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Carl Menger has not only provided an irrefutable praxeological theory of the origin of money. He has also recognized the import of his theory for the elucidation of fundamental principles of praxeology and its methods of research. There were authors who tried to explain the origin of money by decree or covenant. The authority, the state, or a

[Original publication date: March 9, 1953. An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Floy Lilley, is available for download .]   One of the most remarkable features of our age is the propensity toward changing the meaning of political terms. A semantic revolution converts the sense traditionally attached to words into its opposite. George Orwell

[This article is excerpted from chapter 17 of Human Action: The Scholar’s Edition .]   As soon as an economic good is demanded not only by those who want to use it for consumption or production, but also by people who want to keep it as a medium of exchange and to give it away at need in a later act of exchange, the demand for it increases. A new

[This article is excerpted from chapter 17 of Human Action: The Scholar’s Edition . An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download .]   The notion of a neutral money is no less contradictory than that of a money of stable purchasing power. Money without a driving force of its own would not, as people assume,

[Excerpted from Chapter 17 of  Human Action .]   The services money renders are conditioned by the height of its purchasing power. Nobody wants to have in his cash holding a definite number of pieces of money or a definite weight of money; he wants to keep a cash holding of a definite amount of purchasing power. As the operation of the market

[Excerpted from Human Action, Scholar’s Edition , pp. 423–425]   The deliberations of the individuals which determine their conduct with regard to money are based on their knowledge concerning the prices of the immediate past. If they lacked this knowledge, they would not be in a position to decide what the appropriate height of their cash

[Excerpted from Human Action, Scholar’s Edition , pp. 425–427.]   As far as a good used as money is valued and appraised on account of the services it renders for nonmonetary purposes, no problems are raised which would require special treatment. The task of the theory of money consists merely in dealing with that component in the valuation of

Listen to  the  Audio Mises Wire  version  of this article. Claims to a definite amount of money, payable and redeemable on demand, against a debtor about whose solvency and willingness to pay there does not prevail the slightest doubt, render to the individual all the services money can render, provided that all parties with whom he could

[This article is excerpted from chapter 17 of Human Action: The Scholar’s Edition and is read by Jeff Riggenbach .]   The attitudes of the European governments and their satellites with regard to banking were from the beginning insincere and mendacious. The pretended solicitude for the nation’s welfare, for the public in general, and for the poor

[This article is excerpted from chapter 17 of Human Action: The Scholar’s Edition and is read by Jeff Riggenbach .] Observations on the Discussions Concerning Free Banking The Banking School taught that an overissuance of banknotes is impossible if the bank limits its business to the granting of short-term loans. When the loan is paid back at