Three chapters in the history of money and labor relations. From Follow the Money:
Natural Liberty and Classical Economics
The English authorities' attitude of wilful indifference in the face of currency shortage was more than mere recalcitrance. The mindset of the age was shifting away from the mercantilism of the age of coinage, toward the philosophy of classical economics, with its emphasis on market forces. The new system of money, based as it was...
The Automatic Mechanism
From Follow the Money, ch. 12. Page numbers from the original are placed between angle brackets. <109>The logic of natural liberty was used to justify the shift to gold in the English economy in the 18th century. One of the gold standard’s leading proponents, William Shaw, put the matter bluntly. “The verdict of history on...
The Social Question Unravelled
In a well-known passage, John Maynard Keynes provided a lucid picture of the pre-1914 era: The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could...