By David Astle. Privately created money, that is to say, counterfeit money, is the ultimate destroyer of civilizations. And it has all happened before—long before. Both in the Code of Manu (a law structure governing the order of life of that India which emerged from the Vedic period) and in the laws of the Akkadian kings of Mesopotamia, appear prohibitions of either goldsmith workers in precious metals, or warehousers of valuables of whatever nature, setting themselves up as in opposition to the king—that is to say, the sovereign power.
There is little doubt that this had been effected by the circularization of receipts indicating valuables on deposit with them as for safe-keeping, which obviously would lend itself to what clearly may have been with them already an ancient practice, of the circulation of spurious receipts; such as indeed, did the goldsmiths of Lombard Street in London, England, in the 16th and 17th centuries A.D., some 4,000 years later. [Read the entire article as PDF…]
Taken from
The Barnes Review, May/June 2002: Privately Created Money
VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 3