Lecture series
The Roots of the Fed
The Roots of the Fed is a free lecture series (10 recordings, 0.4 hours) you can stream or download at freecapitalists.org, with Murray N. Rothbard.
Short clips of Rothbard on the political and financial origins of the Federal Reserve. He covers the secret 1910 Jekyll Island meeting, the alliance of bankers, intellectuals and government behind the Fed, fractional reserve banking, and the roots of American monopoly and World War I intervention.
Cover painting: Senator Nelson Aldrich and bankers draft a central bank plan at the Jekyll Island Club, Georgia, 1910. See every painting in the art gallery.
-
01
4:22 Download MP3
How did the Federal Reserve Act come about?
Rothbard recounts that in late 1910 Morgan partner Henry P. Davison convened a secret meeting at Jekyll Island, under a duck-hunting cover story, to draft a single central banking plan. The resulting Warburg-drafted plan, agreed by two Rockefeller men, two Morgan men, a Kuhn Loeb partner, and a Harvard technician, created the ostensibly decentralized Federal Reserve System to avoid the appearance of a European-style central bank.
Read the transcript 787 words
-
02
2:59 Download MP3
How did World War I affect the world's reliance on the gold standard?
Rothbard recounts that after World War I, Britain returned to gold at its old, overvalued rate. To sustain this, Britain forced smaller European countries onto a gold exchange standard holding reserves in pounds rather than gold, pyramiding inflation for about five years before the system collapsed.
Read the transcript 610 words
-
03
0:59 Download MP3
Why are so many free market advocates suspicious of banks?
Rothbard argues free market advocates who attack government are right to be suspicious of banks. He says much of banking history reflects exactly that combination of private and government wrongdoing.
Read the transcript 195 words
-
04
1:38 Download MP3
Why is investment banking particularly resented?
Rothbard says underwriting government bonds pulls investment bankers deep into politics. He says this dependence gives investment bankers a state-shaping influence, helping put some governments in power and remove others.
Read the transcript 265 words
-
05
1:11 Download MP3
How does US foreign policy relate to US banking?
Late nineteenth and early twentieth century U.S. intervention in Latin America, including sending Marines into Nicaragua, was driven by American bankers whose government loans had gone into default. Rothbard argues the Marines effectively functioned as a collection agency, forcing local taxpayers to raise taxes so Chase and other American banks could be repaid.
Read the transcript 177 words
-
06
3:47 Download MP3
Why did America get into World War I?
Rothbard attributes America's entry into World War I chiefly to the investment bank J.P. Morgan and Company, whose railroad-based fortune was declining and which had committed itself financially to Britain and France as their monopoly American war-bond underwriter starting in 1914. Because a German victory would have ruined the firm, Morgan interests and allied arms exporters lobbied heavily for U.S. entry on the Allied side.
Read the transcript 637 words
-
07
1:15 Download MP3
What is fractional reserve banking?
Rothbard traces fractional reserve banking to deposit banks acting as warehouses for gold and silver. He calls it fraudulent reserve banking because bankers realized they could lend out the deposited metal, or print unbacked warehouse receipts, which he describes as embezzlement dressed up as ordinary banking.
Read the transcript 238 words
-
08
1:52 Download MP3
Why do cartels fall apart?
Rothbard recounts that late nineteenth century cartels, starting with J.P. Morgan's attempt to cartelize the railroads, collapsed because each member had an incentive to secretly undercut the agreed price and grab market share. Once these secret rebates were inevitably discovered, the cartel broke apart in recrimination and prices fell back down.
Read the transcript 282 words
-
09
3:38 Download MP3
What are the roots of monopoly in America?
Rothbard recounts America was founded in an explicitly anti-monopoly tradition. By the early twentieth century, big businessmen like the Morgans sought compulsory cartels through agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, disguising the plan as anti-monopoly reform with the help of allied intellectuals.
Read the transcript 725 words
-
10
2:14 Download MP3
Explain the current alliance between government and intellectuals
Rothbard recounts that after the Civil War, American PhD students increasingly trained in Germany. He quotes Gustav Schmoller's description of Berlin's professors as the intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern as the model this new American class adopted.
Read the transcript 394 words
People in this series
Speakers
Recording dates and topics for 0 of these 10 lectures come from the Mises Institute's page for The Roots of the Fed, checked 2026-09-27. The series and lecture summaries above them are written for this archive from the transcripts.
Community
Discuss this course
No thread on Mises Community names this course yet. Start one.
Questions
About this series
- Is The Roots of the Fed free to listen to?
- Yes. All 10 mirrored recordings stream in the browser or download as audio, at no cost and with no signup.
- How long is The Roots of the Fed?
- 10 recordings, 0.4 hours in total.
- Who lectures in The Roots of the Fed?
- Murray N. Rothbard.
- Is there a transcript of The Roots of the Fed?
- Yes. Every lecture in the series has one, 4,310 words in total, free to read on each lecture's page and searchable in the browser.
Playback speed
Keyboard shortcuts
- Space or K
- Play or pause
- J or left arrow
- Back 15 seconds
- L or right arrow
- Forward 30 seconds
- , and .
- Slower and faster
- N and P
- Next and previous lecture
- ?
- This list