by Ron Paul
A coalition of various political and educational groups to end the Fed is achievable and practical. During the 2008 presidential campaign, I organized a press conference in Washington, D.C. Four candidates agreed on a statement:
We insist that there be a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of special interest must be brought to an end. There should be no bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for fraud.
The fact that this diverse group agreed to these four points, as well as a strong statement against the Federal Reserve, is quite significant. Principled people, no matter what group they identify with, are strongly inclined to challenge the power of the Fed. This includes liberals, conservatives, libertarians, progressives, and populists. Such a broad-based group can have an impact on bringing about change. With the financial system in shambles, people are open to reform. We have the opportunity for a strong intellectual and political campaign challenging the Federal Reserve to be heard.
Among all the arguments that can be used to reject the Federal Reserve, the moral argument alone should suffice. It’s cheating. It’s a tax. It’s counterfeiting. It benefits the few at the expense of the many. It breaks the rule of contracts. It causes suffering and punishes the innocent. It enables world wars and vast payoffs to the powerful. That should be enough for all Americans to call for an end to this ninety-five-year-old failed scheme.
What is left for us to do? The future looks bleak. The power elites are hunkering down, and there’s no sign that anyone in Washington cares, listens, or understands the issue of money and the power of the Fed. Does that mean our only option is to go into survival mode? I don’t think so. There’s a rumbling in the heartland, and anger is building. Harnessing that anger and converting it into positive and constructive energy could have favorable consequences beyond our imagination. It’s time to become energized, not despondent, over the tragic mess that has been imposed on us.
We have a natural, God-given right to our lives, our liberties, and the fruits of our labor.
Protecting those rights is the only role that government ought to have in a free society. To restrain the government from doing more requires a morally determined people willing to assume self-responsibility, rejecting dependence on government force to mold the economy, society, or individual behavior.
If the freedom movement continues to grow as it has these past two years, I would say there’s plenty of room for optimism. Freedom and central banking are incompatible. It is freedom we seek, and when that precious goal is achieved, the chant “End the Fed!” will become a reality.
SUGGESTED READING
Beginning
Greaves, Percy. Understanding the Dollar Crisis (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 1973).
Paul, Ron, and Lewis Lehrman. The Case for Gold (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2007, 1983).
Rothbard, Murray N. The Case Against the Fed (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 1994).
Rothbard, Murray N. What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2005, 1963).
White, Andrew Dickson. Fiat Money Inflation in France (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 1896).
Intermediate
Mises, Ludwig von. Causes of the Economic Crisis (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2006).
Rothbard, Murray N. America’s Great Depression (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2009, 1963).
Rothbard, Murray N. The Mystery of Banking (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 1983).
Sennholz, Hans F. The Age of Inflation (Belmont, MA: Western Islands, 1979).
Sumner, William Graham. A History of American Currency (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 1874).
Advanced
Hayek, Friedrich A. Choice in Currency (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, and London: Institute of Economic Affairs: 2009, 1976).
Hülsmann, Jörg Guido. The Ethics of Money Production (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008).
Mises, Ludwig von. The Theory of Money and Credit (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953).
Rockwell, Jr., Llewellyn H. (ed.). The Gold Standard: An Austrian Perspective (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 1992).
Soto, Jesús Huerta de. Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 2006).
Bonus Reading
Murphy, Robert. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2009).
Woods, Thomas E. Jr. Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2009).
For these and other books on the Fed and money, write for a free book catalog to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, AL 36832 (334-321-2100; [email protected], www.Mises.org).
1. http://www.newyorkfed.org/publications/result.cfm?comics=1.
2. “After the Great Recession,” interview with President Obama, New York Times Magazine, April 28, 2009 (conducted by David Leonhardt).
3. The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, Philip Foner, ed. (New York: Citadel Press, 1945), pp. 405ff.
4. Jörg Guido Hülsmann, The Ethics of Money Production (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008).
5. F. A. Hayek, Choice in Currency (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1976), p. 16.
6. Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke before the National Economists Club, Washington, D.C., November 21, 2002.
7. Doug French, Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2009).
1. Jesús Huerta de Soto, Money, Bank Credit, Economic Cycles (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2006).
2 . This process is well described in Murray N. Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 1983). It is even described, with a different spin, on the Federal Reserve’s own Web site.
3. Condy Raguet, A Treatise on Currency and Banking (New York: Kelley Reprints, 1967, 1840), p. 156.
4. Murray N. Rothbard, The Panic of 1819 (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008).
5. The details of the founding of the Fed are reported in William Greider, Secrets of the Temple (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), pp. 276–289; Murray N. Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2002), pp. 162–183; and James Livingston, Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890–1913 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986).
6. Hans F. Sennholz, Money and Freedom (Grove City, PA: Libertarian Press), p. 21.
7. Elgin Groseclose, America’s Money Machine: The Story of the Federal Reserve (Westport, CT: Arlington House, 1966), p. 85.
8. Ibid., p. 86.
9. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
10. The chart can be viewed online at http://www.aier.org/images/stories/ research/ch_p5.pdf.
11. William Greider, Secrets of the Temple, p. 280.
12. Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953).
13. Doug French, Early Speculative Bubbles and Increases in the Supply of Money (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2009).
1. Robert Schuettinger and Eamonn Butler, Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1979; Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2009).
2. Henry Hazlitt, From Bretton Woods to World Inflation (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1984; Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2009).
3. “Bernanke Says Federal Reserve Won’t Reveal Details on Loans,” Bloomberg.com, November 18, 2008, story by Steve Matthews and Craig Torres.
4. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1949), p. 863.
5. Murray N. Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute
, 2005, 1963).
6. Murray N. Rothbard, America’s Great Depression (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2009, 1963).
7. Murray N. Rothbard, The Case Against the Fed (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 1994).
1. Ludwig von Mises, Nation, State, and Economy (New York: New York University Press, 1983), p. 163.
2. Cited in Groseclose, America’s Money Machine: The Story of the Federal Re-serve (Westport, CT: Arlington House, 1966), p. 88.
3. Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1857–1960 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 198.
4. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “War and Inflation,” speech delivered at the Future of Freedom Foundation’s conference Restoring the Republic, Reston, Virginia, June 6, 2008, posted at http://mises.org/story/3010.
5. H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen, Merchants of Death (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1934).
6. For details on calculating money aggregates in the 1920s, see Murray N. Rothbard, America’s Great Depression (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2009, 1963).
7. David Hackett Fischer, The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 193.
1. Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman, The Case for Gold (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2007, 1983).
1. Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York, New American Library, 1967).
1. William Greider, Secrets of the Temple (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), p. 346.
1. “Geithner’s Revelation,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2009.
2. John B. Taylor, “The Financial Crisis and Policy Responses: An Empirical Analysis of What Went Wrong,” http://www.stanford.edu/~johntayl/FCPR.pdf.
3 . For a long series of articles explaining in detail the role of the Fed, against the few people who claim it had a limited role, see the archive of economist Robert Murphy: http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=380.
4. Robert Higgs, “Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War,” Independent Review, Vol. I, No. 4, Spring 1997: 561–590.
5. For a more detailed account, see Thomas Woods, Meltdown (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2009).
6. I’ve appreciated the project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, BailoutWatch: http://www.openmarket.org/category/bailout/.
1. Jörg Guido Hülsmann, The Ethics of Money Production (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008), p. 104.
2. Gary North, Honest Money: Biblical Principles of Money and Banking (Fort Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1986).
3. Ayn Rand, “Francisco’s Money Speech,” Atlas Shrugged (Estate of Ayn Rand, 1957), reprinted in Capitalism Magazine: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826.
1. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (Old Greenwich, CT, 1983), pp. 12–13.
2. William G. Sumner, A History of American Currency (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1874), pp. 58–59.
3. John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1920), pp. 235–236.
4. John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform (London: Macmillan, 1923), Chapter II, Section I.
1. For a thoroughgoing refutation of Keynes, see Henry Hazlitt, The Failure of the “New Economics” (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 1959).
2. The proof of these assertions can be found in remarkable detail in Larry J. Sechrest, Free Banking: Theory, History, and a Laissez-Faire Model (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2008, 1993), pp. 95–142.
