Parallel Depreciating Money: Mr Unterguggenberger’s Prescription to the Economic Ills of the Great Depression

“I want it to go on. The thing is so simple that even a little schoolboy can understand it.”—Wörgl’s tailor’s answer to the question “What is your view about the Wörgl Free Money being forbidden?”
In: Schwarz, F. 1951. The Experiment in Wörgl

Michael Unterguggenberger was raised in semi-poverty, yet grew to make money for the unemployed and destitute. He had no formal education, yet lived to prove an advanced knowledge of money. Shattering economic crisis marked his life, yet he managed to accomplish what many described as an economic miracle. His monetary experiment succeeded in repairing the economic ills of the time, yet was soon banned by the highest national monetary authority. An unruled visionary—as some contemporaries described him—or a man of practical reason? John Maynard Keynes came to praise the monetary ideas that guided him; his experiment persuaded Irving Fisher of the value of such monies to get out of The Great Depression. Today his efforts inspire many local currency practitioners, and municipalities around the world are, often unknowingly, following his steps. As mayor of the little Austrian town of Wörgl, Mr. Unterguggenberger—a small man with intense eyes—productively adapted novel ideas on money to work in the midst of the monetary disorder that characterised the Europe of the 30s.