Modern Economic Problems Part 4

A poor community has little money because it cannot afford more; it gets along with less money than is convenient just as it gets along with fewer agents of every other kind that it could use. Pioneers in a poor community where the average wealth is low cannot afford to keep a large number of wagons, plows, good roads, or schoolhouses. If the members of the community were wealthy enough each would have more of these and of other things, and the sum total of money would be greater. Great as is the convenience of money, poorer communities have to do with little of it. It is, therefore, a confusion of cause and effect when poor communities imagine that their poverty is due to lack of money.

-- 5. #Concept of the individual monetary demand.# Let us now seek to get in mind the idea of an _individual monetary demand,_ as that amount of money which at any time is required by an individual to make his purchases in expending his income. Every man may be thought of as having an average monetary demand, or his average individual cash reserve, throughout a period. A man with a salary of $50 a month paid monthly has ordinarily a maximum monetary demand of $50. If his expenditures are made in two equal parts, the one on pay-day, the other thirty days later, his average monetary demand during the month is a little over $25. If most of his purchasing is done in the first week of the month, his average monetary demand may be perhaps $10.

Many a workman purchases on credit, running accounts at the stores for a month. Then on pay day he spends his entire month's wages the day he receives it, and goes without money for the rest of the month. His average monetary demand throughout the month would then be about equal to one day's wages. Evidently any person's cash reserve may be expressed as that proportion of his income that is to him of more value retained in money form for any period than if at once expended.

In this conception of the individual monetary demand, must, however, be included not merely the demands of retail purchasers, made by themselves, but also those of all agencies such as merchants, bankers, and transportation companies, serving the needs of ultimate consumers of goods. The use of money may be necessary several times before a commodity completes its journey from producer to consumer.

Of two persons whose expenditures of money are of the same kind and made at the same rate, the one having the larger amount of purchases to make has the larger monetary demand. But the amount of purchases does not always vary directly with the amount of real income[2]; for example, a farmer and a village mechanic may have at their disposal incomes equal in the quant.i.ties of goods, such as food, fuel, clothing, and house-uses (worth, let us say, $1000 for each), but the farmer would be getting a larger part of his goods directly from his farm and by his own labor, while the mechanic would be getting first a money income to be expended afterward for food, clothing, and rent.

The mechanic would in this case have an average monetary demand much larger than the farmer.

We see thus that a person's monetary demand at any time is that amount of money which rests in his possession as the necessary condition to making his purchases as he desires. Individual monetary demand varies in proportion directly to the delay, and inversely to the rapidity with which the individual pa.s.ses the money on; and directly to the amount of the person's income that is received and expended in monetary form.

-- 6. #Concept of the community's monetary demand.# The monetary demand of a community at a given time is the sum of the monetary demands of the various individuals and enterprises. It is that stock of money which is necessarily present to effect the exchanges of the community in the prevailing manner at the existing price level. A single dollar as it circulates helps to supply the monetary demand of many individuals in turn: the more quickly each person spends the piece of money he receives, the greater its rapidity of circulation. Let us suppose that every piece of money pa.s.sed from one person to another once each day. Then a dollar would, in the course of a business year (about 300 days), serve to buy (and at the same time to sell) $300 worth of goods. If the average purchases of each individual amounted to $1000 a year, the average monetary demand of each would be about 3-1/3 dollars.

But every moment beyond the average time that any one kept money would increase his monetary demand. If he delayed a day, a week, or a month in spending the money, waiting until he could buy in some other market, or until a better time to buy, he would thus increase insomuch the amount of money needed to make the trade (on that scale of prices). It requires more slow dollars than swift dollars to make a given volume of purchases.

Evidently the times of maximum monetary demand of the different individuals do not coincide; rather they alternate with each other, and the community's total monetary demand at a given time is a composite of the many individual variations. The amount of money that will remain in circulation in a community depends on several factors, the chief among them being the amount of goods to exchange, the methods of exchange, and the prevailing scale of prices. The amount of goods to be exchanged may change even when the amount produced is unaltered (e.g., a change from agricultural to industrial conditions).

The methods of exchange may alter so as to require either more money (e.g., cash instead of credit business), or less money (e.g., use of bank checks displacing use of money by individuals). Or, apart from the other factors, the scale of prices may change as the conditions of gold and silver production are altered. The interrelations of gold and silver production, paper money issues, banking growth, and money-inflow and outflow in foreign exchanges give rise to the most interesting and important problems in the field of monetary theory.

-- 7. #The money-material in its commodity uses#. We are now prepared to take up the question: What determines the ratio at which money exchanges for other goods? And, as money comes to be the unit in which prices are generally expressed, the question becomes: What determines the general level of monetary prices? We have this problem in its simplest form in the case of a commodity-money such as gold. It may be looked upon merely as so much precious metal. The problem of its value as bullion is the same as that of the value of pig iron or of zinc, of meat or of potatoes. There is here no special monetary problem.

The value of gold as bullion and its value as money are kept in equilibrium by choice and by subst.i.tution. The several uses of gold are constantly competing for it: its uses for rings, pens, ornaments, championship cups, photography, dentistry, delicate instruments, and as a circulating medium. If the metal becomes worth more in any one use, its amount is increased there and is correspondingly diminished in other uses.[3]

When coinage is free and gratuitous[4] the standard money is a commodity. Such coinage is essentially but the stamp and certificate that the coin contains a certain weight and fineness of metal. Where coinage is free and gratuitous each coin will be worth the same as the bullion that is in it so far as the citizens exercise their choice.

They will not long keep uncoined metal in their possession when it is worth more in the form of money, nor will they long keep money from the melting-pot when it is worth more as bullion. Yet there may be a slight disparity between the bullion value and the monetary value before the metal is converted into coin or the coin melted down into metal.

This adjustment of the value of commodity-money to other things is made also on the side of supply, in the use of labor and material agents to produce the precious metals and to produce other things.

Gold-mining, for example, is one among various industries to which men may apply their labor and their available material agents. Some mines are superior, others medium, others marginal which it barely pays to work. There is, therefore, a rise and fall of the margin of gold production with changes in prices and changes in the cost of production. Large new deposits of gold are discovered from time to time and new methods of extracting gold are invented. If, when it barely pays to work a mine, such changes occur, gold becomes worth less, and the poorer mines eventually must go out of use. As gold rises in value some abandoned mines again come into use. A similar variation may be noted in the utilization of marginal land, marginal factories, marginal forges, and marginal agents of every kind.[5]

-- 8. #The general level of prices#. We come now to a more peculiar aspect of the monetary value problem. In performing its function as general medium of trade, money determines the general level of monetary prices. We have the idea of a general level of prices whenever we contrast the price ratio of money to other commodities at one time with its ratio at another time. Now the monetary prices of the various commodities are constantly changing, and in somewhat different degrees, but on the average there may be a general trend upward or downward, and this is called a change in the general scale (or level) of prices, as contrasted with changes in the values of any two commodities in terms of each other. The general price level will be more fully discussed below (Chapter 6, section 3) in connection with the method of measuring by index numbers its changes. This brief explanation may, perhaps, be enough for our present purpose. Our question now is: What is the effect of changes in the quant.i.ty of money (considered apart from chance accompanying changes) upon the general level of prices?

-- 9. #Effect of increasing gold production#. Let us take a case where gold is in general use as money, and where for some time there has been no noticeable change in the amount of business, the methods of trade, and the general scale of prices. What would happen when new gold mines were found that were much easier to operate, and gold began to be produced at a much more rapid rate than formerly? The amount of gold as compared with other forms of wealth evidently would be increased. What if all the increase went into the industrial arts? The value of gold in its industrial uses would fall. Then a part of the increase must be diverted to monetary uses. When any man, by reason of the increasing gold supplies, gets a larger stock of money than he had before, the proportion formerly existing between his use for money and his monetary stock is altered. He has more money than meets his monetary demand at the existing prices. As he seeks to reduce his stock of money to due proportions by buying more goods, he thereby distributes a part of the excess of money to others. This bids up the prices of goods further until the total value of goods exchanged again bears the same ratio as before to the average monetary demand of each individual.

Take an extreme case: if twice as many dollars get into circulation in a community, either some few men may have far more dollars than before, while others have nearly the same number; or every man may have his due proportion of the new supplies, just twice as many as before in proportion to his income. The latter result, "other things being equal," is the logical one after equilibrium has been restored.

If prices of goods remained the same as before, there would be twice as many pieces of money available to effect the same number of trades at the same prices. There is no reason why each person should tie up twice as large a proportion of his income in the form of money. If, however, there is a concerted movement to spend the surplus money, there results a general bidding down of the value of money, a general bidding up of the prices of goods. At what point will this movement stop? The rational conclusion must be that, other things being equal, the new equilibrium will be established when the ratio between the value of money and the price of the goods which each individual is purchasing becomes the same as before. The money being doubled, prices must be doubled, and likewise for any other change in quant.i.ty.

-- 10. #The quant.i.ty theory of money.# This explanation of the effect of changes in the quant.i.ty of money in a country upon prices (the general scale of prices) is known as the quant.i.ty theory of money.

This theory has, for a century, been very generally accepted by competent students of the money problem. It may be summed up thus: other things being equal, the value of the monetary unit, expressed in terms of all other commodities, falls as the quant.i.ty of money increases, and _vice versa_. That is, prices rise and fall in direct proportion to changes in the total quant.i.ty. This is a simple explanation of a complex and difficult set of conditions. The phrase, "other things being equal," betokens the statement of a tendency where there are several factors. The quant.i.ty theory explains what happens when there is a change in one of the factors--the number of pieces of money. There are three large sets of facts to be brought into relationship with each other in the quant.i.ty theory: (1) the amount of business, or the number of trades effected; (2) the rapidity of circulation, depending on the methods by which business is done; (3) the amount of money available. According to the quant.i.ty theory we must expect that, when conditions (1) and (2) remain fixed, the value of money will vary inversely as its quant.i.ty. This quant.i.ty theory may be expressed in the formula P = MR/N when P is the symbol for price, or the general price level, N is (1) above, R is (2), and M is (3).

P, therefore, changes directly with either M or R, or inversely with N.[6]

-- 11. #Interpretation of the quant.i.ty theory.# The quant.i.ty theory must be carefully interpreted to avoid various misunderstandings of it that have appeared again and again in economic discussion.

(1) It does not mean that the price level changes with the absolute quant.i.ty of money, independently of growth of population and of the corresponding growth in the volume of exchanges.

(2) It is not a mere per capita rule to be applied at a certain moment to different countries. For example, Mexico may have $9 per capita and the United States $35, while average prices may not differ in anything like that proportion. But in these two countries not only the amounts of exchanges per capita but the methods of exchange and the rapidity of the circulation of money differ greatly.[7]

(3) It cannot be applied as a per capita rule to the same country through a series of years, without taking account of the many changing factors. It is estimated that in 1800 the money stock was about $5 per capita in the United States, and in 1914 about $35[8], but average prices have not necessarily changed in the same ratio. In a period of years a country may change in a mult.i.tude of ways, in complexity of industry, modes of exchange, transportation, wealth, and income. These changes require, some larger, others smaller, per capita amounts of money to maintain the same level of prices. For example, the subst.i.tution of cash payments for book-credit in retail trade calls for a larger per capita stock of money; whereas an increased use of banks and checking accounts, by economizing the use of money, enables a smaller amount of money to maintain the same level.[9]

(4) Tho applied originally to standard money, the quant.i.ty theory applies to all other kinds of money circulating side by side and at a parity of value, so far as these fulfil the definition of money and are not merely supplementary aids of money. These subst.i.tutes for, or supplements to, money enable each dollar to do more work, to circulate more rapidly. If the standard money alone were doubled in quant.i.ty, while the various forms of fiduciary money (smaller coins, bank notes, government notes) remained unchanged, the quant.i.ty of money as a whole would not be doubled. Indeed, in such a case, the method of exchange would be greatly altered. According to the quant.i.ty theory, therefore, prices would not be expected to double.

-- 12. #Practical application of the quant.i.ty theory#. Despite the number of changing factors affecting the methods of exchange and the amount of business, the quant.i.ty theory is a rule unable at any moment. These various factors change slowly, and the quant.i.ty theory answers the question: What general change occurs in prices as a result of the increase or decrease of the money in a given community at a given moment? Like the law of gravitation and the law of projectiles, the theory must be interpreted with relation to actual conditions.

The quant.i.ty theory makes intelligible the great and rapid changes in prices which have followed sudden changes in the quant.i.ty of money.

Inductive demonstration of broadly stated economic principles is usually difficult, but there have been many "monetary experiments"

to teach their lessons. Many inflations and contractions of the circulating medium have occurred, now in a single country, again in the whole world; and the local or general results have helped to exemplify richly the working of the quant.i.ty principle. With the scanty yield of silver and gold mines during the Middle Ages, prices were low. After the discovery of America, especially in the sixteenth century, quant.i.ties of silver flowed into Europe. The great rise of prices that occurred was explained by the keenest thinkers of that day along the essential lines of the quant.i.ty theory, tho there were many monetary fallacies current at that time. The experience in England during the Napoleonic wars, when the money of England was inflated (by the forced issue of large amounts of bank notes) and prices rose above those of the Continent, led to the modern formulation of the theory by Ricardo and others about 1810. The discovery of gold in California and Australia in 1848-50 greatly increased the gold supply, and gold prices rose throughout the world. Between 1870 and 1890 the production of gold fell off while its use as money increased greatly, and prices fell. A great increase of gold production has occurred in the period since 1890. In part the rising prices since 1897 are explicable as the periodic upswing of confidence and credit, but in the main doubtless they are due to the stimulus of increasing gold supplies.[10] These are but a few of many instances in monetary history, which, taken together, make an argument of probability in favor of the quant.i.ty theory so strong as to const.i.tute practically an inductive proof.

[Footnote 1: The old-fashioned miser, however, withdraws his h.o.a.rded gold for the time from its usual monetary function as an indirect agent and treats it as a direct good yielding to him psychic income by its mere possession.]

[Footnote 2: See on kinds of income, Vol. I, p. 26 ff.]

[Footnote 3: See secs. 1 and 2 of this chapter; also Vol. 1, especially pp. 31-38 and 353-355.]

[Footnote 4: This means actually gratuitous, for any real difficulty in getting metal to or from the mint operates as a cost in the conversion of bullion into money, or _vice versa_; e.g., the gold may be in Australia and the mint in London.]

[Footnote 5: See Vol. I, pp. 138 ff. and 361 ff.

FIG. 1. GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD, 1493-1914.

The changes in gold production here shown have bearings not only upon problems of money, but in some respects upon nearly every modern economic problem. Compare in the present connection this figure with Figure 3, in Chapter 6, Section 4, showing changes in index numbers of prices.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1. GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD. 1493-1710.

AVERAGES FOR PERIODS BEFORE 1870]]

[Footnote 6: This formula is presented by E.W. Kemmerer in "Money and Prices" (2d ed., 1909), p. 15 ff.]

[Footnote 7: See above, ch. 3, sec. 6, table.]

[Footnote 8:

PER CAPITA CIRCULATION OF MONEY (ESTIMATED) IN THE UNITED STATES IN VARIOUS YEARS.

1800......$4.99 1850......$12.02 1890......$22.82 1810...... 7.60 1860...... 13.85 1900...... 26.93 1820...... 6.96 1870...... 17.51 1910...... 34.33 1830...... 6.78 1880...... 19.41 1915...... 35.44 1840......10.91 ]

[Footnote 9: On the function of deposits, see below, ch. 7, sec. 11.]

[Footnote 10: Consult Figure 1 in ch. 4 and Figure 2 in ch. 6 for the graphic presentation of these and related facts.]

CHAPTER 5

FIDUCIARY MONEY, METAL AND PAPER

-- 1. Commodity and fiduciary defined. -- 2. Present monetary system of the United States. -- 3. Saturation point of fractional money. -- 4.

Light-weight fractional coins. -- 5. Worn coins and Gresham's law.

-- 6. A general seigniorage charge on standard money. -- 7. Coinage on governmental account. -- 8. The gold-exchange standard. -- 9. Nature of governmental paper money. -- 10. Irredeemable paper money. -- 11.

Theories of political money.