Adam Fergusson

This is, I believe, a moral tale. It goes far to prove the revolutionary axiom that if you wish to destroy a nation you must corrupt its currency. Thus must sound money be the first bastion of a societys defence. In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the Weimar Republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal, and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. In desperation, the Bavarian Prime Minister submitted a Bill to the Reichsrat proposing that gluttony be made a penal offence, his exact definition of a glutton being one who habitually devotes himself to the pleasures of the table to such a degree that he might arouse discontent in view of the distressful condition of the population. Since its first publication in 1975, When Money Dies has become the classic history of these bizarre and frightening times. Weaving elegant analysis with a wealth of eyewitness accounts by ordinary people struggling to survive, it deals above all with the human side of inflation: why governments resort to it, the dismal, corruptive pestilence it visits on their citizens, the agonies of recovery, and the dark, long-term legacy. And at a time of acute economic strain, it provides an urgent warning against the addictive dangers of printing money -- shorthand for deficit financing -- as a soft option for governments faced with growing unrest and unemployment.

La República de Weimar fue escenario, durante la década de 1920, de la mayor inflación que registra la historia europea contemporánea. A lo largo de cuatro años, los precios subieron de forma tan vertiginosa que hicieron necesaria la enfebrecida fabricacion de papel-moneda y la multiplicacion casi inverosimil de los medios de pago. En 1923, cuando el tipo de cambio con el dolar alcanzaba los 4.200.000.000.000 marcos, la Republica de Weimar practicamente se vio reducida a una economia de intercambio: joyas por productos basicos como el pan, una entrada para el cine por algo de carbon, una botella de parafina por una falda de seda. Combinando el analisis con numerosos testimonios de la epoca, Adam Fergusson narra el fracaso de una generacion europea -incapaz de comprender el alcance de sus actos y las consecuencias de la destruccion de las clases medias- y el irresistible ascenso al poder de los regimenes autoritarios. Un libro lleno de relevancia para nuestra epoca.

The classic history of the political and economic devastation wrought by runaway inflation in Weimar Germanybrilliant (Guardian) In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks, and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. People watched helplessly as their life savings disappeared and their loved ones starved. Germanys finances descended into chaos, with severe social unrest in its wake. Money may no longer be physically printed and distributed in the voluminous quantities of 1923. However, "quantitative easing," that modern euphemism for surreptitious deficit financing in an electronic era, can no less become an assault on monetary discipline. Whatever the reason for a countrys deficit necessity or profligacy, unwillingness to tax or blindness to expenditureit is beguiling to suppose that if the day of reckoning is postponed economic recovery will come in time to prevent higher unemployment or deeper recession. What if it does not? Germany in 1923 provides a vivid, compelling, sobering moral tale.