Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Taxing London and the British Fiscal State, 1660–1815
- 2 Rents, Squalor, and the Land Question: Progress and Poverty
- 3 Marine Insurers, the City of London, and Financing the Napoleonic Wars
- 4 The Political Economy of Sir Robert Peel
- 5 Champagne Capitalism: France’s Adaptation to Britain’s Global Hegemony, 1830–80
- 6 The 1848 Revolution in Prussia: a Financial Interpretation
- 7 Imperial Germany, Great Britain and the Political Economy of the Gold Standard, 1867–1914
- 8 Knowledge, Contestation and Authority in the Eurodollar Market, 1959–64
- 9 Continuity and Change in British Conservative Taxation Policy, c. 1964–88
- 10 Britain Since the 1970s: a Transition to Neo-Liberalism?
- 11 Maplin: the Treasury and London’s Third Airport in the 1970s
- 12 Workfare and the Reinvention of the Social in America and Britain, c. 1965 to 1985
- 13 Charity and International Humanitarianism in Post-War Britain
- 14 Discounting Time
- 15 The Material Politics of Energy Disruption: Managing Shortages Amidst Rising Expectations, Britain 1930s–60s
- The Published Writings of Martin J. Daunton
- Index
- People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History ISSN: 2051-7467
7 - Imperial Germany, Great Britain and the Political Economy of the Gold Standard, 1867–1914
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Taxing London and the British Fiscal State, 1660–1815
- 2 Rents, Squalor, and the Land Question: Progress and Poverty
- 3 Marine Insurers, the City of London, and Financing the Napoleonic Wars
- 4 The Political Economy of Sir Robert Peel
- 5 Champagne Capitalism: France’s Adaptation to Britain’s Global Hegemony, 1830–80
- 6 The 1848 Revolution in Prussia: a Financial Interpretation
- 7 Imperial Germany, Great Britain and the Political Economy of the Gold Standard, 1867–1914
- 8 Knowledge, Contestation and Authority in the Eurodollar Market, 1959–64
- 9 Continuity and Change in British Conservative Taxation Policy, c. 1964–88
- 10 Britain Since the 1970s: a Transition to Neo-Liberalism?
- 11 Maplin: the Treasury and London’s Third Airport in the 1970s
- 12 Workfare and the Reinvention of the Social in America and Britain, c. 1965 to 1985
- 13 Charity and International Humanitarianism in Post-War Britain
- 14 Discounting Time
- 15 The Material Politics of Energy Disruption: Managing Shortages Amidst Rising Expectations, Britain 1930s–60s
- The Published Writings of Martin J. Daunton
- Index
- People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History ISSN: 2051-7467
Summary
For Ludwig Bamberger, the chief political architect of German monetary union, the Reichstag's decision to suspend the minting of silver in December 1871 appeared like the ‘de-thronement of a world monarch’. Foreshadowing an age of gold-backed currencies, Germany's coinage laws of 1871 and 1873 marked a caesura in the first phase of globalization. The preceding decade had seen a succession of international conferences and diplomatic efforts to establish a pan-European currency under French leadership. Germany's victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 sealed the fate of European monetary integration by inaugurating a multi-polar system of gold standards that persisted until the outbreak of the First World War. Imperial Germany's adoption of a national gold currency has principally been attributed to a ‘modernizing’ desire to emulate Britain's commercial ascendancy. The British Empire's global trading network had long projected national strength, while the pound sterling was revered as an epitome of fiscal prudence. For German liberals and free traders, Britain's currency and banking arrangements constituted a model of ‘enlightened institutional’ practice and a blueprint for industrializing nations. When the German states unified in 1871, the Reich ushered in unparalleled liberal reforms to integrate its federal economies and public finances. In December 1871, the German Empire founded the gold Mark as its common currency, and in 1876 the Reichsbank opened its doors as Germany's central monetary authority. Thirty years after Bismarck's reforms, Georg Friedrich Knapp first ascribed Germany's espousal of a gold standard less to economic calculation than to a fateful tendency to imitate ‘England's successful institution’. Since Knapp's State theory of money, the Reich's currency laws have been portrayed as an artifact of Bismarck's ‘Western orientation’ in his ‘foreign trade policy’, which enabled a raft of liberal measures to pass into law during the founding years of the German Empire.
Emulating Britain's mercantile success was an integral aspect of Bismarckian trade policy, yet there were also crucial domestic and geopolitical motives that have so far eluded analysis. This chapter revisits the Reich's currency reforms by considering how national politics and foreign precedent shaped Germany's monetary constitution.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Money and MarketsEssays in Honour of Martin Daunton, pp. 127 - 144Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019