Product Description

The Mises Institute is pleased to present this very beautiful hardbound edition of Rothbard's most famous monetary essay--the one that has influenced two generations of economists, investors, and business professionals. The Mises Institute has united this book with its natural complement: a detailed reform proposal for a 100 percent gold dollar. The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar was written a decade before the last vestiges of the gold standard were abolished. His unique plan for making the dollar sound again still holds up. Some people have said: Rothbard tells us what is wrong with money but not what to do about it. Well, by adding this essay, the problem and the answer are united in a comprehensive whole. After presenting the basics of money and banking theory, he traces the decline of the dollar from the 18th century to the present, and provides lucid critiques of central banking, New Deal monetary policy, Nixonian fiat money, and fixed exchange rates. He also provides a blueprint for a return to a 100 percent reserve gold standard. The book made huge theoretical advances. He was the first to prove that the government, and only the government, can destroy money on a mass scale, and he showed exactly how they go about this dirty deed. But just as importantly, it is beautifully written. He tells a thrilling story because he loves the subject so much. The passion that Murray feels for the topic comes through in the prose and transfers to the reader. Readers become excited about the subject, and tell others. Students tell professors. Some, like the great Ron Paul of Texas, have even run for political office after having read it. Rothbard shows precisely how banks create money out of thin air and how the central bank, backed by government power, allows them to get away with it. He shows how exchange rates and interest rates would work in a true free market. When it comes to describing the end of the gold standard, he is not content to describe the big trends. He names names and ferrets out all the interest groups involved. Since Rothbard's death, scholars have worked to assess his legacy, and many of them agree that this little book is one of his most important. Though it has sometimes been inauspiciously packaged and is surprisingly short, its argument took huge strides toward explaining that it is impossible to understand public affairs in our time without understanding money and its destruction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15792 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-20
• Binding: Hardcover
• 191 pages

About the Author
Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) distinguished himself as an economist, writing a major treatise on theory, several important economic histories, and a highly praised history of economic thought. But he was also known as the pioneer thinker of libertarianism, the political philosophy that roots freedom in private property ownership and decries the state as inherently contrary to the ethics of a free society. Writing from this perspective, he gained a reputation as the most provocative and influential contributor to the anarchist tradition in our century.

Customer Reviews

Top of the Line Analysis and Conclusions!!!
Murray N. Rothbard is now recognised as one of the foremost economists of the last century, and rightly so. Not only does he write in a clear concise manner, but he takes what could be an unintelligible subject and explains it in terms everyone can grasp.

In this beautiful hardbound book Rothbard gives us an exceptionally clear, detailed description of what money is and how it has come to be manipulated by governments and central bankers into almost worthless inflationary fiat paper currency.
He explains how gold became the most respected and trustworthy currency of choice, how this developed into the gold standard when our paper money was actually backed by a real asset; gold, and then how our governments and particularly their central bankers then manipulated the situation until all we were left with was no gold standard and only fiat paper currency of no "real" value because it no longer had the backing of gold. He then explains very clearly how this situation has led us to where we are now; inflation and the rapidly diminishing purchasing power of the paper money we hold (over the last 30 years the real value of $1 has dropped to around 4 cents!!!!!), unnecessary asset bubbles and the prospect of either hyperinflation or the greatest depression the world has ever seen arriving in the very near future!

Mr. Rothbard then rightly argues for a return to the gold standard because of it's inherent automatic adjustment mechanisms due to the scarcity of gold in the ground and the finite quantity already above ground. More importantly he advocates a 100% reserves gold standard which would put an end to fractional reserve banking and thus the ruinous credit creation/oversupply of money by our central bankers and thus an end to rampant inflation as we know it! This would also force our governments to be more accountable to their electorate in that any government allowing an unbalanced economy would face long recessions as the gold standard auto adjustment mechanisms brought it back into equilibrium; henceforth governments would be wise to provide an environment that favoured slow steady growth for their country with minimal boom bust cycles.

Furthermore Mr. Rothbard adequately counters the criticisms of his conclusions & recommendations in detail.

I think most of us that bother to look further than our noses and not live with our head in the sand now realise the United States financial position(in particular) is untenable in the long term and there is going to be a very painful outcome either slowly creeping through the financial world in a dollar crisis OR precipitated by a large financial event, like the probable implosion of huge OTC derivatives positions. Either way this will herald the end of the world's latest foray into fiat paper currency; it will fail as it must and as fiat currencies always have in the past.
When that happens, HOPEFULLY we will return to a 100% gold standard where our paper money, gold grams or whatever are 100% backed by gold; the only true currency, and sanity can once again return to the finances of our world!

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to EVERYONE in the hope that more of the populations of the world can become educated to what we have been "sold" by our governments with these worthless paper currencies we now all hold in the hope that there can be a groundswell of opinion and an overwhelming chorus to return to sanity and a 100% gold standard! We deserve it!!!

Essential for any economist or curious reader
Rothbard writes this book in a style not often found in todays politically charged books. Rather than ranting and throwing shots at opposition, Rothbard cafefully walks the reader through economic history and theory, and very cafefully dissects those with opposing viewpoints.

This books will leave you wanting more, as its a quick read (if your like me it will be done in a day or two). For further reading, I suggest "The case against the Fed" also by Rothbard.

For a complete book on Rothbard's view of economics, see "Man, Economy, and State"

What more can one say?
Other reviewers have already said all that needs to be said, so it is hard to add to the observations that the man had insight into what works in economics - not just theory but fact - and writes in a style that does not intimidate or overwhelm those who are novices.

There is probably nothing in this book that will be new to those who are already familiar with the issues of paper currency versus hard currency, but even those persons will be rewarded with an easy to read overview of the subject and will be have an excellent tool for introducing the subject to friends and relatives.