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The Anti-Bullionists


The extracts in Volumes II and III of this series, from publications of the Bullionists and Anti-Bullionists respectively, represent if not the first (there is the earlier antagonism between Law and Cantillon) at least the first fully articulated exposition of the difference between two main strands of monetary theory which have continued to the present time. The Bullionists essentially represent those who continue to regard the money supply as exogenous and to assume that the price level, and indeed the level of activity, is functionally dependent upon the money supply. There are many subtle differences between the rigid and highly simple version of this thesis put forward by Ricardo, and the subtle and elastic version used by the more moderate Bullionists such as Thornton and Malthus. But of the essential unity of the Bullionists on the direction of causality there is no doubt. The Anti-Bullionist position, in contrast, treats the money supply as very largely endogenous, and determined by the ‘needs of trade’, in a way which clearly foreshadows 20th Century ‘Keynesianism’ (not necessarily to be confused with the views of Keynes). As the reader will discover, the Anti-Bullionists were not completely consistent in their position on this; some of them, notably Vansittart, were quite prepared to agree that there was some connection between the size of the note issue and the price level, with causality running from the former to the latter; but they seem to have conceived of that as a long run equilibrium relationship, with fluctuations in the money supply around the long run equilibrium being passive in the face of the needs of trade. Their position developed throughout the debates during the Bank Restriction period from 1797–1819; but we begin with an early, though able, statement of these views in the form of a response to Lord King’s work which appears in Volume III of this series.

Volume Contents

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    Front Matter
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    Introduction By D. P. O’Brien
  • 1804 In Defence of the Conduct of the Directors of the Banks of England and Ireland By Henry Boase
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      Prelims
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      A Letter, &c.
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    2
    1810 Observations on the Report of the Bullion Committee By Charles Bosanquet
  • 1810 An Inquiry into the Causes of the Present High Price of Gold Bullion in England By John Hill
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      Letter IV
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      Letter VI
  • 1810 The Principles of Currency Exchanges applied to the Report on the High Price of Gold Bullion By Couts Trotter
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      Part I
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      Part II
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    5
    1810 On the Report of the Bullion Committee By The Right Hon. N. Vansittart
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    6
    1812 On Money and Paper Currency By Robert Torrens