Chapter16 The Capitalist Creed

Money has been essential both for building empires and for promoting science. But is money the ultimate goal of these undertaking, or perhaps just a dangerous necessity?

It is not easy to grasp the true role of economies in modern history. Whole volumes have been written about how money founded state and ruined them, opened new horizons and enslaved millions, moved the wheels of industry and drove hundreds of species into extinction.

作者开章很漂亮~继续读下文…

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Humankind was trapped in this prediccament for thousands of years. As a result, economies remained frozen. The way out of trap was discovered only in the modern era, with the appearance of a new system based on trust in the future. In it, people agreed to represent imaginary goods- goods that do.not exist in the.present-with a special kind of money they called"credit". Credit enables us to build the present at the expense of the.future. It's founded on the assumption that out future resource are sure.to be.far more abundant that.our present resources. A host of new and wonderful opportunities open up if we can.build things in the present using future income.

It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will enforce the law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the markets properly, it leads to loss of trust, dwindling credit and economic depression. That was the lesson taught by the Mississppi Bubble of 1719, and anyone who forgot it was reminded by the US housing bubble of 2007, and the ensuing credit crunch and recession.

In 8500 BC one could cry bitter tears over the Agricultural Revolution, but it was too late to give up agriculture. Similarly, we may not like capitalism, but we cannot live without it.

Yet can the economic pie grow indefinitely? Every pie requires raw materials and energy. Prophets of doom warn that sooner or later Homo sapiens will exhaust the raw materials and energy of planet Earth. And what will happen then?

（PS;感觉整章没有很看懂，对这个类型的内容了解得特别浅。还有作者章结的时候提出的问题，很抱歉我不会考虑这些问题，或许与现在息息相关）