Autore: Maffezioli, Paolo
Titolo: Un’ipotesi sulla teoria monetaria di Locke
Periodico: Rivista di filosofia
Anno: 2024 - Fascicolo: 3 - Pagina iniziale: 453 - Pagina finale: 478

In the Considerations, Locke seemingly held two opposite views regarding money. On the one hand, he explicitly subscribes to an early version of the so-called quantity theory of money, according to which an inflow of money from abroad always yields a corresponding increase in all prices. This entails that money should be neutral, in the sense that the wealth of the nation does not depend on the quantity of money. On the other hand, Locke firmly states that a nation should strive for a positive balance of trade, ultimately showing he did not regard money to be entirely neutral. In this first part of the paper I attempt to resolve the inconsistency of Locke’s monetary theory by showing that he endorsed an admittedly weak quantity theory of money for which money is neutral only in closed economies, whereas he conceded that money can be non-neutral in open economies. While this suffices to show that a Locke’s monetary theory is consistent, there remains to be decided whether and to what extent such a theory can be legitimately thought of being relevant. In the second part of the paper I argue that behind the choice of limiting the quantity theory of money to closed economies lies Locke’s belief that in open economies labour and rents of land are not as elastic as the prices of other commodities, hence they do not obey the quantity theory. This squares perfectly with Locke’s insistence in a neglected paper on the natural generalization of the need to attract workers from abroad in order to lower wages in England.




SICI: 0035-6239(2024)3<453:USTMDL>2.0.ZU;2-F
Testo completo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1413/115409
Testo completo alternativo: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1413/115409

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