Surveys For Money The Unauthorized Biography
Surveys For Money The Unauthorized Biography
This is an admirable attempt at trying to make
money and monetary policy interesting by writing it in the style of an
investigative historian trying to solve a puzzle. I found it easy to
read, and quite engaging. Sometimes I thought the author made some
conceptual leaps without good explanation (possibly due to the style of
the book) but this book is certainly thought-provoking.
His view, that money is a social technology, an accounting concept and transferable debt, is not entirely new. Many non-mainstream economists (such as the MMT theorists) have made similar arguments based on different historical evidence, perhaps not in such readable style. I think the evidence in this book, and elsewhere, is quite convincing - money is much much more than simply a way to pay for things, and conventional views certainly miss a lot of the significance of money. If you have never come across these views, this book will make you look at the world differently.
The thesis that many of our problems emerge from a lack of understanding of money is one with which I agree. There is certainly a problem when a profession (economists like myself) can influence policies driven by an understanding of money that is not derived from the social reality or the actual practice of banking (I have met countless economists who hold naive textbook views about the financial system which they would change if they actually worked in a bank). Whether this new understanding will save capitalism as the author claims, probably goes a bit too far. One of the final policy conclusions (narrow banking, a system where banks only take deposits backed 100% by the national currency) is controversial, and not easy to reconcile with his thesis.
His view, that money is a social technology, an accounting concept and transferable debt, is not entirely new. Many non-mainstream economists (such as the MMT theorists) have made similar arguments based on different historical evidence, perhaps not in such readable style. I think the evidence in this book, and elsewhere, is quite convincing - money is much much more than simply a way to pay for things, and conventional views certainly miss a lot of the significance of money. If you have never come across these views, this book will make you look at the world differently.
The thesis that many of our problems emerge from a lack of understanding of money is one with which I agree. There is certainly a problem when a profession (economists like myself) can influence policies driven by an understanding of money that is not derived from the social reality or the actual practice of banking (I have met countless economists who hold naive textbook views about the financial system which they would change if they actually worked in a bank). Whether this new understanding will save capitalism as the author claims, probably goes a bit too far. One of the final policy conclusions (narrow banking, a system where banks only take deposits backed 100% by the national currency) is controversial, and not easy to reconcile with his thesis.
Surveys For Money The Unauthorized Biography
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