The work of the Stock Exchange

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1831284952

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-225876

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Meeker, James Edward http://d-nb.info/gnd/126597340

Title:: The work of the Stock Exchange

Edition:: Revised edition

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Ronald Press Company

Year of publication:: [1930]

Scope:: XVI, 720 Seiten; Illustrationen, Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter V. The dangers and benefits of stock speculation

Collection:: Economics Books

136 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE abolished. Just as the king in the old play cried, “Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!” so, too, these people seize upon the seemingly simple expedient of curing headaches with the guillotine. But in spite of laws, in spite of threats, penal- ties, and restrictions, made in many lands by many peoples over the course of many centuries, speculation and speculative markets have stubbornly endured. The attempt at their aboli- tion has invariably failed. As recently as 1896 the German government attempted to do away with speculation in securities and commodities.?* Yet in spite of the characteristic Teutonic thoroughness, in spite of the despotic powers of the Prussian state, this attempt not only failed of adequate enforcement to such an extent that its regulations came to border on farce and absurdity, but it directly resulted in crippling the Berlin finan- cial markets so thoroughly that when the law was repealed in [gog, their power had largely passed to London, Amsterdam, and Paris. Most anti-speculation legislation has attempted to forbid speculation in certain forms of property, or to prevent certain classes of people from speculating, or to prohibit certain meth- ods by which speculation is ordinarily conducted. But invaria- bly experience has shown that the former two courses were arbitrary and inconsistent, while the last course was superficial and futile. Perhaps the most thoroughgoing attempt to abolish specu- lation has been made in Bolshevist Russia... The ingenuous but fanatical theorist Lenin at first ordered traders and dealers lined against the wall and shot. Yet speculative trading went on, at extortionate prices and with unwholesome economic consequences. And instead of the glittering Utopia which this theorist and his confederates expected to establish, what actu- ally followed? Russian industry collapsed, unemployment spread. In the cities starvation and the plague wrought a havoc unparalleled since the Thirty Years’ War, until city life itself "16 See Emery. “Regulation of the Stock Exchange.” p. 822.

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