Stephen Zarlenga

In 1996, Stephen Zarlenga cofounded the American Monetary Institute (AMI), which promotes the independent study of monetary history, theory, and reform and has been its director since then. He is the author of the groundbreaking book the Lost Science of Money subtitled The Mythology of Money – The Story of Power in which he calls into question and challenges the basis, and Achilles’ heel, of American Capitalism: the private control and resulting misdirection of the nation’s monetary system. This book started the modern movement for monetary reform in America. Based on this research, the American Monetary Act was developed to reform our nation’s money system. In this process the Institute sponsored six annual monetary reform conferences in Chicago (the seventh scheduled from September 29th to October 2nd 2011).

Zarlenga also authored the Refutation of Menger’s Theory of the Origin of Money, dispelling misconceptions on the nature of money embraced by the Austrian School of Economics, which Carl Menger founded.
In 1976 Zarlenga served as a trustee and executive committee member of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, helping get it through a difficult period in its history. More biography details are at the Lost Science of Money section of our homepage, www.monetary.org. Zarlenga stresses that the crises presents a rare opportunity, which must be used to achieve meaningful reform, and not be dissipated on diversions.