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what books about pre-industrial revolution finance and political economy are you reading today to try to understand what a hyperbitcoinized world will look like?
Discussion
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Im interested too
Medici Money
(Banking, Metaphysics and Art in the Fifteenth-Century Florence)
by Tim Parks
thank you for the only fair answer to this excellent question
added to my list ā”ļøā”ļøā”ļø
Not really a book but more of a report, and not today, but more like four years ago: Steampunk Settlement.
It was a paper commissioned by the DTCC on using blockchain for post trade clearing and settlement. The author ended up spectacularly laying to waste that concept, starting with a pre-industrial perspective.
Not pre-industrial and not specific to finance but I like to learn how many different things in the world come together, or how the dots are connected I guess you could say, from the stories that bring the past to life. Ćmile Zolaās āThe Belly of Parisā was enjoyable in this regard, with it questions and ideas about politics and progress. Haves and have nots. The sites, sounds, smells, and descriptions of the bustling heart of the city that is the Les Halleās food market. A snapshot of nineteenth and century Paris moving toward the future, for good or bad.
Harry Potter
Here for the lay up 
Juan de Marianaās
The dawn of everything - David Greaber
Also Debt: The First 5000 Years - Greaber, supper interesting, but I rarely see it discussed in Bitcoin circles.
The core thesis, to my understanding, is that credit was the original form of money, but different civilisations also used different things as money depending on the asset being exchanged.
The most striking insight for me from the book is that religion and morality, what is good and what is bad, is tightly linked to the debtor/debtee interactions.
Selgin more than adequately debunked Graeber as far as Iām concerned, and then Elaine put in a few more nails just for lolz:
https://www.alt-m.org/2016/03/15/myth-myth-barter/
https://elaineou.com/2020/04/10/the-myth-of-the-myth-of-the-myth-of-barter/
Still an enjoyable read imo
Have not read this until now, thanks! It is nice to read counter arguments, but I would not call it debunking. Graeber explores the history of money from many different, perspectives and is mostly concern with pre-modern societies. One can debunk it with only with more detailed anthropological eveidence, which Selgin does not even try to provide in his short article.
okay sure, maybe ādebunkingā is harsh, but I donāt think what you are looking for is possible given Selginās whole point is that you just canāt know this stuff. Graeber conflates an absence of evidence with an evidence of absence and Selgin says, āokay, not only is that silly, but if you think about what you are analysing, of course there is an absence of evidence. how could there fail to be?ā
I agree with that argument, but that is not quite true either. He provides anthropological evidence that barter->coinage->credit it is not the only direction in which money evolved, not just in simple societies but also in complex and large early civilisations.
That of course does not mean that the barter could not have been a proto economy in some parts of the world, but it also shows that the reality is much more interesting and complex, and that people are highly creative. So I highly recommend Graeber for his anarchistic creativity, even though I accept that his fews are limited by his ideology, which is the case for anymof us. I mean Selgin also does not see Bitcoin as money, so he is far from perfect: )
Anyway, the book is much richer in content and explores a range of perspectives, and Selgin's critic seems quite superficial.
Selgin more than adequately debunked Graeber as far as Iām concerned, and then Elaine put in a few more nails just for lolz:
https://www.alt-m.org/2016/03/15/myth-myth-barter/
https://elaineou.com/2020/04/10/the-myth-of-the-myth-of-the-myth-of-barter/
Would appreciated reading your thoughts on Princess of the Yen - Richard Werner. The thesis that banks do not operate fractional reserve but create money ex nihilo.