“In the article, the author comments on various writings of silvio gesell, the well known economist, and feels that previous works on his writings has either ignored, misunderstood or distorted the relation between the theoretical and practical aspects of his analysis. gesell’s objective as a social reformer was to attack ‘rentier’ capitalism and to substitute in its place an interest-free society. to fortify his reform position gesell developed a system of economic theory in which he tried to demonstrate that the nonutilization of resource and the presence of nonfunctional income are the inevitable accompaniments of prevailing financial institutions. the author tries to show that gesell’s theory in general and his theory of basic interest in particular represent an argument for his stamped money proposal. this may best be shown by indicating that the practical insight which led gesell to propose a tax on money was chronologically as well as logically prior to his theoretical system. gesell’s contention that interest is a payment to prevent the ‘hoarding’ of money classes his interest theory with the ‘exploitation’ doctrines of other socialists. he regards the share of total social income represented by interest as a deduction from the income created by laborers, including industrial capitalists.”

“Œuvre postérieure à proudhon mais reliée à lui, la proposition d’une économie franche et plus spécifiquement d’une monnaie franche par silvio gesell, auteur allemand venu sur le tard à l’économie, socialiste proudhonien, décrit par beaucoup comme une sorte de prophète, a jusqu’ici, mais en partie seulement, échappé au destin peu enviable de la plupart des propositions de réforme monétaire qualifiées d’utopiques. après avoir survolé la vie et l’œuvre de silvio gesell, on s’intéressera aux relations que sa pensée entretient avec celle de proudhon avant de se centrer sur sa proposition de réforme monétaire — ce qui signifie qu’on laissera de côté son analyse spécifique de la terre et ses conclusions relatives à la rente foncière.”