Henry George and the Financial Crisis
Henry George's teaching was not just restricted to the single tax issue. It extended to many areas of political economy and included the question of the issuance of money which lies at the heart of the present financial crisis. In this extract he states clearly his views on the injustice of handing over the privilege of issuing money to private institutions:
..... it is the business of government to issue money. This is perceived as soon as the great labour-saving invention of money supplants barter. To leave it to everyone who choses to do so to issue money would be to entail general inconvenience and loss, to offer many temptations to roguery, and to put the poorer classes of society at a great disadvantage. These obvious considerations have everywhere, as society became well organized, led to the recognition of the coinage of money as an exclusive function of government.
When, in the progress of society, a further labor-saving improvement becomes possible by the substitution of paper for the precious metals as the material for money, the reasons why the issuance of this money should be made a government function become still stronger........
Yet instead of doing what every public consideration impels us to, and assuming wholly and fully as the exclusive function of the General Government the power to issue paper money, the private interests of bankers have, up to this time, compelled us to the use of a hybrid currency, of which a large part, though guaranteed by the General Government, is issued and made profitable to corporations.
The legitimate business of banking—the safe-keeping and loaning of money, and the making and exchange of credits, is properly left to individuals and associations; but by leaving to them, even in part and under restrictions and guaranties, the issuance of money, the people of the United States suffer an annual loss of millions of dollars, and sensibly increase the influences which exert a corrupting effect upon their government.
From ‘Social Problems’ CHAPTER XVII. The Functions of Government
for more on Henry George's concept of money go to http://www.monetary.org/henrygeorgeconceptofmoney.htm
