Summary:

Marco Lehmann-Waffenschmidt discusses the effects of a growing money supply generating economic growth, with a view to the attitude towards money and economic activity rooted in the deeper layers of the human psyche. The heuristics for his approach are provided by Hans Christoph Binswanger's interpretation of the second part of Goethe's Faust. Mephisto and Faust invent paper money as an imaginary device for creating infinite wealth without using material goods or labour - an approach not unlike that of Heinsohn and Steiger. The author demonstrates with the help of modern economic psychology that potentially unbounded wealth through a potentially limitless money supply triggers both an increase of agents' consumption and entrepreneurial activities and, thereby, of economic growth.