The International Gold Standard Provided an Automatic Mechanism for Keeping the Balance of Payments in Equilibrium

The international gold standard provided an automatic market mechanism for checking the inflationary potential of government. It also provided an automatic mechanism for keeping the balance of payments of each country in equilibrium. As the philosopher and economist David Hume pointed out in the mid-eighteenth century, if one nation, say France, inflates its supply of paper francs, its prices rise; the increasing incomes in paper francs stimulate imports from abroad, which are also spurred by the fact that prices of imports are now relatively cheaper than prices at home. At the same time, the higher prices at home discourage exports abroad; the result is a deficit in the balance of payments, which must be paid for by foreign countries cashing in francs for gold. The gold outflow means that France must eventually contract its inflated paper francs in order to prevent a loss of all of its gold. If the inflation has taken the form of bank deposits, then the French banks have to contract their loans and deposits in order to avoid bankruptcy as foreigners call upon the French banks to redeem their deposits in gold. The contraction lowers prices at home, and generates an export surplus, thereby reversing the gold outflow, until the price levels are equalized in France and in other countries as well.

--Murray N. Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010), 90-91.

In a Credit Transaction, the Possessor of Money (Useful Present Good) Exchanges It for an “I Owe You” (Future Good)

None of this discussion is meant to impugn the general practice of credit, which has an important and vital function on the free market. In a credit transaction, the possessor of money (a good useful in the present) exchanges it for an IOU [an I Owe You, a debt] payable at some future date (the IOU being a “future good”) and the interest charge reflects the higher valuation of present goods over future goods on the market. But bank notes or deposits are not credit; they are warehouse receipts, instantaneous claims to cash (e.g., gold) in the bank vaults. The debtor makes sure that he pays his debt when payment becomes due; the fractional reserve banker can never pay more than a small fraction of his outstanding liabilities.

—Murray N. Rothbard, What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010), 46-47.