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would have a more stable value than silver became a largely self-fulfilling prophecy once gold was chosen as the standard. Britain's choice led to drastic changes in the demand for gold and silver, both at the time and later, when other countries followed Britain's example. As a result, silver tended to replace gold in the French currency until the California and Australia gold discoveries, and the real price of gold was far less variable over the next century than the real price of silver was. However, if Britain had chosen silver on the expectation that its value would be more stable, that, too, would probably have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Britain's choice of silver would have prevented the subsequent widespread demonetization of silver and, instead, would have led either to the demonetization of gold or to a continuation of effective bimetallism in at least some countries. Either result probably would have meant a more stable real price of silver than of gold and, if bimetallism had continued, very likely a more stable price level than under either of the monometallic standards.

It is fascinating to speculate on what might have been if Ricardo's technical adviser had informed him that "machinery is particularly apposite to" gold mines rather than silver mines—as, indeed, it ultimately turned out to be. With Ricardo's immense influence and prestige at the time the key decisions were being made, it is not at all fanciful to suppose that Britain would have resumed specie payments on silver instead of gold, transforming the subsequent economic history of the nineteenth century in major ways that we can only dimly see.

As it was, Britain's example, and subsequent rise to economic preeminence, proved decisive. It was a major factor leading first Germany and then the United States to adopt a gold standard. Happenstance or not, Britain's decision nearly two centuries ago to resume convertibility on the basis of gold is the fundamental source of the conventional view that gold is superior to silver as the basis for a monometallic standard.

Conclusion

Despite the continued presence among us of "monetary monomaniacs"—now mostly goldbugs—the near universal adoption of inconvertible paper standards throughout the world has rendered the discussion of specie standards, whether gold, silver, bimetallic, or symmetallic, of largely historical interest for the time being. That situation may change, but, regardless of what happens, it seems worth offering an antidote to the conventional view among monetary economists about bimetallism.* Far from being a thoroughly discredited fallacy, bimetallism has much to recommend it, on theoretical, practical, and historical grounds, as superior to monometallism, though not to symmetallism or to a tabular standard. Indeed, twentieth-century technological developments have undermined many of the practical considerations that were cited against bimetallism during the nineteenth century. In particular, the wider use of deposits and paper money has rendered almost irrelevant Jevons's concern about the weight of silver, as well as the concern of many that a bimetallic standard might involve extensive recoinage from time to time. On the other hand, the reduction in the use of coins has undoubtedly weakened the hard-money myth that only specie is real money. That myth buttressed earlier popular support for a specie standard and still inspires the goldbugs around the world. When it was much stronger than it is today, the myth made it politically dangerous to depart from the unlimited convertibility of legal tender into specie, and it still has enough residual power to lead central banks around the world to continue carrying gold on their books at an artificial legal monetary price.

As a final note, we have here another striking example of the far-reaching but unintended effects of an event that is almost a matter of chance. In this case, the pebble that started an avalanche was Britain's decision to resume convertibility on the basis of gold. The economic history of the world ever since would