The golden age of the gold standard

Q.: Critics say that, historically, under the gold standard, the world economy languished, trade was sluggish, technological and therapeutic innovation was unexciting, in a word: the gold standard has never worked well. How do you answer that?

A.: This allegation is just the opposite of the truth. The heyday of the gold standard was the 100-year period between 1815 (the end of the Napoleonic wars) and 1914 (the start of World War I). This was the age of transcontinental railways, intercontinental shipping This was the time when all the key inventions were made that ushered in the age of electricity and electronics, the age of the internal combustion engine, the age of aviation, the age of wireless telecommunication, the age of the X-ray, radium, and the ultrasound, etc.

Financing these discoveries and their applications in production, transportation, telecommunication, and therapeutics wouldn’t have been possible without the gold standard and the accumulation of capital that it facilitated.

Antal Fekete