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Rothbard's most famous monetary essay has appeared in multiple editions and influenced two generations of economists, investors, and businessmen. 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. ... Read more

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A good primer on money in general and on the Austrian School's theory of money in particular
What Has Government Done to Our Money? is a small book (~100 pages) by the late free-market economist, Murray Rothbard.
The first part of the book is a clearly written primer on what money is and how it works. Yes, it is a medium of exchange, but it's more than that. Money is a commodity. Says Rothbard, "Learning this simple lesson is one of the world's most important tasks." (p. 15)

The importance of understanding money as a commodity comes into view particularly when one thinks about inflation (increasing the supply of money). As a commodity, money is affected by market forces. Thus, if someone (e.g., the government) inflates money, this will negatively impact the purchasing power of the monetary unit which will have ripple effects throughout the economy.

In the remainder of the book, Rothbard focuses on the question of what (the American) government has done with our money. The answer is far from flattering. The government has done much to dilute the effectiveness (purchasing power) of the monetary unit by nationalizing/monopolizing money and inflating it at will. The consequence is that citizens, by no fault of their own, have been robbed of their wealth. Further, Rothbard cites approvingly the view of Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, who identified government-initiated monetary and economic conflicts of the 1930s (not unrelated to World War I) as the major cause of World War II (p. 93).

Rothbard makes the argument throughout that money should be based on a gold standard, not a fiat currency, and he insists that like all other commodities, money can and should function in a free market system.

I would recommend this book as a good primer on money in general and on the Austrian School's theory of money in particular. Rothbard writes from an American perspective, but what he says is surely applicable abroad.

Rothbard illuminates the disgusting trickery of the Fed
I love this piece on the history of monetary policy. I dunno about you, but I would have preferred a planned wage-reduction during the recent deflationary period in order to stay employed! But, like so many else, I was eliminated from the workforce en masse. Perhaps if we allowed a little deflation to actually "run amok", it would have made getting new education and better health care coverage a little less out of reach. The fact that Bernanke pulls out a "trillion dollar" figure to "send a signal to the markets" earlier this year illuminates the complete ridiculousness of fiat central banking. Have people forgotten that even a rounding error of 0.1 "trillion" dollars is $100 billion, or more quantitatively, $15 for every person living on planet earth? There is no more economic stability in the United States, and we slavishly prop up our economy with continued credit-based consumption, in and out of every cycle. Where are the REAL investment options to average Americans? Why have we been forced to pour our savings into ever-more risky asset classes (like equities and REITs) due to the death of legitimate interest rates? Why does the United States Government discourage consumer investment in hard assets, foreign currencies, foreign debt instruments, or even simple tax-free private purpose bonds? A quick read of the history of monetary policy in this book will open up this very interesting topic for you.

An excellent introduction to modern economics and social philosophy
In answer to Murray Rothbard's rhetorical question, What Has Government Done To Our Money; they have given it, along with interest, to private bankers who are already mega-rich in exchange for financial backing and other perks. What do WE, the taxpayers, get in return? More public debt & therefore higher taxes, with no end in sight. Few realise that the vast majority of income taxes collected in most nations of the world today do not pay for a single public service; even less realise that the reason taxes only ever rise is because the interest on ever-increasing loans increases exponentially. What Has Government Done To Our Money explains this sleight of hand trick and many others, to give a very easy to understand overview of our modern monetary system.

Additionally, it is impossible to talk about such a subject without commenting on the blatant injustices in it. Therefore this, and many similar works, often ventures into social philosophy, examining the theoretical nature of government and public interaction and how and why we are (very obviously) going wrong. Thoroughly recommended, along with just about anything written by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek and others of the Austrian School of Economics.

What Has the Government Done?
This is a very insightful piece devoted to the study of money and how it has evolved over time within the U.S. Rothbard shows the evolution of our current money system and what the forces that brought its demise in our world today.If you consider yourself an Austrian, in economic terms, then this book will make you seriously question the Federal Reserve today.Besides in the supposedly capitalist system we have I thought supply and demand were suppose to determine everything right?Not exactly, and as Rothbard points out, the very institution which we trust our money with has absolute control over the money supply, which they can incidently cause the economy to go boom or bust.What Has Government Done to Our Money?, should be a book that any serious economics student, libertarian, or any one who hails themselves as a champion of democracy and liberty.

No dumba$$
"The `government' is out there to screw us. Forget about the fact that we elected them; forget about the fact that they are us."

No they aren't.They are individuals and so are we.They do many things that many of us might dissaprove of and not do ourselves, which they get away with only by stacking the game and making us vote for package deals where most people who elected Bush or Kerrty might not have wanted ALL of the policies of both of them.We might have elected them, but in government you don't get to vote as often as on the market and certainly not for different things, thus making 'government inmpossible to customize for different people.Plus, most of the government has closed competition anyways.We elected them to run OUR lives and they screw us over in some other way, even as they might fulfill some of the other promises to their constituents.Your collectivist stupidity shows no bounds.I didn't elect Bush or Kerry. ... Read more

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history writing at its best
This book is the best analysis of Austrian identity on the market.If you have ever wanted to know what the relationship between Austrian and German is all about and what the term Austrian has meant in different historical periods, you will find the answer here.The book combines sophisticated historical methods with accessible language and is written in an admirably objective tone.It is innovative history writing at its best and has become an instant favorite of mine. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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Title: Standards of Teaching of Foreign Codes Relating to Elementary Education, Prescribed by Austrian, Belgian, German, Italian and Swiss Governments; Also the Memorial to the Education Department by the Conference on Code Reform, With the Standards Proposed by Them. With an Introduction and NotesPublisher: London : Sonnenschein ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Rothschild banking family of Austria was founded by Salomon Mayer von Rothschild in 1820 in Vienna in what was then the Austrian Empire. Salomon had been sent there from his home in Frankfurt, Germany by his father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812). Wanting his sons to succeed on their own and to expand the family business across Europe, Mayer Amschel Rothschild had his eldest son remain in Frankfurt, while his four other sons were sent to different European cities with the mission of establishing a financial institution to invest in business and provide banking services. Endogamy within the family was an essential part of the Rothschild strategy in order to ensure control of their wealth remained in family hands. Through their collaborative efforts, the Rothschilds rose to prominence in a variety of banking endeavours including loans, government bonds and trading in bullion. ... Read more