Most economists hold that a growing economy requires a growing money stock, on grounds that growth gives rise to a greater demand for money, which must be accommodated. Failing to do so, it is maintained, will lead to a decline in the prices of goods and services, which in turn will destabilize the economy and lead to an economic recession, or even worse, depression.
Since growth in money supply is of such importance, it is not surprising that economists are continuously searching for the optimum growth rate in money supply. For instance, followers of Milton Friedman-also known as monetarists want the central bank to target the money supply at a fixed percentage. They hold that if this percentage is maintained over a prolonged period, it will usher in an era of economic stability.
The whole idea that money must grow in order to sustain economic growth gives the impression that money somehow sustains economic activity. If this were the case, then most Third World economies by now would have eliminated poverty through printing large quantities of money.
According to Rothbard,
Money, per se, cannot be consumed and cannot be used directly as a producers’ good in the productive process. Money per se is therefore unproductive; it is dead stock and produces nothing.[1]
Money’s main job is simply to fulfill the role of the medium of exchange. Money doesn’t sustain or fund real economic activity. The means of sustenance, or funding, is provided by saved real goods. By fulfilling its role of the medium of exchange, money just facilitates the flow of goods and services. Historically, many different goods have been used as the medium of exchange. On this, Mises observed that, over time,
. . . there would be an inevitable tendency for the less marketable of the series of goods used as media of exchange to be one by one rejected until at last only a single commodity remained, which was universally employed as a medium of exchange; in a word, money[2].
Through the ongoing process of selection people settled on gold as the general medium of exchange. Most mainstream economists, while accepting this historical evolution, cast doubt that gold can fulfill the role of money in the modern world. It is held that, relative to the growing demand for money as a result of growing economies, the supply of gold is not adequate.
If one takes into account that a large portion of gold mined is used for jewelry, this leaves the stock of money almost unchanged over the period of time. It is held that the free market, by failing to provide enough gold, will cause money supply shortages. This, in turn, runs the risk of destabilizing the economy. It is for this reason that most economists, even those who express sympathy toward the idea of a free market, endorse the view that the money supply must be controlled by the government.
People want more purchasing power and not more money as such
When we talk about demand for money, what we really mean is the demand for money’s purchasing power. We suggest that people don’t want a greater amount of money in their pockets but rather they want a greater purchasing power in their possession. On this Mises wrote,
The services money renders are conditioned by the height of its purchasing power. Nobody wants to have in his cash holding a definite number of pieces of money or a definite weight of money; he wants to keep a cash holding of a definite amount of purchasing power[3].
In a free market, in similarity to other goods, the price of money is determined by supply and demand. Consequently, if there is less money, its exchange value will increase. Conversely, the exchange value will fall when there is more money. Within the framework of a free market, there cannot be such thing as “too little” or “too much” money. As long as the market is allowed to clear, no shortage of money can emerge.
Consequently, once the market has chosen a particular commodity as money, the given stock of this commodity will always be sufficient to secure the services that money provides. Hence, in a free market, the whole idea of the optimum growth rate of money is absurd. According to Mises:
As the operation of the market tends to determine the final state of money’s purchasing power at a height at which the supply of and the demand for money coincide, there can never be an excess or deficiency of money. Each individual and all individuals together always enjoy fully the advantages which they can derive from indirect exchange and the use of money, no matter whether the total quantity of money is great, or small. . . . the services which money renders can be neither improved nor repaired by changing the supply of money. . . . The quantity of money available in the whole economy is always sufficient to secure for everybody all that money does and can do[4].
However, how can we be sure that the supply of a selected commodity as money will not rapidly expand due to unforeseen events? Would this not undermine people’s well-being? If this were to happen, then people would probably abandon this commodity and settle on some other commodity. Individuals who are striving to preserve their life and well-being will not choose a commodity that is subject to a decline in its purchasing power as money.
But even if we were to agree that the world under the gold standard would have been a much better place to live than under the present monetary system, surely we must be practical and come up with solutions that are in tune with contemporary reality. Namely, that in the world in which we presently live, we do have central banks, and we are not on the gold standard. Given these facts of reality, what then must be the correct money supply growth rate?
We suggest that it is not possible, however, to devise a scheme for a “correct” money growth rate while central authorities have coercively displaced the market-selected money with paper money. Here is why.
How paper certificates displaced gold as money
Originally, paper money was not regarded as money but merely as a representation of gold. Various paper certificates represented claims on gold stored with the banks. Holders of paper certificates could convert them into gold whenever they deemed necessary. Because people found it more convenient to use paper certificates to exchange for goods and services, these certificates came to be regarded as money.
Paper certificates that are accepted as the medium of exchange open the scope for fraudulent practice. Banks could now be tempted to boost their profits by lending certificates that were not covered by gold. In a free-market economy, a bank that over-issues paper certificates will quickly find out that the exchange value of its certificates in terms of goods and services will fall.
To protect their purchasing power, holders of the over-issued certificates are likely to attempt to convert them back to gold. If all of them were to demand gold back at the same time, this would bankrupt the bank. In a free market then, the threat of bankruptcy would restrain banks from issuing paper certificates unbacked by gold. On this Mises wrote,
People often refer to the dictum of an anonymous American quoted by Tooke: “Free trade in banking is free trade in swindling.” However, freedom in the issuance of banknotes would have narrowed down the use of banknotes considerably if it had not entirely suppressed it. It was this idea which Cernuschi advanced in the hearings of the French Banking Inquiry on October 24, 1865: “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[5].”
This means that in a free-market economy, paper money cannot assume a “life of its own” and become independent of commodity money.
The government can, however, bypass the free-market discipline. It can issue a decree that makes it legal for the over-issued bank not to redeem paper certificates into gold. Once banks are not obliged to redeem paper certificates into gold, opportunities for large profits are created that set incentives to pursue an unrestrained expansion of the supply of paper certificates[6]. The unrestrained expansion of paper certificates raises the likelihood of setting off a galloping rise in the prices of goods and services that can lead to the breakdown of the market economy.
To prevent such a breakdown, the supply of paper money must be managed. The main purpose of managing the supply is to prevent various competing banks from over-issuing paper certificates and from bankrupting each other. This can be achieved by establishing a monopoly bank-i.e., a central bank that manages the expansion of paper money.
According to Hoppe, “If one is to succeed in replacing commodity money by fiat money, then, an additional requirement must be fulfilled: Free entry into the note-production business must be restricted, and a money monopoly must be established[7].”
To assert its authority, the central bank introduces its paper certificates, which replace the certificates of various banks. (The central bank’s money purchasing power is established on account of the fact that various paper certificates, which carry purchasing power, are exchanged for the central bank certificate at a fixed rate. The central bank paper certificate is fully backed by banks certificates, which have the historical link to gold.) The central bank certificates labelled as money, which are declared as the legal tender, also serve as a reserve asset for banks. This enables the central bank to set a limit on the credit expansion by the banking system.
It would appear that the central bank can manage and stabilize the monetary system. The truth, however, is the exact opposite. To manage the system, the central bank must constantly create money “out of thin air” to prevent banks from bankrupting each other. This leads to persistent declines in money’s purchasing power, which destabilizes the entire monetary system. This tendency to destabilize the system is also reinforced by the fact that a money monopolist naturally has the incentive to look after his own interest. According to Hoppe,
He can print notes at practically zero cost and then turn around and purchase real assets (consumer or producer goods) or use them for the repayment of real debts. The real wealth of the non-bank public will be reduced-they own less goods and more money of lower purchasing power. However, the monopolist’s real wealth will increase-he owns more non-money goods (and he always has as much money as he wants). Who, in this situation, except angels, would not engage in a steady expansion of the money supply and hence in a continuous depreciation of the currency[8]?
Observe that while, in the free market, people will not accept a commodity as money if its purchasing power is subject to a persistent decline, in the present environment, central authorities are coercively imposing money that suffers from an ongoing decline in its purchasing power.
Since the present monetary system is fundamentally unstable, the central bank is compelled to print money out of thin air to prevent the collapse of the system. It doesn’t really matter what scheme the central bank adopts as far as monetary injections are concerned. Regardless of the mode of monetary injections, the boom-bust cycles will become more ferocious as time goes by.
Even Milton Friedman’s scheme to fix the money growth rate at a given percentage won’t do the trick. After all a fixed percentage growth is still money growth, which leads to the exchange of nothing for something-i.e., economic impoverishment and the boom-bust cycle. It is therefore not surprising that the central bank must always resort to large monetary injections when there is a threat from various shocks.
How long the central bank can keep the present system going is dependent upon the state of the pool of real savings. As long as this pool is still growing, the central bank is likely to succeed in keeping the system alive. Once the pool of real savings begins to stagnate, or worse shrink, then no monetary pumping will be able to prevent the plunge of the system.
Conclusion
Since the present monetary system is fundamentally unstable, there cannot be a “correct” money supply growth rate. Whether the central bank injects money in accordance with economic activity or fixes the growth rate, it further destabilizes the system. The only way to make the system truly stable is to permit the free market to take over.
In a truly free market, there is no need to be concerned with the issue of the “correct” growth rate of money supply. No institution is required to regulate the supply of money in a free market. Furthermore, while the free-market money is associated with rising real wealth, the present monetary system is inherently inflationary and leads to economic impoverishment.
[1] Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy and State (Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1970), p.670.
[2] Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit ( Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y: The Foundation of Economic Education, 1971) pp. 32-33.
[3] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 3rd rev. ed. (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1966), p.421.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., p.446.
[6] Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “How is Fiat Money Possible?-or, The Devoluton of Money and Credit,” The Review of Austrian Economics 7, no.2 (1994), pp.49-74.
[7] Ibid., p.59.
[8] Ibid., p.62.
This article is based on the premise that a State cannot print its own fiat money without causing inflation and then Weimar-type hyperinflation.
This premise fails to take into account that in times of deflation or recession, by definition, there are goods being made and services proffered which are not being sold or used and which surpluses are the cause of prices to fall.
To take up these surpluses, there is a need, a sharp hunger, for more money to be available to borrow in order to purchase the goods and services being produced which are not being sold.
And also, more money to make available investment money to commerce to expand to create extra jobs – the extra salaries from which which will then also purchase the extra goods being made and services etc.
Eventually the ‘extra’ unemployed people to take up those extra jobs will reduce to zero as the pool is taken on by employers.
That extra money can be ‘printed’ (obviously figuratively as the money is entries in bank computers) for as long as it is stopped as the optimum or natural level of unemployment is reached.
However, at that point there is no recession or even deflation – the economy is at optimum also.
Any more, and inflation and then hyperinflation is then caused.
The trick is for politicians to stop picking at the money tree in time.
Can they be trusted with that restraint?
That is the problem….
Jim Murray
The idea that the free market should determine the size of the stock of money is a joke. Private banks act in a COUNTER CYCLICAL manner. That is, they create and lend out money like there’s no tommorow in a boom (exactly what’s not wanted). Then come a recession, they do the opposite: call in loans and destroy money, which again is exactly what’s not wanted.
Completely correct, Ralph.
This is a time of stress and it is important that the banks are not allowed to make a bad situation worse as they did in 2008 – when, in a panic, they just stopped lending and called in all the loans that they could.
But what is to be done about the banks not knowing how to act counter cyclically?
I agree that they always seem to overlend on the slope towards the top of the cycle making that unstable top of the cycle even higher.
There is an overheating of the economy and, of course, the well-placed banking staff earn fortunes in lovely bonuses – it is banking catnip.
And when the cycle looks like it’s turning downwards they panic about the loans they have on their books where, and so they overreact and turn off the lending tap completely, so sending perfectly good businesses into bankruptcy, and temporary mortgage arrears into evictions.
Banks are always the culprits because they have lost their original purpose of providing loans to commerce to invest, and so to create jobs, and so to help businesses over temporary cash flow problems, and so be a proper part of society.
At the moment, the big five UK banks control over 80% of the country’s current accounts and, have been allowed to merge all the many smaller banks that existed generations ago, and so make each of them, are “too big to fail”.
And so they hold a knife to the throat of the country’s taxpayers and say to them that they will ruin them all unless they are bailed out – QE money is just the backdoor method of doing this and costed the taxpayers £425 billion – now, approaching £600 billion.
What should have happened in the years after 2008 is that these five megabanks should have been forced to split to create much more competition.
Oh yes, as a sop, a handful of challenger banks were allowed to emerge but the big five successfully ensured they designed the new banking regulations so that these new upstarts would find it impossible to expand.
Rishi Sunak should now make determined plans to create a local banks in every city of the land, and while giving them banking licences, ban all banking bonuses for those public banks so that they just have salaried staff.
And then allow local authorities to back them with the huge amount of business that goes through them.
At a stroke, the Chancellor would create a network of Sparkassen Savings Banks as they have in Germany – small local lenders which, enjoying political and regulatory privileges, are protected legally from private sector takeovers, have no incentive to maximise profits and so our completely stable.
Something in the region of three quarters of business lending in Germany is successfully made by such local banks and it is a major strength of the German economy.
They lend against the cycle – when the bigger banks are panicking in closing there lending doors, the local public banks ensure they lend more and then wait collect on those loans in times of plenty – as it should be.
The UK public don’t seem to realise only 8% of loans of UK banks are made to business for investment, and only a quarter of those loans go to SMEs.
Disgraceful.
Jim Murray