A walk in the arcane world

"It would be remiss not to mention the spectre of Karl Marx" Yanis says thanking his influencers in the foreword of the book. That is an interesting way to refer to the legacy of Karl Marx as a 'Specter' coming from a close compatriot of Bernie Sanders and an evolved Marxist himself.

For some one who is getting into understanding the current economics with very little understanding of nuts and bolts of it, particularly a techie like me who never had to wade through the maze of its bewildering web, this is book is a nice reckoner. I have read an historical writing on Money by Yuval Harari which was very engaging read, but had lost the way when it meandered into the future. This book seems be picking off from that altitude and dives deeper into the arcane world of markets and debts.

Initially the narration style of going along the path of fables and tales from the past, - notably from the Greek Mythology - finding parallels to explain the layman reader about the complexities of the economics is an uphill task for discerning reader. However, not long after, once you get set on the narrative, it is captivating and hooks on to you very strongly so that the magic of Debt and Markets suddenly comes out of the haze very clearly.

The journey from the history of the Feudal economy with the three elements of Raw material, Land and Labor transforming into the industrial world by commodification those is convincingly explained. The author carefully avoids the usual sermonic tone that the left takes. In fact capitalism is only referred fleetingly, instead choosing more suitable phrases that appeal to the cognitive, modern world.

The way he explains the change of societies with market to a complete market society is captivating and dazzling. The way he explains the value of things, especially the difference between the commodity value and experiential value puts in perspective a lot of things like value of human labour, spread of income etc. In that sense he throws bare how the banking and debt have both fired and pulled the economy and enterprise, playing both savior and destroyer when not balanced by the society and its political setup.

"In the triumph of exchange values over experiential values, as societies with markets evolved into market societies, something else happened: money was transformed from being a means into an end."

Slowly as we ascend into the world of Markets, Debts and currency exchange, an intense sketch evolves. The seemingly muddled world of Write-offs, speculation, Private & Public Debts slowly gets clearer and clearer, explaining the fundamentals of the banks, politics & markets and how these are closely related impacting the larger society in a not so subtle and yet, deep way.

All along what strikes is that, Yanis stays true to his stated intent of explaining the economy to a little girl ( in reality an euphemism for novice readers like me ) without getting lost in the maze of technicalities of it. This could be partly because of his belief that the tenements of economy need humane touch and his refusal to accept that it should be spoken in deep technical terms thereby cutting off the larger population.

"The more scientific our models of the economy become, the less relation they bear to the real, existing economy out there. This is precisely the opposite of what obtains in physics, engineering and the rest of the real sciences, where increasing scientific sophistication throws more and more light on how nature actually works."

However, in spite of this and because of this, he comes out spectacularly clear explaining the intricacies of the seemingly cryptic scenarios and concepts with a ease and simplicity, yet missing no subtlety.

Finally as he walks us through the current and future trends, he strongly dismisses the stated objectives of taking the currency from the control of the political organization by newer means like that of the crypto currencies as a piped dream bound to fail and in the process pulling the economy down.

His thoughts about how the new cognitive world with its increased digitalization and Mechanization with the help of newer technologies can move the human race to one more Icarus moment and ways to mitigate that is something that requires a serious thought. Personally, I feel he is going off the tangent here, but then, such thoughts have propelled social transformation when harnessed properly.

In the end what comes out stronger from his voice is the assertion that economy and market needs more more transparency and accountability which can be achieved by making it more democratic and not otherwise. He asserts how Central banks and Monetary bodies need to be more involved with the people and not with entitled few.

However, this book stops there without getting into nuts and bolts of those stated objective and due to that it still has a tone of theoretical pronouncement.

In spite of all that, I would say, he has done a great job of simplifying the understanding of the larger economy without judgement and prejudice. I think this is one of the books I would recommend and gift my friends with.