Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of Hildebrand and Hasner on Money (1886)

Böhm-Bawerk’s paired review examines Richard Hildebrand’s Die Theorie des Geldes and recalls L. von Hasner’s Zur Lehre vom Gelde as a systematic counterpart. Its central judgment distinguishes productive criticism of monetary doctrine from skepticism that discards valid explanatory principles. Despite monetary theory’s unusually early development, Böhm-Bawerk rejects the impression that its conclusions are settled:

Dennoch ist auch die Lehre vom Gelde noch lange keine „fertige“ Lehre.

English translation: Nevertheless the theory of money too is still far from being a "finished" doctrine.

Hildebrand’s challenge supplies the review’s principal subject. Böhm-Bawerk follows the book’s five chapters: its denial that money is a commodity; its explanation of national monetary requirements through payments occurring simultaneously, rather than average circulation velocity; its conception of capital as an abstract sum of value; its distinction between the effects of monetary abundance on bank and stock-exchange interest rates; and its attack on the quantity theory. This sequence conveys the breadth of Hildebrand’s revisionism without endorsing its conclusions.

The decisive criticism concerns the relation between circulating money and commodity prices. Böhm-Bawerk grants Hildebrand originality and acuity, but argues that his skepticism repeatedly destroys the sound core of received doctrine along with its excesses. The proper correction would qualify a causal claim, not abolish it:

Hätte er sich begnügt sie einzuschränken, hätte er etwa nur behauptet, dass nicht jede Vermehrung oder Verminderung der umlaufenden Geldmenge auch schon nothwendig den Geldwerth und die Waarenpreise beeinflussen müsse, so wäre er vollkommen im Rechte geblieben.

English translation: Had he contented himself with restricting it, had he asserted, say, only that not every increase or decrease of the quantity of money in circulation must necessarily also influence the value of money and the prices of commodities, he would have remained entirely in the right.

Böhm-Bawerk thus separates the proposition that every monetary change necessarily affects prices from the proposition that the quantity of money can directly affect them. Against Hildebrand’s rejection of the latter, he imagines the discovery and minting of a cubic mile of pure gold: such an influx would surely alter the value of gold coins and prices expressed in them. The example defends a causal mechanism without supplying a complete account of its conditions. His verdict remains appreciative: the book is stimulating and useful despite its skeptical excesses.

The closing turn to Hasner makes constructive organization the review’s second evaluative standard. Hasner shares Hildebrand’s originality and critical sharpness, but directs them toward an ordered exposition of monetary theory as a whole, with particular attention to disputed questions and the legal dimensions of money. Böhm-Bawerk singles out the resulting value for a legal readership:

Durch diese Eigenschaften dürfte sich sein gediegener Aufsatz der Beachtung der Juristenwelt ganz besonders empfehlen.

English translation: By virtue of these qualities his solid essay may be expected to commend itself quite particularly to the attention of the world of jurists.

The pairing gives the review its methodological significance. Monetary theory remains open to revision, but criticism should preserve defensible causal insights; systematic exposition should also clarify controversies and connect economic analysis with money’s juridical character.