Money  (Paperback, Francis A. Walker)

About The Book : The present work differs from the treatise on Money published in 1878, of which it is, in a certain sense, an abridgment, in two respects. In the publication of 1878, comprising lectures delivered in a university, it was sought to trace the history of doctrines, and copious extracts were given with a view to introduce the student to the literature of the subject. The present work, consisting of lectures delivered before a popular audience, in the Lowell Institute of Boston, does not profess to deal with the literature of the Money Question; and I have been content to reach correct results without undertaking, in all or most cases. Something more, however, than a correct terminology is needed to resolve the deep, dark questions which constitute what Gen. Craufurd in his "Reflections on the Circulating Medium," calls "the most intricate, abstruse,complex and subtile parts of political economy." It is, indeed, as Prof. Price declares, "a fatal theme." "I have found no branch of my subject," wrote Sir James Steuart, "so difficult to reduce to principles as the doctrine of Money." About The Author : Francis A. Walker (1840-1897) was an American economist, statistician, journalist, educator, academic administrator, and an officer in the Union Army. Walker was born into a prominent Boston family, the son of the economist and politician Amasa Walker, and he graduated from Amherst College at the age of 20. He received a commission to join the 15th Massachusetts Infantry and quickly rose through the ranks as an assistant adjutant general. Walker fought in the Peninsula Campaign and was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville but subsequently participated in the Bristoe, Overland, and Richmond-Petersburg Campaigns before being captured by Confederate forces and held at the infamous Libby Prison. In July 1866, he was nominated by President Andrew Johnson and confirmed by the United States Senate for the award of the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general United States Volunteers, to rank from March 13, 1865, when he was 24 years old. Beginning in 1879, Walker and the political economist Henry George engaged in a prominent debate over economic rents, land, money, and taxes. Based on a series of lectures delivered at Harvard, Walker published his Land and Its Rent in 1883 as a criticism of George's 1879 Progress and Poverty. Walker's position on international bimetallism influenced his arguments that the primary cause of economic depressions was not land speculation, but rather constriction of the money supply. Walker also criticized George's assumptions that technical progress was always labor saving and whether land held for speculation was unproductive or inefficient.