The Story of Economics
The story of how humans learned to coordinate with strangers — from gift economies through money, markets, and the great experiments of the twentieth century.
The story of how humans learned to coordinate with strangers.
Economics is not merely the study of money and markets — it's the story of how humans solved the problem of cooperation at scale. From gift economies that bound small communities together, through the invention of money and markets, to the great ideological experiments of the twentieth century, this book traces the evolution of our coordination technologies and the questions that remain open.
Total listening time: ~5 hours
| Part I: Before Money | |
| Chapter 1 |
The Gift That Binds How did humans coordinate before money? |
| Chapter 2 |
The Barter Myth and the Debt Truth Did we really start by trading goods directly? |
| Chapter 3 |
When Strangers Had to Trade How did commerce emerge between communities? |
| Part II: The Invention of Money | |
| Chapter 4 |
The Technology of Trust What made money possible? |
| Chapter 5 |
What Money Made Possible How did money transform human societies? |
| Chapter 6 |
The Shadow Price What does money fail to measure? |
| Part III: The Price System | |
| Chapter 7 |
The Genius of Price How do prices coordinate millions of decisions? |
| Chapter 8 |
When Markets Fail What are the limits of market coordination? |
| Chapter 9 |
The Losers' Ledger Who bears the costs of economic progress? |
| Part IV: The Great Debate | |
| Chapter 10 |
The Socialist Calculation Can we plan an economy without prices? |
| Chapter 11 |
The Great Experiments What did the 20th century teach us? |
| Chapter 12 |
The Lesson in the Collapse Why did central planning fail? |
| Part V: The Modern Synthesis | |
| Chapter 13 |
The Keynesian Synthesis How did Keynes reshape economic thinking? |
| Chapter 14 |
The Neoliberal Turn What drove the market revolution of the 1980s? |
| Chapter 15 |
Piketty's Warning Is inequality baked into capitalism? |
| Chapter 16 |
The Fraying Consensus Why is economics in crisis? |
| Part VI: The Questions Ahead | |
| Chapter 17 |
Money as Constraint Do governments really run out of money? |
| Chapter 18 |
The Venus Dream Could we design an economy from scratch? |
| Chapter 19 |
The Automation Question What happens when machines do all the work? |
| Chapter 20 |
The Coordination Discontinuity Are we approaching a fundamental shift? |
| Chapter 21 |
The Open Question What comes next? |
Credits
This book was created through human-AI collaboration within the CORA system.
- Research & Scoping: Ada
- Writing: Chronicler
- Developmental Edit: Willa
- Fact-Check: Vera
- Line Edit: Willa
- Copy Edit & Proof: Dewey
- Coordination: Ivy
- Sign-off: Joshua
Part of the Chronicles of Coherence series.
