Liberty, National Defense, and Government’s Money Prerogative
ABSTRACT
This conference examined arguments that governments have a legitimate “money prerogative” to monopolize and control currency for the purpose of financing defensive wars, especially for such a prerogative's survival in modern, relatively free societies.
READING LIST
Conference Readings
Baack, Ben. “America’s First Monetary Policy: Inflation and Seigniorage During the Revolutionary War.” Financial History Review 15, no. 2 (October 2008): 107-121.
Bartlett, Bruce. “How Excessive Government Killed Ancient Rome.” The Cato Journal 14, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 287-303.
Bordo, Michael D. and Eugene N. White. British and French Finance During the Napoleonic Wars [NBER Working Paper No. 3517]. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1990.
Glasner, David, “An Evolutionary Theory of the State Monopoly over Money” In Money and the Nation State: The Financial Revolution, Government, and the World Monetary System, edited by Kevin Dowd and Richard H. Timberlake, Jr., 21-45. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998.
Harris, W. V. “A Revisionist View of Roman Money.” The Journal of Roman Studies 96 (2006): 1-24.
Hirst, Francis Wrigley. The Political Economy of War. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1916.
King, Peter. Thoughts on the Restriction of Payments in Specie at the Banks of England and Ireland. London: Cadell & Davies, 1803.
Mises, Ludwig von. Nation, State, and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of Our Time. Edited by Bettina Bien Greaves. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2007.
Newcomb, Simon. A Critical Examination of Our Financial Policy During the Southern Rebellion. New York: Appleton and Company, 1865.
Newcomb, Simon. The A B C of Finance Or, the Money and Labor Questions Familiarly Explained to Common People in Short and Easy Lessons. New York: Harpers and Brothers Publishers, 1877.
Oresme, Nicholas. The De Moneta of Nicholas Oresme and English Mint Documents. Translated by Charles Johnson. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd., 1956.
Rolnick, Arthur J. and Neil Wallace. “Suspension and the Financing of the Civil War: A Critique of Newcomb and Mitchell [Working Paper 265].” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, June 1985.
Sussman, Nathan. “Debasements, Royal Revenues, and Inflation in France during the Hundred Years’ War.” The Journal of Economic History 53, no. 1 (March 1993): 44-70.
Sylla, Richard, “Shaping the U.S. financial system, 1690-1913: the dominant role of public finance” In The State, the Financial System, and Economic Modernization, edited by Richard Sylla, Richard Tilly, and Gabriel Tortella, 249-270. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Webster, Pelatiah. “Strictures on Legal tender Acts.” Political Essays on the Nature and Operation of Money, Public Finances, and Other Subjects (December 1791): 128-138.