3 54 THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT bk. vi

Buenos Aires who was led to the study of monetaryproblems by the crisis of the late ’eighties, which wasespecially violent in the Argentine, his first work, DieReformation im Miinzwesen als Brucke zum socialenStaat , being published in Buenos Aires in 1891. Hisfundamental ideas on money were published in BuenosAires in the same year under the title Nervus rerum , andmany books and pamphlets followed until he retiredto Switzerland in 1906 as a man of some means, able todevote the last decades of his life to the two most de-lightful occupations open to those who do not have toearn their living, authorship and experimental farming.

The first section of his standard work was publishedin 1906 at Les Hauts Geneveys, Switzerland , underthe title Die Verwirklichung des Rechtes auf dem vollenArbeitsertrag , and the second section in 1911 at Berlinunder the title Die neue Lehre vom Zins. The twotogether were published in Berlin and in Switzerland during the war (1916) and reached a sixth editionduring his lifetime under the title Die naturliche Wirt-schaftsordnung durch Freiland und Freigeld , the English version (translated by Mr. Philip Pye) being calledThe Natural Economic Order. In April 1919 Gesell joined the short-lived Soviet cabinet of Bavaria as theirMinister of Finance, being subsequently tried bycourt-martial. The last decade of his life was spentin Berlin and Switzerland and devoted to propaganda.Gesell, drawing to himself the semi-religious fervourwhich had formerly centred round Henry George, be-came the revered prophet of a cult with many thousanddisciples throughout the world. The first internationalconvention of the Swiss and German Freiland-FreigeldBund and similar organisations from many countrieswas held in Basle in 1923. Since his death in 1930much of the peculiar type of fervour which doctrinessuch as his are capable of exciting has been diverted toother (in my opinion less eminent) prophets. Dr.Biichi is the leader of the movement in England, but