Is Bernanke a modern day Lycurgus?
Lycurgus was ancient Sparta’s famous lawgiver who transformed his country’s economy by minimizing luxuries and emphasizing simplicity. His economic reforms can best be described as communalistic and his name is synonymous with austerity. According to the historian Plutarch, Lycurgus outlawed the “needless and superfluous arts” thereby channeling Sparta’s economic energies from luxuries to staples and necessities. He also abolished gold and silver money, replacing it with iron money. The relative worthlessness and lack of portability of the iron money discouraged his subjects from greedy pursuits. It also kept foreign trade at a minimum and abolished the luxury trade altogether. Plutarch reports that this monetary reform of Lycurgus forced the Spartans to focus on the necessary arts and eschew all luxuries as non essential. His reforms virtually eliminated the distinction between the poor and the rich and created an exceedingly simple, communal lifestyle among the Spartans. Lycurgus die