False Signals

If prices rise, it is assumed that the same monetary process must be at work; if the quantity of money increases, some kind of “boom” must be lurking. Even a large inflow of commodity money into a free market is thought to generate a mild or temporary version of the business cycle. Its apparent absence is attributed merely to the rarity of such inflows and the cost and slowness of mining, rather than to any fundamental difference in the underlying process.

Civilizations Are Transaction Costs

Every map of civilizations is, underneath, a map of transaction costs. The usual stories about nations and civilizations fall into two camps, and both run into the same problem. One camp, the constructivists, sees nations as political projects—the products of state-building, what Benedict Anderson called “print capitalism” in his book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, and of deliberate elite mobilization.

The Affordability Crisis Is a Sovereign Debt Problem

Previously, I have argued that sovereign credit systems are structurally biased toward expansion: crises justify new interventions, those interventions are never fully reversed, and each cycle leaves behind a higher institutional baseline than before. The Cantillon effect ensures that the gains from monetary expansion distribute unevenly, flowing first to those nearest the financial system.