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GOLD AND LIBERTY

Richard M. Salsman

 

American Institute for Economic Research, Great Barrington, Mass., Economic Education Bulletin, Vol XXV No 4, April, 1995, 135 pgs, sources

 
 

Reviewer Comment:
This is a 'libertarian' pitch promoting the concept that the only stable money is and always has been gold. The author also includes lengthy discussion of 'free banking': another basic libertatian policy desire. I disagee with much of the historical issues, especially the role of barter, the extent to which gold has been a major currency (money) throughout history, and the actual economic results of the periods in the U.S. when 'free banking' was active. All these theorie are controversial. Some authors support one or another of the three ideas but not all three, while others reject all three. On pages 128 and 129 the author provides two graphs - the first depicts the purchasing power of the dollar from 1792 to 2000 and the second depicts the purchasing power of gold over the same period. They show that the increases and decreases of both are identical until 1933 (obviously because the two were priced in a fixed ratio to each other), but from then on the dollar as declined drastically while gold also decreased between 1933 and 1970's because the price of gold was fixed to that of the dollar, but the purching power of gold has increased dramatically from the date it was freed from the fixed price in dollars.
But the book does contain a very extensive and useful bibliography related to these subjects. I add a few references about these issues.

 
 

Introduction

 
 

Chapter I - The Origins of Gold as Money

 
 

Chapter II - Free Banking and Gold

 
 

Chapter III - The Gold Standard in Theory

 
 

Chapter IV - The Classical Gold Standard

 
 

Chapter V - Political and Legal issues

 
 

Chpater VI -Subversion of the Gold Standard

 
 

Chapter VII - Central Banking and Gold

 
 

Chapter VIII - Gold as a Barometer and Investment

 
 

Chapter IX - The Future of Gold

 
 

Appendix The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Dollar

 
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Nathan Lewis - Gold the Final Standard

 
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George Gilder - The Scandal of Money

 
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Michael Johnston - Going for Gold

 
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