The neoliberal approach to money is that it is apolitical, facilitating exchange without interfering in it. But with the bailouts of 2008 and then COVID, more people understand that money does not work by itself, but must be managed through the political process.
audiobooks
Just a short glance indicated to me that this would be worth recording, and I was right. With a flair unexpected in a PhD thesis, Drumm draws on English and classical history, much of it presented through Shakespeare, to show how history has been defined by the politics of liquidity, and how this politics is really the management of an unresolved dilemma at the heart of the monetary theory.
The Economic Space Agency has spent several years imagining a system for individuals and organisations to account for exchange, allocate risk and reward, and measure and store value without using or even referring to fiat money.
They have finally produced a book explaining the economics of it, which is presented here, along with my rendition of it.
This is a book about thinking about thinking, with a focus on anyone who would try, or presume, to be able to improve a complex system, say by starting a new business in the space. Can you know when there is a real gap or when you are being arrogant or over-optimistic?
I've been immersed in monetary theory for several years. At one point I realised that money-as-we-know-it and markets are actually just two aspects of the same idea, and that the two evolve together. So saying, I've read a lot about money, its sociology, history, philosophy etc, but very little about markets.
Following on from How everything can collapse, the french collapsologists now turn their attention to coping with collapse, psychologically, intellectually and even practically.
This is a thoughtful book drawing on useful experience, and covering a lot of ground in a fairly systematic way.
Audio chapters in this zip include
My recent research into societal collapse (watch this space) lead me to John Michael Greer, who offered an uncommonly wise perspective, so I purchased this book to update myself on his post-peak oil thinking.
It describes progress as a 'civil religion' and examines how deeply ideas and more importantly assumptions about progress lie in our civilisation's narrative compared, say to other civilisations which reified the past or the unchanging nature of things.
E C Riegel quotes pop up all through the Money as Debt series, and he is a favourite of Tom Greco as well. This short book ( 50 pages) shows how, by adopting his alternative currency, the Valun, the peoples of the world can be free of government counterfeit money and hence the other evils of government.