The above excellent book by Felix Martin has a few pages on Chinese base money creation long ago. The questions we face today seem to have troubled the Chinese as well 2,500 years ago. E.g.: who should create money: private entities / banks, or just the state? How much stimulus should the state implement in a recession? How do we stop politicians gaining access to the printing press? How much deflation should be imposed given excess inflation?
Here is a part of the relevant passage from the book.
One big advantage the Ancient Chinese had over us in the year 2021 is that they didn't have computers: by the time I'd finished scanning the above, dealing with the PC crashing, and a scanner that wasn't working properly I might just have well have copied all the above out by hand.....:-)
As that book also points out any Sovereign that allows another power to create momey undermines its own Sovereign power and the population then "serves two masters". Which is indeed what we have now, we serve the govt AND private banks who create money via debt. This gives banks way too much power.
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