The similarity of their actions is striking:
"Law regarded money as a medium of exchange rather than a store of intrinsic value. His broad, indeed revolutionary, conception of money included paper currency, bond,, credit notes, and company shares...Laws bank issued increasing amounts of paper currency to provide loans for the purchase of shares" -Edward Chancellor
I like this paragraph from your link:
Paris was awash in new money and many people prospered wildly. The word "millionaire" was coined to describe what everyone was becoming. But when, inevitably, people realized that this money was backed by nothing, a panicked retreat to metals began, with tons of coinage leaving the country. Desperate for all the hard currency he could get to back his oceans of paper, Law banned the export of gold, then the purchase of diamonds, then the production or sale of any item made of gold (since people would melt their coins into objects to get around the restrictions). As everyone's finances collapsed with the flight from paper, France was consumed by unprecedented crime waves and breakdown in public trust as everyone started turning everyone else in for the new crime of hoarding too much gold. Law's system reached its nadir with an attempt to outlaw the use of metal as money entirely, his final attempt to force people to rely on his bank's worthless paper. As angry Frenchmen everywhere were clamoring for Law's blood, Orleans stepped in and restored metal coinage. Law fled in disguise and disgrace, dying nearly a decade later in Venice. |
