The presidential election of 1896 was a great national referendum on the gold standard. The Democratic Party had been captured, at its 1896 convention, by the Populist, ultra-inflationist, anti-gold forces, headed by William Jennings Bryan. The older Democrats, who had been fiercely devoted to hard money and the gold standard, either stayed home
[”Revolution in Minnesota,” The Libertarian Forum , August 1, 1969.] The idea prevails that to favor gold or silver money is to be a mossback reactionary; nothing could be further from the truth. For gold (as well as silver) is the People’s Money; it is a valuable commodity that has developed, on the free market, as the monetary means of
[Excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought , vol. 1, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith . An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download .] Sir Thomas Smith (1513–1577) The honor — if that be the proper term — of being the first English mercantilist writer should have gone, for
[Excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought , vol. 1, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith . An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download .] The “Bullionist” Attack on Foreign Exchange and on the East India Trade Having survived the assaults of ignorant moralists before the
[Excerpted from What Has Government Done to Our Money? ] To understand the current monetary chaos, it is necessary to trace briefly the international monetary developments of the 20th century, and to see how each set of unsound inflationist interventions has collapsed of its own inherent problems, only to set the stage for another round of
[This article originally appeared in Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics , Vol. 2, No. 3 (Fall 1999), pp. 3–51. It is also reprinted in A History of Money and Banking in the United States and as a monograph .] The Progressive Movement Unhappiness with the National Banking System The Beginnings of the “Reform” Movement: The Indianapolis
Las elecciones presidenciales de 1896 fueron un gran referéndum nacional sobre el patrón oro. El Partido Demócrata había sido capturado, en su convención de 1896, por las fuerzas populistas, ultrainflacionistas y antioro, encabezadas por William Jennings Bryan. Los demócratas mayores, que se habían dedicado ferozmente al dinero duro y al patrón
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The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.