The Ontology and Function of Money: The Philosophical Fundamentals of Monetary Institutions

Beyond its rarity, this book will illuminate and expand any mind that is aware of how contemporary monetary policy is assessed primarily in formal or technical ways, with arcane models and analyses of such matters as bounded rationality, inflation targeting, quantitative easing, the zero lower bound...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The independent review (Oakland, Calif.) Calif.), 2017, Vol.22 (3), p.456-459
Main Author: Salsman, Richard M
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Banking
Central banks
Economic models
Economists
Epistemology
Gold standard
Inflation
Institutions
Interest rates
Keynesian theory
Monetary policy
Money
Nominalism
Ontology
Philosophy
Rand, Ayn (1905-1982)
Rationality
Rule of law
Schools
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Summary:Beyond its rarity, this book will illuminate and expand any mind that is aware of how contemporary monetary policy is assessed primarily in formal or technical ways, with arcane models and analyses of such matters as bounded rationality, inflation targeting, quantitative easing, the zero lower bound of interest rates, "market monetarism," and the Taylor Rule. [...]his approach may be unfamiliar to some neoclassical economists (especially the technicians), although not to Marxists, Institutionalists, or Keynesians (especially the philosophically minded). Both schools agree that coercive legal-tender laws have been critical in determining which forms of money have become widely "accepted" by the public, but whereas Chartalists unabashedly defend such laws and related institutions (e.g., monopolistic central banks issuing fiat paper money), Catallactics denounce them and instead endorse a system of unregulated "free banking," whether with fractional or 100 percent reserves or specie as reserves or with Friedrich Hayek's "choice-in-currencies" proposal from the 1970s. The ideal system (suppose free banking on a gold standard) operates under a rule of law, in contrast to a system of central banking with purely fiat paper (and electronic) monies managed arbitrarily (with "discretion," not fixed rules) by the equivalent of monetary commissars and mainly on behalf of the state.
ISSN:1086-1653
2169-3420