Monetary Non-Conformists

This, the last volume in the series, contains three different kinds of monetary non-conformist. We begin with examples of the work of the Birmingham economists. With these writers there is absolutely no doubt that causality was envisaged as running from the money supply to the levels of income and of prices; but what they envisaged was discretionary monetary management to stabilise output, employment and the price level. Convertibility of the note issue into precious metal was regarded as of really no importance in comparison with restoration of prosperity in the face of the sufferings of the labouring classes after 1815. Thomas Attwood and his brother Matthias were Birmingham bankers and thorns in the side of the financial establishment. Concerned with economic distress, they were unimpressed by the concentration of people like Ricardo upon successive points of long run equilibrium; while Ricardo informed his correspondent Hutches Trower that he had shown that Attwood was ‘no great master of the science’, Attwood himself was unimpressed by his examination by a parliamentary committee containing Ricardo and also Huskisson.