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Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles - The Ludwig von Mises ...

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740 <strong>Money</strong>, <strong>Bank</strong> <strong>Credit</strong>, <strong>and</strong> <strong>Economic</strong> <strong>Cycles</strong>A SYSTEM OF COMPLETE BANKING FREEDOMThis second element of our proposal refers to the necessityof revoking banking legislation <strong>and</strong> eliminating central banks<strong>and</strong> in general any government agency devoted to controlling<strong>and</strong> intervening in the financial or banking market. It shouldbe possible to set up any number of private banks with completefreedom, both in terms of corporate purpose <strong>and</strong> legalform. As the distinguished Laureano Figuerola y Ballesterstated in 1869, it is necessary to leave “the choice of bankingforms to each individual, who will know how to choose thebest ones, according to particular circumstances of time <strong>and</strong>place.” 39 Nevertheless the defense of free banking does notimply permission for banks to operate with a fractionalreserve. At this point it should be perfectly clear that bankingshould be subject to traditional legal principles <strong>and</strong> that thesedem<strong>and</strong> the maintenance at all times of a 100 percent reservewith respect to dem<strong>and</strong> deposits at banks. Hence free bankingmust not be viewed as a license to infringe this rule, since itsinfringement not only constitutes a violation of a traditionallegal principle, but it also triggers a chain of consequenceswhich are highly damaging to the economy. <strong>The</strong> legal <strong>and</strong>economic aspects of such affairs are intimately related, <strong>and</strong> itis impossible to violate legal <strong>and</strong> moral principles withoutcausing grave, harmful consequences for the spontaneouswere 100-percent warehouse certificates for gold. (MiltonFriedman, “Has Gold Lost its Monetary Role?” in MiltonFriedman in South Africa, Meyer Feldberg, Kate Jowel, <strong>and</strong>Stephen Mulholl<strong>and</strong>, eds. [Johannesburg: Graduate School ofBusiness of the University of Cape Town, 1976])On the economic theory of gold see chapter 8 (“<strong>The</strong> <strong>The</strong>ory of Commodity<strong>Money</strong>: <strong>Economic</strong>s of a Pure Gold St<strong>and</strong>ard”) of Mark Skousen’sbook, <strong>The</strong> Structure of Production, pp. 265–81.39 Laureano Figuerola, Escritos económicos, preliminary study by FranciscoCabrillo Rodríguez, ed. (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales,1991), p. 268. This assertion, which even <strong>Mises</strong> <strong>and</strong> Hayek themselvescould not have worded more accurately, appears in the report LaureanoFiguerola delivered to the Spanish Constituent Assembly on February22, 1869.

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