In, Monetary Policy in Democracies: Four Resumptions and the Great Depression, John H. Wood argues that a democratic society should provide for the production and control of money by leaving it to the marketplace and by regulating it ourselves. Free enterprise works well for most other goods and services, and there is little reason to believe that it would not also perform satisfactorily for money. However, this is not the course that societies have taken. John H. Wood explains that from ancient times, money has been controlled by the state, either directly or indirectly through closely regulated private agencies.
John H. Wood was an economist for the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas. He taught economics at the University of Birmingham in England, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and most recently retired from Wake Forest University as a Reynolds Professor of Economics. He earned his B.S. in commerce from Ohio University in 1955, his M.A. in economics from Michigan State University in 1959, and his Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University in 1964. He was a visiting scholar and faculty associate at the American Institute for Economic Research from 1998-2010.
The American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was founded in 1933 as the first independent voice for sound economics in the United States. Today it publishes ongoing research, hosts educational programs, publishes books, sponsors interns and scholars, and is home to the world-renowned Bastiat Society and the highly respected Sound Money Project. The American Institute for Economic Research is a 501c3 public charity.
![Monetary Policy in Democracies: Four Resumptions and the Great Depression by [John Wood]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513BmePnKbL._SY346_.jpg)
