“FEW ECONOMIC FAITHS ARE STRONGER THAN THE FAITH IN GOLD AS THE BASIS OF A SOUND MONEY”

ATKINS, Willard E. Gold and Your Money. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1934. Octavo, original orange cloth, original dust jacket. $450.

First edition of Atkins' argument against Irving Fisher's "commodity dollar" and FDR's "gold-purchase" program, a major work in American institutionalist economics, with frontispiece of Wall Street displaying a gold-colored square and captioned, "All the Monetary Gold in the World in the Wall Street Canyon."

Published as the nation plunged into the Great Depression and the same year as the Gold Reserve Act, Gold and Your Money argues against Irving Fisher's "commodity dollar" and George Warren's "gold purchase plan" under FDR, insisting they miss the real issues by claiming "our disorders are all due to maladjustment of money." Atkins was chairman of the economics department at the Washington Square College of New York University and a leading figure in American institutionalist economics: "a movement in American economic thought associated with such names as Veblen, Mitchell and Commons." His analysis affirms institutionalism's call for "the integration of economics with other social sciences" and its dissatisfaction with the "casual empiricism of classical and neo-classical economics" (Blaug, 701). "First published, February, 1934" on copyright page. With frontispiece and numerous illustrations and graphs. Bookseller ticket.

Book fine; light edge-wear, slight toning to spine of scarce near-fine dust jacket.