The first and most important lesson that history teaches about what
monetary policy can do-and it is a lesson of the most profound importance-is
that monetary policy can prevent money itself from being a
major source of economic disturbance. This sounds like a negative
proposition: avoid major mistakes. In part it is. The Great Contraction
might not have occurred at all, and if it had, it would have been far less
severe, if the monetary authority had avoided mistakes, or if the monetary
arrangements had been those of an earlier time when there was no
central authority with the power to make the kinds of mistakes that the
Federal Reserve System made. The past few years, to come closer to
home, would have been steadier and more productive of economic wellbeing
if the Federal Reserve had avoided drastic and erratic changes of
direction, first expanding the money supply at an unduly rapid pace,
then, in early 1966, stepping on the brake too hard, then, at the end of
1966, reversing itself and resuming expansion until at least November,
1967, at a more rapid pace than can long be maintained without appreciable
inflation.
Even if the proposition that monetary policy can prevent money itself from being a major source of economic disturbance were a wholly
negative proposition, it would be none the less important for that. As it
happens, however, it is not a wholly negative proposition. The monetary
machine has gotten out of order even when there has been no central
authority with anything like the power now possessed by the Fed.
In the United States, the 1907 episode and earlier banking panics are
examples of how the monetary machine can get out of order largely on
its own. There is therefore a positive and important task for the monetary
authority-to suggest improvements in the machine that will reduce
the chances that it will get out of order, and to use its own powers
so as to keep the machine in good working order.