ABSTRACT
No political scientist, no political journalist, certainly no working politician needs to be
reminded of the political nature of monetary policy, especially in a predominantly market
or mixed economy. In an inflationary age such as this surely no one can be unaware that decisions concerning the management of money substantially affect other matters of great
political sensitivity, like the relative prices of different sorts of goods or the balance of
risks and opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs. More broadly, the management of
money helps determine, in actual fact, the relative priority a particular society gives to
order as opposed to freedom, or wealth as opposed to equity.