The Mystery Of Banking

by Murray N. Rothbard

  4. THE MONEY UNIT

  We referred to prices without explaining what a price really is. A price is simply the ratio of the two quantities exchanged in any transaction. It should be no surprise that every monetary unit we are now familiar with—the dollar, pound, mark, franc, et al.—began on the market simply as names for different units of weight of gold or silver. Thus the “pound sterling” in Britain, was exactly that—one pound of silver.2

  The “dollar” originated as the name generally applied to a one-ounce silver coin minted by a Bohemian count named Schlick, in the sixteenth century. Count Schlick lived in Joachimsthal (Joachim’s Valley). His coins, which enjoyed a great reputation for uniformity and fineness, were called Joachimsthalers and finally, just thalers. The word dollar emerged from the pronunciation of thaler.

  Since gold or silver exchanges by weight, the various national currency units, all defined as particular weights of a precious metal, will be automatically fixed in terms of each other. Thus, suppose that the dollar is defined as 1/20 of a gold ounce (as it was in the nineteenth century in the United States), while the pound sterling is defined as 1/4 of a gold ounce, and the French franc is established at 1/100 of a gold ounce.3 But in that case, the exchange rates between the various currencies are automatically fixed by their respective quantities of gold. If a dollar is 1/20 of a gold ounce, and the pound is 1/4 of a gold ounce, then the pound will automatically exchange for 5 dollars. And, in our example, the pound will exchange for 25 francs and the dollar for 5 francs. The definitions of weight automatically set the exchange rates between them.

  Free market gold standard advocates have often been taunted with the charge: “You are against the government fixing the price of goods and services; why then do you make an exception for gold? Why do you call for the government fixing the price of gold and setting the exchange rates between the various currencies?”

  The answer to this common complaint is that the question assumes the dollar to be an independent entity, a thing or commodity which should be allowed to fluctuate freely in relation to gold. But the rebuttal of the pro-gold forces points out that the dollar is not an independent entity, that it was originally simply a name for a certain weight of gold; the dollar, as well as the other currencies, is a unit of weight. But in that case, the pound, franc, dollar, and so on, are not exchanging as independent entities; they, too, are simply relative weights of gold. If 1/4 ounce of gold exchanges for 1/20 ounce of gold, how else would we expect them to trade than at 1:5?4

  If the monetary unit is simply a unit of weight, then government’s role in the area of money could well be confined to a simple Bureau of Weights and Measures, certifying this as well as other units of weight, length, or mass.5 The problem is that governments have systematically betrayed their trust as guardians of the precisely defined weight of the money commodity.

  If government sets itself up as the guardian of the international meter or the standard yard or pound, there is no economic incentive for it to betray its trust and change the definition. For the Bureau of Standards to announce suddenly that 1 pound is now equal to 14 instead of 16 ounces would make no sense whatever. There is, however, all too much of an economic incentive for governments to change, especially to lighten, the definition of the currency unit; say, to change the definition of the pound sterling from 16 to 14 ounces of silver. This profitable process of the government’s repeatedly lightening the number of ounces or grams in the same monetary unit is called debasement.

  How debasement profits the State can be seen from a hypothetical case: Say the rur, the currency of the mythical kingdom of Ruritania, is worth 20 grams of gold. A new king now ascends the throne, and, being chronically short of money, decides to take the debasement route to the acquisition of wealth. He announces a mammoth call-in of all the old gold coins of the realm, each now dirty with wear and with the picture of the previous king stamped on its face. In return he will supply brand new coins with his face stamped on them, and will return the same number of rurs paid in. Someone presenting 100 rurs in old coins will receive 100 rurs in the new.

  Seemingly a bargain! Except for a slight hitch: During the course of this recoinage, the king changes the definition of the rur from 20 to 16 grams. He then pockets the extra 20 percent of gold, minting the gold for his own use and pouring the coins into circulation for his own expenses. In short, the number of grams of gold in the society remains the same, but since people are now accustomed to use the name rather than the weight in their money accounts and prices, the number of rurs will have increased by 20 percent. The money supply in rurs, therefore, has gone up by 20 percent, and, as we shall see later on, this will drive up prices in the economy in terms of rurs. Debasement, then, is the arbitrary redefining and lightening of the currency so as to add to the coffers of the State.6

  The pound sterling has diminished from 16 ounces of silver to its present fractional state because of repeated debasements, or changes in definition, by the kings of England. Similarly, rapid and extensive debasement was a striking feature of the Middle Ages, in almost every country in Europe. Thus, in 1200, the French livre tournois was defined as 98 grams of fine silver; by 1600 it equaled only 11 grams.

  A particularly striking case is the dinar, the coin of the Saracens in Spain. The dinar, when first coined at the end of the seventh century, consisted of 65 gold grains. The Saracens, notably sound in monetary matters, kept the dinar’s weight relatively constant, and as late as the middle of the twelfth century, it still equaled 60 grains. At that point, the Christian kings conquered Spain, and by the early thirteenth century, the dinar (now called maravedi) had been reduced to 14 grains of gold. Soon the gold coin was too lightweight to circulate, and it was converted into a silver coin weighing 26 grains of silver. But this, too, was debased further, and by the mid-fifteenth century, the maravedi consisted of only 11/2 silver grains, and was again too small to circulate.7

  Where is the total money supply—that crucial concept—in all this? First, before debasement, when the regional or national currency unit simply stands for a certain unit of weight of gold, the total money supply is the aggregate of all the monetary gold in existence in that society, that is, all the gold ready to be used in exchange. In practice, this means the total stock of gold coin and gold bullion available. Since all property and therefore all money is owned by someone, this means that the total money stock in the society at any given time is the aggregate, the sum total, of all existing cash balances, or money stock, owned by each individual or group. Thus, if there is a village of 10 people, A, B, C, etc., the total money stock in the village will equal the sum of all cash balances held by each of the 10 citizens. If we wish to put this in mathematical terms, we can say that

  M = ∑ m

  where M is the total stock or supply of money in any given area or in society as a whole, m is the individual stock or cash balance owned by each individual, and ∑ means the sum or aggregate of each of the ms.

  After debasement, since the money unit is the name (dinar) rather than the actual weight (specific number of gold grams), the number of dinars or pounds or maravedis will increase, and thus increase the supply of money. M will be the sum of the individual dinars held by each person, and will increase by the extent of the debasement. As we will see later, this increased money supply will tend to raise prices throughout the economy.

  II.

  WHAT DETERMINES PRICES: SUPPLY AND DEMAND

  What determines individual prices? Why is the price of eggs, or horseshoes, or steel rails, or bread, whatever it is? Is the market determination of prices arbitrary, chaotic, or anarchic?

  Much of the past two centuries of economic analysis, or what is now unfortunately termed microeconomics, has been devoted to analyzing and answering this question. The answer is that any given price is always determined by two fundamental, underlying forces: supply and demand, or the supply of that product and the intensity of demand to purchase it.

  Let us say that we are analyz
ing the determination of the price of any product, say, coffee, at any given moment, or “day,” in time. At any time there is a stock of coffee, ready to be sold to the consumer. How that stock got there is not yet our concern. Let’s say that, at a certain place or in an entire country, there are 10 million pounds of coffee available for consumption. We can then construct a diagram, of which the horizontal axis is units of quantity, in this case, millions of pounds of coffee. If 10 million pounds are now available, the stock, or supply, of coffee available is the vertical line at 10 million pounds, the line to be labeled S for supply.

  FIGURE 2.1 — THE SUPPLY LINE

  The demand curve for coffee is not objectively measurable as is supply, but there are several things that we can definitely say about it. For one, if we construct a hypothetical demand schedule for the market, we can conclude that, at any given time, and all other things remaining the same, the higher the price of a product the less will be purchased. Conversely, the lower the price the more will be purchased. Suppose, for example, that for some bizarre reason, the price of coffee should suddenly leap to $1,000 a pound. Very few people will be able to buy and consume coffee, and they will be confined to a few extremely wealthy coffee fanatics. Everyone else will shift to cocoa, tea, or other beverages. So if the coffee price becomes extremely high, few pounds of coffee will be purchased.

  On the other hand, suppose again that, by some fluke, coffee prices suddenly drop to 1 cent a pound. At that point, everyone will rush out to consume coffee in large quantities, and they will forsake tea, cocoa or whatever. A very low price, then, will induce a willingness to buy a very large number of pounds of coffee.

  A very high price means only a few purchases; a very low price means a large number of purchases. Similarly we can generalize on the range between. In fact we can conclude: The lower the price of any product (other things being equal), the greater the quantities that buyers will be willing to purchase. And vice versa. For as the price of anything falls, it becomes less costly relative to the buyer’s stock of money and to other competing uses for the dollar; so that a fall in price will bring nonbuyers into the market and cause the expansion of purchases by existing buyers. Conversely, as the price of anything rises, the product becomes more costly relative to the buyers’ income and to other products, and the amount they will purchase will fall. Buyers will leave the market, and existing buyers will curtail their purchases.

  FIGURE 2.2 — THE DEMAND CURVE1

  The result is the “falling demand curve,” which graphically expresses this “law of demand” (Figure 2.2). We can see that the quantity buyers will purchase (“the quantity demanded”) varies inversely with the price of the product. This line is labeled D for demand. The vertical axis is P for price, in this case, dollars per pound of coffee.

  Supply, for any good, is the objective fact of how many goods are available to the consumer. Demand is the result of the subjective values and demands of the individual buyers or consumers. S tells us how many pounds of coffee, or loaves of bread or whatever are available; D tells us how many loaves would be purchased at different hypothetical prices. We never know the actual demand curve: only that it is falling, in some way; with quantity purchased increasing as prices fall and vice versa.

  We come now to how prices are determined on the free market. What we shall demonstrate is that the price of any good or service, at any given time, and on any given day, will tend to be the price at which the S and D curves intersect (Figure 2.3).

  In our example, the S and D curves intersect at the price of $3 a pound, and therefore that will be the price on the market.

  To see why the coffee price will be $3 a pound, let us suppose that, for some reason, the price is higher, say $5 (Figure 2.4). At that point, the quantity supplied (10 million pounds) will be greater than the quantity demanded, that is, the amount that consumers are willing to buy at that higher price. This leaves an unsold surplus of coffee, coffee sitting on the shelves that cannot be sold because no one will buy it.

  FIGURE 2.3 — SUPPLY AND DEMAND

  FIGURE 2.4 — SURPLUS

  At a price of $5 for coffee, only 6 million pounds are purchased, leaving 4 million pounds of unsold surplus. The pressure of the surplus, and the consequent losses, will induce sellers to lower their price, and as the price falls, the quantity purchased will increase. This pressure continues until the intersection price of $3 is reached, at which point the market is cleared, that is, there is no more unsold surplus, and supply is just equal to demand. People want to buy just the amount of coffee available, no more and no less.

  At a price higher than the intersection, then, supply is greater than demand, and market forces will then impel a lowering of price until the unsold surplus is eliminated, and supply and demand are equilibrated. These market forces which lower the excessive price and clear the market are powerful and twofold: the desire of every businessman to increase profits and to avoid losses, and the free price system, which reflects economic changes and responds to underlying supply and demand changes. The profit motive and the free price system are the forces that equilibrate supply and demand, and make price responsive to underlying market forces.

  On the other hand, suppose that the price, instead of being above the intersection, is below the intersection price. Suppose the price is at $1 a pound. In that case, the quantity demanded by consumers, the amount of coffee the consumers wish to purchase at that price, is much greater than the 10 million pounds that they would buy at $3. Suppose that quantity is 15 million pounds. But, since there are only 10 million pounds available to satisfy the 15 million pound demand at the low price, the coffee will then rapidly disappear from the shelves, and we would experience a shortage of coffee (shortage being present when something cannot be purchased at the existing price).

  The coffee market would then be as shown in Figure 2.5.

  Thus, at the price of $1, there is a shortage of 4 million pounds, that is, there are only 10 million pounds of coffee available to satisfy a demand for 14 million. Coffee will disappear quickly from the shelves, and then the retailers, emboldened by a desire for profit, will raise their prices. As the price rises, the shortage will begin to disappear, until it disappears completely when the price goes up to the intersection point of $3 a pound. Once again, free market action quickly eliminates shortages by raising prices to the point where the market is cleared, and demand and supply are again equilibrated.

  FIGURE 2.5 — SHORTAGE

  Clearly then, the profit-loss motive and the free price system produce a built-in “feedback” or governor mechanism by which the market price of any good moves so as to clear the market, and to eliminate quickly any surpluses or shortages. For at the intersection point, which tends always to be the market price, supply and demand are finely and precisely attuned, and neither shortage nor surplus can exist (Figure 2.6).

  Economists call the intersection price, the price which tends to be the daily market price, the “equilibrium price,” for two reasons: (1) because this is the only price that equilibrates supply and demand, that equates the quantity available for sale with the quantity buyers wish to purchase; and (2) because, in an analogy with the physical sciences, the intersection price is the only price to which the market tends to move. And, if a price is displaced from equilibrium, it is quickly impelled by market forces to return to that point—just as an equilibrium point in physics is where something tends to stay and to return to if displaced.

  FIGURE 2.6 — TOWARD EQUILIBRIUM

  If the price of a product is determined by its supply and demand and if, according to our example, the equilibrium price, where the price will move and remain, is $3 for a pound of coffee, why does any price ever change? We know, of course, that prices of all products are changing all the time. The price of coffee does not remain contentedly at $3 or any other figure. How and why does any price change ever take place?

  Clearly, for one of two (more strictly, three) reasons: either D changes, or S changes, or both cha
nge at the same time. Suppose, for example, that S falls, say because a large proportion of the coffee crop freezes in Brazil, as it seems to do every few years. A drop in S is depicted in Figure 2.7.

  Beginning with an equilibrium price of $3, the quantity of coffee produced and ready for sale on the market drops from 10 million to 6 million pounds. S changes to S’, the new vertical supply line. But this means that at the new supply, S’, there is a shortage of coffee at the old price, amounting to 4 million pounds. The shortage impels coffee sellers to raise their prices, and, as they do so, the shortage begins to disappear, until the new equilibrium price is achieved at the $5 price.

  FIGURE 2.7 — DECLINE IN SUPPLY

  To put it another way, all products are scarce in relation to their possible use, which is the reason they command a price on the market at all. Price, on the free market, performs a necessary rationing function, in which the available pounds or bushels or other units of a good are allocated freely and voluntarily to those who are most willing to purchase the product. If coffee becomes scarcer, then the price rises to perform an increased rationing function: to allocate the smaller supply of the product to the most eager purchasers. When the price rises to reflect the smaller supply, consumers cut their purchases and shift to other hot drinks or stimulants until the quantity demanded is small enough to equal the lower supply.

  On the other hand, let us see what happens when the supply increases, say, because of better weather conditions or increased productivity due to better methods of growing or manufacturing the product. Figure 2.8 shows the result of an increase in S: