Customer Reviews

The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies

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Excellent overview of the Panic of 1819. I have read most of Murray Rothbard's books and this one has the same hallmarks of his writing: attention to detail, well researched and a healthy bibliography. His style here could have used better pacing. In his jealousness to get every fact right, sometimes the reading becomes slow and repetitive.

Still, he manages to capture the level of economic discourse in America amongst it's leaders and the strength of arguments that were presented. This leads the reader to understand that our legislators then had a much better understanding of how money works and the problems associated with banking.

The treatment of the topics is well balanced and forthright. It is helpful to have an understanding of economics, especially Austrian, free- market/ laissez faire concepts. Excellent discussions on the effects of inflation, money creation and specie redemption in a free market economy.

A highly recommended historical treatise for those so inclined. This book will give you a much better understanding of America's early history, the views of our founding fathers on banking and money, as well as the actions of bankers and capitalists.

This work provides a unique libertarian perspective about economic events that remain mostly overlooked. Topics include politics, bubbles and speculation. A "must have" for Rothbard enthusiasts and economic historians.

Rothbard provides an interesting account into the panic of 1819 and the political response adopted by the states and national government. Rothbard begins discussing the origins of the panic which according to Rothbard evolved from the problems created by the end of the War of 1812. He explains that the embargo and the non-intercourse acts damaged the foreign trade market which led many people with capital to invest in domestic production/manufacturing. With the inward movement of investments to improve domestic manufacturing, many new banks opened their doors, especially out west and started to issue large amounts of credit/currency that led to land speculation and overvalued assets.

Like any bubble it burst and the values of the land dropped leaving many people holding large debts which sparked great debates on both the state level and national level on proposals to deal with the panic. Rothbards analysis begins with the debates on the state level and he goes on a state by state basis in his discussions detailing of the different economic proposals. There were several different camps of people arguing either for credit expansion/debt relief programs to help the debtor class and others who argued the opposite and a few in between. Then his research takes him to the national level detailing the debates in congress over debt relief, credit expansion, and other proposals. Rothbards main thesis is that as the country debated over the issues, economic intervention was not needed because in a short period of time the economy recovered from the panic before the state could intervene. Nonintervention into the economy is what caused the panic to end quickly according to Rothbard.

Rothbards book covers the actions of the banks, debates, and proposals in both the state and national government which is laid out in great detail covering all sides of the issues presented. This is a highly recommended book covering the Panic of 1819.