Georg Friedrich Knapp Was Not a "Chartalist"

Following Keynes, we understand “chartalism” as “the doctrine that money is peculiarly a creation of the State” (Keynes [1930] 2013: 4). In this context, we shall understand the term state to mean any administrative body holding political authority, that is, any administrative body that enjoys the right to make laws and enforce them by coercion against the members of a society (Huemer 2012: 5). To Keynes ([1930] 2013: 4), it was political authority—“the authority of law”—which allowed the state both to define what money is and to enforce its payment: The State, therefore, comes in first of all as the authority of law which enforces the payment of the thing which corresponds to the name or description in the contract. But it comes in doubly when, in addition, it claims the right to determine and declare what thing corresponds to the name, and to vary its declaration from time to time—when, that is to say, it claims the right to re-edit the dictionary. This right is claimed by all modern States and has been so claimed for some four thousand years at least. © 2020 by Duke University Press.