Somebody here turned me on to a very interesting film (on youtube) about that speech and whether the “Wizard of Oz” is a parable about the gold/silver money thing.
Unlike the movie, in the book Dorothy has silver shoes, not ruby ones. And, well, I don’t know, it was FASCINATING, but a wee bit over my head.
It was the kind of thing that my reaction was: let me find a smart person who disagrees with this, and hear the other side.
But it gave me pause, as so much does these days. The problems seem to pre-date Marx, if you get my drift.
You can probably search “wizard of oz/cross of gold” or something like that to find it on youtube.
And as I preview I see I used that old phrase “turned me on”, I guess I’ll always be an old hippie from 1st Ave, NYC.
I believe Gore Vidal wrote various essays on the Wizard of Oz book. I forget what his point of view was but it might be interesting to find it.
William Jennings Bryan was a left-wing liberal by today’s standards. Try telling that to people who only remember his character from “Inherit the Wind,” about the Scopes Trial!
Ellen Brown is slightly to the left of center politically but that doesn’t really matter for the purpose of understanding the history and theory of money, her book is the best shot there is.