FA Mann’s Conservative Revolution

Abstract FA Mann led a revolution: displacing gold in the legal imagination. This chapter discusses Mann’s revolution—and today’s reaction. Mann’s tactics were brilliant. His genius lay in the conservatism of his theory. Mann’s ‘legal’ theory of money replaced gold with the sovereign power of the state. This power was incarnate in the legal tender bank note. He therefore replaced one sacral object with another: metal with sovereignty. (Bank money, neither sovereign nor tangible, was not quite the thing.) His theory was beautifully suited to an era of more instability, less naturalism, and more nationalism. Mann had predecessors, but they were iconoclasts. Mann only wanted to dethrone gold and put another occupant on the same throne. His predecessors also wanted to tear down the throne. Mann’s predecessors are winning today. Their ‘social’ theories of money, mostly created before World War I, fit today’s monetary order better than Mann’s legal theory. These theories rely on social consensus secured by symbols, and perhaps a transactional hegemon. These theories handle nonstatal monies, immaterial monies, extra-territorial monies, evolving monies, and the quasi-legal tender status of credit transfers. They also include legal tender currency, and thus span Mann’s set. And legal tender currency is on the ropes—criminogenic and unhygienic. As a great revolutionary, Mann made a poor prophet. This is not necessarily a bad trade-off. Mann stayed true to his younger self. His fifth and last edition, published in 1992, remained true to his 1938 vision. But money has marched on.