Money

Money is regarded as the cause of theft and murder, of deception and betrayal. Money is blamed when the prostitute sells her body and when the bribed judge perverts the law. It is money against which the moralist declaims when he wishes to oppose excessive materialism.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 111

Money is merely the commonly used medium of exchange; it plays only an intermediary role. What the seller wants ultimately to receive in exchange for the commodities sold is other commodities. Every commodity produced is therefore a price, as it were, for other commodities produced. The situation of the producer of any commodity is improved by any increase in the production of other commodities.

Planning for Freedom, p. 66

Only the naive inflationists could believe that government could enrich mankind through fiat money.

A Critique of Interventionism, p. 23

For two hundred years the governments have interfered with the market’s choice of the money medium. Even the most bigoted étatists do not venture to assert that this interference has proved beneficial.

Human Action, p. 419; p. 422

Fiat money is a money consisting of mere tokens which can neither be employed for any industrial purposes nor convey a claim against anybody.

Human Action, p. 426; p. 429

The governments alone are responsible for the spread of the superstitious awe with which the common man looks upon every bit of paper upon which the treasury or agencies which it controls have printed the magical words legal tender.

Human Action, pp. 444–45; p. 448

No technological computation and calculation would be possible in an environment that would not employ a generally used medium of exchange, money.

The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, p. 127

Money is nothing but a medium of exchange and it completely fulfills its function when the exchange of goods and services is carried on more easily with its help than would be possible to means of barter.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 31

Where the free exchange of goods and services is unknown, money is not wanted.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 41

The simple statement, that money is a commodity whose economic function is to facilitate the interchange of goods and services, does not satisfy those writers who are interested rather in the accumulation of material than in the increase of knowledge.

The Theory of Money and Credit, pp. 46–47

Money has thus become an aid that the human mind is no longer able to dispense with in making economic calculations.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 62

Money has no utility other than that arising from the possibility of obtaining other economic goods in exchange for it.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 118

The valuation of the monetary unit depends not upon the wealth of the country, but upon the ratio between the quantity of money and the demand for it, so that even the richest country may have a bad currency and the poorest country a good one.

The Theory of Money and Credit, p. 278