Money: A Story of Humanity

This means that the shekel was liquid. Unlike something that was illiquid, such as property, its value was easy to unlock and transfer. It

With debt came the notion of the value of time, and with this came the concept of the price of money: the rate of interest.

For 400,000 years, the technology that most influenced human development was fire; the contention of this book is that the crucial technology shaping humanity in the last 5,000 years has been money.

If society is based on a rigid caste system, it’s easy to rule. Terror is a dominant tool of control and institutions and religions tend to be based around fear and strictures. In a society mediated by money, where social status is somewhat mobile, rationality gains prominence over emotion and hard thinking challenges rule following.9

In the past, when trying to explain how our ancestors developed, we have often focused on a source of energy or a physical technology that aided their progress – for example, the invention of the wheel, the discovery of coal or the arrival of the plough. But what about the social technologies that helped organise us in pursuit of common goals by en

In contrast, the bottom-up economy is organic. It’s an evolutionary system of trial and error, where the market, based on prices, preferences and scarcity, organises the economy and society. Prices and profits, rather than plans and priests, determine whether something is working. People involve themselves in the bottom-up economy willingly, rather

Each of us has heard the mantra that money is the root of all evil, yet money is also an instrument of peace. Rather than kill their neighbours for food and property, the newly sedentary farming societies learned to trade using money.

In contrast, the bottom-up economy is organic. It’s an evolutionary system of trial and error, where the market, based on prices, preferences and scarcity, organises the economy and society. Prices and profits, rather than plans and priests, determine whether something is working. People involve themselves in the bottom-up economy willingly, rather

The gist of his argument is this: where money – and financial innovation – is present, all sorts of valuable stuff occurs that doesn’t occur where money – and financial innovation – is absent.