The Paper Guillotine

ISBN-13: 9783565197682 / Angielski / Miękka / 148 str.

Pierre Franc

Opis

"The Paper Guillotine - How the French Revolution printed itself into oblivion" explores the first great hyperinflation of the modern era. When the French revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy, they were broke. To pay their debts, they confiscated church land and issued paper currency backed by it, called "Assignats."Economic historian Pierre Franc details the disaster that followed. The government couldn't stop printing money. Within a few years, the Assignat had lost 99% of its value. A loaf of bread cost a wheelbarrow of cash. The government responded not by stopping the presses, but by imposing price controls (the "Maximum") and guillotining shopkeepers who refused to sell goods at a loss."The Paper Guillotine" argues that the Reign of Terror was largely driven by economic panic. It is a grim lesson on what happens when a government tries to fix fiscal irresponsibility with state violence, proving that you cannot execute inflation.

Discover how the French Revolutionaries tried to print their way to prosperity and ended up destroying their economy and their heads.