There is great confusion about the gold standard, for the same reason that there is great confusion about the free market: hardly anyone understands it. This includes academic economists.

Let me get in my fiat monetary unit’s two cents’ worth:

There are proposals for various monetary systems that are in some way tied to gold. There have been a lot of these proposals over the centuries. They all have one thing in common: they are ignored today by academic economists, commercial bankers, central bankers, national governments, the general public, and CNBC. Well, perhaps not ignored. More like ridiculed.

This freedom from any likelihood of being taken seriously by the Powers That Be allows proponents of this or that version of a gold standard to promote their systems in the name of higher values, better economic theory, or personal self-interest. The sky is the limit in terms of justifying a gold standard, since no one in authority is going to pay any attention anyway. Why not go for the gold, theory-wise? Why settle for some squishy theoretical compromise? Why wring our hands in despair just because there is no agreement among gold standard advocates, no theoretical basis for resolving these rival proposals, no foundation for a political movement? When you’re John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness, why be a trimmer for the sake of political relevance?

Therefore to all would-be trimmers who have naive dreams of building a political Golden Alliance, and who are appalled by the bridge-burning aspects of Austrian economic theory, I cite the cousin of the aforementioned evangelist: “And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses” (Matthew 11:7-8). Or work for the Federal Reserve.

Let us begin the lesson. There are three main varieties of gold standards: (1) market-created; (2) state-created; (3) state-licensed oligopoly-created. I call these the good, the bad, and the ugly.

THE GOOD: MARKET-CREATED

We begin our analysis with the assumption of the right of individuals to trade with each other. We make no assumptions regarding a special position for one variety of contracts, namely, contracts defining money. In our hypothetical system, all contracts are voluntary. They are governed by the laws of equity, i.e., contracts that are neither fraudulent or coercive.

Ludwig von Mises defined money as the most marketable commodity. In his book, The Theory of Money and Credit (1912), he wrote:

It was in this way that those goods that were originally the most marketable became common media of exchange; that is, goods into which all sellers of other goods first converted their wares and which it paid every would-be buyer of any other commodity to acquire first. And as soon as those commodities that were relatively most marketable had become common media of exchange, there was an increase in the difference between their marketability and that of all other commodities, and this in its turn further strengthened and broadened their position as media of exchange (p. 32). . . .

The advent of a commodity in market that functions as a widespread means of exchange is not the result of a state’s designation of such a commodity. It is the result of voluntary transactions over time. The free market, not the civil government, creates money.

This analysis was important for one of Mises’ most important contributions to monetary theory: the regression theorem. He asked: Why is money valuable today? Answer: Because it was valuable yesterday, and people expect it to be valuable tomorrow. Next: Why was it valuable yesterday? Answer: Because it was valuable the day before yesterday.

This explanation raises the question of origins. How did money come into existence? Because, Mises argued, it had been valuable in commodity form for other purposes. These other purposes made the commodity recognizably valuable. “The earliest value of money links up with the commodity-value of the monetary material” (p. 110). From some commodity’s widespread acceptance and familiarity arose its function as money.

This means that the state does not create money. “It has been demonstrated, in striking fashion, that the State alone could not make a commodity into a common medium of exchange, that is, into money, but this could be done only by the common action of all individuals engaged in business” (p. 76).

When the state attempts to set prices between monetary units, the artificially overvalued money is selected by the public for common transactions, and the artificially undervalued money is shipped abroad or is used on the black market. This is Gresham’s famous law in action: bad money drives out good, which is the mark of statist intervention into monetary affairs. “The result has always come to pass against the will of the State, not in accordance with it” (p. 77).

So, in the Austrian School tradition, money is a product of the market. Coins or ingots of a fixed fineness and weight of some money metal are used by market participants to facilitate exchange. Receipts for these metals also are widely used as money substitutes. Mises always called these receipts money substitutes. He did not call them money.

Mises did not trust the state in monetary matters, so he called for free banking: some fractional reserves, in which more receipts to metals are issued by banks than are held in reserve. He trusted bankers and depositors to monitor the issue of money. Anything other than free banking, he argued, places too much trust in government. As he wrote in Human Action (Regnery, 1966),

http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap17sec12.asp

In contrast, Rothbard held to a system of 100% reserves, which he defended by an appeal to law: a prohibition against issuing receipts for which there was insufficient metal. He presented this view in his important essay, “The Case for a 100 Per Cent Gold Dollar“: “In my view, issuing promises to pay on demand in excess of the amount of goods on hand is simply fraud, and should be so considered by the legal system. For this means that a bank issues ‘fake’ warehouse receipts — warehouse receipts, for example, for ounces of gold that do not actually exist in the vaults. This is legalized counterfeiting. . . . In short, I believe that fractional reserve banking is disastrous both for the morality and for the fundamental bases and institutions of the market economy” (In Search of a Monetary Constitution, edited by Leland B. Yeager [Harvard University Press, 1962], p. 114).

Both Mises and Rothbard explained the origin of money as the institutional result of a free market. Both opposed the state as an agency of money creation. Both mistrusted the state in the area of money. Both explained money in terms of a comprehensive theory of human action, i.e., market exchange. In this sense, the Austrians are unique. Only the Austrian School offers a fully developed theory of money in terms of a wider theory of the free market. They alone want government out of the money business.

Both men argued that the laws governing contract must be enforced. When a depositor turns over a gold coin to a bank or any third party, he in effect hires the use of a piggy bank. This piggy bank must be paid for. In short, TANSTAAFPB: There ain’t no such thing as a free piggy bank. Mises’ theory of piggy banks allows for a market-enforced, market-monitored degree of fractional reserving to pay for the piggy bank system. Rothbard’s theory does not. The gold depositor must pay for the privilege. (For an example of how a commercial gold deposit system works, using Rothbard’s approach, visit www.goldmoney.com.)

The Austrians in the Mises-Rothbard tradition have never called for a gold standard except as a market-created standard of monetary exchange. It is a market standard in gold, not a gold standard. Gold will probably win in international exchange, they both believed, but silver or other metals may operate side by side gold domestically, which Mises and Rothbard described as parallel standards. The gold standard is, in this view, the market standard.

Neither man called on the civil government to establish a gold standard, or any other monetary standard. They did not argue that a gold standard created by the government would function for long as a restraint on the coercive power of civil government. They argued the opposite. A government-guaranteed gold standard is a guarantee of future default by the government and its agents.

Rothbard in 1962 called for the American government’s imposition of a fully redeemable gold coin standard on the government as a way for the public to reclaim its confiscated gold. “It is important, for moral and economic reasons, to permit the people to reclaim their gold as rapidly as possible” (p. 135). He wanted a fixed price between dollars and gold, not in order to “preserve the value” of the dollar or to “keep government in check,” but to enable people to strip the federal government of every last ounce of gold. He never called for the government to be a buyer of gold at a fixed price, issuing receipts for gold to the public in exchange for gold deposited with the government by the public. He wanted a government-guaranteed gold standard with a one-way flow of gold: out. If this should be perceived as a call for the reimposition of a traditional gold standard, make the best of it.

THE BAD: STATE-CREATED

An intellectual defense of the traditional gold standard is always offered in the name of establishing limited civil government. The gold standard is seen as a means of holding the state in check. If the public is allowed to demand payment in gold from the state, at a fixed exchange rate between the currency unit and one ounce of gold, then the state cannot print up too many currency units. If it does, people will trade in their fiat money for gold. To keep from losing its gold reserves, the monetary authorities will have to stop creating new money.

We have already read Mises’ criticism of such a state-operated, state-created, state-defended gold standard. “They may limit the issuance for periods which are called normal. The restriction will be withdrawn whenever a government deems that an emergency justifies resorting to extraordinary measures.”

The crucial question is: Whose gold is in the state’s vaults? The state initially says that the deposited gold belongs to the public. The state is only storing the public’s gold, free of charge, as a public service. (Anyone who believes that the state offers free services as a public service really ought to stop smoking whatever that abused substance is.)

The traditional gold standard is the state’s way to get its collective hands on the public’s gold. It needs this gold to pay for goods in an emergency, when taxes no longer produce sufficient revenues. The obvious situation is at the outbreak of a war. With few or no exceptions, governments cease redeeming gold for their currency units within weeks of the outbreak of war. This is called the suspension of payments. Then, with stolen gold in reserve, the state prints money with abandon. It first made its fully redeemable money familiar to users of its currency. Then it revokes the right of redemption that had served as the lure in the first place. Convertibility into gold on demand was the promise that led the public into accepting pieces of paper in lieu of gold. Then the public learns its lesson the hard way: the government keeps the gold, and the public suffers a depreciation of its paper money.

At some point, most governments pass a legal tender law as a substitute for the unilaterally revoked gold standard. The public henceforth is compelled by law to accept the government’s paper money in exchange for goods and services, and also for debt repayment, especially by the government, which has issued, and will issue more, government bonds. Later, the state may impose price and wage controls to put a stop to Gresham’s law, i.e., to penalize those people who get caught trading the state’s money as something less than the official price of gold, silver, or whatever black market money is prevalent — possibly the abused substance that the traditional gold standard’s advocates were smoking when they recommended that people have faith in the public-spirited intentions of state bureaucrats.

The traditional gold standard is best explained as a convenient means of starting a war at a below-market price. Governments do not trust each other. They know that, during war time, international trade will become more expensive as denominated in a nation’s now-fiat currency unit. A gold reserve is the government’s thrift plan for a rainy day. The government persuades the public to sell it gold in exchange for pieces of paper that promise to pay gold on demand. Then the state revokes the contract. Its officials never planned to do anything else.

A traditional gold standard is best understood as the state’s very own piggy bank. The state persuades the public to put its gold coins into the piggy bank, which is labeled “full faith and credit of the government.” Then, when a war comes along, the government breaks the piggy bank and spends the money in foreign markets where its fiat currency unit is not trusted. This is the ultimate example of Gresham’s law.

The traditional gold standard rests on two main official theories, both of which are invoked from time to time in order to keep the public from seeing the real reason, i.e., the piggy bank.

1. State sovereignty. This one is rarely invoked by economists, but is the ancient favorite of political theorists. The state is said to possess sovereignty, an innate attribute that enables it, and it alone, to determine the value of money. Sovereignty is sometimes perceived as all-encompassing (Rousseau), or perhaps only narrowly defined (Locke), but it always is said to apply to money. Economics is subordinate to state sovereignty, beginning with money. Economic sovereignty may or may not end with money, but it always begins there.

2. Mercantilism’s macroeconomics. The free market economy of voluntary exchanges is the microeconomy. Money is necessarily a part of this microeconomy, yet it is said to be above it. Money is said to operate in terms of a different set of standards, laws, and conventions from the world of goods and services. The free market may have generated money originally, but market-generated money is supposedly inefficient. The free market economy cannot prosper unless state-issued and state-regulated money is substituted for market-generated money. People can safely trust the nation’s monetary system only if the state possesses a monopoly over the monetary unit. Without public trust in the state’s monopoly over money, the free market could not develop much beyond the economy of, say, Gambia.

World War I ended the traditional international gold standard: the largest smashed piggy bank in history. The common people lost their gold. But central bankers and government officials wanted to keep the system going for themselves. So, a new piggy bank system was invented: the gold-exchange standard. It was launched at the Genoa Conference of 1922, and it was revised at the Bretton Woods meeting of 1944. Britain opened the piggy bank to the public in 1925, but broke the piggy bank again in 1931, when the public started demanding their gold. Roosevelt smashed the Americans’ piggy bank in 1933. For governments, the piggy bank’s flow of gold is one way only: in. When it reverses, the government smashes the bank. Always. That is what the piggy bank is for in a traditional gold standard.

The Genoa agreement made a deal for European central banks. “Deposit your gold with the British and American governments, and they will pay you interest. You can use their government bonds as reserves for your own currencies as if they were as good as gold.” America offered the world the same deal in 1944 at Bretton Woods. In flowed the gold. Out flowed the interest-bearing IOUs. But then the flow of gold reversed in 1958. Gold flowed out. It flowed out throughout the 1960’s. So, on August 15, 1971, Nixon smashed the gold exchange piggy bank. The central banks could no longer receive gold for their dollars at a fixed rate. Immediately, the Nixon government began the inflation process that was adopted by Ford and Carter, which drove up the price of gold to $850/oz in early 1980 from $35/oz in August, 1971.

There are still a handful of traditional gold standard advocates, but rarely have they had any training in economics. None of them has any influence with any government. The reason why is clear: once governments get the public’s gold and then break the piggy bank, and once the United States got the world’s gold and broke the piggy bank, the piggy bank game was over. Governments were never interested in limited government. They were interested in a traditional gold standard only as a way to fill up the governments’ piggy banks with the public’s gold. The traditional gold standard has outlived its usefulness to governments.

THE UGLY: BANK-APPROPRIATED

Commercial bankers invented the piggy bank system. Beginning five centuries ago, they issued IOU’s for gold to depositors who would deposit their gold. They agreed to pay interest on this gold. They agreed to let depositors exchange paper money or other banks’ checks for gold. This one-upped the government. The government offered free storage for gold. The banks offered free storage, plus money for letting them store the gold. What a deal! I mean, it’s free money.

As W. C. Fields once said, there was an Ethiopian in the fuel supply. If banks paid money to people who deposited gold with them, then someone had to pay the banks even more money. Bankers figured out how this could be done: keep the gold in reserve, and issue additional IOU’s, sometimes called checks, to interest-paying borrowers. Soon, there were more IOU’s to gold than there was gold in reserve. The assumption was that most people will not demand payment.

But then, as always happens, bankers got greedy. They issued too many receipts, and depositors began to take the bankers at their word. They demanded payment. This always happened when a war broke out. So, the banks suspended payment. The banking lobby then called upon the government to legalize retroactively this broken contract, which governments always did. After all, governments need buyers of government debt, and bankers are the primary buyers. The government doesn’t want them to go bankrupt (bank, rupture) when a war breaks out. So, the state allowed banks to stiff their depositors. The banks’ smashing of the piggy banks was legalized. That’s what piggy banks are for, aren’t they? To provide piggy bank owners with all of the money inside.

This looked like such a good deal that the biggest banks wanted to build an even larger piggy bank for use by commercial bankers. Beginning in 1694, with the creation of the privately owned Bank of England, central bankers figured out how to make the piggy bank system work on a much larger scale. They wanted a new deal. Not possessing sovereignty, they cut a deal with the government: “Grant us a monopoly over money creation, and we’ll guarantee a market for government debt.” This transferred sovereignty to the central bank, which is now said to be “beyond politics” so that it can “protect the integrity of the currency.”

Virtually all economists believe this today, including the authors of every college-level introductory economics textbook and money and banking textbook. They explain the existence of this government-granted central bank monopoly over money and monetary policy as part of the self-sacrificing, public-spirited banking community’s gift to the general public: the gift of stable money. They offered this rare gift in exchange for having been granted sovereignty over money by the government. Unlike political philosophers, economists offer graphs and equations in support of this theory of transferred sovereignty. The only known exception was Murray Rothbard, whose money and banking textbook, The Mystery of Banking, identified the entire fractional reserve banking process as fraudulent, inflationary, and the source of all modern economic depressions. As far as I know, this book has never been assigned by any college professor in money and banking. I speak as someone who once owned the rights to publish the book.

A central bank, like commercial banks, issues money out of nothing every time it buys a government’s debt certificate. Then it gets paid interest on these government bonds. The money issued by the central bank immediately gets spent into circulation by the government.

In a monetary crisis, the central bank comes to the rescue of selected commercial banks, namely, those banks that belong to the central bank’s system. The system requires these participating commercial banks to make interest-free deposits with the central bank, which the central bank then lends to the government and pockets the interest.

The quid pro quo for both the government (its guaranteed market for its debt) and the commercial banks (their loans during periods of public panic over commercial banks’ solvency) is the central bank’s control over the monetary base. By buying or selling assets, the central bank controls the size of the monetary base used by commercial banks to buy investment assets.

For a time, central banks issue receipts for gold to commercial banks and other central banks. These contracts are always broken.

CONCLUSION

The piggy bank system is inescapable. People don’t carry all of their gold coins with them when they go out for a walk. Here are the relevant questions regarding piggy banks:

Each of the three types of gold standard should be analyzed in terms of these questions.

What we find is that piggy banks owned locally by commercial enterprises — gold storage companies — face law enforcement by local courts. Local judges are unlikely to conspire secretly with all other judges in the nation to exempt retroactively storage companies from fulfilling their contractual obligations.

In contrast, national politicians are only too happy to make such exemptions when emergencies arise. What is a government emergency? A political opportunity to extract additional wealth from the public without facing additional risks at the next election.

Mises and Rothbard defended piggy banks owned by local entrepreneurs who were subject to the law of contracts. Out of this system came a free market monetary standard that included gold and money substitutes — receipts for gold. But this was never a textbook version of a gold standard. It was a market standard that involved gold. The textbook gold standard was always a piggy bank operation with fractional reserves: commercial bankers, politicians, and central bankers. The piggy banks got smashed by the authorities and their agents every time.

So, when I hear the words “gold standard,” I reach for my gun.

June 21, 2002

Gary North is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.freebooks.com. For a free subscription to Gary North’s twice-weekly economics newsletter, click here.

Copyright © 2002 LewRockwell.com