“In order to overcome these objections to the claim that fractional reserve banking accords with the principle of freedom of contract, White and Selgin then, as their last line of defense, withdraw to the position that banks may attach an “option clause” to their notes, informing depositors that the bank may at any time suspend or defer redemption, and letting borrowers know that their loans may be instantly recalled.[26] While such a practice would indeed dispose of the charge of fraud, it is subject to another fundamental criticism, for such notes would no longer be money but a peculiar form of lottery tickets.[27]
It is the function of money to serve as the most easily resalable and most widely acceptable good, so as to prepare its owner for instant purchases of directly or indirectly serviceable consumer or producer goods at not yet known future dates; hence, whatever may serve as money so as to be instantly resalable at any future point in time, it must be something that bestows an absolute and unconditional property right on its owner.
In sharp contrast, the owner of a note to which an option clause is attached does not possess an unconditional property title. Rather, similar to the holder of a “fractional reserve parking ticket” (where more tickets are sold than there are parking places on hand, and lots are allocated according to a “first-come-first-served” rule), he is merely entitled to participate in the drawing of certain prizes, consisting of ownership or time-rental services to specified goods according to specified rules. But as drawing rights—and not unconditional ownership titles—they only possess temporally conditional value until the time of the drawing, and they become worthless as soon as the prizes have been allocated to the ticket holders; thus, they would be uniquely unsuited to serve as a medium of exchange.”
— Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Against Fiduciary Media
(Source: conza)
IOU’s man, IOU’s.
Rothbard on Fractional Reserve Banking, Bank Runs, and the FDIC
Murray N. Rothbard presented this speech at the Michigan Libertarian Party Convention, held in Southfield, Michigan, in May 1989. This is an excerpt where he discusses Banking, FDIC, Fractional-Reserve Banking, Bank Runs, The FDIC and deposit insurance.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Walter Block
The above three tackle Fractional Reserve Banking by responding largely to Seglin and White. If you’re going to argue that FRB isn’t fraudulent, you’re going to have to go through these guys & their arguments presented within. Good luck.
- The Issue of Fraud I: Money, Money substitutes, Fiduciary Media, And the Title-Transfer Theory of Contract
- The Issue of Fraud II: “Proof from Existence”, Fractional Reserve Banking and State Formation
- The Positive Economics of Fiduciary Media: Money Balance, Price Adjustment, Saving, And Investment
- A Final Note: Some Mistaken Analogies
Here Bob Murphy decides to only address the question of whether FRB creates money out of thin air, or not. It does. Otherwise, Hoppe and property titles.
Ron Paul:
- “In chapters two and three, we demonstrated the disruptive effects fractional reserve banking has caused in the United States. Since we still suffer with that system, it is imperative that a fundamental reform of it be made. That reform is simply that all promises to pay on demand, whether made in the form of notes or deposits, be backed 100 percent by whatever is promised, be it silver, gold, or watermelons. If there is any failure to carry 100 percent reserves or to make delivery when demanded, such persons or institutions would be subject to severe penalties. The fractional reserve system has created the business cycle, and if that is to be eliminated, its cause must be also.”
- “The Federal Reserve works in collusion with big banks, because money is created not only by the federal reserve, but by Fractional reserve banking. And for that reason it is an empire that they have.”
- Ron Paul on CNBC: End the FED & Outlawing Fractional Reserve Banking
Fractional Reserve Banking
Fractional Reserve Banking simplified. An excerpt from Hoppe’s author presentation at the ASC 2006, LvMI. Talking about his book, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property.
Daily Bell: How about the free-banking paradigm? Is private fractional banking ever to be tolerated or is it a crime? Who is to put people in jail for private fractional banking?
Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Assume gold is money. In a free society you have free competition in gold-mining, you have free competition in gold-minting, and you have freely competing banks. The banks offer various financial services: of money safekeeping, clearing services, and the service of mediating between savers and borrower-investors. Each bank issues its own brand of “notes” or “certificates” documenting the various transactions and resulting contractual relations between bank and client. These bank-notes are freely tradable. So far so good.
Controversial among free bankers is only the status of fractional reserve deposit banking and bank notes. Let’s say A deposits 10 ounces of gold with a bank and receives a note (a money substitute) redeemable at par on demand. Based on A’s deposit, then, the bank makes a loan to C of 9 ounces of gold and issues a note to this effect, again redeemable at par on demand.
Should this be permitted? I don’t think so. For there are now two people, A and C, who are the exclusive owner of one and the same quantity of money. A logical impossibility. Or put differently, there are only 10 ounces of gold, but A is given title to 10 ounces and C holds title to 9 ounces. That is, there are more property titles than there is property. Obviously this constitutes fraud, and in all areas except money, courts have also considered such a practice fraud and punished the offenders.
On the other hand, there is no problem if the bank tells A that it will pay interest on his deposit, invest it, for instance, in a money market mutual fund made up of highly liquid short-term financial papers, and make its best efforts to redeem A’s shares in that investment fund on demand in a fixed quantity of money. Such shares may well be very popular and many people may put their money into them instead of into regular deposit accounts. But as shares of investment funds they would never function as money. They would never be the most easily and widely saleable commodity of all.
