The Value of MoneyAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
The Value of Money
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Money
"Dynamic economics" is concerned with change and readjustment in
economic life. A distinctive doctrine of the present book is that the
great bulk of exchanging grows out of dynamic change, and that
speculation, in particular, constitutes by far the major part of all
trade. From this it follows that the main work of money and credit, as
instruments of exchange, is done in the process of dynamic readjustment,
and, consequently, that the theory of money and credit _must be a
dynamic theory_. It follows, further, that a theory like the "quantity
theory of money," which rests in the notions of "static equilibrium" and
"normal adjustment," abstracting from the "transitional process of
readjustment," touches the real problems of money and credit not at all.
This thesis has seemed to require statistical verification, and the
effort has been made to measure the elements in trade, to assign
proportions for retail trade and for wholesale trade, to obtain
_indicia_ of the extent and variation of speculation in securities,
grain, and other things on the organized exchanges, and to indicate
something of the extent of less organized speculation running through
the whole of business. The ratio of foreign to domestic trade has been
studied, for the years, 1890-1916.
The effort has also been made to determine the magnitudes of banking
transactions, and the relation of banking transactions to the volume of
trade. The conclusion has been reached that the overwhelming bulk of
banking transactions occur in connection with speculation. The effort
has been made to interpret bank clearings, both in New York and in the
country outside, with a view to determining quantitatively the major
factors that give rise to them.
In general, the inductive study would show that modern business and
banking centre about the stock market to a much greater degree than most
students have recognized. The analysis of banking assets would go to
show that the main function of modern bank credit is in the direct or
indirect financing of corporate and unincorporated _industry_.
"Commercial paper" is no longer the chief banking asset.
It is not concluded from this, however, that commerce in the ordinary
sense is being robbed by modern tendencies of its proper banking
accommodation, or that the banks are engaged in dangerous practices. On
the contrary it is maintained that the ability of the banks to aid
ordinary commerce is increased by the intimate connection of the banks
with the stock market. The thesis is advanced--though with a recognition
of the political difficulties involved--that the Federal Reserve Banks
should not be forbidden to rediscount loans on stock exchange
collateral, if they are to perform their best services for the country.
The quantity theory of money is examined in detail, in various
formulations, and the conclusion is reached that the quantity theory is
utterly invalid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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