Monetary reform describes any movement or theory that proposes a different system of supplying money and financing the economy from the current system.
Monetary reformers may advocate any of the following, among other proposals:
- A return to the gold standard (or silver standard or bimetallism).
- The issuance of interest-free credit from a government-controlled and fully owned central bank. These interest free but repayable loans would be used for public infrastructure and productive private investment. This proposal seeks to overcome the charge that debt-free money would cause inflation.
- The issuance of social credit - "debt-free" money issued directly from the Treasury - rather than the sourcing of fresh money from a central bank in the form of interest-bearing bonds. These direct cash payments would be made to "replenish" or compensate the populace for the net losses some monetary reformers believe the populace suffers in a fractional reserve-based monetary system.
- The enforcement of full reserve banking for the privately owned banking system.
Famous quotes containing the words monetary and/or reform:
“There is no legislation—I care not what it is—tariff, railroads, corporations, or of a general political character, that all equals in importance the putting of our banking and currency system on the sound basis proposed in the National Monetary Commission plan.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)