Silvio Gesell

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Silvio Gesell
Gesell in 1895
Born	(1862-03-17)17 March 1862 Sankt Vith, Rhine Province, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	11 March 1930(1930-03-11) (aged 67) Oranienburg, Brandenburg, Weimar Republic
Nationality	German
Notable work	The Natural Economic Order (1916)
Children	Carlos Idaho Gesell
Academic career
Field	Monetary theory, Interest, Monetary reform, Land reform
School or tradition	Freiwirtschaft Market socialism
Influences	Theodor Hertzka Henry George Pierre Joseph Proudhon
Contributions	Demurrage currency, Unearned income

Johann Silvio Gesell (German: [ɡəˈzɛl]; 17 March 1862 – 11 March 1930) was a German-Argentine economist, entrepreneur, and social reformer. He was the founder of Freiwirtschaft, an economic model for market socialism.^[1] In 1900, he founded the magazine The Money and Land Reform (German: Die Geld- und Bodenreform), but it soon closed for financial reasons. During his time in Oranienburg, Gesell started the magazine Der Physiokrat together with Georg Blumenthal [de]. In 1914, it closed due to censorship. In 1916, he published his most famous work, The Natural Economic Order.

Gesell is mainly known for his monetary theory. In particular, he noticed that there is an assymmetry between the durability and hoardability of money versus the fragility and depreciation of goods and services that lose value due to entropy and the passage of time.^[2][3] He believed that people who own or hoard money have an unfair economic advantage over people who are dependent on producing decayable goods and services for their livelihoods. Gesell theorized that the premium conferred to those who own hoardable money was responsible for the creation of interest rates and recessions,^[2][3] which later influenced John Maynard Keynes's theory of liquidity preference.^[2] To resolve this problem, Gesell proposed inventing a new form of money that depreciates over time (German: Freigeld).^[2][3]

Gesell also supported free land (German: Freiland) and free trade (German: Freihandel). He disagreed with Henry George that land value taxes could solve the problem of land rent,^[4] as he believed that the taxes could be passed onto the tenants.^[5] Instead, he proposed that public ownership of land should be accomplished by making the government purchase all land from current landowners through a massive amount of government land bonds, which would be paid over in 20 years by leasing the land through a system of competitive bidding for leases.^[2] This would achieve many of the intended effects of Georgism, but two of the main differences are that it would compensate previous landowners through bond payments and it would not be necessary to repeatedly re-appraise the value of land.^[6]

On suggestion of Erich Müchsam and Gustav Landauer, he served as the finance minister of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. The republic had a violent end, and Gesell was detained for several months on a charge of treason, but was acquitted by a Munich court after he gave a speech in his own defense.^[1]

In the second half of 20th century, Gesell's ideas were published and discussed only in the limited circle of his supporters. Since the beginning of the century, Gesell has caught increasing attention among the general public. The reasons for this include discussions about so-called local currencies and cryptocurrencies, and the zero interest-rate policy of different central banks.