Home > Work > John Law: The Lauriston Lecture and Collected Writings
1 " Every time you use a banknote; every time you use a modern coin; every time you use a credit card or debit card; every time you use internet banking; every time you use any modern crypto currency; every time you use a gift voucher; every time you use a poker chip; in fact, every time you enter into any form of transaction that does not rely on bartering, each such transaction has its ideological origins in John Law’s idea that money need have no intrinsic value. "
― Gavin John Adams , John Law: The Lauriston Lecture and Collected Writings
2 " John Law’s 'Money and Trade Considered' is the most influential but least acknowledged work in the history of economics. "
3 " John Law left us with a legacy that continues to have a profound impact in the spheres of economics, public policy, finance, and, as a result, the very foundations upon which modern society has been constructed. "
4 " John Law was a first rate economist. His 'Money and Trade Considered' was a tremendous academic achievement that has formed the (unacknowledged) basis of many of the advancements in our understanding of the economic environment in which we all live. "
5 " Like all financial schemes, the Mississippi Scheme was constructed upon the volatile foundation of confidence. For the public to continue to use the Banque Royale’s banknotes, it had to remain confident that those banknotes would retain and represent their stated face value. And for the public to continue to invest in Mississippi Company shares, it had to remain confident that the prospects of the Mississippi Company justified the market price of the shares. "
6 " Every time the politicians we elect attempt to increase our standard of living or employment prospects by increasing government spending to stimulate economic activity (‘Keynesian economics’ as it is called); and every time a national bank tries to increase our standard of living or employment prospects by stimulating economic activity by increasing the money supply (‘quantitative easing’ as it is called), each of those actions has its ideological origins in the ideas contained in John Law’s Money and Trade Considered, and the actions of John Law’s Mississippi Scheme. "
7 " John Law’s role in resolving the Water Diamond Paradox has been largely forgotten. The name now associated with it is another Scottish economist, Adam Smith. Writing over seventy years after the publication of 'Money and Trade Considered', Smith’s celebrated restatement of the paradox of value, in 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' is astonishing not for its originality, but for its similarity with John Law’s resolution decades before. "
8 " John Law’s life and his Mississippi Scheme had followed an identical arc of trajectory. Law had been both the maker and breaker of the Mississippi Scheme just as the Mississippi Scheme had been both the maker and breaker of Law. "
