CHAPTER VII
BIMETALLISM AND TRADE DEPRESSION
§ /. The Industrial and Financial Sides of
Business.
The monetary or financial explanations of commercial
crises and consequent depressions do not in the least
invalidate this analysis, nor can they be accepted as
substitutes for it. Every fact in the production, distribution,
and exchange of commercial wealth has its bookkeeping
or financial side. For every change that takes
place in the economic nature or the ownership of commercial
goods there is some change in the ownership
of money or of credit. There is some correspondence
between the two classes of movements, but not an accurate
one. Oscillations in the total quantity of money and
of credit, changes in the distribution of its ownership
may take place without any facts of corresponding size
or character in industry. The operations of the money
market furnish familiar examples. A company is floated,
credit is manufactured by bankers and other persons, is
imputed to certain persons and will for certain times
and purposes perform the functions of money, without