Money and the gold standard

The current discussion on this list on central banking and the gold
standard, it seems to me, needs some stronger foundation on economic
analysis before jumping to political considerations on fractions of the
bourgeoisie and other similar matters. I should advise first reading a
good book on International Economics such as Krugman and Obstfeld, and
several books on monetary systems both of historical and theoretical
interest, such as the following:

Giulio Gallarotti, The Anatomy of an International Monetary Regime: The
Classical Gold Standard 1880-1914. Oxford University Press, 1995.

Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great
Depression, 1919-1939. Oxford University Press, 1995.

Barry Eichengreen (editor), The Gold Standard in Theory and Practice,
Methuen, 1985.

Barry Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International
Monetary System. Princeton University Press, 1995.

Peter Isard, Exchange Rate Economics. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
On the issue of the current international monetary system, its problems
and proposed fixes, one may read:

Ronald McKinnon, The Rules of the Game: International Money and Exchange
Rates. The MIT Press, 1996.

Barry Eichengreen, Toward a New International Financial Architecture.
Institute for International Economics, Washington DC, 1999.

It may also be quite useful to read the book by B. Eichengreen, European
Monetary Unification: Theory, Practice, and Analysis (The MIT Press,
1997).


By the way, the idea of approaching this subject based on Hilferding is
risible. His approach was inappropriate before World War I, let alone
today. I'd advise the hard road taken by Marx himself on his solitary
bench in the British Museum Library: detailed study of economic facts
and economic literature, painful construction (which would in all
probability remain inconclusive) of a critical view of the economic
system. 'Critical', besides, has here the precise philosophical sense of
'rigorously rational and scientific', and not necessarily the everyday
meaning of 'damning' or 'politically progressive'.

As this particular message is growing too long already, I leave for a
separate posting my own ideas on the matter of money and the gold
standard.

Hector Maletta
Universidad del Salvador
Buenos Aires, Argentina