flawed. First, this approach ignores the fact that
the fractional-reserve free-banking system almost inevitably
releases forces which lead to the emergence, development,
and consolidation of a central bank. Fractional-reserve bank-
ing gives rise to credit expansion, which triggers reversion
processes in the form of financial crises and economic reces-
sions, which in turn inevitably prompt citizens to demand
government intervention and state regulation of banking.
Second, the very bankers involved in the system soon dis-
cover that they can reduce the risk of insolvency if they make
agreements between themselves, merge or even demand the
establishment of a lender of last resort to provide them with
the liquidity necessary in times of difficulty or to institution-
alize and officially direct the growth of credit expansion.
We can conclude that fractional-reserve banking has been
the main historical cause of the appearance and development
of the central bank. Hence we must not approach the theoret-
ical and practical debate in traditional terms, but in terms of
two radically different systems: a free-banking system subject
to traditional legal principles (a 100-percent reserve require-
ment) and in which all fractional-reserve operations, whether
voluntarily agreed upon or not, are cracked down on as ille-
gal and a breach of public order; and a system which permits
as counterfeiters and embezzlers who should be cracked
down on by the full majesty of the law. Forced repayment to
all the victims plus substantial jail terms should serve as a
deterrent as well as to meet punishment for this criminal
activity. (Murray N. Rothbard, "The Present State of Austrian
Economics," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines 6,
no. 1 [March 1995]: 80-81; reprinted in Rothbard, The Logic of
Action I [Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1997], p. 165)
714 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
fractional-reserve banking and from which a central bank
(lender of last resort) will inevitably emerge and control the
entire financial system.
These are the only two theoretically and practically viable
alternatives. Up to this point we have examined the economic
effects of fractional-reserve banking, both orchestrated by a
central bank and in a free-banking system. In the next and
last chapter we will carefully analyze a free-banking system
subject to traditional legal principles, i.e., a 100-percent
reserve requirement.164
164Leland Yeager seems to have (at least tacitly) accepted my thesis on
the unworkability of a fractional-reserve free-banking system, when he
proposes a monetary system based only on bank money in which all
bank reserve requirements are abolished and no outside or base money
is used at all. Yeager 's system would be prone, of course, to all the cycli-
cal problems we have analyzed in detail in this book. See Yeager, "The
Perils of Base Money."
9
A Proposal For Banking
Reform: The Theory of
a 100-Percent Reserve
Requirement
In this last chapter, following a brief review of twentieth-
century proposals for the establishment of a 100-percent
reserve requirement in banking, we will present our rec-
ommendation for reforming the banking system, a proposal
based on free-banking practices subject to the traditional legal
principles which govern the monetary bank-deposit contract
(a 100-percent reserve requirement). We will then compare the
advantages of the proposed system with those of other possi-
ble systems, specifically the current banking and financial sys-
tem and a fractional-reserve free-banking system. At that
point we will review and answer the different objections made
to proposals for a 100-percent reserve requirement. Then, after
presenting a program of transitional stages which makes it
feasible to move from the current banking and financial sys-
tem to the model proposed, we will finish the chapter with a
series of comments on the possible application of our recom-
mendations to the specific cases of the European Monetary
Union and the monetary and financial reconstruction under
way in countries of the former Eastern bloc. The book ends
with a summary of the most significant conclusions reached.
715
716 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
1
A History of Modern Theories in Support of
a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
We know that distrust of fractional-reserve banking dates
back at least as far as the Salamancan theorists of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, David Hume in the eighteenth cen-
tury, theorists of the school of Jefferson and Jackson in the
decades following the founding of the United States, and the
important group of theorists from nineteenth-century conti-
nental Europe (Modeste and Cernuschi in France; Michaelis,
Hubner, Geyer, and Tellkampf in Germany). Moreover, certain
highly distinguished economists of the twentieth century,
such as Ludwig von Mises and at least four recipients of the
Nobel Prize for Economics (Friedrich A. Hayek, Milton Fried-
man, James Tobin, and Maurice Allais) have at some point
defended the establishment of a 100-percent reserve require-
ment on demand deposits placed at banks.
The Proposal of Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises was the first twentieth-century econo-
mist to propose the establishment of a banking system with a
100-percent reserve requirement on demand deposits. Mises
made his recommendation in the first edition of his book, The
Theory of Money and Credit, published in 1912. At the end of
this first edition, in a section literally reproduced in the sec-
ond, which was printed in 1924, Mises draws the following
conclusion:
Fiduciary media are scarcely different in nature from
money; a supply of them affects the market in the same way
as a supply of money proper; variations in their quantity
influence the objective exchange value of money in just the
same way as do variations in the quantity of money proper.
Hence, they should logically be subjected to the same prin-
ciples that have been established with regard to money
proper; the same attempts should be made in their case as
well to eliminate as far as possible human influence on the
exchange ratio between money and other economic goods.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 7X7
The possibility of causing temporary fluctuations in the
exchange ratios between goods of higher and of lower
orders by the issue of fiduciary media, and the pernicious
consequences connected with a divergence between the nat-
ural and money rates of interest, are circumstances leading
to the same conclusion. Now it is obvious that the only way of
eliminating human influence on the credit system is to suppress
all further issue of fiduciary media. The basic conception of Peel's
Act ought to be restated and more completely implemented than it
was in the England of his time by including the issue of credit in
the form of bank balances within the legislative prohibition.
Mises adds:
It would be a mistake to assume that the modern organiza-
tion of exchange is bound to continue to exist. It carries
within itself the germ of its own destruction; the development of
the fiduciary medium must necessarily lead to its break-
down.1
Mises again considers the model for an ideal banking sys-
tem in his 1928 book, Geldwertstabilisierung und Konjunktur-
politik (Monetary stabilization and cyclical policy). There we
read:
iMises, The Theory of Money and Credit, pp. 446-48; italics added. This is
the best and most recent English edition of Mises's book. The above
excerpt, in Mises's exact words, follows:
Es leuchtet ein, dass menschlicher Einfluss aus dem Umlauf-
smittelwesen nicht anders ausgeschaltet werden kann als
durch die Unterdriickung der weiteren Ausgabe von Umlauf-
smitteln. Der Grundgedanke der Peelschen Akte musste
wieder aufgenommen und durch Miteinbeziehung der in
Form von Kassenfuhrungsguthaben ausgegebenen Umlaufs-
mittel in das gesetzliche Verbot der Neuausgabe in vol-
lkommenerer Weise durchgefuhrt werden als dies seinerzeit
in England geschah. . . . Es ware ein Irrtum, wollte man
annehmen, dass der Bestand der modernen Organisation des
Tauschverkehres fur die Zukunft gesichert sei. Sie tragt in
ihrem Innern bereits den Keim der Zerstorung. Die Entwick-
lung des Umlaufsmittels muss notwendigerweise zu ihrem
Zusammenbruch fuhren. (Mises, Theorie des Geldes und der
Umlaufsmittel, pp. 418-19)
718 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The most important prerequisite of any cyclical policy no
matter how modest its goal may be, is to renounce every
attempt to reduce the interest rate, by means of banking pol-
icy, below the rate which develops on the market. That
means a return to the theory of the Currency School, which
sought to suppress all future expansion of circulation credit
and thus all further creation of fiduciary media. However,
this does not mean a return to the old Currency School pro-
gram, the application of which was limited to banknotes.
Rather it means the introduction of a new program based on
the old Currency School theory, but expanded in the light of
the present state of knowledge to include fiduciary media
issued in the form of bank deposits. The banks would be
obliged at all times to maintain metallic backing for all notes —
except for the sum of those outstanding which are not now covered
by metal — equal to the total sum of the notes issued and bank
deposits opened. That would mean a complete reorganization of
central bank legislation. . . . By this act alone, cyclical policy
would be directed in earnest toward the elimination of crises.1
Two years later, on October 10, 1930, before the Financial
Committee of the League of Nations in Geneva, Mises deliv-
ered a memorandum on "The Suitability of Methods of Ascer-
taining Changes in the Purchasing Power for the Guidance of
2Mises, Geldwertstabilisierung und Konjunkturpolitik, p. 81; English trans-
lation On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, pp. 57-173. The above
excerpt appears on pp. 167-68 and the italics have been added. The
exception Mises includes between dashes indicates that he, in keeping
with the spirit of Peel's Act, merely calls for a 100 percent reserve in rela-
tion to newly-issued fiduciary media (deposits and banknotes) which
would mean that the stock of these already issued at the time the reform
is launched would remain unbacked by specie. The implementation of
Mises's proposal would represent a large step forward and in practice
could be achieved quite easily without initially producing substantial
changes in the market value of gold. However the proposal is imperfect.
It would leave banks without backing on those bills and deposits issued
in the past, and banks would thus be particularly vulnerable to possible
crises of confidence. Therefore in this chapter we propose a more radi-
cal program consisting of a 100-percent reserve requirement on all fidu-
ciary media (whether already issued or not). Bettina Bien Greaves has
developed Mises's proposal in detail in "How to Return to the Gold
Standard," The Treeman: Ideas on Liberty (November 1995): 703-07.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 719
International Currency and Banking Policy." There, before the
monetary and banking experts of his day Mises expressed his
ideas as follows:
It is characteristic of the gold standard that the banks are not
allowed to increase the amount of notes and bank balances
without a gold backing, beyond the total which was in cir-
culation at the time the system was introduced. Peel's Bank
Act of 1844, and the various banking laws which are more
or less based on it, represent attempts to create a pure gold
standard of this kind. The attempt was incomplete because its
restrictions on circulation included only banknotes, leaving out of
account bank balances on which cheques could be drawn. The
founders of the Currency School failed to recognize the
essential similarity between payments by cheque and pay-
ments by banknote. As a result of this oversight, those
responsible for this legislation never accomplished their
Mises would later explain that a banking system based on
the gold standard and a 100-percent reserve requirement
would tend to push prices down slightly, which would bene-
fit most citizens, since it would raise their real income, not
through a nominal increase in earnings but through a contin-
ual reduction in the prices of consumer goods and services
and relative constancy in nominal income. Mises deems such
a monetary and banking system far superior to the current
system, which is beset with chronic inflation and recurrent
cycles of expansion and recession. In reference to the eco-
nomic depression then afflicting the world, Mises concludes:
The root cause of the evil is not in the restrictions, but in the
expansion which preceded them. The policy of the banks does
not deserve criticism for having at last called a halt to the expan-
sion of credit, but, rather, for ever having allowed it to begin.4
3This memorandum had been forgotten and was rediscovered in the
League of Nations archives when Richard M. Ebeling was preparing
materials for the book, Money, Method, and the Market Process, pp. 78-95.
The above excerpt appears on p. 90; italics added.
4Ibid., p. 91; italics added.
720 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Ten years after delivering this memo before the League of
Nations, Mises once more defended a 100-percent reserve
requirement, this time in the first German edition of his all-
embracing economic treatise, published as Nationalokonomie:
Theorie des Handelns und Wirtschaftens (Economics: Theory of
Action and Exchange). Here Mises again presents his thesis that
the ideas essential to the Currency School require the applica-
tion of a 100-percent reserve requirement to all fiduciary
media; that is, not only to banknotes, but also to bank
deposits. Moreover, in this book Mises advocates the aboli-
tion of the central bank and indicates that while this institu-
tion continues to exist, even if the issuance of new fiduciary
media (bills and deposits) is strictly prohibited, there will
always be a danger that "emergency" budget difficulties will
be cited as political justification for issuing new fiduciary
media to help finance the needs of the state. Mises implicitly
responds thus to theorists of the Chicago School who in the
1930s proposed that a 100-percent reserve requirement be set
for banking, but that the monetary base remain fiduciary, and
that the responsibility for issuing and controlling the stock of
money continue to fall to the central bank. Mises does not
consider this the best solution. In this case, even with a 100-
percent reserve requirement, money would still ultimately
depend on a central bank and would therefore be subject to
all sorts of pressures and influences, particularly the danger
that in a financial emergency the state would exercise its
power to issue currency in order to finance itself. According
to Mises, the ideal solution would thus be to establish a sys-
tem of free banking (i.e., without a central bank) subject to
traditional legal principles (and hence, a 100-percent reserve
requirement).5 In this book Mises accompanies his defense of
5Mises's exact words follow:
Wenn heute, dem Grundgedanken der Currency-Lehre
entsprechend, auch fur das Kassenfuhrungsguthaben voile —
hundertprozentige — Deckung verlangt wird, damit die
Erweiterung der Umlaufsmittelausgabe auch in dieser
Gestalt unterbunden werde, dann ist das folgerichtiger Aus-
bau der Ideen, die jenem alten englischen Gesetz zugrunde-
lagen. . . . Auch das scharfste Verbot der Erweiterung der
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 721
a 100-percent reserve requirement with his objection not only
to the central bank, but also to a fractional-reserve free-bank-
ing system: although such a system would greatly limit the
issuance of fiduciary media, it would be inadequate to com-
pletely eliminate credit expansion nor the recurrent booms
and economic recessions which inevitably come with it.6
In 1949 Yale University Press published the first English
edition of Ludwig von Mises's economic treatise, entitled
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. In this English edition
Mises repeats the arguments from the German edition, but
he expressly refers to Irving Fisher's plan for establishing a
100-percent reserve requirement for banking. Mises disap-
proves of Fisher's plan, not because it includes a proposal for
a 100-percent reserve requirement, which Mises fully sup-
ports, but because Fisher seeks to combine this measure with
Umlaufsmittelausgabe versagt gegenuber einer Notstandsge-
setzgebung. (Mises, Nationalokonomie, 2nd ed. [Munich:
Philosophia Verlag, 1980, p. 403)
6 In this sense, Mises's footnote on p. 402 of Nationalokonomie is particu-
larly illustrative. It reads:
Fiir die Katallaktik ist der Begriff "normale Kreditausweitung"
sinnlos. Jede Kreditausweitung wirkt auf die Gestaltung der
Preise, Lohne und Zinssatze und lost den Prozess aus, den zu
beschreiben die Aufgabe der Konjunkturtheorie ist.
This footnote was later translated into English on p. 442 of the 3rd rev.
ed. of Human Action:
The notion of "normal" credit expansion is absurd. Issuance
of additional fiduciary media, no matter what its quantity
may be, always sets in motion those changes in the price
structure the description of which is the task of the theory of
the trade cycle. Of course, if the additional amount issued is
not large, neither are the inevitable effects of the expansion.
This statement from Mises has generated substantial confusion among
those members of the Austrian School who defend a fractional-reserve
free-banking system (White, Selgin, Horwitz, etc.). The assertion reveals
Mises's belief that such a system would not escape the phases of expan-
sion and recession characteristic of the economic cycle (though they
would be less severe than those which affect current banking systems
backed by a central bank). Remember also what we said in footnote 120
of chapter 8.
722 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
the conservation of the central bank and the adoption of an
indexed monetary unit. In fact, according to Mises, the sug-
gestion to reestablish a 100-percent reserve requirement, yet
preserve the central bank, is insufficient:
[I]t would not entirely remove the drawbacks inherent in
every kind of government interference with banking. What
is needed to prevent any further credit expansion is to place
the banking business under the general rules of commercial
and civil laws compelling every individual and firm to ful-
fill all obligations in full compliance with the terms of the
contract.7
Mises again expresses his ideas on a 100-percent reserve
requirement in an appendix (on "Monetary reconstruction")
to the 1953 English reissue of The Theory of Money and Credit,
where he explicitly states:
The main thing is that the government should no longer be
in a position to increase the quantity of money in circulation
and the amount of checkbook money not fully — that is, 100
percent — covered by deposits paid in by the public.
Furthermore, in this appendix Mises also proposes a process
of transition to the ideal system, with the following goal:
No bank must be permitted to expand the total amount of
its deposits subject to check or the balance of such deposits
of any individual customer, be he a private citizen or the
U.S. Treasury, otherwise than by receiving cash deposits in
legal-tender banknotes from the public or by receiving a
check payable by another domestic bank subject to the same
limitations. This means a rigid 100 percent reserve for all future
deposits; that is, all deposits not already in existence on the first
day of the reform?
7Mises, Human Action, 3rd ed., p. 443. Here, for the first time, Mises indi-
cates that the problems related to the banking system stem from the fact
that its participants are not subject to traditional legal principles. This is
the fundamental idea Murray N. Rothbard would later develop and
which lies at the heart of our thesis.
8Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, pp. 481 and 491; italics added.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 723
Though further on we will again deal with the process of
transition to the ideal banking system, we observe here that
Mises, in keeping with his 1928 writings, proposes the same
system of transition as the one applied to banknotes with
Peel's Act (which required that only newly -created bills be
backed 100 percent by specie).9
Friedrich A. Hayek and the Proposal of a 100-Percent
Reserve Requirement
Friedrich A. Hayek, undoubtedly Mises's most brilliant
disciple, first wrote about a 100-percent reserve requirement
when, at the age of twenty-five, he published the article, "The
Monetary Policy of the United States after the Recovery from
the 1920 Crisis," following his return from a study tour of the
United States. Indeed, in this article, Hayek strongly criticizes
the monetary policy the Federal Reserve had put into opera-
tion at the time. The Fed's policy was designed to maintain the
stability of the dollar's purchasing power in a context of rap-
idly growing productivity, and it had already begun to gener-
ate the substantial credit expansion which would ultimately
cause the Great Depression. For the first time in his life, Hayek
^Despite Mises's crystal clear statements in favor of a 100-percent
reserve requirement, his defense of free banking as an indirect step
toward the ideal of a 100 percent reserve (and thus toward a banking
system subject to traditional legal principles) has prompted some Aus-
trian theorists of the modern Neo-Banking School to make a self-inter-
ested interpretation of Mises's position. Thus these theorists view Mises
as a defender of fractional-reserve free banking first, and of banking
with a 100 percent reserve second. For instance, see White, "Mises on
Free Banking and Fractional Reserves," pp. 517-33. In an interesting
article, Joseph T. Salerno recently showed White's position to be unten-
able:
because he overlooks important passages in the very works of
Mises that he cites, and because he ignores significant devel-
opments in Mises's theory of money that occurred between
the publication of the first German edition of The Theory of
Money and Credit in 1912 and the publication of Nation-
alokonomie in 1940. (Salerno, "Mises and Hayek Dehomoge-
nized," pp. 137-46)
724 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
refers to the 100-percent reserve requirement in a footnote of
this seminal article. He states:
As we have already emphasized, the older English theo-
reticians of the currency school had a firmer grasp of this
than the majority of economists who came after them. The
currency school hoped also to prevent cyclical fluctuations
by the regulation of the note issue they proposed. But since
they took only the effects of the note issue into account and
neglected those of deposit money and the restrictions
imposed upon bank credit could always be got round by
an expansion of transfers through bank deposits, Peel's
Bank Act and the central bank statute modelled upon it
could not achieve this aim. The problem of the prevention of
crises would have received a radical solution if the basic concept
of Peel's Act had been consistently developed into the prescrip-
tion of 100 percent gold cover for bank deposits as well as
notes.10
In his remarkable work, Monetary Nationalism and Inter-
national Stability, published twelve years later in 1937, F.A.
Hayek again speaks of establishing a banking system based
on a 100-percent reserve requirement. At that time, theorists
of the Chicago School had already made a similar proposal,
which they attempted to base on the central bank's paper
currency. In contrast Hayek asserts that the ideal solution
would be to combine a 100-percent reserve requirement for
banking with a return to a pure gold standard. In this way, all
bank-notes and deposits would be backed by gold 100 percent,
and a worldwide, sound monetary system effective at prevent-
ing government manipulation and "monetary nationalism"
would emerge. Hayek concludes:
l°Hayek, "The Monetary Policy of the United States after the Recov-
ery from the 1920 Crisis," chapter 1 of Money, Capital and Fluctuations:
Early Essays, p. 29; italics added. This article is the English translation
of the theoretical portion of the original, which was published in Ger-
man with the title, "Die Wahrungspolitik der Vereinigten Staaten seit
der Uberwindung der Krise von 1920," Zeitschrift fur Volkswirtschaft
und Sozialpolitik, vols. 1-3, no. 5 (1925): 25-63 and vols. 4-6, pp.
254-317.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 725
The undeniable attractiveness of this proposal lies exactly in
the feature which makes it appear somewhat impracticable,
in the fact that in effect it amounts ... to an abolition of deposit
banking as we know it.11
Nearly forty years later, F.A. Hayek again took up the sub-
ject of money and banking in his famous work, Denationaliza-
tion of Money. Although modern fractional-reserve free-bank-
ing theorists have used this book to justify their model, there
is no doubt that Hayek proposes a system of free banking and
private issuance of monetary units and that ultimately he
wishes to see the banking model with a 100-percent reserve
requirement prevail. In fact in the section he devotes to the
change of policy in commercial banking, Hayek concludes
that the vast majority of banks
clearly would have to be content to do their business in
other currencies. They would thus have to practise a kind of
"100 percent banking," and keep a full reserve against all
their obligations payable on demand.
Hayek adds a harsh criticism of the current banking sys-
tem:
An institution which has proved as harmful as fractional
reserve banking without the responsibility of the individual
bank for the money (i.e., cheque deposits) it created cannot
complain if support by a government monopoly that has
made its existence possible is withdrawn.12
UHayek, Monetary Nationalism and International Stability, pp. 81-84, esp.
p. 82; italics added. Hayek especially praises the proposal for a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement "because it goes to the heart of the problem"
(p. 81). Hayek sees only one disadvantage in this plan, apart from its
being "somewhat impracticable": it seems unlikely that unbacked bank
deposits would not appear in some other legal form, given that "bank-
ing is a pervasive phenomenon" (p. 82). Later we will deal with this
objection.
12Hayek, Denationalization of Money, pp. 94-95 and p. 55. The above
excerpts appear on p. 119 of the 2nd rev. expanded ed. (London: Insti-
tute of Economic Affairs, 1978). Hayek also calls for the drawing of a
726 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Murray N. Rothbard and the Proposal of a Pure Gold
Standard with a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
In 1962 Professor Murray N. Rothbard's now classic arti-
cle, "The Case for a 100-Percent Gold Dollar," appeared in the
book, In Search of a Monetary Constitution13 (which was edited
by Leland B. Yeager and also contains articles by James M.
Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Arthur Kemp, and others). In
this article, Rothbard first develops his proposal for a pure
gold standard based on a free-banking system with a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement. In this paper, Rothbard criticizes all
who support a return to the spurious gold standard rooted in
a fractional-reserve banking system controlled by a central
bank. Instead he suggests what he views as the only coherent,
stable long-term solution: a free-banking system with a 100-
percent reserve requirement, the abolition of the central bank,
and the establishment of a pure gold standard. According to
Rothbard, the result would be the prevention not only of the
recurrent cycles of boom and recession caused by fractional-
reserve banking, but also of the possibility, even with a 100-
percent reserve requirement as defended by Chicago School
theorists in the 1930s, that the conservation of the central bank
should leave the entire system vulnerable to the political and
financial needs of each moment.
definite distinction between simple deposit banking (to which a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement would apply) and investment banking, which
would be limited to the lending of those funds customers first lend their
banks. Hayek concludes:
I expect that it will soon be discovered that the business of
creating money does not go along well with the control of
large investment portfolios or even control of large parts of
industry, (pp. 119-20, 2nd ed.)
Sharp, yet just criticism of Hayek's other proposals related to the dena-
tionalization of money and the establishment of a currency based on a
commodities index (which are only indirectly related to our object of
study) appears in Murray N. Rothbard, "The Case for a Genuine Gold
Dollar," in The Gold Standard, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., ed. (Lexington,
Mass.: Lexington Books), 1985, pp. 2-7.
1%; Search of a Monetary Constitution, Leland B. Yeager, ed. (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962).
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 727
Nevertheless we deem Rothbard's main contribution to be
the strong legal foundation on which he builds his proposal.
In fact he accompanies his economic analysis with an essen-
tially legal, though multidisciplinary study aimed entirely at
showing that banking with a 100 percent reserve is simply the
logical result of applying traditional legal principles to the
banking field. Hence, on this particular point, in the present
book we merely try to develop and extend Rothbard's original
thesis. Specifically, Rothbard compares the banker who oper-
ates with a fractional reserve with the criminal who commits
the crime of misappropriation:
[H]e takes money out of the company till to invest in some
ventures of his own. Like the banker, he sees an opportunity
to earn a profit on someone else's assets. The embezzler
knows, let us say, that the auditor will come on June 1 to
inspect the accounts; and he fully intends to repay the
"loan" before then. Let us assume that he does; is it really
true that no one has been the loser and everyone has gained?
I dispute this; a theft has occurred, and that theft should be
prosecuted and not condoned. Let us note that the banking
advocate assumes that something has gone wrong only if
everyone should decide to redeem his property, only to find
that it isn't there. But I maintain that the wrong — the theft —
occurs at the time the embezzler takes the money, not at the
later time when his "borrowing" happens to be discovered.14
Although Rothbard has correctly presented the legal
aspects of the issue, he has followed the Anglo-Saxon legal
tradition without realizing that even stronger legal support
for his thesis lies in the continental European legal tradition,
based on Roman law, as we explained in the initial chapters.15
14Murray N. Rothbard, The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar (Auburn,
Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1991), pp. 44-46.
15In September 1993, for the first time, we personally shared with Mur-
ray N. Rothbard the results of our research on the legal-Roman founda-
tion of the bank deposit and the position of Salamancan theorists on the
issue, and Rothbard was enthusiastic. He later encouraged us to publish
a brief summary of our conclusions in an article for Review of Austrian
Economics. Unfortunately he was unable to see the article published, as
728 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Maurice Allais and the European Defense
of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
In Europe, the Frenchman Maurice Allais, who received
the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1988, has championed the
proposal of a banking system subject to a 100-percent reserve
requirement. As Allais has stated:
The credit mechanism as it currently operates, based on the
fractional coverage of deposits, the ex nihilo creation of
money, and the long-term lending of short-term-loan funds,
substantially aggravates the disruptions mentioned. Indeed,
all major crises in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
stemmed from an excessive expansion of credit, from prom-
issory notes and their monetization, and from the specula-
tion this expansion fueled and made possible.16
he passed away unexpectedly on January 7, 1995. Other important
works in which Rothbard deals with the topic include: What Has Gov-
ernment Done to Our Money?, 4th ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises
Institute, 1990); The Mystery of Banking; Man, Economy, and State, pp.
703-09; and the articles, "The Myth of Free Banking in Scotland," pp.
229-45, and "Aurophobia: or Free Banking on What Standard?"pp.
99-108. Besides Murray Rothbard, in the United States current advo-
cates of a 100-percent reserve requirement for banking include: Hans-
Hermann Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (Dortrecht,
Holland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993), pp. 61-93, and "How is
Fiat Money Possible? — or The Devolution of Money and Credit," pp.
49-74; Joseph T. Salerno, "Gold Standards: True and False," Cato Journal:
An Interdisciplinary Journal of Public Policy Analysis 3, no. 1 (Spring, 1983):
239-67, and also "Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized," pp. 137-46; Wal-
ter Block, "Fractional Reserve Banking: An Interdisciplinary Perspec-
tive," pp. 24-32; and Skousen, The Economics of a Pure Gold Standard. This
last work is a doctoral thesis on a 100-percent reserve requirement for
banking, and it contains an especially valuable, exhaustive review of all
related sources to date. Like Rothbard, the above theorists belong to the
long line of American thinkers (beginning with Jefferson and Jackson)
who assert that banking should be rigorously governed by legal princi-
ples and a 100-percent reserve requirement. The most important nine-
teenth-century theorist of this movement 'was Amasa Walker, The Science
of Wealth, pp. 138-68 and 184-232.
l6Maurice Allais, "Les conditions monetaires d'une economie de
marches: des enseignements du passe aux reformes de demain," Revue
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 729
Though Maurice Allais often quotes Ludwig von Mises
and Murray N. Rothbard, and though Allais's economic
analysis of the effects of fractional-reserve banking and its role
in provoking economic crises is impeccable and heavily influ-
enced by the Austrian theory of the economic cycle, in the end
Allais does suggest the conservation of the central bank as the
organization ultimately responsible for controlling the mone-
tary base and overseeing its growth (at a fixed rate of 2 percent
per year).17 For Allais believes the state alone, and not
d'economie politique 3 (May-July 1993): 319-67. The above excerpt
appears on p. 326, and the original text reads:
Le mecanisme du credit tel qu'il fonctionne actuellement et qui
est fonde sur la couverture fractionnaire des depots, sur la
creation de monnaie ex nihilo, et sur le pret a long terme de
fonds empruntes a court terme, a pour effet une amplification
considerable des desordres constates. En fait, toutes les grandes
crises des dix-neuvieme et vingtieme siecles ont resulte du
developpement excessifdu credit, des promesses de payer et de leur
monetisation, et de la speculation que ce developpement a suscitee et
rendue possible. (Italics added)
Maurice Allais introduced his theses to the general public in his
well-known article, "Les faux monnayeurs," published in Le Monde,
October 29, 1974. Allais also presents them in chapters 6-9 of the book,
L'impot sur le capital et la reforme monetaire (Paris: Hermann Editeurs,
1989), pp. 155-257. In 1994 our critical evaluation of fractional-reserve
banking was also published in France in Huerta de Soto, "Banque cen-
trale ou banque fibre," pp. 379-91.
17For example, see the quotations from Murray N. Rothbard's work on
pp. 316, 317 and 320 of Allais's book, L'impot sur le capital et la reforme
monetaire. See also references to Amasa Walker on p. 317, and especially
to Ludwig von Mises, whose book, The Theory of Money and Credit, Allais
is perfectly familiar with and quotes on various occasions, among oth-
ers, on pp. 355, 307 and 317. Moreover Maurice Allais pays warm trib-
ute to Ludwig von Mises:
Si une societe liberale a pu etre maintenue jusqu' a present
dans le monde occidental, c'est pour une grande part grace a
la courageuse action d'hommes comme Ludwig von Mises
(1881-1973) qui toute leur vie ont constamment defendu des
idees impopulaires a l'encontre des courants de pensee dom-
inants de leur temps. Mises etait un homme d'une intelli-
gence exceptionelle dont les contributions a la science
economique ont ete de tout premier ordre. Constamment en
730 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
bankers, should take advantage of the expropriation which
comes with the possibility of creating money. Thus his proposal
of a 100-percent reserve requirement is not the logical result of
applying traditional legal principles to banking, as in the case of
Murray N. Rothbard. Instead, it represents an attempt to assist
governments in administering a stable monetary policy by pre-
venting the elastic, distorting credit expansion which all frac-
tional-reserve banking systems generate from nothing. In this
sense, Maurice Allais simply follows the old tradition estab-
lished by some members of the Chicago School, who proposed
a 100-percent reserve requirement to make government mone-
tary policy more effective and predictable.
butte a de puissantes oppositions, il a passe ses dernieres
annees dans la gene, et sans l'aide de quelques amis, il n'au-
rait guere pu disposer d'une vie decente. Une societe qui n'est
pas capable d'assurer a ses elites, et en fait a ses meilleurs
defenseurs, des conditions de vie acceptables, est une societe
condamnee. (p. 307)
Although in practice Maurice Allais fully agrees with the analysis and
prescriptions of the Austrian School on matters of money and cycles, he
embraces the mathematical development of the general equilibrium
model and thereby separates radically from the Austrians, as certain
fundamental errors in his analysis attest (Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdl-
culo economico y funcion empresarial, pp. 248-49). Pascal Salin has there-
fore concluded that rather than a liberal economist of the same type as
Hayek, Maurice Allais is a "social engineer" with strong personal lais-
sez-faire leanings, a theorist whose mathematical analysis often leads
him to a pragmatic utilitarianism which Hayek and Austrian scholars in
general would clearly label "constructivist" or "scientistic." See Pascal
Salin, "Maurice Allais: Un economiste liberal?," manuscript pending
publication, p. 12. Salin has also published a paper in which he analyzes
the Austrian theory of economic cycles and the banking-policy pre-
scriptions that derive from it. See Pascal Salin, "Macro-Stabilization
Policies and the Market Process," Economic Policy and the Market Process:
Austrian and Mainstream Economics, K. Groenveld, J.A.H. Maks, and J.
Muysken, eds. (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1990), pp. 201-21. In foot-
note 98 of chapter 8, we explain why we cannot agree with Salin's stance
in favor of fractional-reserve free-banking.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 731
The Old Chicago-School Tradition of Support
for a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
The Chicago School prescription of a 100-percent reserve
requirement dates back to March 16, 1933, when Henry C.
Simons, Lloyd W. Mints, Aaron Director, Frank H. Knight,
Henry Schultz, Paul H. Douglas, Albert G. Hart and others cir-
culated an anonymous six-page document called "Banking
and Currency Reform."18 Albert G. Hart later expanded on
this program in his article, "The 'Chicago Plan' of Banking
Reform," published in 1935. Here Hart expressly recognizes
Professor Ludwig von Mises as the ultimate father of the pro-
posal.19 Later, in November of 1935, James W. Angell pub-
lished a comprehensive article in which he defends this posi-
tion and analyzes its different aspects. His article is entitled
"The 100-Percent Reserve Plan,"20 and was followed by a
paper by Henry C. Simons, "Rules versus Authorities in Mon-
etary Policy," which appeared in 1936.21
Of the Chicago theorists, Henry C. Simons comes closest
to the thesis that a 100-percent reserve requirement is not a
mere economic-policy proposal, but an imperative of the
institutional framework of rules which is vital for the correct
functioning of a market economy. Indeed Simons asserts:
18See Ronnie J. Phillips, The Chicago Plan and New Deal Banking Reform
(Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), pp. 191-98.
19Albert G. Hart, "The 'Chicago Plan' of Banking Reform," Review of
Economic Studies 2 (1935): 104-16. The reference to professors Mises and
Hayek appears at the foot of p. 104. Another interesting precedent for
the Chicago Plan is found in a book by Frederick Soddy a recipient of
the Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (New
York: E.P Dutton, 1927). Knight wrote a favorable review of Soddy's
book that same year: "Review of Frederick Soddy's Wealth, Virtual
Wealth and Debt," Saturday Review of Literature (April 16, 1927): 732.
20James W. Angell, "The 100 Percent Reserve Plan," The Quarterly Jour-
nal of Economics 50, no. 1 (November 1935): 1-35.
21Henry C. Simons, "Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy" Jour-
nal of Political Economy 44, no. 1 (February 1936): 1-30.
732 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
A democratic, free-enterprise system implies, and requires
for its effective functioning and survival, a stable framework
of definite rules, laid down in legislation and subject to
change only gradually and with careful regard for the
vested interests of participants in the economic game.22
Nevertheless Henry C. Simons defends a 100-percent
reserve requirement with the basic purpose of restoring com-
plete government control over the quantity of money in circu-
lation and its value. He had announced his proposal one year
earlier, in a pamphlet entitled "A Positive Program for Lais-
sez-Faire: Some Proposals for a Liberal Economic Policy,"
published in 1934. As indicated in this pamphlet, at that time
Simons already believed that deposit banks which maintained
100 per cent reserves, simply could not fail, so far as depos-
itors were concerned, and could not create or destroy effec-
tive money. These institutions would accept deposits just as
warehouses accept goods. Their income would be derived
exclusively from service charges — perhaps merely from
moderate charges for the transfer of funds by check or draft.
. . . These banking proposals define means for eliminating
the perverse elasticity of credit which obtains under a sys-
tem of private, commercial banking and for restoring to the
central government complete control over the quantity of
effective money and its value.23
22Simons, "Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy," p. 181;
reprinted as chapter 7, Economic Policy for a Free Society (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 181. It is highly significant that
Simons makes this legal-institutional analysis in precisely the article in
which he offers his proposal for banking reform based on a 100-percent
reserve requirement.
23Henry C. Simons, "A Positive Program for Laissez-Faire: Some Pro-
posals for a Liberal Economic Policy," originally published as "Public
Policy Pamphlet," no. 15, Harry D. Gideonse, ed. (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1934). It was reprinted as chapter 2 of Economic Policy
for a Free Society, pp. 64-65. On Henry Simons see Walter Block, "Henry
Simons is Not a Supporter of Free Enterprise," journal of Libertarian Stud-
ies 16, no. 4 (Fall, 2002): 3-36.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 733
Simons's contributions24 were followed by those Fritz
Lehmann made in his article, "100 Percent Money"25 and by
the article Frank D. Graham published in September of 1936
with the title, "Partial Reserve Money and the 100 Percent Pro-
posal."26
Irving Fisher compiled these proposals in book form in
100 Percent Money.27 Following World War II, they were taken
up again by Henry C. Simons in his 1948 book, Economic Pol-
icy for a Free Society, and by Lloyd W. Mints in Monetary Policy
for a Competitive Society.28 This trend culminated in the publi-
cation of Milton Friedman's A Program for Monetary Stability in
1959. 29 Milton Friedman, like his predecessors, recommends
the current system be replaced with one which includes a
100-percent reserve requirement.30 The only difference is that
Friedman suggests the payment of interest on such reserves,
24Henry C. Simons, in footnote 7 on p. 320 of his Economic Policy for a
Tree Society, adds:
There is likely to be extreme economic instability under any
financial system where the same funds are made to serve at once
as investment funds for industry and trade and as the liquid cash
reserves of individuals. Our financial structure has been built
largely on the illusion that funds can at the same time be both
available and invested — and this observation applies to our
savings banks (and in lesser degree to many other financial
institutions) as well as commercial, demand-deposit banking.
25Fritz Lehmann, "100 Percent Money" Social Research 3, no. 1: 37-56.
26Frank D. Graham, "Partial Reserve Money and the 100 Percent Pro-
posal," American Economic Review 26 (1936): 428-40.
27Irving Fisher, 100 Percent Money (New York: Adelphi Company 1935).
28Lloyd W. Mints, Monetary Policy for a Competitive Society (New York,
1950), pp. 186-87.
29Milton Friedman, A Program for Monetary Stability (New York: Ford-
ham University Press, 1959). Friedman first published his ideas on a
100-percent reserve requirement in 1953 in his article, "A Monetary and
Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability," American Economic Review 38,
no. 3 (1948): 245-64. Rothbard's criticism of Friedman is in his article,
"Milton Friedman Unraveled," Journal of Libertarian Studies 16, no. 4
(Fall, 2002): 37-54.
30Friedman, A Program for Monetary Stability.
734 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and in an interesting footnote he mentions the complete free-
banking system, defended by Gary Becker, as one way to
approach this objective.31
Henry C. Simons comes closest to recognizing the juridi-
cal-institutional demands for a 100-percent reserve require-
ment.32 However, in general, Chicago theorists have defended
3lFriedman does not mention Mises, who, nearly fifty years earlier in
German and twenty-five years earlier in English, had already put for-
ward a detailed version of the same theory. Milton Friedman, A Program
for Monetary Stability, footnote 10. Gary Becker's proposal was many
years later published: Gary S. Becker, "A Proposal for Free Banking,"
Free Banking, vol. 3: Modern Theory and Policy, White, ed., chap. 2, pp.
20-25. Though Gary Becker could easily be classified with modern neo-
banking advocates of fractional-reserve free banking, he recognizes that,
in any case, a system which includes a 100-percent reserve requirement
would be a considerable improvement on the current financial and
banking system (p. 24).
32Irving Fisher also dealt with the legal aspects of a 100-percent reserve
requirement. He indicated that in this system
demand deposits would literally be deposits, consisting of
cash held in trust for the depositor . . . the check deposit
department of the bank would become a mere storage ware-
house for bearer money belonging to its depositors. (Irving
Fisher, 100 Percent Money, p. 10)
Unfortunately Fisher's underlying economic theory was monetarist,
and hence he never understood how the credit expansion which
results from fractional-reserve banking affects society's structure of
productive stages. Moreover Fisher recommended an indexed standard
be established and the government retain control over monetary policy,
to which Ludwig von Mises responded with sharp criticism (Human
Action, pp. 442-43). Specifically, Fisher's use of the monetarist equation
of exchange led to important errors in his theoretical analysis and eco-
nomic forecasting. Fisher failed to see that aside from the macroeconomic
effects accounted for by his formula, growth in the money supply distorts
the productive structure and inexorably feeds crises and recessions. Thus
in the late 1920s Fisher thought economic expansion would continue
"indefinitely" and did not realize that it rested on an artificial foundation
which was condemned to failure. Indeed, the Great Depression of 1929
took him completely by surprise and nearly ruined him. On the intrigu-
ing personality of this American economist, see Irving N. Fisher's book,
My Father Irving Fisher (New York: A Reflection Book, 1956), and the biog-
raphy by Robert Loring Allen, Irving Fisher: A Biography.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 735
a 100 percent-reserve banking system for exclusively practical
reasons, believing this requirement would make government
monetary policy easier and more predictable. Therefore the
theorists of the Chicago School have been guilty of naivete in
ascribing to governments the desire and ability to administer a
stable monetary policy under all circumstances.33 This naivete
parallels that shown by modern neo-banking defenders of frac-
tional-reserve free banking when they rely on spontaneous
interbank liquidation and clearing mechanisms to halt under
all circumstances planned, simultaneous expansion by most
banks. These theorists fail to see that although a fractional-
reserve free-banking system would have more limitations than
the current system, it would not prevent the creation of fiduci-
ary media, nor, logically, would it immunize the market
against economic crises. Hence we must conclude that the only
effective way to rid society of special privileges and economic cycles is
to establish a free-banking system governed by legal principles; that
is, a 100-percent reserve requirement. ,34
33As Pascal Salin states in his article on Maurice Allais, "Toute l'histoire
monetaire montre que l'Etat a refuse de respecter les regies monetaires et
que la source ultime de l'inflation provient de ce defaut institutionnel."
Pascal Salin, "Maurice Allais: un economiste liberal?" p. 11. Thus we can-
not trust that a central bank, which will always be influenced to some
extent by the current political scene, will be able to maintain a monetary
policy which immunizes society against the evils of economic cycles, even
if the desire is present and a 100-percent reserve requirement is estab-
lished for private banking. This is so because nothing bars the central
bank from directly financing state expenditures or, via open-market oper-
ations, acquiring massive numbers of treasury bonds and other securities,
and thus injecting liquidity into the system through the capital market
and temporarily distorting the interest rate and society's structure of pro-
ductive stages. This would set in motion the inexorable mechanisms of
economic cycles, which would trigger a severe depression. This is the
prima facie argument against the conservation of the central bank, and it
shows the necessity of combining the re-establishment of legal principles
in private banking with the complete deregulation of the sector and the
abolition of the central bank. On the traditional strong leaning toward
interventionism of the Chicago School, see "Symposium: Chicago versus
the Free Market," Journal of Libertarian Studies 16, no. 4 (Fall, 2002).
34On the Keynesian side, James Tobin, who received the Nobel Prize for
Economics in 1981, has proposed a "deposit currency" system which
736 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
2
Our Proposal for Banking Reform
Logical deduction based on this book's analysis points to a
particular program of banking reform: on the one hand, the
institutions related to the financial market should be made
contingent on traditional legal principles; and on the other, the
government agencies which until now have controlled and
directed the financial system should be eliminated. We believe
that in order to establish a truly stable financial and monetary
system for the twenty-first century, a system which protects
our economies as far as possible from crises and recessions, the
following will be necessary: (1) complete freedom of choice in
currency; (2) a system of free banking and the abolition of the
central bank; and most importantly, (3) obligatory observance
of traditional legal rules and principles by all agents involved
in the free-banking system, particularly the important princi-
ple according to which no one may enjoy the privilege of loan-
ing something entrusted to him on demand deposit. In short, it
is necessary to maintain at all times a banking system which
includes a 100-percent reserve requirement. We will now dis-
cuss in greater detail each component of our proposal.
Total Freedom of Choice in Currency
We recommend the privatization of currency and an end
to state and central-bank intervention with respect to its
issuance and control over its value. This goal requires the
incorporates many aspects of the Chicago Plan for a 100-percent reserve
requirement. See his "Financial Innovation and Deregulation in Per-
spective," Bank of Japan Monetary and Economic Studies 3 (1985): 19-29.
See also the comments Charles Goodhart makes on Tobin's proposal of
a 100-percent reserve requirement in his The Evolution of Central Banks,
pp. 87ff. Tobin seems to follow the tradition of Lauchlin Currie, The Sup-
ply and Control of Money in the United States (1934; New York: Russell &
Russell, 1968). More recently Alex Hocker Pollock has again defended a
similar banking system in his article, "Collateralized Money: An Idea
Whose Time Has Come Again?" Durrell Journal of Money and Banking 5,
no. 1 (March 1993): 34-38. The main disadvantage of Pollock's proposal
is that it indicates reserves should be held not in money, but in assets
with a market value that makes them easy to liquidate.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 737
elimination of legal tender regulations which oblige all citizens,
even against their will, to accept the state-issued monetary unit
as a liberatory means of payment in all cases. The revocation
of legal tender laws is therefore an essential part of any
process of deregulation of the financial market. This "dena-
tionalization of money," in Hayek's words, would allow eco-
nomic agents, who possess far more accurate, first-hand infor-
mation on their specific circumstances of time and place, to
decide in each case what type of monetary unit it would most
benefit them to use in their contracts.
It is not possible to theorize a priori about the future evo-
lution of money. Our theoretical analysis must be limited to
the observation that money is an institution which emerges
spontaneously, like law, language, and other legal and eco-
nomic institutions which involve an enormous volume of
information and appear in an evolutionary manner through-
out a very prolonged period of time in which many genera-
tions of human beings participate. Moreover, as with lan-
guage, certain institutions which in the social process of trial
and error best fulfill their function tend to predominate. Trial
alone, throughout the spontaneous, evolutionary market
process, can lead to the predominance of those institutions
most conducive to social cooperation, without the possession
by any one person or group of the intelligence and informa-
tion necessary to create these types of institutions ex novo.
These reflections are fully applicable to the emergence
and evolution of money,35 and hence in this field we must be
35On the theory of the emergence of institutions, specifically money see
Menger, Untersuchungen iiber die Methode der Socialzvissenschaften und der
Politischen Okonomie insbesondere and "On the Origin of Money" pp.
239-55. We should also remember Mises's monetary regression theo-
rem, according to which the price or purchasing power of money is
determined by its supply and demand, which is in turn determined not
by its purchasing power today but by the knowledge the actor formed
on its purchasing power yesterday. At the same time, the purchasing
power of money yesterday was determined by the demand for money
which developed based on the knowledge of its purchasing power the
day before yesterday. We could trace this pattern back to the moment
738 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
particularly suspicious of proposals to create an artificial
currency, no matter how many advantages such a plan may at
first appear to have.36
when, for the first time in history, people began to demand a certain
good as a medium of exchange. Therefore this theorem reflects
Menger's theory on the spontaneous emergence and evolution of
money, but in this case there is a retroactive effect. Mises's monetary
regression theorem is of capital importance in any project for reforming
the monetary system, and it explains why in this field there can be no
"leaps in the dark," attempts to introduce ex novo monetary systems
which are not the result of evolution and which, as in the case of
Esperanto with respect to language, would inevitably be condemned to
failure. On the monetary regression theorem, see Mises, Human Action,
pp. 409-10, 425 and 610. The introduction in the market of new payment
technologies (first paper, then plastic cards, and now electronic
"money") does not affect at all the conclusion of our analysis. It is not
possible nor convenient to try to introduce a constellation of private fiat
electronic moneys competing among themselves in a chaotic world of
flexible exchange rates, especially when we already know the final
result of the secular and free monetary evolution of humankind: a sin-
gle worldwide commodity (gold) that cannot be manipulated either by
private individuals or public servants. For these reasons we cannot
accept the proposal of Jean Pierre Centi, "Hayekian Perspectives on the
Monetary System: Toward Fiat Private and Competitive Moneys," in
Austrian Economics Today I, The International Library of Austrian Eco-
nomics, Kurt R. Leube, ed. (Frankfurt: FAZ Buch, 2003), pp. 89-104. See
also footnote 104.
36The best-known plan for the denationalization of money appears in
Hayek's 1976 book, Denationalisation of Money. Nevertheless Hayek's
follies in support of artificial monetary standards began thirty years ear-
lier: "A Commodity Reserve Currency," Economic journal 53, no. 210
(June-September 1943): 176-84 (included as chapter 10 of Individualism
and Economic Order, pp. 209-19). While we consider Hayek's Mengerian
analysis of the evolution of institutions to be correct, and we agree that
it would be highly beneficial to permit in the monetary field as well the
private experimentation characteristic of markets, we find it regrettable
that Hayek ultimately proposed a completely artificial standard (com-
prised of a basket of various commodities) as a new monetary unit.
Although one can interpret Hayek's proposal as a procedure for return-
ing to traditional money (a pure gold standard and a 100-percent
reserve requirement), Hayek clearly earned the criticism certain Aus-
trian economists leveled against him. These economists judged his pro-
posals quite severely and called them "scientistic" and "constructivist."
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 739
Therefore our proposal of free choice in currency is clear.
In the transition process which we will examine further on,
money in its current form is to be privatized via its replace-
ment by that form of money which, in an evolutionary man-
ner, generation after generation, has prevailed throughout his-
tory: gold.37 In fact it is pointless to attempt to abruptly
introduce a new, widespread monetary unit in the market
while ignoring thousands of years of evolution in which gold
has spontaneously predominated as money. According to the
monetary regression theorem, such a feat is impossible, since
no form of money can be used in society as a generally
accepted medium of exchange if it does not rest on a very pro-
longed historical process which begins with the original
industrial or commercial use of the commodity in question (as
with gold and silver). Thus our proposal is based on privatiz-
ing money in its current form by replacing it with its metallic equiv-
alent in gold and allowing the market to resume its free development
from the time of the transition, either by confirming gold as the gen-
erally accepted form of money, or by permitting the spontaneous and
gradual entrance of other monetary standards.38
Among the critics were Murray N. Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe
and Joseph T. Salerno, "Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized." The same
objections can be made to the very similar proposal of Leland B. Yeager,
"The Perils of Base Money," p. 262.
37Silver could also be considered a secondary, parallel metallic standard
which, if economic agents should wish, could coexist with gold at the
fluctuating exchange rate determined by the market between the two at
all times. Furthermore we must recognize that the decline in the use of
silver as money was accelerated when nineteenth-century governments
established fixed exchange rates between gold and silver which artifi-
cially undervalued the latter. See Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, pp.
724-26.
38The gold standard we propose does not remotely resemble the spuri-
ous gold standard used until the 1930s, a standard based on the exis-
tence of central banks and a fractional-reserve banking system. As Mil-
ton Friedman indicates:
A real honest-to-God gold standard . . . would be one in
which gold was literally money and money literally gold,
under which transactions would literally be made in terms
either of the yellow metal itself, or of pieces of paper that
740 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
A System of Complete Banking Freedom
This second element of our proposal refers to the necessity
of revoking banking legislation and eliminating central banks
and in general any government agency devoted to controlling
and intervening in the financial or banking market. It should
be possible to set up any number of private banks with com-
plete freedom, both in terms of corporate purpose and legal
form. As the distinguished Laureano Figuerola y Ballester
stated in 1869, it is necessary to leave "the choice of banking
forms to each individual, who will know how to choose the
best ones, according to particular circumstances of time and
place."39 Nevertheless the defense of free banking does not
imply permission for banks to operate with a fractional
reserve. At this point it should be perfectly clear that banking
should be subject to traditional legal principles and that these
demand the maintenance at all times of a 100 percent reserve
with respect to demand deposits at banks. Hence free banking
must not be viewed as a license to infringe this rule, since its
infringement not only constitutes a violation of a traditional
legal principle, but it also triggers a chain of consequences
which are highly damaging to the economy. The legal and
economic aspects of such affairs are intimately related, and it
is impossible to violate legal and moral principles without
causing grave, harmful consequences for the spontaneous
were 100-percent warehouse certificates for gold. (Milton
Friedman, "Has Gold Lost its Monetary Role?" in Milton
Friedman in South Africa, Meyer Feldberg, Kate Jowel, and
Stephen Mulholland, eds. [Johannesburg: Graduate School of
Business of the University of Cape Town, 1976])
On the economic theory of gold see chapter 8 ("The Theory of Com-
modity Money: Economics of a Pure Gold Standard") of Mark Skousen's
book, The Structure of Production, pp. 265-81.
39Laureano Figuerola, Escritos economicos, preliminary study by Fran-
cisco Cabrillo Rodriguez, ed. (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales,
1991), p. 268. This assertion, which even Mises and Hayek themselves
could not have worded more accurately appears in the report Laureano
Figuerola delivered to the Spanish Constituent Assembly on February
22, 1869.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 741
process of social cooperation. Thus free banking should have
no other limit than that established by the framework of gen-
eral legal principles. This brings us to the third essential ele-
ment in our proposal; let us now consider it.40
40In short, we recommend replacing the current web of administrative
legislation which regulates banks with a few simple articles to be estab-
lished in the Penal and Commercial Codes. For instance, in Spain, the
entire body of banking legislation could be eliminated and simply
replaced with new Articles 180 and 182 of the Commercial Code. The
text of these new articles might resemble the following (excerpts which
differ from the current phrasing are shown in italics):
Article 180: Banks will hold in their vaults an amount of cash
equal to the total value of deposits, checking accounts and
bills in circulation.
Article 182: The sum of the bills in circulation, together with
the amount corresponding to deposits and checking accounts,
will in no case exceed the total of the cash reserves held by each
hank at any given moment.
In our articles for the Commercial Code we need not make reference
to operations carried out in evasion of the law in order to mask a true
deposit contract (transactions with a repurchase agreement, or Ameri-
can put options, etc.), since the legal technique of the doctrine of law
evasion would render such operations null and void. However, to avoid
the possibility that a financial "innovation" might be converted into
money prior to its legal annulment, it would be wise to add the follow-
ing to Article 180: "The same obligation must be fulfilled by all individuals
and corporations which, in evasion of the law, conduct legal transactions which
mask a true monetary-deposit contract."
As to the Penal Code, in Spain the necessary reforms would be very
few. Nevertheless in order to clarify even further the content of Article
252 of the new Penal Code and make it compatible with the phrasing we
suggest for Articles 180 and 182 of the Commercial Code, it should be
worded as follows:
Article 252: The penalties specified will be applied to anyone
who, to the detriment of another, appropriates or embezzles
money, goods or any other movable property or patrimonial
asset which he has received on deposit, irregular deposit or
monetary bank deposit, on consignment or in trust, or by way
of any other similar claim carrying the obligation to deliver or
742 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The Obligation of All Agents in a Free-Banking System
to Observe Traditional Legal Rules and Principles,
Particularly a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement on
Demand Deposits
There remains little for us to add here on the recommen-
dation of a 100-percent reserve requirement for banking. We
have devoted this book's entire analysis to justifying this third
element in our proposal, a point logically and intimately
linked to the other two. Indeed the only way to eradicate the
state central-planning agency related to money and the finan-
cial system (i.e., the central bank) is to permit society to resume
the use of that form of private money which in an evolutionary
manner has emerged throughout history (gold, and to a lesser
extent, silver). Moreover a free market economy can only oper-
ate based on the framework provided by the rules of substan-
tive law. When applied to banking, these rules demand the
establishment of a completely free banking system, but one in
which bankers consistently observe the principle of maintain-
ing a 100 percent reserve on demand-deposit contracts.
Combined, the three above elements comprise the core of
a proposal to definitively reform and privatize the modern
banking and monetary system, to free it from the obstacles
which now disrupt it, especially central-bank intervention
and state-granted privileges enjoyed by the most important
agents in the financial sector. This reform would permit the
development of banking institutions truly appropriate to a
return the property, or who denies having received it. . . .
These penalties will be increased by 50 percent in the case of
a necessary deposit, an irregular or monetary bank deposit, or
any other operation which, in evasion of the law, masks a monetary
irregular deposit.
These simple modifications to the Commercial and Penal Codes
would make it possible to abolish all current banking laws in Spain. It
would then fall to ordinary law courts to evaluate the behavior of
individuals who might be suspected of breaking any of the prohibitions
mentioned. (This process would logically include all the guarantees
characteristic of a constitutional state, guarantees conspicuously absent
today in many administrative actions of the central bank.)
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 743
market economy, institutions which would facilitate economic
development and the accumulation of wisely invested capital,
while preventing the maladjustments and crises which the
current, rigorously controlled and centralized system causes.
What Would the Financial and Banking System
of a Totally Free Society be Like?
We agree with Israel M. Kirzner that it is impossible to
know today what information and institutions entrepreneurs
who participate in the financial and banking system of the
future will freely and spontaneously create tomorrow, assum-
ing they suffer no institutional state coercion and are subject
merely to the legal framework of substantive rules required by
the operation of any market. As we know, the most important
of all such rules in banking is the principle of a 100 percent
reserve
41
Despite the above, we can conjecture with FA. Hayek42
that under these circumstances a variety of mutual funds
would spontaneously emerge,43 in which people would invest
41 We are not able to chart the future of capitalism in any speci-
ficity. Our reason for this incapability is precisely that which
assures us . . . the economic future of capitalism will be one of
progress and advance. The circumstance that precludes our
viewing the future of capitalism as a determinate one is the
very circumstance in which, with entrepreneurship at work,
we are no longer confined by any scarcity framework. It is
therefore the very absence of this element of determinacy and
predictability that, paradoxically permits us to feel confi-
dence in the long-run vitality and progress of the economy
under capitalism. (Israel M. Kirzner, Discovery and the Capital-
ist Process [Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,
1985], p. 168)
42Hayek, Denationalisation of Money, pp. 119-20.
43On the development of this network of mutual funds, see the article
by Joseph T. Salerno, "Gold Standards: True and False," pp. 257-58. The
perception that shares in these mutual funds would eventually become
money is incorrect, since such shares are merely titles to real investments
and would not guarantee the recovery of the nominal value of such
investments, which would always be subject to trends in the market
744 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
a portion of current "deposits." These mutual funds would be
highly liquid, due to the existence of widespread secondary
financial markets. However, as is logical, they would not
guarantee their participants the recovery at any time of the
nominal value of their investments. As with the value of any
other security in the secondary market, this would be subject
to changes in the market value of the corresponding shares.
Thus a sudden change (albeit improbable) in the social rate of
time preference would cause generalized fluctuations in the
value of shares. Such oscillations in value would only affect
the holders of the corresponding shares and not, as now
occurs, all citizens, who, year after year, see a significant drop
in the purchasing power of the state-issued monetary units
they are obliged to use.
Quite possibly, this widespread system of mutual funds
would be accompanied by an entire network of institutions
devoted to providing their customers with such services as
payments, transfers, bookkeeping, and cashier services in
general. These companies would operate in an environment of
free competition and would charge the corresponding market
prices for their services.
Also conceivable is the appearance of a number of private
firms with no connection whatsoever to credit, companies dedi-
cated to the extraction, design, and supply of the different
forms of private money. Such firms would also receive a profit
(most likely a modest one) for their services. We say "extrac-
tion" because we have no doubt that in an environment of
prices of the corresponding capital goods, stocks and/or bonds. In other
words, despite the high degree of liquidity these investments might
reach, this liquidity would neither be immediate nor would it correspond
to the nominal value attached to monetary units by definition. In fact any
person with a need for liquidity would be obliged to find someone in the
market willing to provide that liquidity by paying in gold the market
value of the corresponding mutual-fund shares. Hence mutual funds can
guarantee neither the value of the capital invested at the time the share is
acquired, nor the interest rate of the investment. Any "guarantee" of liq-
uidity simply refers to the relative ease with which the fund's shares can
be sold on the market (though there is no legal guarantee that the sale will
be possible under all circumstances nor much less at a set price).
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 745
complete freedom, the predominant form of money will
always be a metallic one with at least those essential charac-
teristics that until now gold alone has offered: immutability
great homogeneity and above all, scarcity. For the scarcer
money is, and the more unlikely significant increases or
decreases in its volume within relatively short periods of time
are, the better money fulfills its function.44
3
An Analysis of the Advantages of the
Proposed System
In this section we will consider the main advantages a
free-banking system which adheres to legal principles, a 100-
percent reserve requirement and a completely private form of
money (gold) offers as opposed to the system of financial cen-
tral planning (central bank) which currently controls the
financial and banking spheres of all countries.
1. The Proposed System Prevents Bank Crises. Even the most
prominent defenders of fractional-reserve free banking have
recognized that the establishment of a 100-percent reserve
requirement would put an end to bank crises.45 Indeed bank
crises stem from the inherent lack of liquidity of these institu-
tions, which use in the form of loans most of the money
deposited with them on demand. If, in keeping with traditional
44Therefore it is through no caprice of history that in a context of free-
dom gold has prevailed as generally accepted money, since it has the
essential characteristics which, from the standpoint of general legal
principles and economic theory, a widely accepted medium of exchange
must have. In this area, as in many others (the family, property rights,
etc.), economic theory has backed the spontaneous results of the process
of social evolution.
45Among others, George A. Selgin, who confirms that "a 100-percent
reserve banking crisis is an impossibility." Selgin, "Are Banking Crises
a Free-Market Phenomenon?" p. 2.
746 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
legal principles in the irregular deposit, anyone who receives
money on deposit is required to keep on hand at all times a
tantundem equal to 100 percent of the money received, it is
obvious that depositors will be able to withdraw the amount
deposited at any time without placing any financial strain on
the corresponding banks.
Of course banks, in the exercise of activities other than
deposit banking, in their role as loan intermediaries for exam-
ple, may certainly encounter economic problems as a result of
entrepreneurial errors or poor management. However in
these cases the simple application of the principles of bank-
ruptcy law46 would be sufficient to liquidate this type of bank
operation in an orderly fashion without affecting in any way the
guaranteed return of demand deposits. From a legal and eco-
nomic point of view, this second type of bank "crisis" is com-
pletely unrelated, both qualitatively and quantitatively, with
the traditional crises which have plagued banks since they
began to operate with a fractional reserve. The only way to
avoid these traditional crises is precisely to do away with frac-
tional-reserve banking.
2. The Proposed System Prevents Cyclical Economic Crises. As
we have seen based on both theory and history, successive
cycles of artificial boom and economic recession have afflicted
market economies since banks began to function with a frac-
tional reserve. In addition, the damaging effects of these cycles
became even stronger when governments granted banks the
privilege of legally operating in this manner. The damage
became most acute with the creation of the central bank as a
lender of last resort designed to supply the system with the
necessary liquidity in times of trouble. For while the central
bank has reduced the frequency of bank crises, it has not been
capable of ending economic recessions, which, in contrast,
have in many cases become deeper and more severe.
A banking system in tune with traditional property-law
principles (i.e., a 100 percent reserve) would immunize our
46See Cabrillo, Qulebra y liquidation de empresas: un andlisis economico del
derecho espanol.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 7A7
societies against recurrent economic crises. In fact, under these
circumstances, the volume of loans could not increase without
a prior, parallel increase in society's real, voluntary saving.
Under such conditions, it would be impossible to imagine that
the productive structure could be distorted as a result of dis-
coordination in the behavior of those economic agents who
invest and those who save. The best guarantee against
intertemporal maladjustments in the productive structure is
observance of the traditional legal principles present in the
innermost logic behind the legal institutions related to the
irregular-deposit contract and property law.47
Contrary to the belief of the Chicago theorists (those who
advocated a 100-percent reserve requirement for banking), the
eradication of economic crises and recessions also clearly
depends upon the total privatization of money (pure gold
standard). For if the central bank continues to be responsible
for the issuance of purely fiduciary money, there will never be
any guarantee that this institution, via open-market opera-
tions on the stock exchange, could not temporarily and artifi-
cially reduce interest rates and inject capital markets with arti-
ficial liquidity which, in the end, would exert exactly the same
discoordinating effects on the productive structure as credit
expansion initiated by private banks without the backing of
real savings.48 The key Chicago defenders of a 100-percent
47An accurate definition of property rights with respect to the monetary
bank-deposit contract (100 percent reserve) and a strong, effective
defense of these rights is therefore the only prerequisite for a "stable
monetary system," a goal Pope John Paul II views as one of the state's
(few) key responsibilities in the economy. See John Paul II, Centesimus
Annus: Encyclical Letter on the Hundredth Anniversary ofRerum Novarum,
1991, no. 48 (London: Catholic Truth Society 1991), pp. 35-36. Here John
Paul II states: "Economic activity, especially the activity of a market
economy cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political
vacuum." This assertion harmonizes perfectly with our support for the
application of legal principles to the concrete case of the monetary bank-
deposit contract.
48As we know, the government may also cause horizontal (infratempo-
ral) discoordination in the productive structure by issuing new money
to finance a portion of its expenditures.
748 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
reserve requirement (Simons, Mints, Fisher, Hart, and Fried-
man) primarily sought to facilitate monetary policy and pre-
vent bank crises (point one above), but their macroeconomic-
monetarist analytical tools kept them from seeing that even
more harmful than bank crises are cyclical economic crises
unleashed on the real productive structure by the fractional-
reserve banking system. Only the complete abolition of legal-
tender regulations and the total privatization of the state-
issued money now in existence will prevent government
institutions from triggering economic cycles even once a 100-
percent reserve requirement is established for private banking.
Finally, we must recognize that the recommended system
would not avoid all economic crises and recessions. It would
only avert the recurrent cycles of boom and recession which
we now suffer (and which constitute the vast majority and the
most serious). It would not prevent those isolated crises pro-
voked by wars, natural disasters, or similar phenomena
which, due to their sudden attack on the confidence and time
preference of economic agents, might cause shocks to the pro-
ductive structure and thus demand considerable, painful
readjustments. Nonetheless we must not be deceived, as a
number of theorists are (mainly those adherents of "new clas-
sical economics"), by the notion that all economic crises stem
from external shocks. These theorists fail to realize that most
crises have an endogenous origin and are fueled by the very
credit expansion which the banking sector brings about and
central banks orchestrate. In the absence of this disruptive
influence on credit, the number of shocks would fall to a min-
imum, not only because the prime cause of instability in our
economies would disappear, but also, as we will explain later,
because governments would adopt much more disciplined
fiscal programs. With this increased restraint, the proposed
system would act in time to abort many policies that would
foster financial irresponsibility and even violence, conflicts,
and wars, which without a doubt, are also ultimately respon-
sible for the isolated appearance of external shocks which
prove highly damaging to the economy.
3. The Proposed System Is the Most in Tune with Private Prop-
erty. The establishment of a 100-percent reserve requirement
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 749
for demand-deposit bank contracts would stamp out the legal
corruption which has plagued the institution of banking from
its very beginning. As we saw in our historical study of the
evolution of banking, governments first overlooked the fraud-
ulent nature of fractional-reserve banking. Then, when the
effects of the system became more evident, instead of ade-
quately defining and defending the traditional principles of
property law, they became accomplices and later the driving
force behind the corresponding expansionary processes,
always with the goal of obtaining an easier source of financing
for their political projects. The evolution of banking on the
fringe of legal principles has produced solely negative results:
it has encouraged all sorts of fraudulent, irresponsible behav-
iors; it has triggered artificial credit expansion and highly
damaging, recurrent economic recessions and social crises;
and it has ultimately determined the inevitable appearance of
the central bank and an entire web of administrative regula-
tions on financial and banking activities, regulations which
have not achieved the objectives set for them and which, sur-
prisingly today, on the threshold of the twenty-first century,
continue to destabilize the world's economies.
4. The Proposed Model Promotes Stable, Sustainable Economic
Growth, and Thus Drastically Reduces Market Transaction Costs
and Specifically the Strains of Labor Negotiations. Over ninety
years of chronic worldwide inflation and continuous, and
during many periods completely uncontrolled, credit expan-
sion have corrupted the behavioral habits of economic agents,
and hence today, most believe inflation and credit expansion
are necessary to stimulate economic development. Further-
more the misconception that any economy not in an economic
boom is therefore "stagnant" has become generalized. People
fail to see that rapid, exaggerated economic expansion is
always likely to have an artificial cause and must reverse in
the form of a recession. In short, we have become accustomed
to living in manic-depressive economies and have adjusted
our behavior to an unstable, disturbing pattern of economic
development.
However, following the proposed reform, this "manic-
depressive" model of economic development would be
750 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
replaced by another much more stable and sustained one. In
fact, not only would artificial expansion be prevented, along
with the stress it involves at all levels (economic, environmen-
tal, social, and personal), but the recessions which inevitably
follow each period of expansion would be prevented as well.
In the proposed model, the monetary system would be rigid
and inelastic with respect to the money supply, both in terms
of growth in the quantity of money in circulation and, espe-
cially, possible decreases or contractions in it. Indeed a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement would preclude an expansionary
increase in the money supply in the form of loans, and the
quantity of money in circulation would simply grow naturally
and would be tied to the annual rise in the worldwide stock of
gold. The worldwide stock of gold has grown at an average of
between 1 and 3 percent per year over the last 100 years.49
Therefore, with a monetary system comprised of a pure gold
standard and a 100-percent reserve requirement for banking, if
we assume productivity mounts at an average rate of 3 percent
per year, this model of economic growth would give rise to a
gradual, constant drop in the prices of consumer goods and services.
49See Skousen, "The Theory of Commodity Money: Economics of a Pure
Gold Standard," in The Structure of Production, pp. 269-71. Skousen also
explains that, given the unchanging nature of gold, the worldwide stock
of it accumulated throughout history only rises and does not decline.
Therefore, other things being equal, if the volume of gold produced
worldwide remains constant, the money supply will increase by less
and less, in terms of percentage. However this circumstance is compen-
sated for by technological improvements and innovations in the mining
sector, which have determined that, on average, the worldwide stock of
gold has risen from 1 to 3 percent per year since 1910. Mises, for his part,
indicates that the annual increase in the worldwide stock of gold tends
to match the gradual, enduring rise which population growth causes in
the demand for money. Hence if demand mounts from 1 to 3 percent (a
rate similar to that of the increase in gold), prices will drop by around 3
percent per year and nominal interest rates will fluctuate between 0.25
and 1 percent (assuming general economic productivity increases by 3
percent, on average). See Human Action, pp. 414-15. Mises does not
mention that healthy, long-lasting deflation caused by growth in pro-
ductivity tends, ceteris paribus, to reduce the demand for money, allow-
ing for higher nominal rates of interest.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 751
Not only is this drop perfectly compatible with sustainable
economic development from a theoretical and practical stand-
point, but it would also guarantee that the benefits of such
growth would profit all citizens through a constant increase in
the purchasing power of their monetary units.50
This model of rising productivity, economic development
and a money supply which grows slowly (at a rate of around
1 percent) would generate, via a decrease in prices, an increase
in the real income of the factors of production, especially
labor, which in turn would result in an enormous fall in the
negotiation costs currently associated with collective bargain-
ing. (Assuming the demand for money is stable, productivity
rises at a rate of 3 percent and the money supply grows at a
rate of 1 percent, prices would tend to fall by approximately 2
percent per year.) In this model, the real income of all factors
of production, especially labor, would be updated automati-
cally, and hence collective bargaining, which presently creates
so much tension and conflict in western economies, could be
eliminated. Indeed this process would be relegated to those
isolated cases in which, for example, a greater increase in pro-
ductivity or in the market price of specific types of labor made
it necessary to negotiate even greater rises than those auto-
matically reflected each year in real income with the decline in
the general price level. Moreover in these cases even the inter-
vention of unions would be unnecessary (though the possibil-
ity is not excluded), since market forces themselves, guided by
the entrepreneurial profit motive, would spontaneously pro-
voke those income rises justified in relative terms. Therefore,
in practice, collective bargaining would be limited to those
isolated cases in which productivity rose less than average,
50George A. Selgin recently argued that the best monetary-policy rule is
to allow the general price level to fall in accordance with growth in pro-
ductivity. See his book, Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in
a Growing Economy. We find this suggestion fundamentally sound. Nev-
ertheless, for the reasons stated in chapter 8, we do not entirely support
Selgin's theses. We particularly disagree with his view that the institu-
tional measure most conducive to his suggestion would be to establish
a fractional-reserve free-banking system.
752 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
making certain reductions in nominal wages necessary (in any
case, these would generally be smaller than the drop in the
general price level).51
Finally we should point out that the chief virtue in the
rigidity of the proposed monetary system is that it would com-
pletely prevent sudden contractions or decreases in the money
supply such as inevitably occur now in the recession stage
which in the economic cycle follows every expansion. Thus
perhaps the greatest advantage of the reform we suggest is
that it would totally eliminate the credit squeeze which suc-
ceeds every boom and is one of the clearest signs of the eco-
nomic crises that repetitively grip our economies. The world-
wide stock of gold is unchanging and has accumulated over
the history of civilization. Hence it is inconceivable that its
volume will suddenly plunge at some future point. One of the
51Mises, in the memorandum which he prepared for the League of
Nations, and which we mentioned earlier in this chapter, expresses the
above ideas brilliantly and concisely:
[I]f all expansion of credit by the banks had been effectively
precluded, the world would have had a monetary system in
which — even apart from the discoveries of gold in California,
Australia, and South Africa — prices would have shown a
general tendency to fall. The majority of our contemporaries
will find a sufficient ground for regarding such a monetary
system as bad in itself, since they are wedded to the belief that
good business and high prices are one and the same thing. But that is
prejudice. If we had had slowly falling prices for eighty years or
more, we would have become accustomed to look for
improvements in the standard of living and increases in real
income through falling prices with stable or falling money
income, rather than through increases in money income. At
any rate, a solution to the difficult problem of reforming our
monetary and credit system must not be rejected offhand
merely for the reason that it involves a continuous fall in the
price level. Above all, we must not allow ourselves to be
influenced by the evil consequences of the recent rapid fall in
prices. A slow and steady decline of prices cannot in any sense be
compared with what is happening under the present system:
namely, sudden and big rises in the price level, followed by equally
sudden and sharp falls. (Mises, Money, Method, and the Market
Process, pp. 90-91; italics added)
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 753
most salient features of gold, and possibly the most influential
in gold's evolutionary predominance as money par excel-
lence, is its homogeneity and immutability throughout the
centuries. Thus the main advantage of the proposed model is
that it would preclude the sudden reductions in the volume of
credit and, hence, in the quantity of money in circulation,
which until now have been repetitive in the "elastic" mone-
tary and credit systems which prevail in the world. In short, a
pure gold standard with a 100-percent reserve requirement
would prevent deflation, understood as any drop in the quan-
tity of money or credit in circulation.52
5. The Proposed System Would Put an End to Feverish Financial
Speculation and its Damaging Effects. We could liken banks' cre-
ation of money through credit expansion to the opening of Pan-
dora's box. To close it again, we must eliminate the incentives
that tempt individuals to indulge in all kinds of unscrupulous,
fraudulent behaviors. Such incentives are extremely harmful,
since they corrupt the established habit of saving and working
conscientiously; that is, the habit of making a constant, honest,
responsible, and long-term economic effort.53 Furthermore
52We must remember that during the Great Depression of 1929, the
money supply contracted by around 30 percent. A contraction of this
sort would be impossible with a pure gold standard and a 100-percent
reserve requirement, given that the monetary system we propose is
inelastic with respect to contractions. Hence in our model, the monetary
contraction which many mistakenly identify as the main cause of the
Great Depression would not have occurred in any case. At the same
time, it is highly improbable that the combination of a pure gold stan-
dard and a 100-percent reserve requirement has ever resulted in an
inflationary rise in prices. See Mark Skousen, Economics on Trial: Lies,
Myths and Realities (Homewood, 111.: Business One Irwin, 1991), pp.
133-38. In fact, in no year from 1492 to the present has the total supply
of gold increased by more than 5 percent, and the average increase, as
we have already indicated, has been between 1 and 3 percent per year.
53tn the exact words of Maurice Allais, "speculation, frenetique et
febrile, est permise, alimentee et amplifiee par le credit tel qui fonctionne
actuellement ." Maurice Allais, "Les conditions monetaires d'une
economie de marches," p. 326. Perhaps there is no more concise and ele-
gant way to refer to what the Spanish have in recent years popularly
754 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
wild stock-market speculation would also be thwarted, and
take-over bids, which are harmless in themselves, would only
be made in the presence of true, objective, economic reasons
for them. They would not be a mere result of great ease in
obtaining external financing due to ex nihilo credit expansion
in the banking sector. In other words, as Maurice Allais indi-
cates:
Take-over bids are essentially useful, but the legislation gov-
erning them should be revised. It should not be possible to
finance them using means of payment created ex nihilo by the
banking system or newly-issued junk bonds, as occurs in
the United States.54
In the market, the expansionary supply of loans unbacked
by saving creates its own demand, which is often embodied in
unscrupulous economic agents whose only intention is to
obtain a short-term benefit from the enormous advantages
which, to the detriment of all other citizens, they derive from
using newly-created means of payment before anyone else.
6. The Proposed System Reduces the Economic Functions of the
State to a Minimum and, in Particular, Permits the Eradication of
the Central Bank. The system we recommend would eliminate
the need for the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank,
the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and in general any
authority, central bank or official, public or government body
with a monopoly on the issuance of money and, as a central
come to call "la cultura del pelotazo" [the culture of easy money], a trend
which has undoubtedly been made possible and fed by the uncontrolled
credit expansion brought about by the financial system. Alan Greenspan
has popularized the expression "irrational exuberance" in reference to
the typical behavior of investors in the recent financial bubble.
54 Allais, "Les conditions monetaires d'une economie de marches," p.
347. The original text reads:
Les offres publiques d'achat sont fondamentalement utiles, mais
la legislation les concernant doit etre reformee. II n'est pas
souhaitable qu'elles puissent etre financees par des moyens
de paiement crees ex nihilo par le systeme bancaire, ou par
remission des junk bonds, comme c'est le cas aux Etats-Unis.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 755
monetary-planning agency, on the control and management of
the banking and financial system of any country. Even certain
distinguished politicians, such as the nineteenth-century Amer-
ican President Andrew Jackson, understood this idea perfectly
and, motivated by it, fiercely opposed the establishment of any
central bank. Unfortunately their influence was not strong
enough to prevent the creation of the current central-planning
system in the sector of banking and finance, nor any of this sys-
tem's harmful effects, past or present, on our economies.55
Moreover, as the Public Choice School indicates, privi-
leged special interest groups and politicians will tend to
exploit any fiduciary monetary system based on a state
monopoly on the issuance of money. In fact, politicians face
the irresistible temptation to try to buy votes with funds cre-
ated from nothing, an enticement analyzed by theorists of the
"political cycle," among others.56 Furthermore the possibility
of expanding money and credit allows politicians to finance
their expenditures without resorting to taxes, which are
always unpopular and painful. At the same time, with this
course of action, the decrease in the purchasing power of
money works in politicians' favor, since income taxes are gen-
erally progressive. For these reasons it is especially important
that we find a monetary system which, like the one proposed
55Thus we should be especially critical of those authors who, such as
Alan Reynolds, Arthur B. Laffer, Marc A. Miles and others, attempt to
establish a pseudo-gold-standard in which the central bank continues to
play the leading role in monetary and credit policy but with a reference
to gold. Friedman has appropriately characterized this pseudo-gold-
standard as "a system in which, instead of gold being money gold was
a commodity whose price was fixed by governments." (See Friedman,
"Has Gold Lost its Monetary Role?" p. 36). The proposals of Laffer and
Miles appear in their book, International Economics in an Integrated World
(Oakland, N.J.: Scott and Foresman, 1982). A brief, brilliant critique of
these proposals can be found in Salerno, "Gold Standards: True and
False," pp. 258-61.
56See, for example, chapter 5 ("Ciclo Politico-Economico") of Juan Fran-
cisco Corona Ramon's book, Una introduction a la teoria de la decision
vublica (Public Choice) (Alcala de Henares; Madrid: Instituto Nacional de
Administration Publica, 1987), pp. 116-42, and the bibliography pro-
vided therein. Remember also the references of footnote 57 of chapter 6.
756 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
here, permits the discontinuation of state intervention in the
field of money and finance. Mises sums up this argument
quite well:
The reason for using a commodity money is precisely to prevent
political influence from affecting directly the value of the monetary
unit. Gold is the standard money . . . primarily because an
increase or decrease in the available quantity is independent
of the orders issued by political authorities. The distinctive
feature of the gold standard is that it makes changes in the
quantity of money dependent on the profitability of gold
production.57
Therefore we see that the institution of a pure gold stan-
dard with a 100-percent reserve requirement has emerged
from the choices made by millions and millions of economic
agents in the market throughout a prolonged evolutionary
process, and it provides the vital opportunity to check the ten-
dency of all governments to meddle in and manipulate the
monetary and credit system.58
7. The Proposed System Is the Most Compatible with Democ-
racy. One of the key principles of democracy is that the
financing of public activities must be the object of discussion
and explicit decision-making on the part of political repre-
sentatives. The current monopoly on the issuance of money,
which is held by a public agency and a banking industry that
57Mises, On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, p. 22; italics added.
58Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 455. There we read:
Thus the sound-money principle has two aspects. It is affir-
mative in approving the market's choice of a commonly used
medium of exchange. It is negative in obstructing the govern-
ment's propensity to meddle with the currency system.
Hence we consider our proposal vastly superior to that of the School of
Monetary Constitutionalism, the adherents of which attempt to solve
current issues via the establishment of constitutional rules on monetary
growth and banking and financial markets. Monetary constitutionalism
is not necessary in the context of a pure gold standard and a 100-percent
reserve requirement, nor would it curb politicians' temptation to manip-
ulate credit and money.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 757
operates with a fractional reserve, permits the ex nihilo cre-
ation of purchasing power which benefits the state and cer-
tain individuals and companies, to the detriment of the rest of
society. This possibility is exploited mainly by the govern-
ment, which uses it as a mechanism for financing its expendi-
tures without having to resort to the most obvious and politi-
cally costly route, an increase in taxes. Although governments
try to conceal this financing mechanism by rhetorically
demanding that budgets be financed in an "orthodox" man-
ner, and that the deficit not be directly funded through the
issuance of currency and credit, in practice the result is quite
similar when a significant number of the treasury bonds gov-
ernments issue to finance their deficit are later purchased by
central and private banks with new money of their own cre-
ation (indirect process of monetization of the national debt).
Furthermore we should emphasize that the hidden expropri-
ation of citizens' wealth, an action permitted by the process of
fiduciary inflation, profits not only governments, but also
bankers themselves. Indeed, because bankers operate with a
fractional reserve and governments do not oblige them to
devote all credit expansion to financing the public sector
(through the purchase of treasury bonds), banks also carry out
a gradual, diffuse expropriation of a major portion of the pur-
chasing power of citizens' monetary units, while banks' bal-
ance sheets reflect the amassment of considerable assets
which are the cumulative result of this historical process of
expropriation. In this sense, bankers' protests against the sug-
gestion that they be required to devote such a large percentage
of their assets to financing the public deficit must be under-
stood as one side of an argument between the two "accom-
plices" in the socially detrimental credit-expansion process,
accomplices who "negotiate" between themselves which share
of the "profits" each will take.
In contrast to the above system, a pure gold standard with
a 100-percent reserve requirement would oblige states to fully
specify their expenditures and the sources of their income,
which would prevent them from resorting to the covert financ-
ing available in inflation and credit expansion. Moreover, such a
system would also preclude private bankers from profiting from
758 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
a large portion of this "inflationary tax." Maurice Allais has
given an abundantly clear assessment of this point. He states:
Given that any creation of money exerts the same effects as
would a true tax imposed on all whose income is dimin-
ished by the rise in prices which inevitably follows the
issuance of new money the profit derived from it, which is
actually considerable, should return to the state and thus
permit it to reduce the overall amount of its taxes.59
Nonetheless, we suggest a much more favorable option:
that the state should relinquish its power to issue money and
thus accept an obligation to rely on taxes in order to finance all
of its expenditures, which it would be required to do with
complete transparency. As a result of the above, citizens
would directly perceive the entire cost involved and would
hence be sufficiently motivated to subject all public agencies
to the necessary monitoring.
8. The Proposed System Fosters Peaceful, Harmonious Cooper-
ation among Nations. An analysis of the history of military con-
flicts over the last two centuries plainly reveals that many of
the wars which have ravaged humanity could have been com-
pletely prevented or would have been much less virulent if it
59 Comme toute creation monetaire equivaut par ses effets a un
veritable impot preleve sur tous ceux dont les revenus se
voient diminues par la hausse des prix qu'elle engendre
inevitablement, le profit qui en resulte, considerable a vrai dire,
devrait revenir a l'Etat en lui permettant ainsi de reduire
d'autant le montant global des ses impots. (Allais, "Les con-
ditions monetaires d'une economie de marches," p. 331)
In the same place, Allais identifies the following as one of the most strik-
ing paradoxes of our time: though the public has become more aware of
the serious dangers involved in government use of the money press, cit-
izens remain completely ignorant of the identical dangers which the system of
credit expansion unbacked by real saving poses in the form of fractional-reserve
banking. The Spaniard Juan Antonio Gimeno Ullastres has studied the
tax effect of inflation, though unfortunately he fails to mention the con-
sequences of the credit expansion fractional-reserve banking entails. See
his article, "Un impuesto llamado inflacion," published in Homenaje a
Lucas Beltrdn (Madrid: Editorial Moneda y Credito, 1982), pp. 803-23.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 759
had not been for states' mounting influence in monetary mat-
ters and, ultimately, their acquired control over credit expan-
sion and the creation of money. Indeed, governments have
concealed the true cost of military conflicts from their citizens
by largely financing these costs using inflationary procedures
which, under the pretext of each particular military emergency,
states have employed with absolute impunity. Therefore we can
confidently assert that inflation has fueled wars: if in each case
the citizens of the nations engaged in battle had been aware of
the true cost involved, either hostilities would have been
averted in time by the corresponding democratic mechanisms,
or citizens would have required governments to negotiate a
solution long before the destruction and damage to humanity
reached the immense degrees which, sadly, they have reached
in history. Thus we conclude with Ludwig von Mises:
One can say without exaggeration that inflation is an indis-
pensable intellectual means of militarism. Without it, the
repercussions of war on welfare would become obvious
much more quickly and penetratingly; war-weariness
would set in much earlier.60
At the same time, the establishment of a pure gold stan-
dard with a 100-percent reserve requirement would amount to
a de facto adoption of a single, worldwide monetary standard.
There would be no need for an international central bank, and
60 Ludwig von Mises, Nation, State and Economy: Contributions to the Poli-
tics and History of Our Time (New York and London: New York Univer-
sity Press, 1983), p. 163; and also Human Action, p. 442. The former is
Leland B. Yeager's translation of Mises's Nation, Staat, und Wirtschaft,
which was originally published in 1919, in German (Vienna and Leipzig:
Manzsche Verlags Buchhandlung, 1919). On this important topic, see
also Joseph T. Salerno, "War and the Money Machine: Concealing the
Costs of War Beneath the Veil of Inflation," chapter 17 of The Costs of War:
America's Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson, ed. (New Brunswick and Lon-
don: Transaction Publishers, 1997), pp. 367-87. Nevertheless the first to
point out the close connection between militarism and inflation was,
again, Father Juan de Mariana, in his book, De Monetae Mutatione, pub-
lished in 1609. See Tratado y discurso sobre la moneda de vellon, p. 35 (Eng-
lish edition, A Treatise on the Alteration of Money).
760 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
thus no risk that such a bank would manipulate the worldwide
supply of money and credit. In this way, we would enjoy all
the advantages of a single, international monetary standard,
yet suffer none of the disadvantages of intergovernmental
agencies related to money. Furthermore this system would not
provoke suspicion concerning a loss of sovereignty to the cor-
responding states, while all nations and social groups would
benefit from the existence of a sole monetary unit which no
one would govern nor manipulate. Therefore a pure gold
standard and a 100-percent reserve requirement would pro-
mote international economic integration within a harmonious
juridical framework of mutual satisfaction, a framework
which would minimize social conflicts, thus encouraging
peace and voluntary trade between all nations.
4
Replies to Possible Objections
to our Proposal for Monetary Reform
Although no integrated, coherent, systematic critique of
our plan to reform the banking system has yet been pro-
duced,61 there have been certain isolated, unsystematic objec-
tions to the proposal to establish a banking system with a 100-
percent reserve requirement. We will now present and analyze
these challenges one by one.
1. "Banks would disappear, because they would lose their rai-
son d'etre and main source of income." Such criticism is
unfounded. All that banks would lose by adopting a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement is the possibility of creating loans
ex nihilo; i.e., loans unbacked by a rise in voluntary saving.
The suggested reform would make it impossible for the
banking system as a whole to expand credit artificially, and
61"Exhaustive research, however, fails to uncover any published cri-
tiques in this regard." Walter Block, "Fractional Reserve Banking," p. 31.
Leland Yeager's brief critical comments on our proposal have already
been answered in this section. See "The Perils of Base Money," pp.
256-57.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 761
with it the money supply, and thereby trigger recurrent cycles
of boom and recession.
A significant number of totally legitimate activities would
remain to sustain the banking business, and bankers could
continue to pursue these activities, thus fulfilling the needs of
consumers. One such activity would be true credit intermedi-
ation, which consists of loaning, with a differential, funds pre-
viously lent banks by their customers (not demand deposits).
In addition, as deposit banks (with a 100-percent reserve
requirement), institutions could provide custody and safe-
keeping, while charging the corresponding market price for
this service and even combining it with other peripheral ones
(the making of payments, transfers, records of customers'
operations, etc.). If to this we add the custody and manage-
ment of securities, the rental of safe deposit boxes, etc., we get
a reasonably good idea of the extensive range of legitimate
functions banks could continue to perform.
Therefore the belief that the reestablishment of a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement would mean the death of private
banks is unjustified. There would simply be a modification,
itself largely evolutionary and non-traumatic, to their struc-
ture and operations. We have already mentioned the strong
probability of the spontaneous development of a banking sys-
tem comprised of a network of mutual funds, deposit institu-
tions that maintain a 100-percent reserve ratio, and companies
that specialize in providing accounting and cashier services to
their customers. Hence we conclude with Ludwig von Mises:
It is clear that prohibition of fiduciary media would by no
means imply a death sentence for the banking system, as is
sometimes asserted. The banks would still retain the busi-
ness of negotiating credit, of borrowing for the purpose of
lending.62
In short, banks could continue to engage in a large num-
ber of activities, thus satisfying the needs of consumers and
obtaining a legitimate profit in return.
62Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 361.
762 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
2. "The proposed system would largely decrease the amount of
available credit, thereby pushing up the interest rate and hindering
economic development." This is the popular criticism most often
expressed, and it mainly comes from those economic agents
(businessmen, politicians, journalists, etc.) who allow them-
selves to be influenced chiefly by the external and most visi-
ble characteristics of the economic system. According to this
objection, if we prevent banks from creating loans ex nihilo,
many companies will meet significantly greater difficulties in
obtaining financing, and hence, ceteris paribus, the interest
rate will rise and obstacles to economic development will
appear. This objection stems from the fact that presently, due
to credit expansion, businessmen face little difficulty in secur-
ing financing for almost any investment project, no matter
how outlandish, assuming the economy is in a phase in
which bankers are not afraid to expand their loans. Credit
expansion has altered the traditional habits associated with
the "entrepreneurial culture," habits which rested on much
more prudent, responsible, and careful consideration prior to
a decision on whether or not to launch a particular invest-
ment project.
At any rate, it is a grave error to suppose credit would dis-
appear in a banking system governed by a 100-percent reserve
requirement. Quite the opposite is true. Banks would still loan
funds, but only those funds previously and voluntarily saved
by economic agents. In short, the proposed system would
guarantee that only that which has been saved would be lent.
The new arrangement would thus ensure coordination
between the supply and demand of present and future goods
in the market and, consequently, prevent the profound mal-
adjustments which the current banking system produces and
which ultimately generate economic crises and recessions.
Moreover the notion that the loan funds devoted to invest-
ment in the current system can ultimately exceed society's
voluntary saving is a fallacy. As we know, ex post, saving is
always equal to investment, and if, ex ante, banks grant loans
(through a process of credit expansion) at a faster pace than
that of voluntary saving, entrepreneurs will simply tend to err
en masse and allot the scarce, real resources saved by society
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 763
to disproportionate investment projects which they will never
be able to successfully complete.
Therefore this second objection is unfounded: with a 100-
percent reserve requirement, banks would continue to loan
what is saved, yet entrepreneurs would tend to invest saved
funds in a much more prudent, realistic manner. If, from the
start, businessmen were to encounter greater obstacles to
financing certain entrepreneurial projects, such difficulties
would be the logical manifestation of the healthy functioning
of the only market mechanism capable of halting the initiation
of unprofitable investment projects in time, and thus avoiding
their unwise and discoordinated execution, which the current
system promotes during credit booms.
As to the interest rate, there is no indication that in the
long term it would be higher in the proposed system than in
the current one. Indeed the interest rate ultimately depends on
economic agents' subjective valuations of time preference. In
our model, economic agents would not be affected by the mas-
sive squandering of capital goods which accompanies recur-
rent economic recessions. Furthermore it is clear that, other
things being equal, in a system like the one we recommend, the
interest rate would tend to be quite low in nominal terms, since
the corresponding premium for the expected evolution of the
purchasing power of money would in most cases be negative.
Also, the component of risk would depend on the precarious-
ness of each specific investment project undertaken and, fol-
lowing a period without economic recessions, would tend to
fall as well. Hence we conclude that there is absolutely no the-
oretical basis for the assumption that the interest rate would be
higher in the proposed system than it is now. Quite the reverse
would be true. There are very powerful reasons to believe that
in both real and nominal terms, the market rates of interest
would be lower than those we are presently accustomed to.63
63For example, let us suppose the economy grows at an average rate of
around 3 percent per year, and the money supply (the world stock of
gold) rises by 1 .5 percent. Under these circumstances, we will see very
slight deflation of 1 .5 percent per year. If the real market rate of inter-
est is 4 percent (a natural rate of 3 percent and a risk component of 1
764 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Therefore a system composed of a pure gold standard and
a 100-percent reserve requirement would not weaken eco-
nomic development. In fact, such a system would give rise to
a model of stable, continuous development, free from the
manic-depressive reactions which we have, with difficulty,
become used to and which, unfortunately, involve the regular
malinvestment of a huge quantity of society's scarce
resources, to the serious detriment of sustainable economic
growth and harmony in society.
3. "The proposed model would penalize those who profit from the
current hanking and financial system." It has at times been
argued that the recommended system would unjustly penal-
ize all those who profit from the present financial and banking
system. Among its chief beneficiaries we must first list the
government, which, as we know, manages to finance its
expenditures (directly and indirectly) via credit expansion,
without having to resort to the politically painful measure of
raising taxes. Next we could mention bankers themselves
(who line their pockets by the same procedures as the govern-
ment, yet directly and privately), and also depositors, if they
receive interest on their deposits and "do not pay" for the set
of peripheral services banks perform.64
Nevertheless those who voice this objection do not take
into account that many of the supposed "profits" individuals
obtain from the banking system are not truly profits. Indeed
it is inaccurate to argue that depositors currently enjoy sub-
stantial benefits (in the form of cashier, payment and book-
keeping services) without paying for them, since depositors
percent), the nominal market interest rate will be approximately 2.5 per-
cent per year. In footnote 48 we supposed nominal interest rates would
be even lower, due to population growth and a consequent, perennial
low increase in the demand for money.
64 Under competitive conditions the benefits are partly enjoyed
by the holders of fractionally-backed bank liabilities them-
selves, whose gain takes the form of explicit interest pay-
ments or lowered bank service charges or a combination of
these. (Selgin, "Are Banking Crises a Free-Market Phenome-
non?" p. 3).
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 765
themselves actually bear the full cost (explicitly or implicitly)
of these benefits.
As to the explicit interest often available on deposits, such
payments are usually compensated for by the continual
decline in the purchasing power of depositors' monetary units.
In the proposed system, which includes a 100-percent reserve
requirement, the purchasing power of deposited monetary
units would not only not decline, but, as we have seen, would
grow gradually and constantly. This enormous benefit to all cit-
izens would be remarkably superior to the supposed "advan-
tage" of receiving explicit interest which hardly compensates
for the devaluation of money. Hence today in most cases the
real interest rate on deposits (after deducting the drop in the
purchasing power of money) is almost null or even negative.
In a society with a pure gold standard and a 100-percent
reserve requirement, all citizens would gain from the gradual,
continuous increase in the purchasing power of their mone-
tary units. They would receive interest on effective savings
and be openly and explicitly obliged to pay the market price
for those legitimate banking services they chose to use. The
proposed system would thus be much more coherent and
almost certainly more advantageous to the people in general
than the present financial and banking system.65
As to the argument that governments and bankers would
be unable to continue profiting from the current system,
more than a defect and motive for criticizing our proposal,
this would be a positive result which would offer prima facie
justification for it. Indeed, above we emphasized the great
65 Iln'y a pas lieu de rendre gratuitement des services qui en tout etat
de cause ont un cout qu'ilfaut Men supporter. Si un deposant est
affranchi des frais relatifs a la tenue de son compte, la banque
doit les supporter. Dans la situation actuelle elle peut le faire,
car elle beneficie des profits correspondants a la creation de
monnaie par le mecanisme du credit. Qui en supporte reelle-
ment le cout?: l'ensemble des consommateurs penalises par la
hausse des prix entrainee par l'accroissement de la masse
monetaire. (Allais, "Les conditions monetaires d'une
economie de marches," p. 351)
766 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
importance of preventing governments from using inflation
and credit expansion to finance their expenditures in a con-
cealed manner. Moreover we need not reiterate the details of
the obscure legal basis and harmful effects of private banks'
power to issue loans and deposits.
4. "A 100-percent reserve requirement is an example of state
intervention and jeopardizes the contractual freedom of the parties."
Modern neo-banking advocates of fractional-reserve free
banking often argue that it is "inadmissible" from a "libertar-
ian" standpoint to limit the contractual freedom of the parties,
specifically, the ability of depositors to freely enter into pacts
with their bankers by which the former agree to open
demand-deposit accounts on which only a fractional reserve is
to be maintained. In the first three chapters we saw that a 100-
percent reserve requirement on demand deposits would not at
all constitute intolerable government interference ("legislation
through commands," in Hayekian terminology). Instead, it
would merely represent the natural application of traditional
property-law principles to the monetary irregular-deposit
contract ("substantive or material law," in Hayekian terminol-
ogy).66 Furthermore a voluntary decision by two parties to
enter into a contract and full knowledge of its cause (which,
incidentally, is not usually the case in the present financial and
banking system) are necessary conditions for the legitimacy of
an operation, but they alone are in no way sufficient to grant
66 [T]he free market does not mean freedom to commit fraud or
any other form of theft. Quite the contrary. The criticism may
be obviated by imposing a 100% reserve requirement, not as
an arbitrary administrative fiat of the government, but as a
part of the general legal defense of property against fraud.
(Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, p. 709)
As Jevons stated:
"It used to be held as a general rule of law, that any present
grant or assignment of goods not in existence is without
operation," and this general rule need only be revived and
enforced to outlaw fictitious money-substitutes. Then bank-
ing could be left perfectly free and yet be without departure
from 100% reserves. (Jevons, Money and the Mechanism of
Exchange, pp. 211-12)
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 767
this legitimacy in keeping with traditional legal principles. In
fact if third parties suffer harm as a result of such a contract,
the contract is illegitimate, null, and void, because it disrupts
the public order.67 According to the analysis we present in this
book, it is precisely this lack of legitimacy which pertains to
fractional-reserve banking. This practice not only gives rise to
the creation of additional means of payment to the detriment
of all citizens, who watch as their monetary units decline in
purchasing power;68 it also deceives entrepreneurs on a broad
scale, leading them to invest where and when they should not,
and triggering recurrent cycles of boom and recession with a
very heavy cost in human, economic and social terms.
Finally, we must counter the oft-heard argument69 which
centers around the claim that economic agents are unwilling
67By the same token, a free, voluntary "contract" by which two parties
agree that one will pay the other to murder a third party would be
invalid, since it would disturb the public order and be detrimental to
third parties. The contract would be null and void even in the absence
of deception or fraud, and even if both parties entered into it willfully
and with full knowledge of its nature.
68We are not referring to a drop in purchasing power in absolute terms,
but in relative terms, with respect to the growth which could be
expected in the purchasing power of money in a banking system with a
100-percent reserve ratio. In addition, the economic consequences of
current banking practices are, in this respect, identical to those of coun-
terfeiting, an activity everyone agrees should be punished as a breach of
public order, even if it is impossible to individually identify its victims.
69Juan Jose Toribio Davila offers this critical argument, among others,
in his paper, "Problemas Eticos en los Mercados Financieros," which he
presented at the Encuentros sobre la dimension etica de las instituciones y
mercados financieros, which took place in Madrid under the auspices of
the Fundacion BBV in June 1994. Moreover Toribio Davila argues that
a stable monetary policy could be achieved with any reserve ratio, while
he fails to consider the factors behind the theoretical impossibility of
central planning in general, and of its application to the financial sector
in particular. These factors account for central bankers' lack of ability
and desire to adequately calculate the demand for money and to control
the supply which, supposedly, should match the demand. Furthermore
Toribio Davila overlooks the profound discoordinating effects which
any growth in the money supply in the form of credit expansion (i.e.,
768 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
to voluntarily establish a banking system based on a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement and that their unwillingness is evi-
denced by the fact that nowadays they could freely agree to a
similar arrangement (but do not) by using the safe deposit
boxes banks rent out in the market. In contrast to this argu-
ment, we must point out that safe-deposit-box services are in
no way associated with the contract governing the irregular-
deposit of a fungible good such as money (rather, they are
connected with a typical regular-deposit contract concerning
specific goods). In addition, the safe-deposit-box business
(which entails a cost to customers, and in their subjective
view, does not provide the same services as a monetary bank-
deposit contract) could never really compete on equal terms
with the current fractional-reserve deposit system. In fact
banks commonly pay interest on deposits nowadays (which
suggests improper use is made of them). Also, banks offer
valuable services at no explicit cost, which makes it impossi-
ble for voluntary deposit contracts that include a 100 percent
reserve to compete and prosper, especially in an inflation-rid-
den environment in which the purchasing power of money
declines continuously. A very similar counter-argument is
called for concerning the public goods the state provides at
no apparent direct cost to the consumer. It is notoriously dif-
ficult in a free-market environment for any private company
with plans to offer the same services at market prices to thrive,
due to this unfair, privileged competition from government
agencies. These agencies supply "free" benefits to citizens and
generate heavy losses which we all ultimately cover with our
taxes via the national budget (inflationary tax).70
that unbacked by real saving) exerts on the productive structure.
Finally, there is a clear connection between a 100-percent reserve
requirement and ethics in the operations of financial institutions. In fact
the link is evident not only in the host of ethically irresponsible behav-
iors characteristic of the feverish speculation credit expansion provokes,
but also in the unquestionable fact that economic crises and recessions
stem from the violation of an ethical principle which demands the main-
tenance of a 100 percent reserve on monetary demand-deposit contracts.
70Furthermore, Hulsmann has explained that
[T]he confusion between monetary titles and fractional-
reserve IOUs brings into operation what is commonly known
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 769
5. "Financial 'innovations' will inevitably trigger the resur-
gence of fractional-reserve banking." According to this argument,
any legal precautions taken to prohibit fractional-reserve
banking and, thus, to establish a 100-percent reserve require-
ment on demand deposits will be insufficient; such measures
will always, ultimately be circumvented via new forms of
business and financial "innovations" which, in evasion of the
law or not, in one way or another, will tend to achieve the
same end as fractional-reserve banking. Hence as early as 1937
even Hayek affirmed:
It has been well remarked by the most critical among the orig-
inators of the scheme that banking is a pervasive phenomenon
and the question is whether, when we prevent it from
appearing in its traditional form, we will not just drive it
into other and less easily controllable forms.71
Hayek cited Peel's Act of 1844 as the most notable prece-
dent. Because those who introduced this act neglected to
impose a 100-percent reserve requirement on deposits, from
that point on, monetary expansion mainly took the form of
deposits, rather than banknotes.72
as Gresham's Law. Imagine a potential bank customer who is
offered two types of deposits with a bank. He believes that
both deposits deliver exactly the same services. The only dif-
ference is that he has to pay for the first type of deposit,
whereas he does not have to pay — or even receives pay-
ment— for the second type of deposit. Clearly he will choose
not to be charitable to his banker and will subscribe to a
deposit of the second type. When genuine money titles and
fractional-reserve IOUs are confused, therefore, the latter will
drive the former out of the market. (Hulsmann, "Has Frac-
tional-Reserve Banking Really Passed the Market Test?" pp.
399-422; quotation is from pp. 408-09)
71Hayek, Monetary Nationalism and International Stability, p. 82. On the
same topic, see Simons, "Rules versus Authority in Monetary Policy," p.
17.
72However, we can imagine how different the economic history of the
last 150 years would have been had Peel's Act not neglected to impose
a 100-percent reserve requirement on deposits as well! Incidentally,
Hayek has argued that it is impossible to radically separate the different
770 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
To begin with, even if this objection were justified, it
would not constitute even a hint of an argument against the
attempt to reach the ideal goal: a proper definition and
defense of traditional private-property-law principles in con-
nection with demand deposits. In fact in many other contexts,
for example that of criminal activities, we see that, although
from a technical standpoint it is often very difficult to cor-
rectly apply and defend the corresponding traditional legal
principles, an all-out effort should still be made to appropri-
ately define and defend the legal framework.73
Furthermore, contrary to the view of some, fractional-
reserve banking is not so "omnipresent" that it is impossible
to fight in practice. It is true that throughout this book we
have considered different legal forms of business which, in
evasion of the law, have been devised in an attempt to dis-
guise monetary, irregular bank deposits as other contracts. We
instruments which could represent money as a generally accepted
medium of exchange, and thus there would only be a "continuum" of
different degrees of liquidity which would further complicate the chal-
lenge of determining when the traditional legal principles we defend
here are upheld and when they are not. We do not find this a solid argu-
ment. As Menger maintains, it is always possible in practice to ade-
quately distinguish between money and all other highly liquid instru-
ments which, nevertheless, do not constitute immediate, generally
accepted mediums of exchange. The distinction between these two
types of goods lies in the fact that money is not only a highly liquid
instrument; it is the only perfectly liquid good. Therefore people are willing
to demand it even if they receive no interest for keeping it, while the
holders of other, borderline instruments which lack perfect liquidity
demand interest for possessing them. The essential difference between
money and other peripheral "mediums" hinges on the existence of per-
fect liquidity (i.e., a loss of perfect, immediate availability). Gerald P.
O'Driscoll elaborates on this point in his article, "Money: Menger 's Evo-
lutionary Theory," pp. 601-16.
73For example, it is certainly possible to commit murder using increas-
ingly sophisticated poisons which leave no trace and seriously hinder
the collection of evidence concerning the true source and nature of the
homicide. However no one has any doubt that murder is a violation of
fundamental legal principles, and that all efforts necessary to prevent
and punish this sort of conduct should be made.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 771
have touched on operations with an agreement of repurchase
at their nominal value; different transactions with "American"
put options; so-called time "deposits," which in practice act as
true demand deposits; and demand deposits carried out
through the completely unrelated institution of life insurance.
The specific combinations of these legal forms of business,
and any other similar form or combination which might be
developed in the future, are easily identifiable and classifiable
under civil and criminal law, just as we proposed in the sec-
ond section (footnote 40) of this chapter. For it is relatively
easy for any impartial judge or observer to ascertain whether
the essence of an operation permits the withdrawal at any
time of the funds initially deposited and whether, from a sub-
jective viewpoint, human behavior shows that people regard
certain claims as money, i.e., a generally accepted medium of
exchange which is perfectly available (i.e., liquid) at all times.
Moreover the creation of new businesses and "contracts"
in an effort to circumvent the basic legal principles which
should govern banking has taken place in an environment in
which economic agents have been unable to identify the
extent to which such "novelties" are illegitimate and cause
great harm to the economy and society. If from now on judi-
cial and public authorities clearly identify the issues we ana-
lyze in this book, it will be much easier to combat the deviant
behaviors which may arise in the financial sector. It is unsur-
prising that Peel's Act of 1844 was followed by a dispropor-
tionate expansion of bank deposits, since at that time eco-
nomic theorists had not yet established the absolute
equivalence between bank deposits and banknotes, in terms
of their nature and effects. Peel's Act did not fall short of its
objective due to the "omnipresent" nature of fractional-
reserve banking, but precisely to humans' failure to realize
that banknotes and deposits have the same nature and pro-
duce the same economic effects. In contrast, today economic
theory has provided judges with analytical tools of incalcula-
ble value to guide them toward the correct identification of
criminal behaviors and the pronouncement of fair, studied
jurisprudential rulings with respect to all "doubtful" cases
which may arise in practice.
772 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Finally, we must make a few important clarifications
regarding the concept of "innovation" in the financial market
and the essential difference between so-called "financial inno-
vations" and the technological and entrepreneurial innova-
tions introduced in the sectors of industry and commerce.
While any technological and entrepreneurial innovation
adopted successfully in commerce and industry should be
welcome from the beginning, since such changes tend to
increase productivity and better satisfy the desires of con-
sumers, in the financial sector, where activities should always take
place within an unchanging framework of stable, predictable legal
principles, "innovations" should initially be viewed with suspicion.
Indeed, in the sphere of banking and finance, innovations may
be considered positive when, for example, they consist of new
computer equipment and software, channels of distribution,
etc. However when "innovations" directly influence the role
essential legal principles must play in providing the inviolable
framework for the functioning of the entire market, these
changes will tend to inflict serious harm on society, which
should reject and crack down on them. Hence it is a bad joke
to term a "financial innovation" that which is ultimately
designed to hide frauds and to circumvent general legal prin-
ciples vital for the healthy functioning and maintenance of a
market economy74
Financial products conform to the different contract types
which have traditionally developed within the law, and the
74There are also financial innovations which, like takeover bids, fulfill a
legitimate function in the market and do not in themselves violate any
traditional legal principle, but which become corrupted in the presence
of fractional-reserve banking and credit expansion unbacked by real
saving. A concise, yet exhaustive analysis of the financial "innovations"
which have emerged as a result of the poorly named process of "finan-
cial deregulation" (which has largely consisted of reducing the compli-
ance of the financial sector with traditional legal principles) appears
in Luis Barrallat's book, La banca esvanola en el ano 2000: un sector en
transicion (Madrid: Ediciones de las Ciencias Sociales, 1992), pp.
172-205. We should point out that many of these financial "innovations"
arise within the fertile environment of feverish speculation ("irrational
exuberance"), a consequence of the credit expansion fractional-reserve
banking fuels.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 773
fundamental structure of these types cannot be modified
without distorting and violating the most basic legal princi-
ples. Therefore the only conceivable way to introduce "new"
financial products is to make different combinations of legiti-
mate, existing legal contracts, though innovation possibilities
in this field are quite limited. We must also remember that on
many occasions "innovations" are forced into existence by the
fiscal voracity of governments and the welter of fiscal legisla-
tion they introduce in all historical periods. In many cases,
such "innovations" are aimed at diminishing as far as possible
the payment of taxes, and they lead to the strangest and most
forced, complicated and juridically unnatural forms of busi-
ness. At this point the direct violation of traditional legal prin-
ciples is only one step away,75 and experience shows that the
temptation to cash in on the large profits fractional-reserve
banking generates prompts many to take this step without
hesitation. Therefore it is essential in this field to maintain an
attitude of constant, rigorous vigilance and prevention with
respect to the infringement of traditional legal principles.
6. "The proposed system would not allow the money supply to
grow at the same rate as economic development." Economic
agents have become accustomed to the current inflationary
environment and believe economic development is impossi-
ble without a certain amount of credit expansion and infla-
tion. Moreover various schools of economic thought have
praised increases in effective demand and tend to reinforce
ever popular inflationary appeals. Nevertheless, just as eco-
nomic agents have adapted to an inflationary environment,
they would adjust to one in which the purchasing power of
the monetary unit rose gradually and continuously.
Here again it is important to distinguish between two dif-
ferent meanings of the term "deflation" (and "inflation")
75Hence this is another example which perfectly illustrates the acute
corruptive effects which the fiscal and economic interventionism of the
state exerts on the concept of substantive or material law, related social
habits, and the sense of justice. We have dealt with this topic extensively
in Huerta de Soto, Socialismo, cdlculo economico y funcion empresarial, pp.
126-33.
774 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
which are often confused in theoretical discussion and analy-
sis. Deflation refers to either an absolute decrease or contrac-
tion in the money supply or to the result such a contraction
generally (but not always) tends to produce, i.e., a rise in the
purchasing power of the monetary unit, or in other words, a
fall in the general price "level." The proposed system of a pure
gold standard and a 100-percent reserve requirement would
obviously be completely inelastic with respect to contractions,
and therefore would prevent any deflation understood as a decrease
in the money supply, something the present "flexible monetary sys-
tem" cannot guarantee, as economic crises repeatedly remind us.76
If by "deflation" we understand a drop in the general price
level or a rise in the purchasing power of the monetary unit, it
is clear that to the extent that general economic productivity
increased faster than the money supply, such "deflation"
would be present in the monetary system we recommend. We
described this model of economic development above, and it
offers the great advantage of not only preventing economic
crises and recessions, but also spreading the benefits of eco-
nomic development to all citizens by stimulating gradual,
continuous growth in the purchasing power of each person's
monetary units and a parallel decrease in each person's
demand for money.
We must recognize that the proposed system would not
guarantee a monetary unit of unchanging purchasing power.
This is an unattainable goal, and even if it were achieved, it
would present no other advantage than to eliminate the pre-
mium which is included in the interest rate depending on the
76 After the stock market crash of October 1987, a credit squeeze was
kept at bay only momentarily by the massive doses of liquidity all cen-
tral banks injected into the system. Even so, in the economic recession
that followed (1990-1991), central bankers were helpless to convince
economic agents to borrow new money, even when interest rates were
set at historically low levels (2-3 percent in the United States). More
recently (2001), Japanese monetary authorities lowered the interest rate
in that country to 0.15 percent, without provoking the expansionary
effects predicted. Later, history repeated itself again after the stock mar-
ket crash of 2001-2002 and the fixing of the rate of interest at 1 percent
by the Federal Reserve. And again it was fixed as the historical low level
of 0-0.25 percent at the end of 2008 as a desperate reaction to the world-
wide financial crisis.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 775
expected future evolution of the purchasing power of money.
However in this respect it is only important that in practice
economic agents be able to easily predict the evolution of the
purchasing power of money and to take it into account when
making decisions. This would be sufficient to avert the sud-
den, unjustified redistribution of income between creditors
and debtors which in the past has always accompanied the
expansionary credit or monetary shocks economic agents
have failed to foresee in time.
It has been argued that if the supply of specie grows less
rapidly than economic productivity, the consequent rise in the
purchasing power of the monetary unit (or decrease in the
general price level) may, under certain circumstances, even
exceed the social rate of time preference incorporated in the
market rate of interest.77 Although the social rate of time
preference depends on humans' subjective valuations, and
thus its evolution cannot be theoretically ascertained in
advance, we must recognize that if it drops to very low levels,
due to a substantial rise in society's tendency to save, the
above effect could actually appear on occasion. However mar-
ket rates of interest would under no circumstances reach zero,
much less a negative number. To begin with, the well-known
Pigou effect would become evident: the increase in the pur-
chasing power of the monetary unit would boost the value of
the real cash balances held by economic agents, whose wealth
would grow in real terms and who would increase their con-
sumption, thus pushing the social rate of time preference back
up.78 In addition, entrepreneurs would always find financing,
via a positive interest rate, for all investment projects which
generated the expected accounting profits in excess of the rate
prevailing in the market at any given moment, no matter how
low. We should keep in mind that gradual reductions in the
77This is the argument C. Maling presents in his article, "The Austrian
Business Cycle Theory and its Implications for Economic Stability under
Laissez-Faire," chapter 48 of J.C. Wood and R.N. Woods, Friedrich A.
Hayek: Critical Assessments (London: Routledge, 1991), vol. 2, p. 267.
78On the Pigou effect, see Don Patinkin's article, "Real Balances," The
New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, vol. 4, pp. 98-101.
776 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
market rate of interest tend to drive up the present value of
capital goods and investment projects: a decrease from 1 to 0.5
percent will double the present value of durable capital goods,
and this value will double again if rates fall from 0.5 to 0.25
percent. Therefore it is inconceivable that nominal interest
rates should reach zero: as they approach that limit, growth in
the present value of capital goods will give rise to fantastic
opportunities to earn considerable entrepreneurial profits,
which will always guarantee an inexhaustible flow of entre-
preneurial profits and investment opportunities.
Consequently one aspect we can foresee is that in the pro-
posed model, nominal interest rates would reach historically
low levels. Indeed, if on average we can predict an increase in
productivity of around 3 percent and growth in the world's
gold reserves of 1 percent each year, there would be slight
annual "deflation" of approximately 2 percent. If we consider
a reasonable real interest rate, including the risk component,
to be between 3 and 4 percent, then we could expect the mar-
ket rate of interest to be between 1 and 2 percent per year and
to oscillate within a very narrow margin of around one-eighth
of a point. Economic agents who have only lived in environ-
ments of inflation based on monetary and credit expansion may
feel we have just described a panorama from outer space, but it
would be a highly favorable situation, and economic agents
would become accustomed to it with no major problem.79
79 In a world of a rising purchasing power of the monetary unit
everybody's mode of thinking would have adjusted itself to
this state of affairs, just as in our actual world it has adjusted
itself to a falling purchasing power of the monetary unit.
Today everybody is prepared to consider a rise in his nominal
or monetary income as an improvement to his material well-
being. People's attention is directed more toward the rise in
nominal wage rates and the money equivalent of wealth than
to the increase in the supply of commodities. In a world of ris-
ing purchasing power for the monetary unit they would con-
cern themselves more with the fall in living costs. This would
bring into clearer relief the fact that economic progress consists
primarily in making the amenities of life more easily accessible.
(Mises, Human Action, p. 469)
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 777
Even various members of the Neo-Banking School of
fractional-reserve free banking have exaggerated the sup-
posed dangers of "deflation." For example, Stephen Horwitz
questions the gradual, continuous decline in prices in our
model and states that just as sudden changes affect growth
in prices today, abrupt decreases in prices would be
inevitable in the system we propose (!). Horwitz fails to see
that a monetary standard inflexible to contractions would
render such abrupt decreases practically impossible, except
under the extraordinary circumstances of natural disasters,
wars and other similar phenomena. Under normal condi-
tions, there would be no reason for the demand for money to
ever increase traumatically; in fact it would gradually
decrease as the rise in the purchasing power of the monetary
unit made it unnecessary for economic agents to hold such
high real cash balances.80
The model of slight, gradual, and continuous "deflation"
which would appear in a system that rests on a pure gold stan-
dard and a 100-percent reserve requirement would not only
not prevent sustained, harmonious economic development,
but would actively foster it. Furthermore this has taken place
80Horwitz, "Keynes' Special Theory," footnote 18 on pp. 431-32. More-
over Horwitz asserts that the Austrians who defend a 100-percent
reserve requirement have been unable to explain why a drop in the
demand for money would necessarily be different, in terms of favoring
the appearance of economic crises, than a rise in the supply of money.
Horwitz overlooks the fact that it is the granting of fiduciary media
unbacked by real saving, i.e., credit expansion, rather than a generalized
decrease in the demand for money, which distorts the productive struc-
ture and causes crises. Other things being equal, a fall in the demand for
money could only cause a decline in the purchasing power of the mon-
etary unit and would not necessarily influence the creation of loans
unbacked by real saving and thus, society's productive structure. Hence
we must reject Horwitz's conclusion that "100-percent reserve banking
is insufficiently flexible to maintain monetary equilibrium," since this
notion is based on a misleading theoretical analysis which fails to ade-
quately deal with the mechanisms of discoordination set in motion in
the economic cycle.
778 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
in the past on various occasions. For example, we have
already mentioned the case of the United States during the
period from 1867, following the Civil War, until 1879. Even
Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz have had to admit that
this period
was a vigorous stage in the continued economic expansion
that was destined to raise the United States to a first rank
among the nations of the world. And their coincidence casts
serious doubts on the validity of the now widely held view that sec-
ular price deflation and rapid economic growth are incompatible.81
7. "The maintenance of a pure gold standard and a 100-percent
reserve requirement would be very costly in terms of economic
resources and would therefore inhibit economic development." The
argument that a pure gold standard would be quite expensive
in terms of economic resources was raised by John Maynard
Keynes, who viewed such a standard as no more than a "bar-
barous relic" of the past. This argument then found its way
into the most commonly used textbooks. For instance, Paul A.
Samuelson indicates: "(It) is absurd to waste resources dig-
ging gold out of the bowels of the earth, only to inter it back
again in the vaults of Fort Knox."82 It is obvious that a pure
gold standard, with slight "deflation," i.e., a constant, grad-
ual increase in the purchasing power of the monetary unit,
would offer a continuous incentive to find and mine larger
quantities of gold, thus employing valuable, scarce economic
resources in the search for, extraction and distribution of the
yellow metal. Although there is no unanimous estimate of
the economic cost of this monetary standard, for the sake of
argument we might even admit, as Leland B. Yeager does, that
81Friedman and Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States,
1867-1960, p. 15; italics added. Mises expresses an identical conclusion
in Money, Method, and the Market Process, pp. 90-91, and he conveyed the
same idea in the previously cited 1930 memorandum to the specialists of
the financial committee of the League of Nations. See also the detailed
economic study of the period from 1873 to 1896 which Selgin includes
in his book, Less Than Zero, pp. 49-53.
82Samuelson, Economics, 8th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1970).
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 779
it would be equal to about 1 percent of the gross domestic
product of each nation.83 It is obviously much "cheaper" to
issue paper money than to mine the earth for gold at a cost of
around 1 percent of the gross domestic product of all countries
throughout the world.
Nevertheless to reject this monetary system based on the
supposed cost of the gold standard, as Keynes and Samuelson
do, is to be deceived. It is not correct to merely compare the
costs of gold production with those of issuing paper money;
instead, it is necessary to compare the overall (direct and indi-
rect) costs involved in both monetary systems. In doing so, we
must weigh not only the serious harm cyclical economic reces-
sions inflict on the economy and society, but also the range of
costs associated with a monetary standard that is elastic,
entirely fiduciary, and controlled by the state. Required reading
on this topic includes Roger W. Garrison's "The Costs of a
Gold Standard."84 In this article, Professor Garrison estimates
the opportunity costs of a purely fiduciary monetary standard
and compares them with those of a pure gold standard and a
100-percent reserve requirement. Garrison states:
The true costs of the paper standard would have to take into
account (1) the costs imposed on society by different political
factions in their attempts to gain control of the printing press,
(2) the costs imposed by special-interest groups in their
attempts to persuade the controller of the printing press to
misuse its authority (print more money) for the benefit of
special interests, (3) the costs in the form of inflation-induced
misallocation of resources that occur throughout the econ-
omy as a result of the monetary authority succumbing to the
political pressures of the special interests, and (4) the costs
incurred by businesses in their attempts to predict what the
monetary authority will do in the future and to hedge
against likely, but uncertain, consequences of monetary
irresponsibility. With these considerations in mind, it is not
83Leland B. Yeager, "Introduction," The Gold Standard: An Austrian Per-
spective, p. x.
84Roger W. Garrison, "The Costs of a Gold Standard," chapter 4 of the
book, The Gold Standard: An Austrian Perspective, pp. 61-79.
780 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
difficult to believe that a gold standard costs less than a
paper standard.85
In addition, we would add the high cost of maintaining the
entire worldwide network of central banks and their well-paid
employees, and the substantial economic resources used in
gathering statistics and financing "research" projects, interna-
tional conferences and meetings (the International Monetary
Fund, World Bank, etc.). We should also bear in mind the sig-
nificant cost involved in the excessive provision of banking
services; specifically, the exaggerated proliferation of new
branches and the sheer squandering of human and economic
resources it entails.86 Therefore it comes as no surprise that
even Milton Friedman, who for many years agreed with the
majority that the cost of a pure gold standard was too high, has
changed his mind and now feels that economically speaking, a
pure gold standard poses no problem of opportunity cost.87
In short, we conclude that a monetary and banking sys-
tem based on a pure gold standard and a 100-percent reserve
requirement for banking is a "social institution" essential to
the correct functioning of any market economy. A social insti-
tution can be defined as any set of behavior patterns which
85Ibid., p. 68.
86Furthermore, Roger W. Garrison reminds us that the cost in terms of
real resources allocated for the production and distribution of gold is to
a great extent inevitable, since people continue to devote a considerable
volume of economic resources to the extraction, refining, distribution
and storage of the yellow metal, regardless of whether it forms the basis
of the monetary standard. Ibid., p. 70.
87See Friedman and Schwartz, "Has Government any Role in Money?"
pp. 37-62. Therefore it is clear that a pure gold standard and a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement should strongly appeal to monetarists, since
this arrangement would mean the equivalent of a relatively stable mon-
etary rule, and given the indestructible nature of the gold stock, it
would preclude sudden contractions in the money supply while at the
same time totally eliminating the government's discretionary use of
authority in the monetary field. From this standpoint, for reasons of
strict coherence, it is unsurprising that monetarists like Friedman have
increasingly been leaning toward a pure gold standard, a system they
had always categorically disregarded in the past.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 781
has spontaneously evolved over a very prolonged period of
time, as a result of the contributions multiple generations of
people have made to social processes through their partici-
pation in them. Thus such institutions, like the pure gold
standard, private-property law, and the family, carry with
them an enormous volume of information and have been
successfully proven in the most varied historical contexts
and circumstances of time and place. That is why we cannot
innocuously dispense with these institutions, nor can we sac-
rifice moral principles without incurring inordinate social
costs. For behavior patterns, traditions, and moral principles,
far from being "repressive or inhibitory social traditions" (as
authors like Rousseau and, in general, "scientistic" theorists
have irresponsibly called them), have made the development
of civilization possible. When human beings deify reason
and come to believe they can modify and "improve" social
institutions or even reconstruct them ex novo (Keynesians
and monetarists have most fostered this attitude among eco-
nomic theorists), they lose sight of vital guidelines and
points of reference and invariably rationalize their most
atavistic and primitive passions, thus jeopardizing society's
spontaneous processes of cooperation and coordination. The
gold standard and the principle of a 100-percent reserve ratio
constitute an integral part of those vital social institutions
which must act as an autopilot or guide for practical human
behavior in the processes of social cooperation. The irre-
sponsible elimination of these institutions generates exces-
sive, unpredictable costs in the form of social tensions and
maladjustments which endanger the peaceful, harmonious
progress of civilization and humanity.
8. "The establishment of a system like the one proposed would
leave the world too dependent on countries which, like South Africa
and the former Soviet Union, have always been the largest produc-
ers of gold." The danger that a pure gold standard might come
to rely too heavily on the gold production of South Africa and
the nations which today make up the former Soviet Union has
been highly exaggerated. Furthermore such warnings are
based on a mistaken disregard for the fact that though these
countries mine a substantial proportion of the new gold
782 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
extracted each year (South Africa with 34 percent and the for-
mer Soviet Union with 18 percent of the annual production
of new gold),88 the relative importance of the volumes they
produce, in comparison with the existing stock of gold in the
world (which has accumulated throughout the history of civ-
ilization because gold is immutable and indestructible), is
practically insignificant (no more than 0.5 percent per year). In
fact most of the worldwide stock of gold is spread among the
countries of the European Union, America, and Southern Asia.
Moreover now that the Cold War has ended, it is unclear how
nations like South Africa and the former Soviet Union, whose
annual gold production amounts to only a tiny fraction of the
world's total, could play a disruptive role, especially when
they would be the first nations to suffer from the effects of any
policy aimed at artificially reducing the production of gold.
In any case we must recognize, as we will see in the next
section, that the transition toward a monetary system such as
the one we recommend would inevitably raise by several times
(maybe more than twenty) the market value of gold today in
terms of current monetary units. This increase in value would
initially and inevitably lead to a significant, one-time capital
gain for the current holders of gold and in particular, compa-
nies which mine and distribute it. However the desire to pre-
vent certain third parties from profiting (perhaps) unde-
servedly from the reestablishment of a monetary system with
so many benefits for society as the one proposed constitutes no
prima facie argument whatsoever against such a system.89
88Skousen, Economics on Trial, p. 142.
89Rothbard states:
Depending on how we define the money supply — and I
would define it very broadly as all claims to dollars at fixed
par value — a rise in gold price sufficient to bring the gold
stock to 100 per cent of total dollars would require a ten- to
twenty-fold increase. This of course would bring an enor-
mous windfall gain to the gold miners, but this does not con-
cern us. I do not believe that we should refuse an offer of a mass
entry into Heaven simply because the manufacturers of harps and
angels' wings would enjoy a windfall gain. (Rothbard, "The Case
for a 100-Percent Gold Dollar," p. 68; italics added)
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 783
9. "The supposed failure of a 100-percent reserve requirement in
Argentina during the regime of General Peron." The twentieth
century provides one historic attempt, at least in a rhetorical
sense, to establish a 100-percent reserve requirement for bank-
ing. However in this case, the reform was not accompanied by
an overall privatization of the monetary system and the elim-
ination of the central bank. Instead, credit was completely
nationalized, a step which drove inflation to a high level and
caused profound credit distortions which devastated the
Argentinian economy. Therefore this example does not illus-
trate any disadvantage of the reform we have proposed. On
the contrary, it offers a perfect historical confirmation of the
harmful effects public-sector intervention exerts on the financial,
monetary and credit sector. Let us analyze the history of the
Argentinian "experiment" in greater detail.
The reform was introduced shortly after General Peron
took office in Argentina in 1946; it was implemented via
decree-law number 11554, which was ratified by law 12962.
These legal provisions nationalized bank deposits, as they
contained the official declaration that the nation of Argentina
would guarantee all deposits from that point on. The explana-
tory statement of these texts included, among other consider-
ations, the following:
Indeed, now that all deposits remain in the banks at the
expense of the central bank, which defrays the financial and
At any rate, we must admit, as Rothbard does, that such growth in
the value of gold would, mainly during the first years following the
transition, give an enormous push to the industry of gold mining and
distribution, and consequently would somewhat modify the present
structure of international trade, migratory flows and capital. Murray
Rothbard later changed his mind, and in order to prevent banks from
profiting illegitimately, he suggested that bank bills form the sole basis for
gold conversion. This measure would force a deflation of the monetary
stock corresponding to deposits. Despite this change in Rothbard's posi-
tion, we find our proposal (to be presented further on) quite superior,
since it would avoid the unnecessary deflation which would result from
his. See Murray N. Rothbard, "The Solution," The Freeman: Ideas on Lib-
erty (November 1995): 697-702.
784 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
administrative expenses, and now that recipient banks can
no longer use deposits in the absence of an agreement with
the central bank, those deposits have ceased to "weigh on"
banks, so to speak, and they have stopped impelling banks
to expand loans beyond useful limits. This is the road to
healthy credit, credit geared more to long-term economic
goals than to banks' accomplishment of purely financial
purposes.90
Nevertheless despite this apparently sound rhetoric,
Peron's banking reform was condemned to failure from the
start. In fact, the reform was based on a complete nationaliza-
tion of the monetary and banking sector, such that the respon-
sibility for granting new loans fell on the central bank, and
central bank officials depended directly on the government. In
other words, not only did the state not completely privatize
financial and monetary institutions and permit credit to spon-
taneously coincide with the country's rate of saving; but the
central bank actually embarked on a reckless campaign of
expansionary loans to privileged recipients. These loans
reached the economic system through open-market opera-
tions on the stock exchange, and especially through the
discount rate offered those banks most in tune with the
administration.
The reform gave the central bank the power to carry out
open-market operations each year for an amount of up to 15
percent of the total money supply. It also entirely divested the
Argentinian currency of its gold backing and abolished the
preexisting relationship between this currency and gold. In
1949, law 13571 modified the constitution of the central bank's
council of directors and designated the finance minister him-
self president of this council, thus converting the institution
into a mere appendage of the government. Finally, the reform
established that from that point on, credit would be granted
9°A brief, clear description of the banking system General Peron estab-
lished appears in Jose Heriberto Martinez's article, "El sistema mone-
tario y bancario argentino," in Homenaje a Lucas Beltrdn (Madrid: Edito-
rial Moneda y Credito, 1982), pp. 435-60. We find the above excerpt on
pp. 447-48.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 785
by the central bank in the form of a discount to the different
banks, with no limit on volume or expansionary capacity.
Hence this enormous power would be used to favor those
institutions most sympathetic to the current political regime.
Consequently, and despite its initial rhetoric, Peron's reform
fostered unprecedented growth in the volume of credit, a
tremendous expansion of means of payment, and severe infla-
tion which grossly distorted the country's productive structure
and gave rise to a profound economic recession from which
Argentina has taken many years to recover. For example, dur-
ing the nine years of Peron's first period in office (from 1946 to
1955), the money supply increased by more than 970 percent,
and the gold and foreign exchange backing of bills issued fell
from 137 percent in 1946 to slightly over 3.5 percent in 1955.
The reform was abolished by the revolutionaries who
ousted General Peron in 1956 and again privatized deposits.
Nonetheless this measure was inadequate to end financial
chaos, and private banks resumed their expansionary policies
with new enthusiasm, thus following the example set by the
central bank under Peron. As a result, Argentinian hyperinfla-
tion became chronic and infamous all over the world.91
We may conclude that the designers of the Argentinian
experiment sought merely to reserve the advantages of credit
^Curiously, bank deposits were again brought under government con-
trol during the new, brief Peronist period which began in 1973. This
decision to nationalize deposits was reversed when a military junta
overthrew the regime and seized power on March 24, 1976. What hap-
pened next has gone down in economic history and revealed that the
system of banking "freedom" and irresponsibility which followed was
almost as disruptive as the system previously instituted by Peron.
Again, in December 2001, Argentina had the dubious honor of illustrat-
ing economic theory. In this case, its fractional-reserve currency board
failed upon an evaporation of public confidence and a subsequent, cor-
responding run to withdraw dollars from bank deposits. This led Min-
ister Cavallo to limit the amount people could withdraw weekly from
banks to 250 dollars (limit popularly known as the "corralito") and
clearly demonstrates one of the essential theoretical principles high-
lighted in this book: that a fractional-reserve banking system without a
lender of last resort is an impossibility.
786 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
expansion for the government, and hence to prevent private
banks from profiting from a substantial portion of this expan-
sion, as had been the norm until then. In any case, the inten-
tion was never to privatize the monetary system and do away
with the central bank. The Peronist reform confirms a fact we
have acknowledged here, i.e., that a 100-percent reserve ratio
combined with a central-bank monopoly on the issuance of
currency and loans can distort the economy just as seriously if
monetary authorities decide for political reasons to embark on
a policy of credit expansion (either by directly creating and
granting loans or by making open-market purchases on the
stock exchange). Therefore the failure of Argentina's experi-
ment under General Peron does not constitute any historical
illustration of the disadvantages of a 100-percent reserve ratio.
Rather, it confirms the need to consistently couple such a
reform with a complete privatization of money and the elimi-
nation of the central bank.
In short, Peron's system was aimed at precluding the
expansionary creation of loans by private banks. However, it
replaced this activity with an even greater expansion of
unbacked loans at the hands of central bankers and the gov-
ernment itself, and thus it ultimately harmed the country's
monetary, financial, and economic system even more seri-
ously. Therefore nothing is gained by eliminating one process
of credit expansion (that of private fractional-reserve bank-
ing) if the very state applies another directly and on an even
larger scale.92
10. "The proposed reform could not be accomplished by any sin-
gle country, but would require a difficult and costly international
92Per6n's experiment revealed the failure not of a 100-percent reserve
ratio, but of the nationalization of credit, and it produced all the adverse
effects Ludwig von Mises had predicted in his 1929 article on the topic:
Die Verstaatlichung des Kredits: Mutalisierung des Kredits (Bern, Munich,
and Leipzig: Travers-Borgstroem Foundation, 1929). This paper was
later translated into English with the title, "The Nationalization of
Credit?" It appeared in A Critique of Interventionism: Inquiries into the Eco-
nomic Policy and the Economic Ideology of the Present (New York: Arlington
House, 1977), pp. 153-64.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 787
agreement." Although the most advantageous course of action
would be to establish a pure gold standard and 100-percent
reserve requirement on an international level, and though an
agreement to do so would tremendously facilitate a transition
to the new system, there is no reason the different states
should not work separately toward the ideal monetary system
until such an international agreement is possible. This is pre-
cisely what Maurice Allais recommended for France (before
that country decided to be included in the European Mone-
tary Union).93 Allais indicates that the establishment of a 100-
percent reserve requirement and the maintenance of a highly
rigorous monetary policy on the part of the central bank (a
policy which would permit the monetary base to grow by no
more than 2 percent per year) would be an initial step in the
right direction, and the United States, the European Union,
Japan, Russia, or any other country could take it alone. More-
over we must keep this idea in mind when evaluating the dif-
ferent programs for monetary unification which have been
established in certain prominent economic areas, specifically
the European Monetary Union. We will consider again this
matter in the following section.
Furthermore the establishment of fixed, yet revisable
exchange rates between the different countries might oblige
the nations of an economic area to follow the leadership of
those states which most clearly and steadily advance in the
ideal direction. Thus an irresistible trend toward the achieve-
ment of the proposed goal may arise.94
93See Allais, "Une objection generale: la construction europeenne," pp.
359-60 of his article, "Les conditions monetaires d'une economie de
marches."
94 At any rate, if strong economies, like the United States and the Euro-
pean Union, were to establish a gold standard and 100-percent reserve
requirement, they would be setting an immensely powerful example in
the monetary field, an example other countries would be compelled to
heed.
788 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
5
An Economic Analysis of the Process of
Reform and Transition Toward the
Proposed Monetary and Banking System
To begin this section, we will briefly consider the major
issues involved in any political strategy for bringing about
economic reform in any area, including that of finance, credit,
and money.
A Few Basic Strategic Principles
The most serious danger to all reform strategies looms in
the political pragmatism of daily affairs, which often causes
authorities to abandon their ultimate goals on the grounds
that they are politically "impossible" to reach in the short
term. This is a grave danger which in the past has sabotaged
different programs for reform. Indeed, pragmatism has sys-
tematically prompted politicians to reach joint, ad hoc deci-
sions in order to acquire or retain political power, and these
decisions have often been fundamentally incoherent and
counter-productive with respect to the most desirable long-
term objectives. Furthermore, as discussion has centered
exclusively on what is politically feasible in the immediate
short term, and final goals have been postponed or forgotten
entirely, authorities have not completed the necessary,
detailed study of these goals nor the process of spreading
them to the people. As a result, the possibility of creating a
coalition of interests in support of the reform is continually
undermined, since other programs and objectives considered
more urgent in the short term weaken and overshadow such
an effort.
The most appropriate strategy for the reform we propose
must therefore rest on a dual principle. The first part consists
of constantly studying and educating the public about the
substantial benefits they would derive from the achievement
of the final medium- and long-term objectives. The second
part involves the adoption of a short-term policy of gradual
progress toward these objectives, a policy which must always
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 789
be coherent with them. This strategy alone will make politically
possible in the medium- and long-term what today may seem
particularly difficult to accomplish.95
Let us now return to our topic: banking reform in market
economies. In the following sections, we will suggest a
process for reforming the current system. In formulating our
recommendation, we have taken into account the above strat-
egy and the essential principles theoretically analyzed in this
book.
Stages in the Reform of the Financial and Banking System
Chart IX- 1 reflects the five basic stages in a reform process
involving the financial and banking system. In our outline the
stages progress naturally from right to left; that is, from the
most controlled systems (those with central planning in the
banking and financial sector) to the least controlled ones
(those in which the central bank has been abolished and com-
plete freedom prevails, yet the banking industry is subject to
legal principles — including a 100-percent reserve require-
ment).
The first stage corresponds to "central planning" for finan-
cial and banking matters; in other words, a system strictly
controlled and regulated by the central bank. This type of
arrangement has predominated in most western countries up
95See William H. Hutt's now classic work, Politically Impossible...? (Lon-
don: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1971). A very similar analysis to that
presented in the text, but in relation to the reform of the Spanish social
security system, appears in Huerta de Soto, "The Crisis and Reform of
Social Security: An Economic Analysis from the Austrian Perspective,"
Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines 5, no. 1 (March 1994):
127-55. Finally, we have updated, developed and presented our ideas
on the best political steps to take to deregulate the economy in Jesus
Huerta de Soto, "El economista liberal y la politica," Manuel Fraga: hom-
enaje academico (Madrid: Fundacion Canovas del Castillo, 1997), vol. 1,
pp. 763-88. English version entitled, "A Hayekian Strategy to Imple-
ment Free Market Reforms," included in Economic Policy in an Orderly
Framework: Liber Amicorumfor Gerrit Meijer, J.G. Backhaus, W. Heijmann,
A. Nentjes, and J. van Ophem, eds. (Miinster: LIT Verlag, 2003), pp.
231-54.
790 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
to the present time. The central bank holds a monopoly on the
issuance of currency and at any given time determines the
total amount of the monetary base and the rediscount rates
which apply to private banks. Private banks operate with a
fractional reserve and expand credit without the backing of
real saving. They do so based on a bank multiplier which reg-
ulates growth in fiduciary media and is established by the
central bank. Thus the central bank orchestrates credit expan-
sion and increases the money supply via open-market pur-
chases (which go toward the partial or complete monetiza-
tion of the national debt). In addition it instructs banks as to
the strictness of the credit terms they should offer. This stage
is characterized by the independence of the different coun-
tries with respect to monetary policy (monetary nationalism),
in a more or less chaotic international environment of flexible
exchange rates which are often used as a powerful competi-
tive weapon in international trade. This system gives rise to
great, inflationary credit expansion which distorts the pro-
ductive structure and repeatedly provokes stock-market
booms and unsustainable economic growth, followed by
severe economic crises and recessions that tend to spread to
the rest of the world.
In the second stage the reform process advances a bit in the
right direction. The central bank is legally made "independ-
ent" of the government, and an attempt is made to come up
with a monetary rule (generally an intermediate one) to reflect
the monetary-policy goal of the central bank. This goal is usu-
ally expressed in terms of a rate of monetary growth exceed-
ing the rise in productivity (between 4 and 6 percent). This
model was developed by the Bundesbank of the Federal
Republic of Germany and has influenced the rule followed by
the European Central Bank and other central banks through-
out the world. This system fosters an increase in international
cooperation among different central banks and promotes,
even in large geographical areas, where economic and trading
uniformity is greater, the establishment of a system of fixed
(but in some cases revisable) exchange rates to end the com-
petitive anarchy typical of the chaotic environment of flexible
exchange rates. As a result, credit expansion becomes more
moderate, though it does not completely disappear, and hence
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 791
stock-market crises and economic recessions continue to hit,
though they are less serious than in the first stage.96
In the third stage, the central bank would remain inde-
pendent, and a radical step would be taken in the reform: a
100-percent reserve requirement would be established for pri-
vate banks. As we pointed out at the beginning of this chap-
ter, this step would necessitate certain legislative modifica-
tions to the commercial and penal codes. These changes
would allow us to eradicate most of the current administrative
legislation issued by central bankers to control deposit and
credit institutions. The sole, remaining function of the central
bank would be to guarantee that the monetary supply grows
at a rate equal to or slightly lower than the increase in pro-
ductivity in the economic system. (As we know, Maurice
Allais proposes a growth rate of around 2 percent per year.)
The Importance of the Third and Subsequent Stages
in the Reform: The Possibility They Offer of Paying Off
the National Debt or Social Security Pension Liabilities
In the banking industry, reform would revolve around the
concept of converting today's private bankers into mere man-
agers of mutual funds. Specifically, once authorities have
announced and explained the reform to citizens, they should
give the holders of current demand deposits (or their equiva-
lent) the opportunity to manifest their desire, within a pru-
dent time period, to replace these deposits with mutual-fund
shares. (People would receive the warning that if they should
accept this option, they would no longer be guaranteed the
nominal value of their deposits, and a need for liquidity
would oblige them to sell their shares on the stock market and
take the current price for them at the moment they sell
96Jose Antonio de Aguirre, in his appendix to the Spanish edition of
Vera C. Smith's book, The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Bank-
ing Alternative (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1990), explains why a
broad consensus has arisen in favor of the independence of monetary
authorities.
792 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
them).97 Each depositor to select this option would receive a
number of shares strictly proportional to the sum of his
deposits with respect to the total deposits at each bank. Each
bank would transfer its assets to a mutual fund which would
encompass all of the bank's wealth and claims (except for,
basically, the portion corresponding to its net worth).
After the period during which deposit holders may
express a wish to continue as such or instead to acquire shares
in the mutual funds to be constituted following the reform, the
central bank, as Frank H. Knight recommends,98 should print
legal bills for an overall amount equal to the aggregate of all
demand deposits and equivalents recorded on the balance
sheets of all the banks under its control (excluding the sum
represented by the above exchange option). Clearly the central
97A depositor at a bank is a holder of "money" inasmuch as he would
be willing to keep his deposits at the bank even if they bore no interest.
The fact that in fractional-reserve banking systems deposits have been
confused with loans makes it advisable, in our view, to give depositors
the chance to exchange deposits, within a reasonable time period, for
shares in the mutual funds to be constituted with the bank's assets. In
this way it would become clear which deposits are subjectively
regarded as money and which are seen as true loans to banks (involving
a temporary loss of availability). Also, massive, disturbing and unnec-
essary transfers of investments from deposits to mutual fund shares
once the reform is complete would be prevented. As Ludwig von Mises
points out,
The deposits subject to cheques have a different purpose
[than the credits loaned to banks]. They are the business
man's cash like coins and bank notes. The depositor intends
to dispose of them day by day. He does not demand interest, or
at least he would entrust the money to the bank even without
interest. (Mises, Money, Method and the Market Process, p. 108;
italics added)
98 The necessary reserve funds will be created by printing paper
money and putting it in the hands of the banks which need
reserves by simple gift. Even so, of course, the printing of this
paper would be non-inflationary, since it would be immobi-
lized by the increased reserve requirements. (Hart, "The
Chicago Plan' of Banking Reform," pp. 105-06, and footnote
1 on p. 106, where Hart attributes this proposal to Frank H.
Knight)
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
793
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794 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
bank's issuance of these legal bills would not be inflationary
in any way, since the sole purpose of this action would be to
back the total amount of demand deposits (and equivalents),
and each and every bank would receive banknotes for a sum
identical to its corresponding deposits. In this way a 100-per-
cent reserve requirement could be established immediately,
and banks should be prohibited from granting further loans
against demand deposits. In any case, such deposits would
always have to remain perfectly balanced with a reserve (in
the form of bills held by banks) absolutely equal to the total of
demand deposits or equivalents.
We must point out that Hart suggests the new paper
money the central bank prints to back deposits be handed over
to banks as a gift. If this occurs, it is obvious that banks' balance
sheets will reflect an enormous surplus, one precisely equal to
the sum of demand deposits backed 100 percent by a reserve.
We might ask ourselves who should own the total of
banks' accounting assets which exceed their net worth. For the
operation we have just described reveals that by functioning
with a fractional reserve, private banks have historically cre-
ated means of payment in the form of loans produced ex nihilo,
and these loans have permitted banks to gradually expropri-
ate wealth from the whole of the rest of society. Once we take
into account the difference between banks' income and expen-
ditures each year, the aggregate wealth the banking system
has expropriated in this way (by a process that produces the
effects of a tax, just as inflation does for the government) is
precisely equal to the assets banks possess in the form of real
estate, branch offices, equipment and especially, the sum of
their investments in loans to industry and trade, in securities
acquired on the stock market and elsewhere, and in treasury
bonds issued by the government."
"Mises first pointed out that banknotes and deposits created from
nothing through the fractional-reserve banking system generate wealth
that could be considered the profit of banks themselves, and we
explained this idea in chapter 4, when we indicated that such deposits
provide an indefinite source of financing. The fact that in account
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 795
Hart's proposal that the basis of the reform consist of sim-
ply giving banks the sum of the bills they need to reach a 100-
percent reserve ratio is a bitter pill to swallow. This method
would make the total of private banks' current assets unnec-
essary in the account books as backing for deposits, and
hence, from an accounting viewpoint, they would automati-
cally come to be considered the property of banks' stockhold-
ers. Murray N. Rothbard has also advocated this solution,100
books, loans created ex nihilo square with deposits also created ex nihilo
conceals a fundamental economic reality from the general public:
deposits are ultimately money which is never withdrawn from the
bank, and banks' assets constitute a body of great wealth expropriated
from all of the rest of society from which banking institutions and their
stockholders exclusively profit. Curiously, bankers themselves have
come to recognize this fact implicitly or explicitly, as Karl Marx states:
So far as the Bank issues notes, which are not covered by the
metal reserve in its vaults, it creates symbols of value, that form
not only currency, but also additional, even if fictitious, capital for
it to the nominal amount of these unprotected notes. And this
additional capital yields an additional profit for it. — In B.A.
1857, Wilson asks Newmarch, No. 1563: "The circulation of a
bank's own notes, that is, on an average the amount remain-
ing in the hands of the public, forms an addition to the effec-
tive capital of that bank, does it not?" — "Assuredly." — 1564.
"All profits, then, which the bank derives from this circula-
tion, is a profit arising from credit, not from a capital actually
owned by it?" — "Assuredly." (p. 637; italics added)
Thus Marx concludes:
[B]anks create credit and capital, 1) by the issue of their own
notes, 2) by writing out drafts on London running as long as
21 days but paid to them in cash immediately on being writ-
ten, and 3) by paying out discounted bills of exchange, which
are endowed with credit primarily and essentially by
endorsement through the bank, at least for the local district.
(Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 3, p.
638; italics added)
l°°On the transition to a 100-percent reserve requirement, see Rothbard,
The Mystery of Banking, pp. 249-69. In general we agree with the transi-
tion program formulated by Rothbard. However we object to the gift he
plans for banks, a contribution which would allow them to keep the
assets they have historically expropriated from society. In our opinion,
it would be perfectly justifiable to use these assets toward the other ends
796 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
which does not seem equitable. For if any group of economic
agents has historically taken advantage of the privilege of
granting expansionary loans unbacked by real saving, it has
precisely been the stockholders of banks (to the extent that the
government has not at the same time partially expropriated
the profits of this extremely lucrative activity, thus obliging
banks to devote a portion of their created monetary stock to
financing the very state).
The sum of private banks' assets can and should be trans-
ferred to a series of security mutual funds, the management of
which would become the main activity of private banking
institutions following the reform. Who should be the holders
of the shares in these mutual funds, which at the time of their
conversion would have a value equal to the total value of all of
the banking system's assets (except those corresponding to the
equity of its stockholders)? We propose that these shares in the new
mutual funds to be created with the assets of the banking system be
exchanged for the outstanding treasury bonds issued in all countries
overwhelmed by a sizeable national debt. The idea is simple
enough: the holders of treasury bonds would, in exchange for
them, receive the corresponding shares in the mutual funds to
be established with the assets of the banking system.101 This
we discuss in the text. Rothbard himself recognizes this weak point in
his reasoning when he states:
The most cogent criticism of this plan is simply this: Why
should the banks receive a gift, even a gift in the process of
privatizing the nationalized hoard of gold? The banks, as
fractional reserve institutions are and have been responsible
for inflation and unsound banking, (p. 268)
Rothbard appears to lean toward the solution from his book because he
wishes to ensure that both bills and deposits receive 100 percent back-
ing, and not merely bills, which would obviously be deflationary. Nev-
ertheless he does not seem to have thought of the idea we suggest in the
text. Moreover we should remember that, as we indicated at the end of
footnote 89, just before his death, Rothbard changed his mind and pro-
posed that only bills in circulation be exchanged for gold (leaving out
bank deposits).
101Ideally, the exchange would take place at the respective market prices
of both the treasury bonds and the shares in the corresponding mutual
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 797
move would eliminate a large number (or even all) of the
bonds issued by the government, which would benefit all cit-
izens, since from that point on they would no longer have to
pay taxes to finance the interest payments on the debt. Fur-
thermore the current holders of treasury bonds would not be
adversely affected, since their fixed-income securities would
be replaced by mutual-fund shares which, from the time of
the reform, would have a recognized market value and a rate
of return.102 Moreover there are other government liabilities
(for example, in the area of state social-security pensions)
which could be converted into bonds and might also be
exchanged for shares in the new mutual funds, either instead
of or in addition to treasury bonds, and with highly beneficial
economic effects.
Chart IX-2 shows a breakdown of the different accounting
assets and liabilities which would appear on the consolidated
balance sheet for the banking system once all bank deposits
funds. This goal 'would require that these funds be created and placed
on the market some time before the exchange occurs (especially consid-
ering the number of depositors who may first opt to become sharehold-
ers and cease to be depositors).
102por example, in Spain, in 1997, demand deposits and equivalents
totaled sixty trillion pesetas (around 60 percent of GNP), and outstand-
ing treasury bonds in the hands of individuals added up to approxi-
mately forty trillion. Therefore the exchange we propose could be car-
ried out with no major trauma, and it would permit the repayment of all
treasury bonds at one time without placing the holders of them at a dis-
advantage nor producing unnecessary inflationary tensions. At the
same time, we must remember that banks hold a large percentage of all
live treasury bonds, and hence in their case, instead of an exchange, a
simple cancellation would be made in the account books. The difference
between the sixty trillion pesetas in demand deposits and equivalents
which would be backed by a 100 percent reserve and the forty trillion
pesetas in treasury bonds could be used for a similar, partial exchange
involving other financial, government liabilities (in the area of state
social-security pensions, for example). In any case, the sum available for
this type of exchange would be that remaining after subtracting the
amounts corresponding to those deposit-holders who had freely
decided to convert their deposits into shares of equal value in the above
mutual funds.
798 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
had been backed by a 100 percent reserve and mutual funds
had been created with the system's assets. From that point on,
banks' activities would simply consist of managing the mutual
funds created with their assets, and bankers could obtain new
loans (in the form of new shares in these funds) and invest
them, while charging a small percentage as a fee for the man-
agement of this type of operation. Bankers could also continue
to engage in the other (legitimate) activities they had always
pursued in the past (the performance of payment, cashier and
bookkeeping services, transfers, etc.), and they could charge the
corresponding market prices for these services.
In any case, international cooperation (and fixed, but
revisable exchange rates) would continue in this third stage,
and once deposits were backed with a 100 percent reserve,
credit expansion would completely disappear. As we have
indicated, the central bank would be limited to increasing the
size of the money supply by a small percentage and using this
increase to finance a portion of state expenditures, as Maurice
Allais proposes.103 In no case would this new money be used
to make open-market purchases or directly expand credit,
activities rampant in Argentina's failed attempt at banking
reform under General Peron. The reforms described above
would lead to the almost complete elimination of stock-mar-
ket crises and economic recessions. Beginning at that point,
the behavior of savers and investors in the market would be
very closely coordinated.
The establishment of a 100-percent reserve requirement is
a necessary condition for the definitive abolition of the central
l°3Maurice Allais demands not only that monetary growth be used to
finance the current expenditures of the state (which would reduce direct
taxes; specifically, income taxes), but also that deposit banking (with a
100-percent reserve ratio) be radically separated from investment bank-
ing, which involves loaning to third parties money the bank has first
been loaned by its customers. See Allais, "Les conditions monetaires
d'une economie de marches." A detailed examination of the transition
measures Maurice Allais suggests appears on pp. 319-20 of the book,
L'Impdt sur le capital et la reforme monetaire. The separation between
deposit banking and investment banking is also defended by Hayek in
his work, Denationalisation of Money.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 799
bank, which would occur in the fourth stage. Indeed, once pri-
vate banking is made subordinate to legal principles, com-
plete banking freedom should be demanded, and remaining
central-bank legislation could be eliminated, as could the cen-
tral bank itself. This would require the replacement of today's
fiduciary money, which the central bank alone has the power
to issue, with a form of private money. It is impossible to take
a leap in the dark and establish an artificial monetary stan-
dard which has not emerged through an evolutionary
process. Hence the new form of money should consist of the
substance humanity has historically considered money par
excellence: gold.104
l°4The impossibility of replacing today's fiduciary money with artifi-
cial, private monetary standards follows from the monetary regression
theorem, explained in footnote 35. This is why Murray N. Rothbard is
especially critical of authors who, like Hayek, Greenfield, and Yeager,
have at times recommended the creation of an artificial monetary sys-
tem based on a basket of commodities. Rothbard states:
It is precisely because economic history is path-dependent
that we don't want to foist upon the future a system that will
not work, and that will not work largely because such indices
and media cannot emerge "organically" from individual
actions on the market. Surely the idea in dismantling the gov-
ernment and returning (or advancing) to a free market is to be
as consonant with the market as possible, and to eliminate
government intervention with the greatest possible dispatch.
Foisting upon the public a bizarre scheme at variance with
the nature and functions of money and of the market, is
precisely the kind of technocratic social engineering from
which the world has suffered far too much in the twentieth
century. (Rothbard, "Aurophobia: or Free Banking on What
Standard?" p. 107, footnote 14)
Rothbard chose this curious title for his article in order to call attention
to the obstinate efforts of many theorists to dispense with gold (histori-
cally the quintessential form of money) in their mental lucubrations on
the ideal form of private money. On Richard H. Timberlake's critique of
the monetary regression theorem ("A Critique of Monetarist and Aus-
trian Doctrines on the Utility and Value of Money," Review of Austrian
Economics 1 [1987]: 81-96), see Murray N. Rothbard's article, "Timber-
lake on the Austrian Theory of Money: A Comment," printed in Review
of Austrian Economics 2 (1988): 179-87. As Rothbard discerningly points
800 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Murray N. Rothbard has devoted considerable thought to
the process of exchanging for gold all bills already issued by
the Federal Reserve, a step which would follow the establish-
ment of a 100-percent reserve requirement on all bank
deposits. Based on data from 1981, Rothbard reaches the con-
clusion that this exchange would be contingent on a gold price
of $1,696 per ounce. Over the past fifteen years the price of the
exchange has risen noticeably. Therefore, if we take into
account that the current [1997] price of gold is around $350 an
ounce, it is clear that in a country with an economy as large as
that of the United States, the complete privatization of fiduci-
ary money and its replacement with gold would require a
nearly twenty-fold increase in the present market value of
gold.105 This sharp rise in the price of gold would initially
drive up its supply and perhaps cause an inflationary shock
which we could hardly quantify, but which would be felt only
once and would not exert any acute distorting effects on the
real productive structure.106
out, Timberlake resolutely claims that money has a direct, subjective
utility just like any other good, yet he fails to realize that money only
generates utility as a medium of exchange, unlike consumer and inter-
mediate goods, and thus the absolute volume of it is irrelevant with
respect to the fulfillment of its function. Therefore one must turn to the
"monetary regression theorem" (which is simply a retrospective version
of Menger's theory on the evolutionary emergence of money) to explain
how economic agents estimate money's purchasing power today based
on that which it had in the past. This is the key to avoiding the vices of
circular reasoning in this matter.
105Rothbard, "The Case for a Genuine Gold Dollar," chapter 1 of The
Gold Standard: An Austrian Perspective, p. 14; see also "The Solution," p.
700.
106 Thus it would be unnecessary and damaging to implement the pro-
posal F.A. Hayek made in 1937, when, in reference to the establishment
of a 100-percent reserve requirement for banking in a context of a pure
gold standard, he concluded:
[I]t would clearly require as an essential complement an inter-
national control of the production of gold, since the increase
in the value of gold would otherwise bring about an enor-
mous increase in the supply of gold. But this would only pro-
vide a safety valve probably necessary in any case to prevent
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement
801
Chart IX-2
Consolidated Balance Sheet for
the Banking System
(in which banks have become mere managers of funds)
I ASSETS
I LIABILITIES
Assets corresponding to
Owner's equity prior to the
owner's equity (property of
reform (property of banks'
banks' stockholders).
stockholders.)
Bank bills produced as
The sum of the demand
backing for the total sum of
deposits and equivalents not
deposits and
exchanged for shares in the
handed over to banks so that
fund, as decided by their
they will maintain a 100
holders. (The largest portion of
percent reserve beginning at
banks' accounting liabilities
the time of the reform.
prior to the reform).
The total of all other banking
The sum of the new fund
assets, which are transferred
shares which replace
to mutual funds and managed
outstanding treasury bonds
by banks. (Treasury bills held
and, if possible, are used to
by banks are cancelled in the
partially or totally liquidate
account books)
other state liabilities (social
security pensions, etc.)
TOTAL ASSETS
t
TOTAL LIABILITIES
The total M (money supply) is the same before and after demand deposits are backed by
a 1 00 percent reserve in the form of bank bills.
802 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
The fifth and last stage in the privatization of the financial
and banking system would begin when the conditions of gold
production and distribution had stabilized. This last stage
would be characterized by absolute freedom in banking
(though the system would be subject to legal principles, and
hence, a 100-percent reserve requirement on demand
deposits) and the existence of a single, worldwide gold stan-
dard with a 100-percent reserve ratio in an environment of
slight, gradual "deflation" and sustained economic growth. At
any rate, the evolutionary process of experimentation in the
field of money and finance would continue, and it is impossi-
ble to predict whether gold would continue to be the currency
chosen by the market as a medium of exchange, or whether
future changes in social conditions would spontaneously,
through a process of evolution, give rise to the emergence of
an alternative standard.
In this fifth and last stage, in which a single gold standard
would spread throughout the world, it would be advisable for
the different countries to arrive at an international agreement
designed to prevent the transition from having any unneces-
sary, real effects (apart from the initial, inflationary shock
which would be unavoidable, since the jump in the value of
gold would trigger an increased influx of the metal into the
market). Such an agreement would stipulate the prior creation
of a structure of fixed exchange rates between all currencies.
This would make it possible to uniformly assess the entire
world supply of fiduciary media and to redistribute among
the economic agents and private banks of the different coun-
tries the stocks of gold held by the world's central banks. This
redistribution would be carried out in exact proportion to the
sum of deposits and bills in each.
the system from becoming all too rigid. (Hayek, Monetary
Nationalism and International Stability, p. 82)
In any case, the initial inflationary shock could be reduced if, during the
years prior to the transition to the fifth stage, central banks were to inject
their 2 percent increase in the money supply in the form of open-market
purchases of gold.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 803
Thus would be the end of the final stage in the privatiza-
tion of the banking and financial sector, and economic agents
would reinitiate the spontaneous market process of experi-
mentation in the field of money and finance, a process which
was historically interrupted by the nationalization of money
and the creation and fortification of central banks.
The Application of the Theory of Banking and
Financial Reform to the European Monetary Union
and the Building of the Financial Sector in Economies
of the Former Eastern Bloc
The above remarks on the reform of the western banking
and financial system might be helpful in the design and man-
agement of the European Monetary Union, a topic that is cur-
rently sparking great interest among specialists in the field.107
These considerations provide at least an indication of the
direction European monetary reform should take at all times
and of the dangers to avoid. It is evident we should steer clear
of a system of monopolistic national currencies which com-
pete with each other in a chaotic environment of flexible
exchange rates. Moreover we should avoid maintaining a
European central bank which prevents competition between
currencies in a broad economic area, fails to meet the chal-
lenges of banking reform (100-percent reserve requirement),
fails to guarantee a level of monetary stability at least as high
as that of the most stable national currency at any given point
in history and, in short, represents an insurmountable obsta-
cle to subsequent reforms, i.e., the elimination of the central
financial planning agency (the central bank). Therefore per-
haps the most workable and appropriate model in the short
107por example, see the book, Espana y la unification monetaria europea:
una reflexion critica, Ramon Febrero, ed. (Madrid: Editorial Abacus,
1994). Other relevant works on this debate include: Pascal Sarin, L'unite
monetaire europeene: au profit de qui? (Paris: Economica, 1980); and Robin
Leigh Pemberton, The Future of Monetary Arrangements in Europe (Lon-
don: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1989). On the different ideas of
Europe and the role of its nations, see Jesus Huerta de Soto, "A Theory
of Liberal Nationalism," II Politico LX, no. 4 (1995): 583-98.
804 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
and medium term would consist of the introduction through-
out Europe of complete freedom of choice in currencies, both
public and private and from both inside and outside the
Union. The national currencies still in use due to tradition
would be placed in a system of fixed exchange rates108 which
would adjust the monetary policy of each country to the most
solvent and stable policy among all the countries at any point
in time. Thus the door would at least remain open to the pos-
sibility that nation-states in the European Union might in the
future advance in the three fundamental areas of monetary
and banking reform (freedom of choice in currency free bank-
ing, and a 100-percent reserve requirement on demand
deposits). In doing so, states would oblige the other Union
members to follow their strong monetary leadership, as Mau-
rice Allais maintains.
Once the European Central Bank was created on June 1,
1998, it became important that criticism of it and the single
European currency center around the distance between this
system and the ideal of a pure gold standard and 100-percent
reserve requirement. Many libertarian theorists (mainly those
of the Chicago School) mistakenly focus their criticism on the
fact that the new arrangement does away with the former sys-
tem of monetary nationalism and flexible exchange rates.
However, a single European monetary standard which is as
rigid as possible would represent a healthy step toward a pure
gold standard. Furthermore it would complete the institu-
tional framework of the European free-trade system, since it
l°8The prescription of fixed exchange rates is traditional among Aus-
trian theorists who consider it second best in the pursuit of the ideal
monetary system, which would consist of a pure gold standard and in
which economic flows would be free of unnecessary monetary distur-
bances. The most exhaustive Austrian analysis of fixed exchange rates
appears in Hayek's book, Monetary Nationalism and International Stabil-
ity. Mises also defends fixed exchange rates (see his book, Omnipotent
Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War [New York: Arlington
House, 1969], p. 252, and also Human Action, pp. 750-91). A valuable
analysis, from an Austrian point of view, of the economic theory behind
fixed exchange rates can be found in Jose Antonio de Aguirre's book, La
moneda unica eurovea (Madrid: Union Editorial, 1990), pp. 35ff.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 805
would preclude monetary interference and manipulation on
the part of each member country and oblige those countries
with more rigid economic structures (Germany and France,
for example) to introduce the flexibility they need to compete
in an environment in which resorting to inflationary national
monetary policies to compensate for structural rigidities is no
longer an option.
Some very similar thoughts could be applied to the neces-
sary establishment of a financial and banking system in the
economies of the former Eastern bloc. While we must recog-
nize that these economies start from a highly unfavorable
position after decades of central planning, the present transi-
tion toward a market economy offers a unique and crucially
important opportunity to avoid the major errors committed in
the West up to now and to advance directly to at least the third
or fourth stage in our reform plan. At the same time, a jump
straight to the fourth stage would be quite feasible in the for-
mer Soviet Union, where abundant gold reserves would permit
the establishment of a pure gold standard, a measure which
would benefit the nation a great deal. At any rate, if these coun-
tries fail to learn from the experience of others and attempt, in
awkward imitation of the West, to set up a fractional-reserve
banking system directed by a central bank, the financial pres-
sures of each moment will lead to policies of rampant credit
expansion and enormous harm to the productive structure.
Such policies will foster feverish speculation and create a cli-
mate of social unrest which might even endanger the overall
transition of these societies to a full-fledged market econ-
omy. 109
l°9in chapter 6 (footnote 110), we referred to the severe banking crises
which have already erupted in Russia, the Czech Republic, Romania,
Albania, Latvia, and Lithuania due to the disregard shown by these
countries for recommendations like the ones we make in the text. See
Richard Layard and Andrea Richter, "Who Gains and Who Loses from
Russian Credit Expansion?" Communist Economies and Economic Trans-
formation 6, no. 4 (1994): 459-72. On the different issues which interfere
with plans for monetary reform in ex-communist countries, see, among
other sources, The Cato Journal 12, no. 3 (Winter, 1993). See also the work
806 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
6
Conclusion: The Banking System of a Free Society
The theory of money, bank credit, and financial markets
represents the greatest theoretical challenge confronting econo-
mists as we enter the twenty-first century. In fact it is no stretch
to claim that once the theoretical gap embodied by the analysis
of socialism was filled, perhaps the most important, yet least-
understood field was that of money. For, as we have attempted
to reveal in detail throughout this book, this area is fraught with
methodological errors, theoretical confusion and, as a result,
systematic government coercion. The social relationships in
which money is involved are by far the most abstract and
obscure, and the knowledge generated through them is the
most vast, complex, and difficult to grasp. Consequently the
systematic coercion of governments and central banks in this
field is by far the most damaging. In any case the intellectual
delay in the theory of money and banking has severely affected
the development of the world economy, as we see from the
acute, recurrent cycles of boom and recession which continue to
grip market economies at the dawn of the new millennium.
Nevertheless economic thought on banking issues is
quite long-standing, and as we have seen, can be traced back
even to the scholars of the School of Salamanca. Closer to our
time, we find the controversy between the Banking and Cur-
rency Schools, a debate which laid the foundation for the
development of subsequent doctrine. We have made an
effort to demonstrate the absence of complete agreement
between the Free-Banking School and the Banking School, on
the one hand, and between the Central-Banking School and
by Stephen H. Hanke, Lars Jonung, and Kurt Schuler, Russian Currency
and Finance (London: Routledge, 1993). The authors of this book propose
the establishment of a currency-board system as the ideal model for
monetary transition in the former Soviet Union. For reasons given in
footnote 91, we deem this reform plan much less adequate than our pro-
posal to institute a pure gold standard and 100-percent reserve require-
ment using Russia's substantial gold reserves.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 807
the Currency School, on the other. Many free-banking advo-
cates did base their position on the fallacious, unsound infla-
tionary arguments of the Banking School, and most Currency
School theorists did plan to reach their objectives of financial
solvency and economic stability via the inception of a central
bank to curb abuses. However, from the very beginning, cer-
tain able Currency School theorists found it impossible and
Utopian to believe the central bank would do anything but fur-
ther aggravate the problems that had emerged. These scholars
were aware that the best way to limit the creation of fiduciary
media and to achieve monetary stability was through a free-
banking system governed, like all other economic agents, by
the traditional principles of civil and commercial law (i.e., a
100-percent reserve requirement on demand deposits). Para-
doxically, nearly all Banking School defenders ended up cheer-
fully accepting the establishment of a central bank which, as
lender of last resort, would guarantee and perpetuate the
expansionary privileges of the private banking system. Mean-
while private bankers sought with increasing determination to
participate in the lucrative "business" of generating fiduciary
media by credit expansion without having to give too much
thought to problems of liquidity, due to the support offered at
all times by the central bank, the lender of last resort.
Furthermore, although Currency School theorists were
correct in almost all of their theoretical contributions, they
were unable to see that every one of the drawbacks they
rightly perceived in the freedom of private banks to issue
fiduciary media in the form of banknotes were also inherent in
the "business" of granting expansionary loans against
demand deposits at banks, though in this case the drawbacks
were more concealed and surreptitious, and hence much more
dangerous. These theorists also committed an error when they
claimed the most appropriate policy would be to introduce
legislation to abolish merely the freedom to issue banknotes
unbacked by gold and to set up a central bank to defend the
most fundamental monetary principles. Only Ludwig von
Mises, who followed the tradition of Modeste, Cernuschi,
Hubner, and Michaelis, was capable of realizing that the Cur-
rency School's prescription of a central bank was a mistake,
and that the best and only way to uphold the school's sound
808 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
monetary principles was through a free-banking system sub-
ject without privileges to private law (i.e., with a 100-percent
reserve requirement).
The failure of most Currency School theorists was fatal.
These theorists were responsible for the fact that Peel's Act of
1844, despite the honorable intentions behind it, failed to elim-
inate the creation of fiduciary deposits, though it prohibited
the issuance of unbacked banknotes. Moreover members of
the Currency School also defended the institution of a central-
banking system which, mainly due to the negative influence
of Banking School theorists, would eventually be used to jus-
tify and promote policies of monetary recklessness and finan-
cial excess, policies much more foolish than those theorists
originally sought to remedy.
Therefore the central bank, understood as a central plan-
ning agency in the field of money and banking, cannot be con-
sidered a natural product of the evolution of the free market.
On the contrary, it has been dictatorially imposed from the out-
side as a result of governments' attempts to profit from the
highly lucrative possibilities of fractional-reserve banking. In
fact governments have deviated from their essential role, as
they have ceased to adequately define and defend the property
rights of bank depositors, and they have taken advantage of
the practically unlimited possibilities of money and credit cre-
ation which the establishment of a fractional-reserve ratio (on
bills and deposits) has opened up for them. Thus in the viola-
tion of the private-property-law principles which apply to
demand deposits, governments have largely found their
longed-for philosopher's stone, which has provided them with
unlimited financing without requiring them to resort to taxes.
The construction of a true free-banking system must coin-
cide with the reestablishment of a 100-percent reserve require-
ment on amounts received as demand deposits. The original
neglect of this obligation led to all the banking and monetary
issues which have given rise to the current financial system,
with its high level of government intervention.
The idea is ultimately to apply a seminal idea of Hayek's
to the field of money and banking. According to this idea,
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 809
whenever a traditional rule of conduct is broken, either
through institutional government coercion or the granting of
special privileges by the state to certain people or organiza-
tions, sooner or later grave, undesirable consequences always
ensue and cause serious damage to the spontaneous process
of social cooperation.
As we saw in the first three chapters, the traditional rule of
conduct transgressed in the banking business is the legal prin-
ciple that the safekeeping obligation, an essential element in a
non-fungible deposit, manifests itself, in the contract govern-
ing the deposit of a fungible good (for example money), in the
requirement that a reserve of 100 percent of the fungible good
(money) received on deposit be maintained constantly. Hence
any use of such money, specifically the granting of loans
against it, implies a violation of this principle and thus, an ille-
gitimate act of misappropriation.
At each stage in history, bankers have promptly become
tempted to breach this traditional rule of conduct and make
self-interested use of their depositors' money. At first they did
so secretively and with a sense of shame, since they were still
aware of the dishonest nature of their behavior. Only later did
bankers manage to make the violation of the traditional legal
principle an open and legal practice, when they obtained from
the government the privilege of using their depositors' money,
almost always in the form of loans, which initially were often
granted to the government itself. Thus arose the relationship
of complicity and the coalition of interests which have become
customary between governments and banks and explain the
current "understanding" and "cooperation" between these
two types of institutions. Such a climate of collaboration is evi-
dent, with only subtle differences, in all western countries
under almost all circumstances. For bankers soon realized that
the violation of the above traditional legal principle led to a
financial activity which earned them fat profits, but which in
any case required the existence of a lender of last resort, the
central bank, to provide the necessary liquidity in the
moments of crisis which experience taught would always
reappear sooner or later. The central bank would also be
responsible for orchestrating increases in joint, coordinated
810 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
credit expansion and for imposing on all citizens the legal ten-
der regulations of its own monopolistic currency.
Nevertheless the unfortunate social consequences of this
privilege granted to bankers (yet to no other institution or
individual) were not entirely understood until Mises and
Hayek developed the Austrian theory of economic cycles,
which they based on the theory of money and capital and we
analyzed in chapters 5 through 7. In short, Austrian theorists
have demonstrated that the pursuit of the theoretically impos-
sible (from a legal-contractual and technical-economic stand-
point) goal of offering a contract comprised of fundamentally
incompatible elements, a contract which combines ingredients
typical of mutual funds (particularly the possibility of earning
interest on "deposits") with those typical of a traditional
deposit contract (which by definition must permit the with-
drawal of the nominal value at any time) will always, sooner
or later, trigger certain spontaneous readjustments. Initially
these readjustments take the form of the uncontrolled expan-
sion of the money supply, inflation, and generalized poor allo-
cation of productive resources on a microeconomic level. Even-
tually they manifest themselves in a recession, the elimination
of the errors exerted on the productive structure by credit
expansion, and massive unemployment.
It is important to understand that the privilege which
allows banks to operate with a fractional reserve represents an
obvious attack by government authorities on the correct defi-
nition and defense of depositors' private-property rights,
when respect for these rights is essential to the proper func-
tioning of any market economy. As a result, a typical "tragedy
of the commons" effect invariably appears, as it does when-
ever property rights are not adequately defined and defended.
This effect consists of an increased inclination on the part of
bankers to try to get ahead of their competitors by expanding
their own credit base sooner and more than their rivals. Con-
sequently the fractional-reserve banking system always tends
toward more or less rampant expansion, even when it is
"monitored" by central bankers who, contrary to what has
normally occurred in the past, seriously (and not just rhetori-
cally) concern themselves with setting limits.
A Proposal for Banking Reform:
The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement 811
In short, the essential goal of monetary policy should be
to subject banks to the traditional principles of civil and com-
mercial law, according to which each individual and com-
pany must fulfill certain obligations (100-percent reserve
requirement) in strict keeping with the terms agreed to in each
contract.
At the same time, we should be strongly critical of most of
the literature which, following the publication in the late sev-
enties of Hayek's book, Denationalization of Money, has
defended a model of fractional-reserve free banking. The most
important conclusion to draw from all of this literature is that
its authors too often fail to realize that they frequently commit
the old errors of the Banking School. As we explained in chap-
ter 8, this is true of the works of White, Selgin, and Dowd.
There is nothing wrong with their attention to the advantages
of an interbank clearing system in terms of self-control in
credit expansion, and in this sense their system would pro-
duce better results than the current central-banking system, as
Ludwig von Mises originally pointed out. However frac-
tional-reserve free banking is still a second best which would
not keep a wave of excessive optimism in loan concession
from triggering the joint action of different banks. At any rate,
these authors fail to see that as long as the fractional-reserve
privilege remains, it will be impossible in practice to dispense
with the central bank. In brief, as we have argued in this book,
the only way to eliminate the central planning agency in the
field of banking and credit (the central bank) is to do away
with the fractional-reserve privilege private bankers currently
enjoy. This is a necessary measure, though it is not sufficient:
the central bank must still be completely abolished and the
fiduciary money it has created up to now must be privatized.
In conclusion, if we wish to build a truly stable financial
and monetary system for the twenty-first century, a system
which will protect our economies as far as humanly possible
from crises and recessions, we will have to: (1) ensure com-
plete freedom of choice in currency, based on a metallic stan-
dard (gold) which would replace all fiduciary media issued in
the past; (2) establish a free-banking system; and, most impor-
tantly, (3) insist that all agents involved in the free-banking
812 Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
system be subject to and comply with traditional legal rules
and principles, especially the principle that no one, not even a
banker, can enjoy the privilege of loaning something entrusted
to him on demand deposit (i.e., a free-banking system with a
100-percent reserve requirement).
Until specialists and society in general fully grasp the
essential theoretical and legal principles associated with
money, bank credit, and economic cycles, we may realistically
expect further suffering in the world due to damaging eco-
nomic recessions which will inevitably and perpetually reap-
pear until central banks lose their power to issue paper money
with legal tender and bankers lose their government-granted
privilege of operating with a fractional reserve. We now wrap
up the book as we began it, with this opinion: Now that we
have seen the historic fall of socialism, both in theory and in
practice, the main challenge to face both professional econo-
mists and lovers of freedom in this new century will be to use
all of their intellectual might to oppose the institution of the
central bank and the privilege private bankers now enjoy.
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Index of Subjects
Accelerator principle, criticism
of the, 565-71
Accounting
Continental accounting
methods used for the irreg-
ular deposit, 184-94
in the English-speaking
world, 194-200
profits in stages closest to
final consumption, 367-68
losses in stages distant from
consumption, 375-82
profits from production, 289
See also Bookkeeping;
National income account-
ing
Actio depositi, 120
Actio furti, 120
Aleatory contract. See Contracts
Anglo-Saxon legal system. See
Continental law system
Argentina. See Banking reform
Assyria. See Banking
Austrian School of economics
differences with monetarists,
578-82
differences with Keynesians,
578-82
See also Capital; Macroeco-
nomic
Austrian theory of the business
cycle, 347-84
empirical evidence of, 476-99
empirical testing of, 500-03
Marxist connections with,
468-74, 571-72
phases in the cycle, table of,
506-08
Availability
redefinition of in the irregu-
lar deposit, 147-55
dual, 136-38
Average period of production,
297-98, 519n
Babylon. See Banking
Bank deposits and bills, their
economic equivalence, 244-53,
625-27
Bank mergers. See Bank
Bank multiplier. See Bank
Bank of Amsterdam, 98-106
and David Hume, 102-03
and James Steuart and Adam
Smith, 103-06
and the 100-percent reserve
requirement, 99
861
862
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Bank of Barcelona, 114
See also Taula de Canvi, 63
Bank of England, 107-09
its suspension of the Peel Act
during crises, 485
Bank of Spain, 132
Bank of Stockholm, 106-07
endowment of a Nobel Prize
in Economics, 107n
Bank crises, and the superiority
of the proposed system in
counteracting them, 745-46
Bank failures
Bangkok Bank of Commerce
(Thailand), 498n
Bank Korea First (Korea),
498n
Credit Mobiliaire (France),
485
Hokkaido Takushoku
(Japan), 498n
Jay Cook and Co. (United
States), 486
Peregrine Bank (Hong
Kong), 498n
See also Sanyo Securities;
Yamaichi Securities
Bank
as financial intermediary,
168, 174-177
Callisto's, 54-55
isolated, and the capacity for
credit expansion and
deposit creation, 200-08
mergers, 203-04n, 467-68
monopolistic, the capacity
for expansion, 211-17
multiplier (case of isolation),
202, 215
simultaneous expansion by
many, 231-38
system of small, capacity for
credit expansion equal to
that of a single, monopolis-
tic bank, 223-31
very small (or Lilliputian),
208-11
Bankers
in late Middle Ages, 59-77
Jewish, 56n, 64
liability of, 33n, 56n
power of, 43, 44n
privileges of, 50, 63, 77
secrecy of, 69n
Templars, as medieval, 59
Banking
assets, how they decline in
the crisis, 389-90
deregulation of, 740-41
Hellenestic, 51-53
in Assyria, 40n
in Babylon, 40n
in Chile, 703-05
in eighteenth century France,
109-11
in eighteenth and nineteenth
century Scotland, 702-03
in Greece, 41-51
Jesus and, 56n
legislation, failure of, 671-75
Medicis and the business
cycle, 72-75, 482
mutual fund, 743-44, 597-98
prudence in, 148-52, 608
Ptolemies and, 51-53
services, 168
sin in banking, 86-88
uncertainty and risk in, 289n,
385-95
See also Fractional-reserve
banking; Fractional-reserve
free banking; Free banking;
Rome; School of Salamanca;
Seville; Tragedy of the com-
mons
Index of Subjects
863
Banking reform
in Argentina, 783-86
Peron, General Juan, critical
analysis of his banking
reform, 783-86
proposal to reform, advan-
tages, 745-60
stages in, 789-91
strategy for reforming, essen-
tial principles, 788-89
to prevent economic cycles,
746-48
See also National debt
Banking School, 254n
debate with Currency
School, 622-30
definition, 601n, 623-24
in the School of Salamanca,
601
Banking system
and the capacity for credit
expansion, 200-23, 231-38
compared with stock market,
460n
modern, beginning of, 109
system of small banks, 223-31
Banknotes, their issuance and
their equivalence to deposit
creation, 244-54, 625-27
Barcelona's Bank of Deposit,
62-63
Bayes's theorem, impossibility of
application in economics, 386
Bookkeeping, double-entry, 59n
Boom, characteristics of, 352n
Budget deficit finance, 474-75
Bundesbank, 790
Call option (purchase), 159n
Capital good
and convertibility, 280
as future-oriented, 281
as temporary, 279-84
circulating, 299
definition of, 272
depreciation of, 280
effect of market price of on
the productive structure,
325-28
fixed, 299
non-convertible, in the eco-
nomic cycle, 414
Capital theory, 266-312
Capital
capitalist, concept of, 277
concept of, 282
Kiinstliches kapital, or "artifi-
cial capital" in Geyer, 643
marginal efficiency of, 555-57
monetarists' "mythical" con-
cept of, 512-22
mythical concept of, Aus-
trian criticism, 518-22
productivity theory of inter-
est, 516n
squandering of, 412
Can v. Can, 125n
Case probabilities, 386
Central bank, 629
artificial incentives for per-
formance, 660-61
case for, 635-39
cooperation with private
banks, 648-49
eradication of, 754-56
result of fractional-reserve
banking, 638
Central banking vs. free bank-
ing, 631-46
Certificate or receipt of irregular
deposit in Roman law, 29
Chicago School, its 100-percent
reserve plan, 731-35
864
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Chile
financial system in the nine-
teenth century, 703-04
failure of free banking, 705
Chirographis pecuniarum, or bank
checks in the writings of Luis
de Molina, 606
Circular flow
criticism of the model, 343n,
515-16
of income, 307n
Civil Code and the monetary
deposit, 127
Commercial and Penal Codes,
proposed reform of their arti-
cles, 741n
Commercial Code and the mone-
tary deposit, 127-33
Commixtion (art. 381 of the
Spanish Civil Code), 5n
Commodatum, definition, 2
Common law, doctrine of irregu-
lar deposit, 124-27
Contracts
aleatory, 142, 150, 711
deposit, 4-6
loan, 1-4
monetary deposit, 7, 122,
131n
See also Monetary irregular
deposit
Consumer credit, 316-17
and the theory of the cycle,
406-08
Consumption function, debate,
577n
Consumer Price Index, 420n
Continental accounting methods.
See Accounting
Continental law system, 24-25,
126-27
Coordination, intertemporal,
infratemporal, 276, 290
Corpus Juris Civilis, 31, 65
Corralito, 142n
Counterfeit currency, 710
Counterfeiting, effects equiva-
lent to those of credit expan-
sion, 710
Credit
insurance, 598-600
market, secondary, sub-
sidiary importance to the
general time market, 314-15
uninsurable nature of sys-
tematic risks, 599
tightening, process of,
254-63, 450-52
Credit cards, 640n
Credit expansion, its effects on
the productive structure,
348-60
Credit Lyonnais, 486
Credit culture of easy money, fed
by credit expansion, 753-54
Currency School
advocates of free banking,
639-46
debate with Banking School,
622-30
definition, 601n
in the School of Salamanca,
605
Danse macabre, 71
Defeatism, 160-61
Deflation
caused by credit squeeze, 255
concept and types, 255, 444
deliberately induced by gov-
ernments, 446-47
healthy, 750-52
in Great Britain after the
Napoleonic Wars and in
1925, 447n
Index of Subjects
865
objection to the proposed
system, 773-78
Demand deposit, repurchase
agreement, operations that
mask, 157-61, 597
Democracy and the credit sys-
tem, 756-58
Demoralization of economic
agents, 262, 378, 456-59
Denationalization of money See
Money
Deposit
and loan differences, 15,
17-20, 135-136
banking in Mediterranean
Europe, 61-63
contract of, concept and
essence, 4
derivative, 188
economic difference from a
loan, 14-16, 19, 35
guarantee systems, 656n
legal difference from loan,
13, 17-20, 67n
primary deposits, 187
secondary, 188
"time," 20n
Ulpian's definition, 27-28
Ulpian, difference in loans, 33
Depositi a discrezione, 72
Depositum confessatum
conceptual confusion, 66-67
spurious or simulated
deposit, 16n, 32, 65-69,
120-22, 605
Depreciation of capital goods.
See Capital good
Devaynes v. Noble, 125
Digest, 26-30
Discrezione, interest paid by the
Medici Bank, 72
Durable consumer goods. See
Goods
Economic calculation
application to the theory of
the cycle, 377n
error in, as a fundamental
cause of the crisis, 377
impossibility under social-
ism, 650
Economic crisis
caused by error in economic
calculation, 377
of the 1970s and 1990s, 494-99
Economic cycles in a market
economy (their supposedly
inherent nature), 469
Economic cycles, 88
banking reform capable of
preventing, 746-48
empirical evidence and,
476-505
international nature of, 475
theory of, 347-84
psychological consequences
of, 262, 378, 456-59
Economic
goods of first order and
higher order, 268
goods of intermediate stages
or higher-order, 268
growth, and the proposed
monetary system, 749-53
recession, as the recovery
stage, 433
Economy
in regression, 344-46
"manic-depressive," 456-59,
749
Employment. See Full employ-
ment
Entrepreneurial creativity, 276
Entrepreneurship, 421-24
its application to intertempo-
ral discoordination, 422
salvaging of capital goods, 424
866
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Error in negotio in the monetary
deposit contract, cause of
absolute invalidity, 140-41
European Monetary Union,
803-05
Exchange rates
fixed and flexible, 475,
804-05
fixed, 802
Factor markets, making them
flexible, 435
Factors of production, 273
Federal Reserve, 487-89
Fiduciary
commodity money, 187, 198
demand for, regarded as an
exogenous variable, 679-84
media, 187, 191n
money, definition, 187
Filtration of the money supply
out of the economic system,
239-41
Financial asset, 696
"Financial innovations," criti-
cism of, because they flout the
reserve requirement, 772-73
Financial intermediaries
banks as true, 168, 174-77
true, non-bank, 584-600
Fixed capital goods. See Capital
good
"Flattening" of the productive
structure following the crisis,
345, 380
Florence
fourteenth century banking
in, 70-71
economic crisis and its trig-
gers, 71, 479-80
crisis of the sixteenth cen-
tury, 81-82, 481-82
Foley v. Hill, 125
Forced lender, 149, 608
Forced saving
and forced expropriation,
410n
in a broad sense, 409-11
in a strict sense, 411-12
Fractional-reserve banking,
115-65
in life insurance, 163-64
legal theory of, 706-12, 727
probability in, 150, 386-88
See also Life insurance
Fractional-reserve free banking
Cantillon on, 616
contradictions in, 141-44
critical analysis of, 675-712
modern school of, 664-71
Fraud in the irregular deposit, 9n
de la Calle on, 86-87
hidden in financial innova-
tions, 772
Free banking
failure of, 705
problem with historical illus-
trations of, 701-06
See also Fractional-reserve
free banking; Central
banking; Chile; Currency
School
Fuero Real, 34-35
Full employment
in desperate circumstances,
454-56
assumption of, 440-43
General equilibrium, Walras's
model of, 514
General price level stabilization,
424-31
and artificial lengthening of
productive structure, 428
Index of Subjects
867
Goal, concept of, 266
Gold production, 750
Gold standard, effects of hoard-
ing under, 550n
Goods
durable consumer, 300, 316,
406
fungible good, 2
present and future, absence
of exchange in the irregular
deposit, 14-15
savers, or suppliers of pres-
ent, 285-86
See also Economic goods
Great Depression, 491-93
Great Plague, 346
Gross
income, 304
investment, 302
market rate of interest, pre-
mium for expected inflation
or deflation, 289
saving, 302
Gross Domestic Output (GDO),
420
Gross National Output (GNO),
definition, 310n
Gross National Product (GNP),
308, 310n, 418-20
Hoarding, or deflation provoked
by an increase in the savings
devoted to cash balances,
448-49
Holding companies, as true
financial intermediaries, 597-98
Human action, 266-72
Hyperinflation, 404-05
Ideogram, monetarist equation
of exchange as an, 531
Idle
capacity, 415
resources, 440-43
Impossibility of socialism, theo-
rem of, and the central bank,
647-75
Incentives, redefinition of their
structure for central-bank
authorities, 659-61
Income redistribution and
changes in relative prices
caused by inflation, 533
Industrial Revolution, business
cycles, 482-87
Input-output tables, 312n, 503
Institution, definition, 21
Interbank clearing house, Par-
nell's argument on the limit to
issuance under free banking,
632
Interest
agreements of, in irregular
deposit contract, 16
different theories of, 516n
from a legal standpoint, 287
Interest rate, 284-91
definition of, 285
gross, 289
tendency to equalize, 291,
301-02
increase in, of loans, 371-74
technical interest used in life
insurance, 590
under the proposed system,
762-64
Internal financing, 288
International monetary standard,
759-60
Internet, 640n
Infratemporal
discoordination, 662
Intertemporal
discoordination created by
credit expansion, 283-84,
352-53
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
equilibrium, incompatibility
with monetary stabiliza-
tion, 427-28
Inventories, 299
Investment companies. See Hold-
ing companies
Irregular deposit
Cantillon's fraud (securities),
112-14
court decisions, 11-12
charges on, 17n
definition and difference
with regular deposit, 4-6
forgery in, 9n
fraud in. See Fraud
misappropriation in, 9-10
of money, essential element
of, 7-9
of securities and money, the
equivalence of, 122-24
social function of, 6-7
See also Common law
Isabetta Querini vs. The Bank of
Marino Vendelino, 67n
Islamic law, regarding irregular
deposits, 61n
Japan, speculative crisis of the
90s, 498
Jerusalem temple, 56n
Jews. See Bankers
Jurisprudence, 24-26
Keynes, John Maynard
criticism of his theory, 542-71
limited knowledge of eco-
nomics, 543-44
ignorance of German, 544
arguments of the harmless-
ness of credit expansion,
546-52
liquidity preference, criticism
of, 562n
influence on life insurance
industry, 164n, 594n
marginal efficiency of capi-
tal, 555-57
on Mises and Hayek, 557
recognition that he lacked a
capital theory, 561n
role in corruption of tradi-
tional life insurance princi-
ples, 164n
Keynesian economics, 542-71
a "particular" theory, 553-54
Keynesians and monetarists,
macroeconomic methodology,
576-82
Kiinstliches kapital, or "artificial
capital" in Geyer, 643
Labor legislation, 169
Land, economic concept of, 273n
Language, as social institution, 21
"Law of large numbers"
impossibility of application
to banking, 385-95
impossibility of application
to monetary deposit, 141
Law
on the 100-percent reserve
requirement, lln, 13-14,
741n
versus legislation, 671
See also Roman law
Legal principles
emergence of, and institu-
tions, 21-24
general, traditional, and uni-
versal, 742-43
inevitable, 769-72
no contradiction with free-
dom of contract, 766-68
Index of Subjects
869
See also Fractional-reserve
banking
Life insurance, 161-65, 586-97
premiums, 587
exchange of present goods
for future goods, 161
perfected savings, 162
companies, as true financial
intermediaries, 586-90
as cover for fractional-
reserve banking, 163-65
principles corrupted, 594-97
surrender clause, 591-93
surrender of life insurance
policy, 163
Loan
definition and types, 1
market, as subset of time
market, 287-88
real factors, influencing the
demand, 372-74
Loose joint, between real and
monetary sides of economics,
according to Hayek, 580
Macroeconomic
aggregates, 438, 576-78
policy, according to the Aus-
trian School, 581-83
Macroeconomics, Hayek's criti-
cism of, 564n
Malinvestment, 375
usefulness after the boom,
416n
resources in the boom prior
to the economic crisis, 414
Mancamento della credenza, 71, 480
"Manic-depressive" economy.
See Economy
Market rigidity, chief enemy of
recovery, 435
Marxism, connections with Aus-
trian theory of the trade cycle,
468-74, 572
Mathematical reserves, 588
Means, concept of, 266
Medicis. See Banking
Misappropriation
in irregular deposit, 9-10
in Spanish criminal law, lln
Mississippi Trading Company,
110
Monetarism
critique of, 512-42
policy advocated by, against
recessions, 534-35
theory of, 512-42
Monetarists and Keynesians
analytical and methodologi-
cal similarities, 576-78
differences, 579-80
Monetarists' equation of
exchange, 522-23, 530-33
Monetary constitutionalism, 756n
"Monetary equilibrium"
criticism of, 685-86, 688-93
theory of, in White and Sel-
gin, 677-79
Monetary irregular-deposit con-
tract, 4, 7, 9, 11
Azpilcueta on, 89
de la Calle on, 85
reasons for violation of,
38-39
Monetary reform, objections to
Huerta de Soto's proposal for,
and replies, 760-87
Monetary stabilization in peri-
ods of rising productivity,
424-31
Monetary system
costs of two systems com-
pared, 779-81
in former Eastern bloc coun-
tries, 803-05
Monetization of national debt, 757
870
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Money
as a perfectly liquid asset,
186n
as a social institution, 21
denationalization of, 736-39
"electronic," 640n
Huerta de Soto's proposal to
privatize money, 736-45
"plastic," 640n
purchasing power, pre-
dictability of changes 583
supply in the United States,
evolution in the 1920s,
487-88
See also Neutral money;
Quantity theory of money;
Regression theorem; Sav-
ings
Monopolistic bank. See Banks
Monstrua prodigia, Roman legal
concept of, 143
Moral hazard, 150, 387n
Multiplier, criticism of, 558-64
Mutual fund banking. See Bank-
ing
Mutuum, definition, 2-4
National debt, conversion in
reform of the banking system,
791-803
National income accounting
criticism of its measures,
305-12, 336-39n
inadequate to reflect differ-
ent phases in the economic
cycle, 418-20
National Mutual Life Assurance
Society, 163n
"Needs of trade," Old-Banking-
School argument, 623, 678
Neo-Banking School, 675-712
Neo-Ricardians, 572-75
Net income, 304
Net saving, 302
Neutral money, 523, 541
its theoretical impossibility,
581
New classical economics, 535,
748
New Keynesians, 576n
Novation, of contracts, 145
One-hundred-percent reserve
requirement, 716-35
and irregular deposit, 11-12
critical analysis of, 760-87
Hayek's proposal, 723-25
history of the proposal,
716-35
Maurice Allais's proposal,
728-30
Mises's proposal, 716-23
Rothbard's proposal, 726-27
Chicago School proposal,
731-35
James Tobin's proposal, 735n
"Option clauses," 710
Options, call, put, 159n, 771
Overconsumption, 377
Overinvestment, 375, 572
Paradox of thrift, 317-18n
theoretical solution to, 342-44
Partidas of Alfonso X, "the wise,"
34
Peace, 758-60
Peel's Bank Charter Act of July
19, 1844, 252, 484, 629
Pessimism, and the psychologi-
cal effects of the bust, 262, 378,
456-59
Pigou effect, 775
Index of Subjects
871
Plan, definition, 267
Political pragmatism of daily
affairs, 788
Political program, of least dam-
age, 454-56
Positivism, 476-79
Prediction of the 1929 stock mar-
ket crash, 429n
Prevention of crises, 432-40
Prices
revolution of, that accom-
pany inflation, 526-27, 618
rise of, in response to credit
creation, 363-67
Private property, and the attune-
ment of the proposed system,
748-49
Probability
case and class, 386-88
in life insurance, 162
See also Fractional-Reserve
Banking
Productive structure, 291-96
chart of, 293
having changed perma-
nently, 380
temporary effect on, produced
by disparity of profits, 319-25
Productivity theory of interest.
See Capital, Interest
Profit, "rate" of, 288
Ptolemies. See Banking
Public-choice School, 659, 663
Public works, 439-40
Purchasing power of money. See
Money
Put, sale option, 159n, 771
Quantity theory of money
critique of the mechanistic
monetarist version, 522-35
formulated by Azpilcueta in
1556, 603-04
Rational expectations, 423n
criticism of, 535-42
Real factors. See Loan
Recession, advent of, 375-82
Recovery
counterproductive steps to it,
436-40
following a crisis, 433-34
Reflux
Fullarton's law of, 624
Mises's criticism of, 625
Reform of the banking system.
See Banking reform
Regression theorem (Mises), 737n
Relative prices, the revolution
that accompanies inflation,
526-27, 618
Repurchase agreement. See
Demand deposit
Reserve ratio
different depending upon
type of deposit (demand or
time deposit), 243
maintenance of, above mini-
mum requirement, 242
Reswitching controversy, 572-75
Ricardo effect, 329-32
its role in the crisis, 368-70,
407
Robinson Crusoe, 274-77
Riksbank, 106-07
Roman law, 24-27
certificate or receipt of irreg-
ular deposit in, 29
codification of, 26-27
fundamental principles of, 24
Rome
banking in, 53-58
fall of, 58
872
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Safe-deposit box services, 168,
768
Safekeeping, cause of the deposit
contract, 4, 18, 136
Sanyo Securities, failed Japanese
stock market firm, 498n
Savings
account records of, chan-
neled into loans, 315-16
distinct from demand for
money, 694-700
effects on the productive
structure, 317-18
hoarding, 448-49
forms of, 313-15
perfect, 162
relinquishing of immediate
consumption, 273-76
See also Forced saving
Say's law of markets, 544-46
School of Salamanca
and banking business, 83-97
the school's currency and
banking viewpoints, 601,
603-12
Scotland. See Banking
Scholastics, "Currency" and
"Banking" Schools, 603-12
Secondary
deposits, 188
depression, 453-56
Securities, prices, relative to the
interest rate, 327-28
Security mutual fund
characteristics and future
role of, 791-803
true financial intermediary,
597-98
Seville
banking in, 79-83
and the business cycle, 81
Socialism
and the central bank, 651-74
its impossibility, 650-51
permanently in crisis, 472-74
Societates argentariae, 56-58
South Sea Bubble, 108
Stagflation, 402
as universal phenomenon in
the crisis, 402n
concept and causes, 379n,
399-405, 494
Stock market
concept and advantages,
459-60
in a crisis, 462-65
Stock market failures. See Sanyo
Securities; Yamaichi Securities
Subjectivism, 510-11
Subjectivist
conception of economics,
478, 510-11
symbiosis with legal point of
view, 135
Surprise, concept of, 386
Sustainable
and unstainable economic
growth, 353n, 749-53
Take-over bids, 754
Tantundem, 2, 5n, 13-14, 18n
custody or safekeeping of, 18
Taula de Canvi, 61, 63
and Catalonian banking reg-
ulation, 76
Taula de Valencia, 60n
Templars. See Bankers
Term, as an essential element of
the loan, 17-18
Theft, 30-31
Time preference, 270-71
and Lessines, 271n
theory of interest, 516n
Time, economic concept of, 268
Index of Subjects
873
Tragedy of the commons, theory
of and its application to bank-
ing, 394, 666-69
Trapezitei, 41-51
Ulpian. See Deposit
Uncertainty and risk in banking.
See Banking
Underconsumption, 344, 518n,
521
Unemployment
direct cause, 417
effects on the economic cycle,
440-43
indirect cause, 417-18
"involuntary," 554n
United States, Bank of, 483
Unspoken or implicit agreement,
theory of the, in the monetary
deposit, 139-47
Usury
canonical ban on, 64-65
institutional, 612
Utility, concept of, 266
Value of a goal, concept, 266
Yamaichi Securities, failed Japan-
ese stock market firm, 498n
War, and the credit system,
758-60
Index of Names
Abrams, M.A., 361n
Adams, John., 483n
Africanus, 25
Aftalion, Albert, 567n
Aguirre, Jose A., 471n, 629n,
791n, 804n
Albacar Lopez, Jose L., 128
Albadalejo, Manuel, In, 8n, 18n,
27n
Alchian, Armen A., 241n
Alderfer, E. B., 279n
Allais, Maurice 645, 664, 728-30,
753n-54n, 758, 765n, 787, 796n,
798n, 804, 813 no legible
Allen, Robert Loring, 492n
Allen, William R., 241n
Alonso Neira, M.A., 294n
Al-Qayrawani, 61n
Allen, Robert Loring, 492n
Anderson, Benjamin M., 464n,
487, 488n, 489, 527, 548n, 694n
Andreu Garcia, Jose M., 244n
Anes, Rafael , 646n
Angell, James W., 731
Apollonius, 52
Aranson, Peter H., 23n
Ardu-Nama, 40n
Arena, Richard, 541n
Aristolochus, 47
Arrow, Kenneth J., 387n
Austerus, 31
Aviola, 31
Azpilcueta, Martin de, 89-90, 96,
97n, 603-04, 610, 611, 613, 627
Bagus, Philipp, 668n
Bajo Fernandez, Miguel, lOn-lln
Barallat, Luis, 772n
Barnes, Harry Elmer, 64n
Barnett, William, 294n
Bartley III, W.W., llln
Batson, H.E., 645n
Becker, Gary S., 734
Belda, Francisco, 85n, 136n-37n,
604n, 609-11
Bell, Daniel, 577n
Bell, G.M., 44n
Beltran, Lucas, 83n
Benegas Lynch, A., 71 On
Benham, Frederick, 361n
Benton, Thomas Hart, 641
Berenger, Jean, 84n
Birner, Jack, 183n
Blanchard, Olivier J., 577n
Blaug, Mark, 331n, 574
Block, Walter, 294n, 470n,
667n-68n, 709n, 760n
875
876
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 71n, 346
Boettke, Peter J., 576n, 676n
Bogaert, Raymond, 49n, 50-51n,
69n, 705n
Bohm-Bawerk, Eugen von, 274,
292n, 294-95n, 300n, 302n,
318n, 319n, 346, 516n, 517n,
518-19, 574n, 644
Bonet Ramon, Francisco, 17n
Bonnet, V., 361n
Boorman, John D., 243n
Borch, Karl H., 387n
Bornardell Lenzano, Rafael, 148n
Borromeo, St. Charles, 54n
Bosch, Alfred, 631n
Bosch Domenech, Antonio, 487n
Boyd, James, 253n
Brannan, Patrick T., 410n
Bresciani-Turroni, Constantino,
204n, 212, 231, 361n, 405n, 410n
Briining, Dr. 454
Buchanan, James, xlviii
Butos, William N., 496
Cabrillo, Francisco, 468n, 600n,
740n, 746n
Cagan, Phillip, 244n
Caldwell, Bruce, 329n, 477n
Callistus I, 54-55
Calzada, Gabriel, xxxi
Camaeno, Francisco, 84n
Cantillon, Richard, 44n, 111-14,
122, 124, 126, 413n, 533n, 614,
615-16, 617
Caracalla, 29n
Carande, Ramon, 79, 81, 84n,
93n, 482
Carpophorus, 54, 55
Casas Pardo, Jose, 229
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Cassel, Gustav, 298n, 469
Cassius, Dio, 53
Castaneda Chornet, Jose, 270n,
301n
Cato, 23, 25
Cavallo, Domingo, 785n
Celsus, 30
Centi, Jean Pierre, 738n
Cernuschi, Henri, 630, 640, 641,
644, 645n, 675n
Chafuen, Alejandro A., 84n,
41 On, 603n
Charles 1, 107n
Charles II, 107n
Charles V, 78, 79, 83, 84n, 92, 482
Checkland, Sidney G., 703
Chevalier, 635n
Churchill, Winston, 446n, 447n
Churruca, Juan de, 55n
Cicero, Marcus T., 23
Cipolla, Carlo M., 63n, 70n, 71,
72n, 74, 76, 81, 82, 479, 480, 481,
703n
Clark, John Bates, 29 7n, 307n,
311n, 511, 514-22
Clark, John Maurice, 567n
Clough, Shepard B., 116
Cochin, Henri, 113, 122
Cohen, Edward E., 47n, 50n, 51n
Colonna, M., 266n, 529n, 541n
Colmeiro, M., 80n
Commodus, 54n
Como, 47
Copernicus, Nicholas, 604n
Coppa-Zuccari, Pasquale, 7n, 8n,
16n, 28n, 68n, 140n, 144n
Coquelin, 635n
Corona, Ramon, 755n
Coronel de Palma, Luis, 646n
Costouros, G.J., 44n
Cottenham, Lord, 125
Index of Names
877
Courcelle-Seneuil, Jean-Gustav,
361n, 634n, 641n, 675n, 703, 704
Covarrubias y Leyva, Diego de,
42n, 603
Cowen, Tyler, 503n
Crick, N.F., 199n
Crockett, Davy, 641n
Crusoe, Robinson, 274-284, 332
Cuello Calon, Eugenio, lOn
Currie, Lauchlin, 736
Dabin, J., 17, 135n
Davanzati, Bernardo, 603n, 61 7n,
613
Davenport, Herbert J., 199-202n,
361n
Davenport, Nicholas, 595n
Davies, J. Ronnie, 578n
D'Eichtal, 635n
Delvaux, Thierry, 596n
Demosthenes, 46-48, 53
Dempsey, Bernard W., 65n,
610-12
Diamond, Douglas W., 395n
Dimand, Robert W., 492n, 560n
Diego, Felipe Clemente de,
143-44, 151
Diez Picazo, Luis, 5
Dingwall, J., 268n
Dobb, Maurice, 330n
Dolan, Edwin C, 83n, 574n
Dorn, James A., 640n
Dowd, Kevin, 645, 676, 701n
Drucker, Peter E, 576-77
Durbin, Evan Frank Mottram,
361n
Dybvig, Philip H., 395n
Eatwell, John, 469n, 669n, 701n,
704n
Ebeling, Richard M., 405, 531n
Engels, Friedrich, 44n, 571
England, Catherine, 49 7n
Erias Rey, Antonio, 660
Escarra, Jean, lln
Estape, Fabian, 603n
Estey, J.A., 362n
Febrero, Ramon, 579n, 803n
Feldberg, Meyer, 740n
Ferdinand I, 84n
Fernandez, Tomas-Ramon, 673n
Ferrer Sama, Antonio, 10
Fetter, Frank Albert, 361n, 517n,
Figueroa, Emilio de, 362n
Figuerola, Laureano, 740
Fischer, Stanley, 577n
Fisher, Irving, 464n, 487, 489,
490, 491, 492, 517, 522n, 523n,
530, 721, 734n
Fisher, Irving N. 734n
Franco, Gabriel, 362n
Fraser, H.F., 361n
Friedman, David, 645
Friedman, Milton, 341n, 488,
495n, 523n, 525, 528, 534n, 576,
577, 578n, 677, 733, 739n, 740n,
748, 755n, 778, 780
Fullarton, John, 623, 624-25, 678
Gaius, 25
Galiani, Ferdinando, 104n, llOn,
603n, 617,
Gallatin, Albert, 626-27
Garcia del Corral, Ildefonso L.,
29n, 30n, 57n
Garcia-Garrido, Manuel, 56n
Garcia-Pita y Lastres, Jose, 12,
17, 146n, 148
Garcia Villaverde, Rafael, 148n
Garrigues, Joaquin, 8n, lln, 12n,
878
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
114n, 123, 131n, 133, 134,
137-39, 148-50, 199n
Garrison, Roger W., 270n, 291n,
301n, 353n, 366n, 382n, 404n,
411n, 495n, 496n, 535n, 538n,
539n, 540, 541n, 543n, 553n,
563n, 576n, 578n, 579n, 581n,
779, 780n
Garschina, Kenneth M., 470n
Gellert, W., 214n
Geta, 29n
Geyer, Philip J., 359, 635n, 642n,
643, 716
Gherity, James A., 620n
Gil Pelaez, Lorenzo, 326n
Gimeno Ullastres, Juan A., 758n
Glasner, David, 676
Goicoechea, Antonio, 12n
Goldstein, Itay, 395n
Gomez Camacho, Francisco, 84n,
91, 95n, 122n, 253n, 604n
Goodhart, Charles A.E., 648n,
649n, 658, 659, 666n, 736n
Gordianus, 31
Gordon, Robert J., 576, 578n
Gorgias, 42n
Gossen, Hermann H., 595n
Gottfried, Dionysius, 27
Gouge, William M., 641
Graham, Frank D., 733
Grand, Peter Paul de, 483n
Granger, Clive W.J., 500
Grant, Sir William, 125n
Grassl, Wolfgang, 575n
Graziani, Augusto, 343n, 573n
Greaves, Bettina B., 359n, 372n,
718n
Greaves, Percy L., 592n
Green, Roy, 624n
Greenfield, Robert, 677n, 799n
Gregory, Sir Theodore E., 361n
Gresham, Thomas, 80, 81n
Grice-Hutchinson, Marjorie, 64n,
84n, 94n, 95n, 603n
Groenveld, K., 730n
Gullon, Antonio, 5n, 135n
Guyot, Yves, 361n
Guzman Hermida, Juan Manuel,
42n
Haberler, Gottfried, 361n, 362n,
431n, 544n, 559, 560n
Hadrianus, 54
Hagemann, H., 266n, 529n, 541n
Hahn, L. Albert, 431n
Hall, Robert E., 497n, 576n
Hanke, Stephen H., 806n
Harcourt, Geoffrey C., 575n
Hardin, Garret, 666n, 667
Harris, Joseph, 103
Harrison, President Henry, 641n
Harrod, Roy F, 567n
Hart, Albert G., 309n, 731, 748,
792n, 794, 795
Havrilesky, Thomas M., 243n
Hawtrey, Ralph, 464n, 489, 490,
491, 524, 525, 559n, 560n, 577n
Hayek, Friedrich A., 20, 22, llln,
112n, 113, 116n, 122n, 152-53,
170n, 185n, 194, 202n, 253n,
273n, 281n, 282n, 286n, 292n,
300n, 304n, 305n, 307, 311n,
329n, 330, 331n, 332n, 339n,
342n, 343n, 353n, 359, 361n,
362n, 363n, 367n, 368n, 369n,
370n, 372-73, 376n, 377-78n,
382n, 400n, 401, 403, 404n,
408n, 409n, 41 3n, 415, 420n,
427, 428, 429, 434n, 437, 439,
441n, 443, 447n, 454, 456n, 462,
468, 469, 470, 477n, 478, 479,
482, 489, 494, 512n, 519n, 520,
521n, 524, 525n, 526, 529, 534,
539, 540n, 543, 544n, 545, 546,
Index of Names
879
551, 552, 556, 557, 558n, 560,
561n, 563, 564n, 572, 573, 578n-
579n, 580, 583n, 587n, 595n,
611, 613n, 620n, 621n, 622n,
623n, 627n, 631n, 642n, 643,
645, 655, 656n, 662n, 671n,
675n, 676, 680n, 681n, 689, 690,
723-26, 737, 738n, 740n, 743,
769, 798n, 799n, 800n, 802n,
804n
Heinz, Grete, 631n
Heijmann, W., 789n
Hellwich, N., 214n
Herbener, Jeffrey M., 429n, 51 7n,
570n
Heriberto Martinez, Jose, 784n
Hernandez-Tejero Jorge, Fran-
cisco, 25n, 141n
Hey, J.D., 386n
Hicks, John R., 71n, 309n, 346n,
404n, 512n
Higgs, Henry, lOOn, 122n
Hilprecht, 40n
Hippolytus, 55
Hirschmann, Albert O., 704n
Hitler, Adolf, 455n
Holden, J. Milnes, 125n
Hoover, Herbert, 492n
Hoppe, Hans-Hermann, 555n,
645, 667n, 668n, 697, 706n, 708,
739n
Horwitz, Stephen, 183n, 658n,
676, 678n, 679n, 700, 705, 706n,
709n, 777
Hoselitz, B., 268n
Hiibner, Otto, 630, 641, 642, 643,
644, 645
Huerta Ballester, Jesus, 594n
Huerta de Soto, Jesus, xli, xlii,
xliv, xlviii, 22n, 78n, 84n, 135n,
174n, 266n, 267n, 283n, 343n,
370n, 377n, 378n, 386n, 421n,
476n, 510, 536n, 541n, 579n,
604n, 645, 650n, 651n, 671n,
773n, 789n, 803n
Huerta Pena, Jesus, 591n
Hughes, Arthur Middleton,
420n, 496-97
Hulsmann, Jorg Guido, xxxi,
xxxviii, 2, 13 In, 275n, 645, 555n,
667n, 668n, 686n, 768n
Hume, David, 102, 103, 413n,
533n, 614-15, 617-20, 622, 627
Hutt, William, 570, 789n
Ibn Abi Zayd (Al-Qayrawani),
61n
Iglesias, Juan, 2, 28n, 29, 44n
Imbert, Jean, 57n, 65n
Ingram, J.K., lOOn
Ihering, Rudolf von, 24n
Iroyuki, Okon, 498n
Isocrates, 41-46
Issing, Otmar, 660n
Jackson, President Andrew, 755
Jefferson, Thomas, 483n
Jesus, 56n
Jevons, William Stanley, 138n,
245n, 292n, 51 7n, 766n
John Paul II, 747n
Jonung, Lars, 806n
Jouvenel, Bertrand de, 116n
Jowel, Kate, 740n
Julianus, 27, 29n, 31
Junankar, P.N., 567n
Justinian, 26, 27n, 28n, 58
Juurikkala, Oskari, 641n, 675n
Kaldor, Nicolas, 353n, 354n, 359n
Kastner, N., 214n
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Katz, Jesper N., 640n
Keynes, John Maynard, 137n,
164n, 317n, 362n, 464n, 489,
490n, 513n, 542-51, 553-54n,
555, 556n, 557-61, 562n, 563,
564n, 577, 594n, 595n, 611n,
620n, 630n, 694, 778-79
Keynes, Milo, 164n, 595n
Kindleberger, Charles P., 60n,
77n, 107n, 108n, 482n
Kirby, William, 427n
Kirzner, Israel M., 22n, 273n,
427n, 517n, 518n, 519n, 521,
522, 574n, 608n, 743
Klein, Benjamin, 675
Knies, 635n
Knight, Frank H., 298n, 307n,
311n, 511, 513n, 517-22, 578n,
792
Koo, Anthony Y.C., 431n, 560n
Kornai, Janos, 661
Kresge, Stephen, llln, 400n
Kretzmer, Peter E., 503n
Kristol, Irving, 577n
Kustner, 214n
Kydland, Finn E., 541n
Layard, Richard, 805n
Lee, G.A., 60n
Lehmann, Fritz, 733
Leijonhufvud, Axel, 536n
Leoni, Bruno, 20, 22, 23, 24n
Lesio, 85n, 609, 611, 612
Lessines, Aegidius, 271n
Leube, Kurt R., 738n
Lewin, P., 269n
Lindo, Alejandro, 80n
Lipsey, Richard G., 231
Lizarrazas, Domingo de, 80
Lloyd, Samuel James (Lord
Overstone), 627, 628n
Locke, John, 613, 614
Longfield, S.M., 632, 633, 634,
669n
Lopez-Amor y Garcia, Mercedes,
28n
Lopez Garcia, Luis Alfonso, 243n
Lopez, Gregorio, 35n
Lucas, Robert E., 541n
Lugo, Juan de, 85n, 93, 97n,
122n, 136n, 605, 607-10, 611,
612, 621, 626
Lachmann, Ludwig M., 269n,
382n, 414n, 435n, 438, 440,
441n, 460n, 465n, 529n, 530n,
558n, 574n, 575n
Lacruz Berdejo, Jose Luis, 135n
Laidler, David, 431n, 528, 529n,
530, 675n, 686n
Lalumia, 148
Lange, Oskar, 51 On
Laffer, Arthur B., 755n
Lavergne, 635n
Lavoie, Don C., 583n
Law, John, 108n, 109-12, 122,
482, 614, 615
Machlup, Fritz, 346n, 347, 361n,
407n, 413n, 429-30, 462-63n,
466n, 519-20, 526, 698, 699n
MacLeod, 254n, 623
MacRae, C. Duncan, 458n
Magnee, Martin E., 596n
Mailing, C., 775n
Maino, Jason de, 28n
Malthus, Thomas., 513, 622n
Manso, Ruben, 159n
Mant, Lenor, 40n
Marcellus, 25
Marcia, 55
Mariana, Juan de, 41 On, 759n
Index of Names
881
Marquez, Javier,362n
Marshall, Alfred, 202n, 215,
288n, 341n, 513, 543, 556, 630n
Martinez Meseguer, Cesar, 5n
Marx, Karl, 44n, 361n, 468, 469,
472n, 567n, 571, 795n
Mata Barranco, Norberto J. de la,
11
Mayer, Hans, 515n, 531n
Mayer, Thomas, 659n
McCloughry, Roy, 361n
McCulloch, J.R., 627, 628n, 632,
633, 634
McManus, T.E, 361n, 491n
Medici, Giovanni Angelo (Pope
Pius IV), 54n
Meltzer, Allan H., 524n
Menger, Carl, 20, 21, 22, 111,
267n, 268n, 294, 510-11, 513n,
517n, 518n, 603n, 614n, 737n,
738n, 770n, 800n
Mercado, Thomas de, 84n, 91-93,
97n, 604, 608, 609, 610, 611, 627,
Meredith, H.O., 513n
Michaelis, Otto, 630, 641, 642n,
643, 644, 645
Michel, H.E., 279n
Miles, Marc A., 755n
Milgate, Murray, 469n, 669n,
701n, 704n
Mill, John Stuart, 342n, 513, 624
Miller, Eugene R, 102n
Miller, Harry E., 642n
Mills, Frederick C, 501n
Mints, Lloyd W., 578n, 733, 748
Mises, Ludwig von, 14, 16, 23,
58n, 159n, 182n, 187n, 191,
192n, 202n, 210n, 272n, 283n,
285n, 288n, 289n, 292, 298n,
331n, 342n, 349n, 350n, 351,
352n, 357, 359, 362n, 366n,
370n, 371n, 372n, 373n, 374n,
377, 378n, 381n, 386, 390n, 393,
405n, 411n, 423n, 425n, 426n,
429n, 440, 441, 443, 445n, 447n,
450n, 451n, 457n, 459, 473n,
477n, 491n, 495, 504, 519n, 521,
526n, 530n, 531n, 532, 533,
537n, 539, 541, 542n, 544, 545,
547, 553, 557, 558n, 569n, 595n,
611, 625, 627, 629, 630, 633,
640n, 642n, 644-46, 650, 651,
665n, 666n, 668n, 674, 676,
679n, 680, 682, 683, 684n, 687n,
688n, 716-23, 729n, 734n, 737n,
738n, 740n, 750n, 752n, 756n,
759, 761, 776n, 778n, 786n,
792n, 794n, 804n, 807
Mitchell, Wesley C, 464n
Modeste, Victor, 630, 640, 641,
644, 675n
Modestinus, 25
Moggridge, Donald, 513n, 595n
Molay, Jacques de, 59
Molina, Luis de, 84n, 93-97, 122,
136n, 253n, 604n, 605-10, 611,
612, 621, 626
Montanari, Geminiano, 613, 617n
Montesquieu, Charles L. de Sec-
ondat, 617
Morga, Pedro de, 80
Morgan, J.P, 151n
Moss, Laurence S., 84n, 331n,
353, 370n, 374n, 382n
Mueller, Reinhold, 67n, 69n, 70n,
480
Mulholland, Stephen, 740n
Murphy, Antoin E., llln, 112n,
114, 122n
Neisser, 635n
Nelson, R.W., 361n, 491n
Nentjes, A., 789n
Newman, Peter, 469n, 669n,
701n, 704n
882
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Newton, Sir Isaac, 446n
Nichols, Dorothy M., 243n
Niveau, Maurice, 487n
Nordhaus, William D., 343n,
458n, 515n
Norman, Montagu, 490
Norman, George W., 627, 628n
Nove, Alec, 469n
O'Brien, D.P., 613n
O'Driscoll, Gerald P., 183n, 269n,
370n, 538, 539n, 540n, 574n,
696n, 770n
O'Kean Alonso, Jose Maria, 541n
Olariaga, Luis, 362n
Ophem, J. van, 789n
Ozcariz Marco, Florencio, 17n,
124n, 137n
Pacioli, Luca, 60n
Papinian, 25, 27, 28n, 29, 32, 33n,
56n
Pareto, Vilfredo, 512n, 544
Parker, R.H., 60n
Parnell, Henry, 623, 632, 633, 634,
665n, 681
Passio, 42, 44, 45, 46, 50
Pastor, Luis Maria, 646n
Patinkin, Don, 775n
Paul, 25, 27, 28-30
Pauly, Mark V., 387n
Pauzner, Ady, 395n
Pedraja Garcia, Pedro,
198n-199n
Peel, Sir Robert, 629, 717
Pemberton, Robin Leigh, 803n
Pelsmaeker, Francisco de, 17n
Pennington, James, 253n, 606,
626
Perez Manzano, Mercedes, lOn
Perlman, 621n
Peron, Juan D., 347n, 783-86, 798
Petty, William, 613
Philbin, James P., 109n, 642n
Philip II, 80, 83
Philip the Fair, 59
Philippe d'Orleans, 109
Phillips, Chester A., 188n, 203,
205n, 225, 237n, 361n, 491n
Phormio, 46
Pigou, Arthur Cecil, 567n
Piquet, Jules, 59n
Pirenne, Henri, 59n, 65n
Plato, 42n
Plautus, 53, 54n
Polk, President James K., 641n
Pollock, Alex H., 736n
Pomponius, 25
Powell, E.T., 125n
Prescott, Edward C, 541n
Price, Bonamy, 361n
Principe, Angela, 148n
Prychitko, David L., 676n
Raguet, Condy, 43n, 253n, 359,
361n, 483n, 626, 641
Ramey, Valerie A., 502
Randolph, Thomas, 483n
Randolph, John, 641
Rappaport, A., 669n
Reagan, Ronald, 171n, 496
Reynolds, Alan, 755n
Reisman, George, 311n
Riano, Antonio, 362n
Ricardo, David, 43n, 330, 361n,
447n, 513, 621, 622, 623n, 627
Richter, Andrea, 805n
Riosalido, Jesus, 61n
Ritter, Laurence S., 243n
Rizzo, Mario J., 269n, 512n, 538,
Index of Names
883
539n, 574n
Robbins, Lionel, 292n, 352n,
429n, 494n, 512n
Robbins, John W. 682n
Robert, Gordon, 576n
Robertson, Denis H., 557n, 558n
Robinson, Joan, 575n
Roca Juan, Juan, 8n, 35n
Rockwell, Lewellyn H., Jr., xxxi,
709n
Rodriguez Braun, Carlos, 363n
Rojo, Luis Angel, 579n, 584-85n,
617n
Romer, David, 565n, 577n
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 493
Roover, Raymond de, 41n, 42n,
71n, 72n, 73, 74
Ropke, Wilhelm, 190-91, 191n,
452, 453n, 454n, 455n
Rostovtzeff, Michael, 51, 52, 57n
Rothbard, Murray N. 83n, 103n,
109n, llln, 125n, 151n, 163n,
177n, 178n, 183n, 184n, 232, 236,
285n, 294n, 298n, 299n, 311n,
331n, 344n, 361n, 395n, 400n,
417n, 425n, 430n, 432n-33n,
435n-36n, 451n, 482, 483n, 488,
490n, 491n, 493n, 494n, 513n,
532n, 571n, 596n, 603n, 604n,
613n, 623n, 626n, 645, 702, 704n,
705, 712n, 713n, 726, 727, 728n,
739n, 766n, 782n, 783n, 795n,
796n, 799n, 800
Rubio Sacristan, Jose Antonio,
93n, 98n
Rueff, Jacques, 550n
Rufus, Servius Sulpicius, 25
Ruiz Martin, Felipe, 81n
Ryan, Christopher K., 84n
Saez, Armando, 57n
Sadowsky, James, 61 On
Salerno, Joseph T., 645, 679n,
680n, 682n, 723n, 739n, 743n,
759n
Salin, Pascal, 670n, 730n, 735n,
803n
Samuelson, Paul A., 343n, 515n,
565n, 566n, 575n, 778, 779
Sanchez Albornoz, Nicolas,
91n
Sanchez Santos, Jose Manuel,
660n
Sanchez Sarto, M., 362n
Santillana, Ramon, 649n
Santos Briz, Jaime, 128
Saravia de la Calle, Luis, 39, 43n,
85-90, 96, 97n, 122n, 237, 359,
604, 610-611, 627
Sarda, Juan, 485n
Savigny, F.C.V., 24
Scaevola, Quintus Mucius, 25,
28n
Schubert, Aurel, 494n
Schuler, Kurt, 701n, 806n
Schumpeter, Joseph A., 411n,
471n, 513n, 603n, 611n
Schwartz, Anna J., 341n, 488,
525, 601n, 646n, 669n, 677n,
687n, 778, 780n
Schwartz, Pedro, 527n, 528n,
621n, 622n, 630n
Selgin, George A., 341n, 488n,
528n, 549n, 645, 667n, 668n,
670n, 676, 677n, 678n, 679,
681n, 682-84, 686-87, 690n,
691n, 692n, 693-95, 698n, 700,
702, 704n, 705, 708, 710, 711n,
745n, 751n, 764n, 778n
Sennholz, Hans F, 534n
Severus, Alexander, 28n, 29n
Severus Septimius, 54
Shah, Parth J., 711n
884
Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles
Shapiro, Edward, 565n
Sherman, Howard J., 572
Siegel, Barry N., 490n
Sierra Bravo, Restituto, 84n, 91,
93n, 94n, 604n
Silber, William L., 243n
Simons, Henry C, 578n, 731-32,
733n, 734, 748
Simpson, C.A., 84n
Skidelsky, Robert, 578n, 595n
Skousen, Mark, 125n, 278n, 279n,
294n, 310n, 311n, 312n, 343n,
379n, 402n, 418n, 419n, 420n,
429n, 434n, 440n, 444n, 464n,
495n, 501n, 502, 515n, 545n,
563n, 577n, 578n, 641n, 680n,
681n, 687n, 728n, 740n, 750n,
753n, 782n
Smith, Adam, 103-06, 305, 513,
620-21, 711n
Smith, Barry, 575n
Smith, Vera C, xxviii, 254n,
394n, 631n, 632, 633n, 643n,
644n, 645n, 648, 649n, 791n
Socrates, 42n
Soto, Domingo de, 84n, 94, 97n,
122n, 605
Sousmatzian, Elena, 76n, 652n,
673n
Spangler, Mark, 682n
Spadaro, Louis M., 382n
Spiethoff, Arthur August Kaspar,
469n
Sraffa, Piero, 330n, 447n, 575n,
622n
Stankiewicz, Tomask, 474n
Steuart, Sir James, 103, 104, llln
Stigler, George J., 517n, 518n
Stiglitz, Joseph E., 387n, 565n
Strigl, Richard von, 275n, 361n,
362n, 587n
Strong, 490n
Stroup, Melinda A., xxxi
Suarez Gonzalez, Carlos, lOn
Summers, Lawrence, 565n, 576n
Suzuki, Yoshio, 498n
Tamames, Ramon, 308n
Taussig, Frank W., 205n, 348n
Tavlas, George S., 578n
Taylor, John, 109n, 641
Tedde de Lorca, Pedro, 102n,
646n, 649n
Tellkampf, Johann L., 635n, 642
Temin, Peter, 539
Terence, 53
Termes Carrero, Rafael, 83n
Thatcher, Margaret, 171n, 496
Theodorus, 42n
Thies, Clifford E, 318n
Thornton, Henry, 112, 253n, 359,
533n, 606, 621, 622, 626
Thorbecke, Willem, 503n
Timberlake, Richard H., 188n,
676, 677n, 799n, 800n
Tobin, James, 735n
Todd, Stephen C, 49n
Tooke, Thomas, 305n, 623, 626n,
674
Toribio Davila, Juan J., 767n
Torre Saavedra, Enrique de la,
148n
Torres Lopez, Juan, 229n
Torrens, Robert, 627, 628n
Torrero Manas, Antonio, 497n
Tortella-Casares, Gabriel, 485
Trautwein, Hans-Michael, 266n
Tribonian, 27n
Trigo Portela, Joaquin, 40n, 50,
51n, 54n
Tufte, Edward R., 458n
Tugan-Baranovsky, Mikhail I.,
361n, 468-69, 572
Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques,
318n, 617
Index of Names
885
Ulpian, 27, 28n, 30, 31, 33, 34, 56n
Usabiaga, Carlos, 541n
Usher, Abbott P., 61, 62, 63, 71n,
73, 75n, 77, 107, 244n
Valmana Ochaita, Alicia, 28
Valpuesta Gastaminza, Eduardo
M., 148n
Vanderlint, Jacob, 103
Van Buren, President Martin,
641n
Varus, Alfenus, 25, 28n
Vasilescu, Octavian, xlviii
Vaughn, Karen I., 331n, 353n,
370n, 374n, 382n, 399
Vecchio, Gustavo del, 515n
Veit, Reinhold, 631n
Viafia Remis, Enrique, 308n
Vicens Vives, M., 485n
Vilar, Pierre, 99, lOOn, 106n
Villani, 71
Villalonga, Ignacio, 362n
Vinci, Leonardo da, 60
Viner, Jacob, 578n
Voth, Hans Joachim, 539n
West, Edwin G., 621n
Wheatley, John, 447n, 622n
White, Judith, lOOn
White, Lawrence H., 273n, 497n,
645, 646n, 656n, 667n, 668n,
676, 678, 679n, 682n, 690n,
691n, 692n, 693, 701n, 702n,
708, 710, 712
Wicker, Elmus, 492n
Wicksell, Knut, 54n, 69n, 70n,
106n, 284n, 294n, 359n, 611n,
622
Wilson, James, 253n, 254n, 361n,
623
Winiecki, Jan, 474n
Wolowsky, 635n
Wood, John Cunningham, 534n,
560n, 775n
Wood, Geoffrey A., 660n
Woods, Ronald N., 534n, 560n,
775n
Wubben, Emiel EM., 386n
Yamey, B.S., 60n
Yeager, Leland B., xxxviii, 528n,
631n, 676, 677n, 71 4n, 739n,
760n, 778, 779n, 799n
Wagner, Adolph, 634n
Wainhouse, Charles, 286n, 500,
501
Walker, Amasa, 679n
Walras, Leon, 512n, 514, 544
Wenar, Leif, 400n
Zlablinger, Albert H., 531n
Zahka, William J., 362n
Zayd, Ibn Abi, 61n
Zeno, 52, 214n
Zijp, Rudy van, 183n, 354n
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