Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics

The Origins of the Federal Reserve

The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics
 

Volume 2, No. 3 (Fall 1999)

 The financial elites of this country, notably the Morgan, Rockefeller, and Kuhn, Loeb interests, were responsible for putting through the Federal Reserve System, as a governmentally created and sanctioned cartel device to enable the nation’s banks to inflate the money supply in a coordinated fashion, without suffering quick retribution from depositors or note holders demanding cash. Recent researchers, however, have also highlighted the vital supporting role of the growing number of technocratic experts and academics, who were happy to lend the patina of theirallegedly scientific expertise to the elite’s drive for a central bank. To achieve a regime of big government and government control, power elites cannot achieve their goal of privilege through statism without the vital legitimizing support of the supposedly disinterested experts and the professoriat. To achieve the Leviathan State, interests seeking special privilege, and intellectuals offering scholarship andideology, must work hand in hand. 
All Rights Reserved ©
Latest Articles
In this video , Senior Fellow Mark Thornton ‪ discusses the economic implications of the historically high gold-silver ratio, suggesting it may signal an impending recession. He explains that central...
Ernest Hemingway wrote in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, “How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Artificial Intelligence (AI) tells me this snippet of dialogue between Mike...
Mises WireRyan McMaken
The US government is on track to borrow more than two trillion dollars this year, but that’s going to require a lot of new loans from investors, and it’s looking like there is limited investor...
Mises Wire
Recently, Mises Senior Faculty member, Tom Woods, has spoken with Kevin Dolan—the founder of the Natal Conference. This eclectic gathering provided an opportunity for those concerned about falling...
In today’s inflationary environment, people have become so accustomed to rising prices that it has clouded their economic thinking. Concepts like profit, wealth, and economic growth have more or less...
Meet the Writer
Murray N. Rothbard
Murray N. Rothbard made major contributions to economics, history, political philosophy, and legal theory. He combined...
Everyone will agree that the American tax system is a mess. Taxes are far too high, and the patchwork system is so complicated that even IRS officials don’t understand it. Hence the evident need for...
Written in 1972, this was the first piece of Rand revisionism from the libertarian standpoint. In the America of the 1970s we are all too familiar with the religious cult, which has been proliferating...