Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft: Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft

Banking theories in the United States before 1860

Bibliographic data

Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1896404200

Document type:: Multivolume work

Title:: Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft

Place of publication:: Leipzig

Publisher:: Duncker & Humblot [u.a.]

Year of publication:: 1904-

Collection:: Economics Books

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

Volume

Identifikator:: 1896404294

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-236881

Document type:: Volume

Title:: Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft

Volume count:: Bd. 2

Place of publication:: Leipzig [u.a.]

Publisher:: Duncker & Humblot [u.a.]

Year of publication:: 1904

Scope:: 1184 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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

Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: II. Zivilrecht (Fortsetzung)

Collection:: Economics Books

THE NATURE OF BANK DEPOSITS 113 ments prevent banks from raising the quantity of circulating medium, and illogically saw in this a basis for their former opinion; but those who held that banks can inflate the currency for a more or less lengthy period, restricted their lending opera- tions no less frequently to mere intervention between borrowers and lenders, arguing that the advance of more monetary units than were received from depositors effected but a depreciation of the standard. In escaping the confusion of monetary capital with capital in its other forms, they fell into another error. This problem has been dealt with in an earlier chapter;! my present purpose is simply to indicate that it would be equally logical, or rather, no more illogical, to recognize that bank deposits originate in part in the process of lending, and yet to hold that in lending the bank performs but an intermediary function. For, whether in the shape of notes or deposits, inflation implies depreciation of the purchasing power of the unit and has the same bearing upon the potentialities of banking. Despite the prevailing theory with respect to the limitations of the lending power of banks, the fact that bank notes are units of media of payment created by the banks themselves was, of course, universally recognized. Niles railed incessantly against the insti- tutions with the privilege of “creating, out of nothing, two or three hundred millions of paper-money, which they were author- ized to pass away, at the value of silver and gold, and which the people were virtually obliged to take.”? Raymond, Raguet, Gouge, and innumerable lesser writers heaped unstinted condem- nation upon the “order of rag barons’ who lived upon the labor of others by putting forth their vile money that rested upon “an idea called credit.” That many thought effective checks ob- tained against the abuse of this power to manufacture media of payment is another matter. The important thing to notice is that, as long as those liabilities were stated in the form of bank notes, it was recognized, necessarily, that the banker, in discount- ing bills of exchange and promissory notes, created liabilities against himself that formed a part of the currency, and that in so ! See Chapter VIII. ? Niles’ Register (1818), xiv, 197. * Anon., Enquiry into the . . . Tendency of Public Measures ( 1704), p. 16.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Banking theories in the United States before 1860

Multivolume work

Volume

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation