literature below is intended to point out important literature in the field concerning the problem of diverting investment from speculation to production, as well as to establish a systematic perspective referring to historical periods. As noted, the categories “financial-“ and “industrial capitalism” are terms that refer to how strong financial affairs are regulated by national political authorities. Using time as the classification criterion therefore points to the changing character of this debate through the past centuries.
The first category is split chronologically in order highlight the fluctuations in the production of literature. The delineation of periods is based on the dominating trend within the global financial system.
The second major category, “new monetary system movements”, could largely be grouped into the chronological section 1918-1945 but constitutes a tradition which stands out by itself and breaks this chronological categorisation. We believe a better perspective of this tradition is gained by separating this tradition from the rest of the literature. The reason is that on several points these movements converge. Not only do they all intend to solve the post WW I economic crisis of instability, unemployment and social misery and strife. They do also propose more or less similar solutions to this prolonged crisis. It turns out that the most famous of these reformers, J.M.Keynes, was more the visible surface of a great wave than the originator of the wave itself. The reformers saw the problem as primarily connected to the monetary system, concerning in particular credit. The titles of three books are revealing of the general intent of the general movement: Robert Eisler’s Stable Money (1932), Brynjolf Bjørseth’s Distribute or Destroy (1934) and Major Douglas’ The Monopoly of Credit (1931). The depression was seen as a kind of constipation of the economy caused by a lack of proper circulation of credit and money as lubricants in the economic machinery. The solution was seen as a politically administrated distribution of these lubricants to the public in general. The differences between the various reformers reflect the different suggestions of how to carry this out in practice.
LANGUAGES:
For practical purposes the literature is classified into different language groups. The subsection Scandinavia is a reflection of the ethnocentricity of this author. The classification into languages is, of course, also a classification in terms of cultural areas. In particular the European continental nations have a different more nationalistic tendency (favouring political control), whereas the Anglo-Saxon countries have a more market-oriented policy (favouring banking control). The latter is the normal and accepted view today. However - from an historical point of view - this is a fairly recent phenomenon, indeed a post WW II and even a post 1970s phenomenon. In particular, the United States followed a much more nationalist policy during periods of the 19th Century and in the 1931-1963 era. This goes for Britain as well in several periods, the last being the partly successful attempt to revive mercantilism a Century ago and to some degree the Labour dominated post-WW II period