ABSTRACT
Two sections of the work in particular-unfortunately not the best twoseem to me to require more detailed discussion: first, his treatment of the quantity theory, and second, the question of the influence of the banks’ interest rate policy on commodity prices. In his remarks on the first issue, many good observations are unfortunately accompanied by a lack of clarity in his formulation of the problem and in his manner of argument. He presents the arguments that are apt to confirm the validity of the quantity theory very carefully and, to my mind, very convincingly-yet they do not seem to have convinced him. Among other things he accuses the quantity theorists of dealing only with the causes of a change in the equilibrium position of prices, instead of first investigating in a truly scientific manner the conditions for this equilibrium position itself. According to Mises, it would only be possible to do this on the basis of ‘the subjective theory of value’; but what he actually means by this remains very much in the dark, for all his protracted explanations.
