“ALTHOUGH THERE ARE COUNTLESS MALADIES that are forever causing the decline of kingdoms, princedoms, and republics, the following four (in my judgment) are the most serious: civil discord, a high death rate, sterility of the soil, and the debasement of coinage. The first three are so obvious that everybody recognizes the damage they cause; but the fourth one, which has to do with money, is noticed by only a few very thoughtful people, since it does not operate all at once and at a single blow, but gradually overthrows governments, and in a hidden, insidious way.”
Nicolaus Copernicus
from On the Minting of Money
Our Publications
2026.
On the Minting of Money
Nicolaus Copernicus
Ralph Benko, editor
Gerald Malsbary, translator
This 500th Anniversary edition of On the Minting of Money – Monetae Cudendae Ratio – is a modern translation of Nicolaus Copernicus’s groundbreaking essay which proposed solutions to the effects of currency debasement and inflation. Copernicus’s treatise famously anticipated Sir Thomas Gresham’s 1558 economic principle that “bad money drives out good” and Sir Isaac Newton’s 1717 de facto gold standard which he proposed as Master of the Royal Mint of Great Britain, making this essay a fundamental cornerstone to modern economic theory and a fundamental basis for understanding the current affordability crisis dominating American political discourse.
On the Minting of Money, serves as a powerful reminder of the scientific provenance of the gold standard. Now, thanks to gold standard expert Ralph Benko and virtuoso Latin scholar Gerald Malsbary, let us hope the insights of Copernicus will inspire our political leaders to once again lift their lamp beside the golden door to bring a new golden age to America and the world.
– Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media
Here is the definitive modern translation of an essay by no less than Nicolaus Copernicus – the polymath who moved the sun into the center of our solar system and thus set the clocks and cycles of all human life and history, including the foundations of money. Sincere appreciation of leading gold standard advocate, Ralph Benko, for his work in rescuing this amazingly important essay from undeserved obscurity.
– George Gilder, author of The Scandal of Money and Wealth
and Poverty and co-founder of the Discovery Institute.
XV. 233 HISTORY… The conſtant and ſtated rate of the value of gold; to filver among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, in the whole period of ancient times, was ten to one, with very little variation, and the rate of filver to Cyprian braſs one hundred to one; and the general fuppofition is, that there was one fiftieth part of alloy in the gold; coins of the ancients. At preſent gold; is to filver as about fifteen to one, and filver to copper as ſeventy-three to one.
Joseph Priestley
from Lectures on History and General Policy, vol. 1, 1793