OP-ED Education's three old ideas, and a better idea

Abstract

Somethingnew, irritatingandinexplicablehappenedtomost of thecitizens of Europe in the sixteenth century. Prices for staples like food and clothing begantorise. Theaveragecitizenblamedclothessellers for greedilyraising their prices. The clothes sellers protested that they were no more greedy than usual, and that the problem was due to the greed of the cloth merchants who were demanding more for their cloth. The merchants blamed the weavers, whoblamed the wool merchants, whoblamed the sheep farmers. Thesheepfarmers protestedtheirblamelessnessandsaidtheyhad toraise their prices tobe able to aA ord the increasingly expensive clothes. So who was to blame? Someone was clearly ripping oA the good citizenry, but no group seemed obviously richer, nor without the alibi that they were just responding to rising costs themselves. Where was the mysterious source of this irritant? Despite the polemics, ® nger-pointing, moral attitudinizing and even earnest inquiries, it was not until near the end of the century that Jean Bodin (1530± 1596), the French political philosopher, worked out that none of the usually blamed suspects was responsible. Rather, the price-rise was caused by the use in the royal mints of Europe of the gold and silver plundered from Central and South America. An increase in the money supply caused what is now called