While many today consider gold an instrument of financial and personal freedom, Frank Baum, author of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' painted it as a villain - the tool of oppression. Baum published the book in 1900, just after the US emerged from a period of deflation and depression. Prices had fallen by about 22% over the previous 16 years, causing huge debt. Farmers were among those badly affected, and the Populist political party was set up to represent their interests and those of industrial labourers. The US was then operating on the gold standard - a monetary system which valued the dollar according to the quantity of gold. A key plank in the Populist Party platform was a demand for "free silver" - that is, the "free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold" at a fixed ratio of sixteen to one. Populists and other free-silver proponents advocated unlimited coinage of the white metal in order to inflate the money supply, This would have increased the US money supply, raised price levels and reduced farmers' debt burdens thus making it easer for cash-strapped farmers and small businessmen to borrow money and pay off debts. Baum's allegory is a critique of the Populist rationale. The Land of Oz, is a microcosm of America and Oz is short for ounce, the measure for gold and silver. Emerald City, its center and seat of government, represents Washington, D.C. The journey to Emerald City corresponds to the Populists effort to acquire power in Washington. The yellow brick road is the gold standard. The brainless Scarecrow represents the midwestern farmers. The Tin Man represents the nation's workers, in particular the industrial workers. The Wicked Witch of the West and the Wicked Witch of the East represent financial-industrial interests and their gold-standard political allies (NY banker J.P.Morgan and JD Rockefeller), the Emerald City of Oz (green-back money is also a delusion). The Wizard is simply a manipulative politician who appears to the people in one form, but works behind the scenes to achieve his true ends through deceit, and even Dorothy’s silver slippers (changed to ruby slippers for more effect in the color movie version) is a symbol of the belief that adding silver coin to gold coin would provide much needed money to a depression-strapped, 1890s America). Oz is full of monetary reform symbolism.
But it also included some utopian hopes.
In the sequel to the Wizard of Oz 'The Road to Oz' Baum has the Tinwoodman explain:
“It must have cost a lot of money,” remarked the shaggy man.
“Money! Money in Oz!” cried the Tin Woodman. “What a queer idea! Did you suppose we are so vulgar as to use money here?”
“Why not?” asked the shaggy man.
“If we used money to buy things with, instead of love and kindness and the desire to please one another, then we should be no better than the rest of the world,” declared the Tin Woodman. “Fortunately money is not known in the Land of Oz at all. We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to make him happy, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use...
...[later]"Don't they work at all?" asked the shaggy man.
"To be sure they work," replied the Tin Woodman; "this fair city could not be built or cared for without labor, nor could the fruit and vegetables and other food be provided for the inhabitants to eat. But no one works more than half his time, and the people of Oz enjoy their labors as much as they do their play." ”
The next book in the series, The Emerald City of Oz, Baum goes into more detail (inconsistencies notwithstanding) on the money-less economics:
"There were no poor people in the Land of Oz, because there was no such things as money, and all the property of every sort belonged to the Ruler. The people were her children, and she cared for them. Each person was given freely by his neighbors whatever he required for his use, which is as much as anyone may reasonably desire. Some tilled the land and raised great crops of grain, which was divided equally among the entire population, so that all had enough. There were many tailors and dressmakers and shoemakers and the like, that made things that any who desired them might wear. Likewise there were jewellers who made ornaments for the person, which pleased and beautified the people, and these ornaments also were free to those who asked for them. Each man and woman, no matter what he or she produced for the good of the community, was supplied by the neighbors with food and clothing and a house and furniture and ornaments and games. If by chance the supply ever ran short, more was taken from the great storehouses of the Ruler, which were afterward filled up again when there was more of any article than the people needed. Every one worked half the time and played half the time, and the people enjoyed the work as much as they did the play, because it is good to be occupied and to have something to do. There were no cruel overseers set to watch them, and no one to rebuke them or to find fault with them. So each one was proud to do all he could for his friends and neighbors, and was glad when they would accept the things he produced."
A wizard idea!!!
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