Richard Henry Timberlake Jr. (June 24, 1922 – May 22, 2020) was an American economist who was Professor of Economics at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

for much of his career. He became a leading advocate of free banking, the belief that

money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...

should be issued by private companies, not by a government monopoly. He wrote about the

Legal Tender Cases The ''Legal Tender Cases'' were two 1871 Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court cases that affirmed the constitutionality of banknote, paper money. The two cases were ''Knox v. Lee'' and ''Parker v. Davis''. The U.S. fede ...

of the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in his book ''Constitutional Money: A Review of the Supreme Court's Monetary Decisions''.

History

Born in

Steubenville, Ohio Steubenville is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Ohio River 33 miles west of Pittsburgh, it had a population of 18,161 at the 2020 census. The city's name is derived from Fort Steuben, a 1 ...

on June 24, 1922, Timberlake was in the US military in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He became a pilot in the U.S. Air Forces and flew 26 missions as a co-pilot in the 8th Air Force. He was awarded three

Purple Heart The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5 April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, w ...

s. He obtained a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is se ...

in 1946, a Master's at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1950, and a Ph.D in 1959 from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

where he studied under

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...

and

Earl J. Hamilton Earl Jefferson Hamilton (1899 – 7 May 1989) was an American historian, one of the founders of economic history, and a prominent hispanist. Biography Hamilton was born in Houlka, Mississippi. He was married to Gladys Dallas Hamilton, and had ...

. He then taught economics at

Muhlenberg College Muhlenberg College is a private liberal arts college in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg College is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and is named for Henry Muhlenberg, the German patriarch of Luthera ...

Norwich University Norwich University – The Military College of Vermont is a private senior military college in Northfield, Vermont. It is the oldest private and senior military college in the United States and offers bachelor's and master's degrees on-campus ...

Rensselaer Polytechnic Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

, and the

from 1963–1990, when he retired. Timberlake's research was on the

history of money The history of money concerns the development throughout time of systems that provide the functions of money. Such systems can be understood as means of trading wealth indirectly; not directly as with bartering. Money is a mechanism that facilit ...

central banking A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...

, and

monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money supply, often a ...

. He died in Georgia on May 22, 2020.

Ideas

Timberlake's research on the development of private moneys occurred at the time of

Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...

's idea of ''

The Denationalization of Money ''The Denationalisation of Money'' is a 1976 book by Friedrich Hayek, in which the author advocated the establishment of competitively issued private moneys. In 1978 Hayek published a revised and enlarged edition entitled ''Denationalisation of ...

'', extending and expanding upon it in coordination with the free banking movement. He believed that, instead of a government-imposed

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...

, there should be a free market in the production of money, with banks choosing how to issue their own, competing currencies. Timberlake also examined the causes of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, and emphasized the switch of the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

, starting in 1929, to the

real bills doctrine The real bills doctrine says that as long as bankers lend to businessmen only against the security (collateral) of short-term 30-, 60-, or 90-day commercial paper representing claims to real goods in the process of production, the loans will be jus ...

of money management, and an anti-speculation policy that severely reduced bank reserves and the amount of deposit money that the banks could create. The money supply contracted by 30% in four years, something that no market economy could tolerate. Along with Hayek of the

Austrian school The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian school ...

of the Chicago school, and even the

Keynesian Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output and ...

s, Timberlake saw this Fed policy as the primary cause of the Great Depression. However, Timberlake did not reject the

gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the la ...

. While many economists blamed the gold standard for the monetary collapse, Timberlake cited data that refutes the validity of their complaints. He showed that the Fed Banks and U.S. Treasury had plenty of gold in the 1929–1933 period. Timberlake concluded that government interference with gold standard adjustments caused most of the trouble in the past, producing cycles of money growth and deflation, panic and depression. Timberlake's papers are housed at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University.

Politics

Timberlake was active in politics as a member of the

Libertarian Party Active parties by country Defunct parties by country Organizations associated with Libertarian parties See also * Liberal parties by country * List of libertarian organizations * Lists of political parties * Outline of libertarianism ...

. He was involved in the

Harry Browne Harry Edson Browne (June 17, 1933 – March 1, 2006) was an American writer, politician, and investment advisor. He was the Libertarian Party's Presidential nominee in the U.S. elections of 1996 and 2000. He authored 12 books that in total have ...

presidential campaign, writing and signing open letters advocating various positions, such as

school choice School choice is a term for education options that allow students and families to select alternatives to public schools. The most common in the United States, by both the number of programs and by the number of participating students are scho ...

and rejection of policies that would have raised taxes. In the past he was a vocal and outspoken opponent of the science behind anthropogenic

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, writing a number of op-ed pieces for the ''

Athens Banner Herald The ''Athens Banner-Herald'' is a daily newspaper with less than 20,000 circulation located in Athens, Georgia, USA, and owned by Gannett. The paper has a Sunday special and publishes online under the name ''Online Athens''. It has been through a ...

''. He was an adjunct scholar at the

Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indust ...

Works

* ''Money and Banking'', with Edward Selby (1972) * * ''Gold, Greenbacks, and the Constitution'' (1991) * ''Money and the Nation State'', with Kevin Dowd (1998) * * ''They Never Saw Me Then'' (2002) * ''Constitutional Money: A Review of the Supreme Court’s Monetary Decisions (2013) * ''Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder – 1922–1938'', with

Thomas M. Humphrey Thomas MacGillivray Humphrey (born 1935) is an American economist. Until 2005 he was a research advisor and senior economist in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and editor of the Bank's flagship publication, the ''E ...

(2019) Articles in: * ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Money and Finance'' * ''The Encyclopedia of Business History and Biography''

References

External links

Biography at Advocates for Self-Government

Biography at Econ Journal watch
*
Podcast of Richard Timberlake on the gold standard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Timberlake, Richard 1922 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists American economics writers Columbia University alumni Economics books by writer Economists from Ohio Florida State University faculty Georgia (U.S. state) Libertarians Historians of economic thought Kenyon College alumni Libertarian economists Military personnel from Ohio People from Steubenville, Ohio People from Athens, Georgia United States Army Air Forces bomber pilots of World War II University of Chicago alumni University of Georgia faculty