INTERVIEW: 'MONEY' AUTHOR JACOB GOLDSTEIN

Money is a fiction.

That doesn't mean that the bills in your wallet or the numbers in your bank account aren't real &ndash: it just suggests that the only reason money has value is because we believe it does. At least that's how Jacob Goldstein, host of NPR's Planet Money, explains it in his recently-released book, Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing. The book gathers fascinating accounts about money that go as far back as ancient times, all the way to the birth of cryptocurrency and the latest moves by the Fed.

While some finance books may be dense and dry, Goldstein mixes his "true story" of money through insightful, peculiar tales — that are laugh-out-loud funny, too. Money caught up with Goldstein to talk about his new book, the evolution of currency over the centuries, and why we can all have more money.

You present the history of money in a very detailed and even entertaining way. Where did the initial idea for this book come from?

When I got to Planet Money 10 years ago, I started doing historical stories and asking "what is money?" And it's a really interesting question. I was in my mid-30s and I thought of myself as well-informed about the world, but I realized I didn't really know what money was. When I started looking into it, what became clear is that there's this really rich history because money has been reinvented again and again. It became clear that following it over time, telling this series of origin stories of what money is and how people think about it would be a good book.

You write: "The thing that makes money money is trust." Does that mean the only thing that lends money any value is our willingness to believe in it?

I think you're right, yes. And clearly today, when we have money backed by nothing, that's true in a pretty straightforward way. You can't really do anything with a $100 bill that makes it worth $100. It's only the fact that people will give you stuff in exchange for that bill that makes it worth $100. In a subtler way, I think that was true even under the gold standard when $100 got you about five ounces of gold. But the "moneyness" of the gold is the trust. When a thing becomes money, whether it's gold or in other places cattle or cowrie shells, the money part is the trust. It's the belief that other people will accept the thing as money.

Have your views on money changed since finishing the book?

One of the big lessons of the book for me is that money has changed again and again. So, we're not done. Money is going to continue to change, and I think it was hard for me to really feel that lesson. I think there's such a strong tendency to innately feel like the way the world works is the default setting. But in fact, there are lots of different ways to do money, have banks or not have banks, and the way we do money will almost certainly continue to change. And I think I am much more aware of that and much more humble about trying to predict what's going to happen, or even what would be good or bad.

To read the complete article, see:
What Is Money? This Author Dug Into the Fun History of How a Made-Up Thing Came to Rule the World (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/what-is-money-this-author-dug-into-the-fun-history-of-how-a-made-up-thing-came-to-rule-the-world/ar-BB19PtsC)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NEW BOOK: MONEY (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n37a04.html)

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