Alt-M Classics Archives

$Fritz Machlup, fractional reserve banking, credit creation, bank credit, Alt-M Classics$

[Having drawn attention in my last post to Fritz Machlup's superb 1940 book, The Stock Market, Credit, and Capital Accumulation, it occurred to me that excerpts from that work concerning the circumstances in which an increase in the supply of "fiduciary" bank credit will not promote an…

Herbert Spencer, Private money, free banking, Alt-M Classics,

Economic History, Fiat Money, Free Banking

Alt-M classics: Herbert Spencer on Currency and Banking

Herbert Spencer/June 29, 2018June 19, 2022

[I'm pleased to introduce with this entry a new Alt-M series, consisting of occasional classic essays or excerpts from longer works concerning alternative monetary arrangements. As a fitting introduction to the series I've chosen the passages on currency from chapter 29 of Herbert Spencer's earliest and most…