Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
The economic situation in 1920 was inventory representing one year’s produc-
grim. By that year unemployment had tion, Japan lost seven years.”3
jumped from 4 percent to nearly 12 per- The U.S., by contrast, allowed its
cent, and GNP declined 17 percent. No economy to readjust. “In 1920–21,”
wonder, then, that Secretary of Commerce writes Anderson, “we took our losses,
Herbert Hoover—falsely characterized as we readjusted our fi nancial structure, we
a supporter of laissez-faire economics— endured our depression, and in August
urged President Harding to consider an 1921 we started up again. . . . The rally
array of interventions to turn the economy in business production and employment
around. Hoover was ignored. that started in August 1921 was soundly
Instead of “fiscal stimulus,” Harding based on a drastic cleaning up of credit
cut the government’s budget nearly in weakness, a drastic reduction in the costs
half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of of production, and on the free play of
Harding’s approach was equally laissez- private enterprise. It was not based on
faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income governmental policy designed to make
groups. The national debt was reduced by business good.” The federal government
one-third. The Federal Reserve’s activity, did not do what Keynesian economists
moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one ever since have urged it to do: run unbal-
economic historian puts it, “Despite the anced budgets and prime the pump
severity of the contraction, the Fed did through increased expenditures. Rather,
not move to use its powers to turn the there prevailed the old-fashioned view
money supply around and fight the con- that government should keep spending
traction.”2 By the late summer of 1921, and taxation low and reduce the public
signs of recovery were already visible. The debt.4
following year, unemployment was back Those were the economic themes of
down to 6.7 percent and was only 2.4 Warren Harding’s presidency. Few presi-
percent by 1923. dents have been subjected to the degree
It is instructive to compare the Ameri- of outright ridicule that Warren Hard-
can response in this period to that of ing endured during his lifetime and con-
Japan. In 1920, the Japanese government tinues to receive long after his death. But
introduced the fundamentals of a planned the conventional wisdom about Harding
economy, with the aim of keeping prices is wrong to the point of absurdity: even
artificially high. According to economist the alleged “corruption” of his administra-
Benjamin Anderson, “The great banks, tion was laughably minor compared to the
the concentrated industries, and the gov- presidential transgressions we have since
ernment got together, destroyed the free- come to take for granted.
dom of the markets, arrested the decline in In his 1920 speech accepting the
commodity prices, and held the Japanese Republican presidential nomination, Har-
price level high above the receding world ding declared:
level for seven years. During these years
Japan endured chronic industrial stagna- We will attempt intelligent and
tion and at the end, in 1927, she had a courageous deflation, and strike at
banking crisis of such severity that many government borrowing which en-
great branch bank systems went down, larges the evil, and we will attack
as well as many industries. It was a stu- high cost of government with every
pid policy. In the effort to avert losses on energy and facility which attend
If this absurd attempt at a theory were First, we need to consider why the mar-
correct, the world would be in a constant ket economy is afflicted by the boom-bust
state of depression. There was nothing at cycle in the first place. The British econo-
all unusual about the pattern of American mist Lionel Robbins asked in his 1934 book
wealth in the 1920s. Far greater disparities The Great Depression why there should be
have existed in countless times and places a sudden “cluster of error” among entre-
without any resulting disruption. In fact, preneurs. Given that the market, via the
the Great Depression actually came in the profit-and-loss system, weeds out the least
midst of a dramatic upward trend in the competent entrepreneurs, why should the
share of national income devoted to wages relatively more skilled ones that the mar-
and salaries in the United States—and a ket has rewarded with profits and control
over additional resources suddenly commit
grave errors—and all in the same direc-
tion? Could something outside the market
economy, rather than anything that inheres
in it, account for this phenomenon?
Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek both
pointed to artificial credit expansion, nor-
mally at the hands of a government-estab-
lished central bank, as the non-market cul-
prit. (Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974
for his work on what is known as Austrian
business cycle theory.) When the central
bank expands the money supply—for
instance, when it buys government securi-
ties—it creates the money to do so out of
thin air. This money either goes directly to
commercial banks or, if the securities were
purchased from an investment bank, very
President Harding—a champion of quickly makes its way to the commercial
laissez-faire banks when the investment banks deposit
the Fed’s checks. In the same way that the
downward trend in the share going to in- price of any good tends to decline with
terest, dividends, and entrepreneurial in- an increase in supply, the influx of new
come.9 We do not in fact need the violent money leads to lower interest rates, since
expropriation of any American in order to the banks have experienced an increase in
achieve prosperity, thank goodness. loanable funds.
It is not enough, however, to demonstrate The lower interest rates stimulate invest-
that prosperity happened to follow upon ment in long-term projects, which are more
the absence of fiscal or monetary stimulus. interest-rate sensitive than shorter-term
We need to understand why this outcome ones. (Compare the monthly interest paid
is to be expected—in other words, why the on a thirty-year mortgage with the inter-
restoration of prosperity in the absence of est paid on a two-year mortgage—a tiny
the remedies urged upon us in more recent drop in interest rates will have a substan-
times was not an inconsequential curiosity tial impact on the former but a negligible
or the result of mere happenstance. impact on the latter.) Additional invest-
ment in, say, research and development consumer goods. Factors of production
(R&D), which can take many years to that these industries once used—trucking
bear fruit, will suddenly seem profitable, services, for instance—are now released
whereas it would not have been profitable for use in more remote stages of the struc-
without the lower financing costs brought ture of production. Likewise for labor,
about by the lower interest rates. steel, and other nonspecific inputs.
We describe R&D as belonging to a When the market’s freely established
“higher-order” stage of production than a structure of interest rates is tampered
retail establishment selling hats, for exam- with, this coordinating function is dis-
ple, since the hats are immediately avail- rupted. Increased investment in higher-
able to consumers while the commercial order stages of production is undertaken
results of R&D will not be available for at a time when demand for consumer
a relatively long time. The closer a stage goods has not slackened. The time struc-
of production is to the finished consumer ture of production is distorted such that
good to which it contributes, the lower a it no longer corresponds to the time pat-
stage we describe it as occupying. tern of consumer demand. Consumers are
On the free market, interest rates demanding goods in the present at a time
coordinate production across time. They when investment in future production is
ensure that the production structure is being disproportionately undertaken.
configured in a way that conforms to Thus, when lower interest rates are the
consumer preferences. If consumers want result of central bank policy rather than
more of existing goods right now, the genuine saving, no letup in consumer
lower-order stages of production expand. demand has taken place. (If anything,
If, on the other hand, they are willing to the lower rates make people even more
postpone consumption in the present, likely to spend than before.) In this case,
interest rates encourage entrepreneurs to resources have not been released for use
use this opportunity to devote factors of in the higher-order stages. The economy
production to projects not geared toward instead finds itself in a tug-of-war over
satisfying immediate consumer wants, resources between the higher- and lower-
but which, once they come to fruition, order stages of production. With resources
will yield a greater supply of consumer unexpectedly scarce, the resulting rise
goods in the future. in costs threatens the profitability of the
Had the lower interest rates in our higher-order projects. The central bank
example been the result of voluntary sav- can artificially expand credit still further
ing by the public instead of central-bank in order to bolster the higher-order stages’
intervention, the relative decrease in con- position in the tug of war, but it merely
sumption spending that is a correlate of postpones the inevitable. If the public’s
such saving would have released resources freely expressed pattern of saving and con-
for use in the higher-order stages of pro- sumption will not support the diversion of
duction. In other words, in the case of resources to the higher-order stages, but,
genuine saving, demand for consumer in fact, pulls those resources back to those
goods undergoes a relative decline; people firms dealing directly in finished con-
are saving more and spending less than sumer goods, then the central bank is in a
they used to. Consumer-goods industries, war against reality. It will eventually have
in turn, undergo a relative contraction in to decide whether, in order to validate all
response to the decrease in demand for the higher-order expansion, it is prepared
to expand credit at a galloping rate and kept its discount rate (the rate at which it
risk destroying the currency altogether, or lends directly to banks) low throughout
whether instead it must slow or abandon the First World War (1914–18) and for
its expansion and let the economy adjust a brief period thereafter. The Fed began
itself to real conditions. to tighten its stance in late 1919. Econo-
It is important to notice that the prob- mist Gene Smiley, author of The Ameri-
lem is not a deficiency of consumption can Economy in the Twentieth Century,
spending, as the popular view would have observes that “the most common view is
it. If anything, the trouble comes from that the Fed’s monetary policy was the
too much consumption spending, and main determinant of the end of the expan-
as a result too little channeling of funds sion and inflation and the beginning of
to other kinds of spending—namely, the the subsequent contraction and severe
expansion of higher-order stages of produc- deflation.”12 Once credit began to tighten,
tion that cannot be profitably completed market actors suddenly began to realize
because the necessary resources are being that the structure of production had to be
pulled away precisely by the relatively (and rearranged and that lines of production
unexpectedly) stronger demand for con- dependent on easy credit had been errone-
sumer goods. Stimulating consumption ously begun and needed to be liquidated.
spending can only make things worse, We are now in a position to evaluate
by intensifying the strain on the already such perennially fashionable proposals
collapsing profitability of investment in as “fiscal stimulus” and its various cous-
higher-order stages. ins. Think about the condition of the
Note also that the precipitating fac- economy following an artificial boom.
tor of the business cycle is not some phe- It is saddled with imbalances. Too many
nomenon inherent in the free market. It resources have been employed in higher-
is intervention into the market that brings order stages of production and too few
about the cycle of unsustainable boom and in lower-order stages. These imbalances
inevitable bust.10 As business-cycle theorist must be corrected by entrepreneurs who,
Roger Garrison succinctly puts it, “Savings enticed by higher rates of profit in the
gets us genuine growth; credit expansion lower-order stages, bid resources away
gets us boom and bust.”11 from stages that have expanded too much
This phenomenon has preceded all of and allocate them toward lower-order
the major booms and busts in American stages where they are more in demand.
history, including the 2007 bust and the The absolute freedom of prices and wages
contraction in 1920–21. The years preced- to fluctuate is essential to the accomplish-
ing 1920 were characterized by a massive ment of this task, since wages and prices
increase in the supply of money via the are indispensable ingredients of entrepre-
banking system, with reserve require- neurial appraisal.
ments having been halved by the Federal In light of this description of the post-
Reserve Act of 1913 and then with con- boom economy, we can see how unhelpful,
siderable credit expansion by the banks even irrelevant, are efforts at fiscal stimu-
themselves. Total bank deposits more than lus. The government’s mere act of spending
doubled between January 1914, when the money on arbitrarily chosen projects does
Fed opened its doors, and January 1920. nothing to rectify the imbalances that led
Such artificial credit creation sets the to the crisis. It is not a decline in “spend-
boom-bust cycle in motion. The Fed also ing” per se that has caused the problem. It
is the mismatch between the kind of pro- realign the capital structure. The money
duction the capital structure has been mis- supply should not be increased. Bailouts
led into undertaking on the one hand, and merely freeze entrepreneurial error in place,
the pattern of consumer demand, which instead of allowing the redistribution of
cannot sustain the structure of production resources into the hands of parties better
as it is, on the other. able to provide for consumer demands in
And it is not unfair to refer to the recipi- light of entrepreneurs’ new understanding
ents of fiscal stimulus as arbitrary projects. of real conditions. Emergency lending to
Since government lacks a profit-and-loss troubled firms perpetuates the misalloca-
mechanism and can acquire additional tion of resources and extends favoritism to
resources through outright expropriation firms engaged in unsustainable activities
of the public, it has no way of knowing at the expense of sound firms prepared to
whether it is actually satisfying consumer put those resources to more appropriate
demand (if it is concerned about this at use.
all) or whether its use of resources is gro- This recipe of government austerity is
tesquely wasteful. Popular rhetoric not- precisely what Harding called for in his
withstanding, government cannot be run 1921 inaugural address:
like a business.13
Monetary stimulus is no help either. To We must face the grim necessity,
the contrary, it only intensifies the prob- with full knowledge that the task
lem. In Human Action, Mises compared is to be solved, and we must pro-
an economy under the influence of arti- ceed with a full realization that no
ficial credit expansion to a master builder statute enacted by man can repeal
commissioned to construct a house that the inexorable laws of nature. Our
(unbeknownst to him) he lacks sufficient most dangerous tendency is to ex-
bricks to complete. The sooner he dis- pect too much of government, and
covers his error the better. The longer he at the same time do for it too little.
persists in this unsustainable project, the We contemplate the immediate task
more resources and labor time he will of putting our public household in
irretrievably squander. Monetary stimu- order. We need a rigid and yet sane
lus merely encourages entrepreneurs to economy, combined with fiscal jus-
continue along their unsustainable pro- tice, and it must be attended by in-
duction trajectories; it is as if, instead of dividual prudence and thrift, which
alerting the master builder to his error, we are so essential to this trying hour
merely intoxicated him in order to delay and reassuring for the future. . . .
his discovery of the truth. But such mea- The economic mechanism is
sures make the eventual bust no less inevi- intricate and its parts interdepen-
table—merely more painful. dent, and has suffered the shocks
If the Austrian view is correct—and I and jars incident to abnormal de-
believe the theoretical and empirical evi- mands, credit inflations, and price
dence strongly indicates that it is—then upheavals. The normal balances
the best approach to recovery would be have been impaired, the channels
close to the opposite of these Keynesian of distribution have been clogged,
strategies. The government budget should the relations of labor and manage-
be cut, not increased, thereby releasing ment have been strained. We must
resources that private actors can use to seek the readjustment with care and
courage. . . . All the penalties will 1 On the fallacy of “wartime prosperity” dur-
ing the Second World War, see Robert Higgs,
not be light, nor evenly distributed.
Depression, War, and Cold War (New York:
There is no way of making them Oxford University Press, 2006).
so. There is no instant step from 2 Kenneth E. Weiher, America’s Search for Eco-
disorder to order. We must face a nomic Stability: Monetary and Fiscal Policy
condition of grim reality, charge off Since 1913 (New York: Twayne, 1992), 35.
3 On Japan, see Benjamin M. Anderson, Eco-
our losses and start afresh. It is the
nomics and the Public Welfare: A Financial
oldest lesson of civilization. I would and Economic History of the United States,
like government to do all it can to 1914–1946 (Indianapolis: Liberty Press,
mitigate; then, in understanding, in 1979 [1949]), 88–89, 90.
mutuality of interest, in concern for 4 Ibid., 92.
the common good, our tasks will be 5 Robert Aaron Gordon, Economic Instabil-
ity and Growth: The American Record (New
solved. No altered system will work
York: Harper and Row, 1974), 21–22, cited
a miracle. Any wild experiment will in Joseph T. Salerno, “An Austrian Taxonomy
only add to the confusion. Our best of Deflation—With Applications to the U.
assurance lies in efficient adminis- S.,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 6
tration of our proven system. (Winter 2003): 89.
6 Robert A. Degen, The American Monetary
System: A Concise Survey of Its Evolution Since
Harding’s inchoate understanding of 1896 (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1987),
what was happening to the economy and 41.
why grandiose interventionist plans would 7 Weiher, America’s Search for Economic Stabil-
only delay recovery is an extreme rar- ity, 36.
ity among twentieth-century American 8 Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson, The
Presidency of Warren G. Harding (Lawrence,
presidents. That he has been the subject of
KS: University Press of Kansas, 1977), 72.
ceaseless ridicule at the hands of histori- 9 C. A. Phillips, T. F. McManus, and R. W.
ans, to the point that anyone speaking a Nelson, Banking and the Business Cycle: A
word in his favor would be dismissed out Study of the Great Depression in the United
of hand, speaks volumes about our histo- States (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 76.
10 The Austrian theory also applies to cases in
rians’ capabilities outside of their own dis-
which no central bank was present and ar-
cipline. tificial credit expansion took place by other
The experience of 1920–21 reinforces means. Government intervention is at fault in
the contention of genuine free-market these cases as well. See Jesús Huerta de Soto,
economists that government interven- Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles,
tion is a hindrance to economic recovery. trans. Melinda A. Stroup (Auburn, AL: Lud-
wig von Mises Institute, 2006).
It is not in spite of the absence of fiscal
11 Roger W. Garrison, “The Austrian Theory:
and monetary stimulus that the economy A Summary,” in The Austrian Theory of the
recovered from the 1920–21 depression. Trade Cycle and Other Essays, comp. Richard
It is because those things were avoided M. Ebeling (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises
that recovery came. The next time we Institute, 1996), 99.
12 Gene Smiley, “The U.S. Economy in the
are solemnly warned to recall the lessons
1920s,” EH.Net Encyclopedia, ed. Robert
of history lest our economy deteriorate Whaples, March 26, 2008; http://eh.net/
still further, we ought to refer to this epi- encyclopedia/article/Smiley.1920s.final.
sode—and observe how hastily our inter- 13 Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy (New Ha-
rogators try to change the subject. ven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944).