BARBON, Nicholas.

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A Discourse Concerning Coining the New Money Lighter. First edition of this prescient polemic on state-imposed currency values, anticipating Ricardo's currency principle and modern fiat money. Barbon's tract is among the most extended critiques of Locke's economic theories.1690s England experienced a severe shortage of silver currency. Coins were melted down and sold abroad as bullion, while many of those still circulating were mercilessly clipped. In 1695, John Locke served on an emergency government commission. He recommended a recoinage of the existing stock, from pure silver, without adjusting its value.Here, Nicholas Barbon (c.1640-1698) outlines a systematic critique of Locke's proposals. Criticizing what he saw as Locke's simplistic view of monetary value, Barbon distinguishes between the intrinsic material value of silver coinage and its mutable economic value. "The Price or Value of every thing arises from the occasion or use of it" (p. 10). For Douglas Vickers, this was "the first statement in systematic form of the cartalist position, which in the eighteenth century, was to be developed by Law, Berkeley, and Steuart" (quoted in Hutcheson, p. 75). In line with this, Barbon estimates that recoinage in pure silver would produce around half the coins originally circulating, and would potentially cause vast deflation if old values were retained.Further on, he anticipates Ricardo's currency principle - that a currency of coins and paper notes should fluctuate exactly as

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