The Value of MoneyAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
The Value of Money
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Money
Money is offered against goods, and the actual quantities
on each side determine the momentary price-level, concretely. Or, when
credit is considered, money and credit offered against goods, at a given
time, or in a given short period, determine the actual price-level
reached. This is the logic of the equation of exchange--actual money
paid is necessarily equal to actual money received. The long run
doctrine is fundamentally based on a different notion. Surrendering the
actual or average of price-levels to other causes, in part, it still
asserts that, given time enough, and barring new disturbing tendencies,
a price-level will ultimately be reached which will bear it out. I find
no recognition, on Fisher's part, of the fact that these two doctrines
are different, and, in fact, I find them blended and confused in the
course of his argument. He would doubtless maintain that his is a long
run doctrine. But how long is the "run"? Sometimes it seems to be, as
already shown, a whole business cycle. Sometimes a passing season, as
the fall. When he undertakes to apply his theory to a practical proposal
for regulating the value of money, he relies on the quantity theory
tendency to bring about adjustments so quickly that it is worth while to
make _monthly_ adjustments in anticipation of it.[193] When discussing
the changes in gold premium on the Greenbacks during the exciting times
of the Civil War, he relies so thoroughly on his theory that he will not
allow even the rapid change of four per cent in a single day following
Chickamauga to occur except in conformity with the quantity theory. This
last statement is so remarkable that I must quote Fisher himself: "It
would be a grave mistake to reason, because the losses at Chickamauga
caused greenbacks to fall 4% in a single day, that their value had no
relation to their volume. This fall indicated a slight acceleration in
the velocity of circulation, and a slight retardation in the volume of
trade" (263). It would be indeed remarkable if the changes in the gold
market, which got war news before the newspapers got it, and where
changes in gold premium occurred before the rest of the country could
possibly react to the war news, should be controlled by V and T! I had
not supposed that the most rigorous of short run quantity theorists
would make any such demands on his theory as that. Indeed, I had not
supposed that the quantity theory would feel called on to explain the
gold premium, as such, except in so far as the gold premium is an index
of general prices.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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