Thread by @zndtoshi

[Thread]
Quotes from "Fiat money inflation in France" written by Andrew Dickson White in 1896 and revised in 1933.
libertarianpress.com/fiatmoneyinfla…

"Paper money under a
despotism is dangerous; it favors corruption; but in a
nation constitutionally governed, which itself takes
care in the emission of its notes, which determines
their number and use, that danger no longer exists."

"But the current toward paper money had become
irresistible. It was constantly urged, and with a great
show of force, that if any nation could safely issue it,
France was now that nation.."

"...that she was
now a constitutional government, controlled by an
enlightened, patriotic people,—not, as in the days of
the former issues of paper money, an absolute
monarchy controlled by politicians and adventurers"

"They had then
learned how easy it is to issue it; how difficult it is to
check its overissue; how seductively it leads to the
absorption of the means of the workingmen and men
of small fortunes; how heavily it falls on all those living
on fixed incomes, salaries or wages..."

"...how it stimulates
overproduction at first and leaves every industry
flaccid afterward; how it breaks down thrift and
develops political and social immorality."

"The first result of this issue was apparently all that
the most sanguine could desire: the treasury was at
once greatly relieved; a portion of the public debt was
paid; creditors were encouraged; credit revived;
ordinary expenses were met"

"But soon there came another result:
times grew less easy; by the end of September, within
five months after the issue of the four hundred
millions in assignats, the government had spent them
and was again in distress."

"The great majority of Frenchmen now became
desperate optimists, declaring that inflation is
prosperity. Throughout France there came temporary
good feeling. The nation was becoming inebriated
with paper money."

"A considerable amount in specie having been found in the possession of a citizen, the money
was seized and sent to the Assembly. The people of
that town treated this hoarded gold as the result of
unpatriotic wickedness or madness"

"Marat followed out this theory by asserting that death was the proper penalty for persons who thus hid their
money.

"Thus came a collapse in manufacturing and
commerce, just as it had come previously in France:
just as it came at various periods in Austria, Russia,
America, and in all countries where men have tried to
build up prosperity on irredeemable paper."

"Long before the close of 1791 no one knew whether a
piece of paper money representing a hundred livres
would, a month later, have a purchasing power of
ninety or eighty or sixty livres. The result was that
capitalists feared to embark their means in business."

"With the masses of the people, the
purchase of every article of supply became a
speculation—a speculation in which the professional
speculator had an immense advantage over the
ordinary buyer. Commerce
was dead; betting took its place."

"The ordinary motives for saving and care diminished, And a loose luxury spread throughout the country. A still
worse outgrowth was the increase of speculation and
gambling."

"Out of the speculating and gambling of the inflation period grew luxury, and, out of this, corruption. It grew as
naturally as a fungus on a muck heap. It was first felt
in business operations, but soon began to be seen in
the legislative body and in journalism."

"Henceforward capital was quietly taken from labor and locked up in all the ways that financial ingenuity could devise. All that saved thousands of laborers in France from starvation was that they were
drafted off into the army and sent to be killed on
foreign battlefields."

"While the depreciation of the currency had raised all products enormously in price, the stoppage of so many manufactories and the withdrawal of capital caused wages in the summer of 1792, to be as small as they had been four years before: fifteen sous per day."

"Marat declared that the people, by hanging shopkeepers and plundering stores, could easily remove the trouble.
The result was that on the 28th of February, 1793, at
eight o'clock in the evening, a mob of men and women
in disguise began plundering the stores and shops of
Paris."

"At first they demanded only bread; soon they
insisted on coffee and rice and sugar; at last they seized
everything on which they could lay their hands—cloth,
clothing, groceries and luxuries of every kind."

"The third outgrowth of the vast issue of fiat
money was the Maximum. St. Just, in
view of the steady rise in prices of the necessaries of
life, had proposed a scheme by which these prices
should be established by law, at a rate proportionate to
the wages of the working classes."

"This increased the scarcity, and the
people of the large cities were put on an allowance.
Tickets were issued authorizing the bearer to obtain at
the official prices a certain amount of bread or sugar or
soap or wood or coal to cover immediate necessities."

"The result was that very many went out
of business. That this
excuse was valid is easily seen by the daily lists of those
condemned to the guillotine, in which not infrequently
figure the names of men charged with violating the
Maximum laws."

"To detect goods concealed by
farmers and shopkeepers, a spy system was established
with a reward to the informer of one-third of the value
of the goods discovered."

"The paper money of the
nation seemed to possess a magic power to transmute
prosperity into adversity and plenty into famine."

"Before
the end of the year 1795 the paper money was almost
exclusively in the hands of the working classes,
employees and men of small means, whose property
was not large enough to invest in stores of goods or
national lands."

"Financiers and men of large means
were shrewd enough to put as much of their property
as possible into objects of permanent value. The
working classes had no such foresight or skill or
means."

"But
on the 18th of February, 1796, at nine o'clock in the
morning, in the presence of a great crowd, the
machinery, plates and paper for printing assignats
were brought to the Place Vendome and there, on the
spot these were solemnly broken and burned"