Most discussions about economics begin with money. I think that's a mistake.
In this video, I explain why money is not the economy, why wealth is not the same thing as money, and why economics has become obsessed with the wrong things.
Starting with a simple thought experiment about being stranded on a desert island, I explore what really creates value, why energy and human potential matter far more than financial wealth, and why money is simply an accounting system that allows society to organise itself.
Along the way I explain:
• why money is information rather than a thing
• how governments actually create money
• why taxes do not fund government spending in the way most people imagine
• what really limits government spending
• why inflation is about real resources, not simply money creation
• why the purpose of an economy should be to help everyone realise their potential rather than maximise GDP or financial wealth.
In a narration of a series of essays, I explain economics in plain English without losing the underlying theory. The essays draw on decades of my work on accounting, economics and modern monetary theory, but are written for anyone curious about how our economy really works.
If we understand what money really is, we can begin asking much better political questions, and perhaps build a society that serves everyone instead of just protecting wealth.
This is the audio version:
There is no transcript or Debate Ammunition for this video. The video is a narration of the essays linked here.
The logic underpinning this video is explained in another post this morning, here.
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Hi Richard
I found this podcast hard work as I had to rely on the subtitles. I’m very hard of hearing and rely on seeing peoples faces to understand what they’re saying. However the podcast was very informative, so thanks for doing it. I’m hoping you can do some of your videos in the old style and some in the podcast style – mix it to keep folk happy.
PS, I hope both you & Tom are recovering well.
Did we not add the subtitles? I am not sure why not. I spent ages editing them. Sorry. And we’re both making slow progress.
Hi Richard,
Yes, you did add subtitles to the podcast. It’s just that YouTube’s subtitles (or “closed captions”) are not very reliable. I had to check your essay to make sense of what you were saying. For example YouTube kept misspelling a word you used – exergy .
I apologise if I’m making it out to be a big problem. I suppose it is for me. Sorry
I meant to add our own – a mistake.
Very nicely presented Richard, clear, non-technical and pitched at the right level for persuading the persuadable.
Thank you.
Once again, how do we get the message across in a way that engages the masses?
I once wrote a story in which the key character wakes up in a time before money or organised city/states with nothing but vague memories of the 21st century, a printing press and a limitless supply of paper and ink. This morning I’m convinced it should be a Wallace and Gromit film instead. 299 words is far too few, but here’s chapter 1.
Wallace will find a disparate group of communities with varied resources of food, timber, agricultural land, water, iron ore etc but little interaction. Each muddles along as best they can. Wallace sets himself up as The legitimate Government (TLG), prints currency and aims to get the groups co-operating, initially by having some idle youths dig irrigation canals from the water to the fertile land by offering to pay them in currency, thus inventing government spending. Obviously he is laughed at and invents taxation to create the desire for the money. Gromit is the tax collector and befriends the local wolves by giving them sexy studded collars with INLAND REVENUE SERVICE printed on them and uses them to intimidate the people into paying tax and therefore having to work for TLG. Gromit collects the tax currency, counts it and then burns it, proving that spending funds taxes, not taxes fund spending.
Too busy to gather their own food, the canal workers have to buy food from the new group of specialist food gatherers who must also pay the tax, thus creating the private sector.
This comic history approach builds our current system from scratch, one simplified piece at a time allowing no pre-conceived notions to interfere with the narrative.
“Comedy and a bit with a dog, That’s what they want!”
I found your voice so soporific that I didn’t/couldn’t concentrate on much of what you were saying, so didn’t vote. Sorry.
Sorry. On YouTube, although not many listened, those who did really liked it