Forty Centuries Of Wage And Price Controls: How Not To Fight Inflation

by Robert L. Scguettinger, Eamonn F. Butler

By special arrangement with the authors, the Mises Institute is thrilled to bring back this popular guide to ridiculous economic policy from the ancient world to modern times. This outstanding history illustrates the utter futility of fighting the market process through legislation. It always uses despotic measures to yield socially catastrophic results.

It covers the ancient world, the Roman Republic and Empire, Medieval Europe, the first centuries of the U.S. and Canada, the French Revolution, the 19th century, World War I and II, the Nazis, the Soviets, postwar rent control, and the 1970s. It also includes a very helpful conclusion spelling out the theory of wage and price controls.

Genres: Economics, History

292 pages, Paperback

Published August 20, 2014

Reviews

[Emma Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this a 5 for content and a 1 for writing style. It's a very short book, and it contains some interesting facts about episodes where various ancient cultures and more modern cultures tried to "solve" inflation by imposing price controls. As the book illustrates, that never works. My main criticism is that the book is not very well written. It's almost just like a listing of various events without any really decent transitions or introductions or perhaps a quirky historical allusion or two to get you immersed in the time frame before hitting you with the economics. Having said that, the authors noted in their intro that the purpose of the book was not to be an exhaustive study, but instead to simply encourage other economists to explore this issue in more detail.

[Thomas Panis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short overview of the follies of state interventionism. Also a testament to mankinds bad memory when it comes to learning from past mistakes. Who knew that the roman empire fell because of central planning through price controls (Diocletianus' edict)? Very readable and short.