Talk:Credit theory of money

Stubifying
Stubifying and removing OR per deletion discussion. LK (talk) 07:46, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Schmalenbach
Is Schmalenbach's view of the balance sheet (as debts owed to and by the business) relevant here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.173.160.120 (talk) 05:23, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Feel free to add it. LK (talk) 14:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Unusual title
Almost always called "Credit Theory of Money", not "Debt Theory of Money". 41,300 google hits vs. 68. Title should be changed.John Z (talk) 00:32, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. bobrayner (talk) 08:19, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, moved & updated. Another problem is that we have self-redirects to our old credit money article, which now redirects here, the fattest recent version being . They are not precisely the same thing. All monetary theories acknowledge the existence of credit money. At the metallist, commodity money, Austrian end of the spectrum they do not think of credit money as real, fundamental money, as being the essence of money. At the other end, the credit theory of money is in short that all money is credit money.John Z (talk) 01:13, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
 * With all the name changes, took a while to find the version of this article before the first AfD here. Lots of things to avoid. :-)John Z (talk) 02:22, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Error
The article states: "Proponents assert that the essential nature of money is credit (debt), at least in eras where money is not backed by a commodity such as gold." This is not completely accurate. Proponents assert that money is debt EVEN when it is "backed" by a commodity such as gold. When money is "backed" by gold all it means that the price of gold is fixed by the government & the government promises to redeem, on-demand, its money for gold at that price. But it is still a debt.

I am not confident enough to edit the article myself. Vilhelmo (talk) 03:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for the feedback. You're right many proponents do indeed assert that money is always debt, even when backed by gold, and there are several sources that define credit theories of money solely in this way. But there are other proponents and sources who make statements along the lines that money = debt only in the context of fiat money. As an encyclopedia we should generally strive to reflect all significant points of view, including ones we don't agree with. FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:23, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

The way that we can agree that the statement about money being credit (or debit) is to assume that ideally there are two kinds of money. These are the coins and bank-notes that comprise the currency, and the other kind being the credit. This credit begins as a temporally debt, being provided for a limited time-period as a loan. But it becomes the equivalent to currency money during its following circulating post-history, until it is repaid to its source (with interest). Since the issue and return of credit is a continuous process, it is impossible to identify which kind is currency and which is credit, and we have to assume that here they are both the same.

Since abandoning the Gold Standard, there is much more credit in circulation than true currency. This situation has been found to be very significant for the stimulation of business transactions. Yet the amount of credit is limited and this limit is due to the degree of trust that banks can afford to give to would-be debtors.Macrocompassion (talk) 14:48, 25 September 2019 (UTC)


 * But the coins and banknotes are merely government debt. They appear as a liability on central bank balance sheets. I don't understand the argument that currency under a gold standard is no longer debt. In my view, a gold standard system is quite clearly still a debt system because the currency represents that the government owes you gold. --Zyzzek (talk) 03:36, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposed changes Jan 2014
It really should be those wishing to push through contentious changes who should take the time to start a discussion, but as repeated requests for you to do this have been ignored, here we go.

1) How is it an improvement to remove explanatory footnotes that help the understanding of readers who aren't professional economists?

2) How is it an improvement to remove mentions of the work of good scholars like professor Richard Werner?

3) How it it an improvement to tag the advocacy section for undue weight without explaining why? By it's very nature advocacy is POV, but the section shows views from all across the political spectrum, so which view do you think is over weighted? Or do you think having an advocacy section itself is overrated, and we should just confine ourselves  to the relatively small proportion of sources on credit theories of money which are politically neutral. Theories of money, especially in the forms encountered by the general public, are usually tied up with political advocay, and it's encyclopedia to have a section giving information on this.

I did read the edit summary suggesting the entire advocacy section is different forms of POV "junk", but as it cites various first and second rank commentators, scholars and politicians, that expression seems rather uncollegial and very difficult to take seriously. FeydHuxtable (talk) 22:17, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

OR not
The article, like many in the field of Economics, may contain plenty of citations but is full of propaganda and unsourced opinion for specific strands of theory. A major re-write is needed. (Yes, I know.) -The Gnome (talk) 06:33, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Restored deleted section: Advocacy for full-reserve banking
User:Lawrencekhoo deleted the section Advocacy for full-reserve banking claiming that it doesn't fit in the article. But why do the other advocacy sections fit then? The other kinds of advocacy are historical, the advocacy for full-reserve banking is contemporary with lots of debate all over the world. Your deletion appears to be POV censorship. Bolarno (talk) 05:56, 17 September 2018 (UTC)