The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World 1st Edition

Where does money come from? Like many of the fundamental building blocks of civilization – agriculture, writing, numbers, commerce – it turns out that it comes from Mesopotamia. Around 5,000 years ago, transactions were recorded there on clay tablets, which were the earliest forms of money known to human civilization. This according to Niall Ferguson, the justly celebrated, English-educated Harvard history professor.

The world’s first coins were minted in the Greek empire in what is now Turkey, about 2,600 years ago. As it happens, as I write this, I have a 2,300-year-old Greek silver coin that I wear around my neck. It has a bee on the obverse and a deer on the reverse. It was minted at Ephesus in Anatolia 300 years before the Apostle John lived there and wrote his world-changing Gospel. Money has ancient roots and its rise is inextricably intertwined with the rise of human civilization, and Prof. Ferguson explores the entire grand story in this compelling, engaging and superbly readable history.

Ferguson has a remarkable and rare ability to take a difficult and even abstruse subject like the history of money and make it fascinatingly intelligible, even entertaining. This impressive book began life as a television series for Channel 4 in the UK and on PBS in the U.S. It draws to a close as the appalling Great Recession of 2008 is getting under way in earnest, a coincidence that underscores why understanding money and how it flows through the tissues and sinews of the global economy, is time well spent and of the first importance.

Ferguson begins with the earliest forms of money and the origins of banking, then moves on to bonds and the creation of debt structures. After that comes a fascinating chapter on bubbles and on the rise of insurance to ameliorate risk. These are followed by chapters on real estate and the massive modern globalization trends that have created the bipolar financial world that he calls Chimerica, organized around the enormous economies of China and the US. It sounds rather dry to list the chapter topics this way, but each is told in fascinating detail and with a lively anecdotal wit that keep the subject from getting anywhere near the tedious mark. One criticism: Ferguson’s afterword should have been an opportunity for a brilliant look-back on the financial crisis of 2008, but instead it is a rather rambling discourse on whether markets are truly evolutionary. It lacks the acuity and clarity of the rest of the book and would better have been left out, I thought. But this is a small flaw in an otherwise very impressive and perfectly comprehensive summary of where money comes from and why understanding its ascent is important to each one of us.

The genius of history Professor Ferguson, of Harvard University and the Hoover Institute, is widely acclaimed. His ability to summarize the broad sweep of history in using easy language for non-academics is on display in many of his books.
Note: this book is not without its critics, particularly among Economists, who can be a cantankerous lot with a wide variety of political viewpoints. The book succeeds as a historical narrative and does not lay claim to technical economic exposition.
Ferguson has the ability to open up the broad sweep of history with easy terms and lots of facts to portray a clear picture. The pertinent statistics that abound in his narrative are particularly helpful in clarifying the history and impact of money. Beginning with money lenders in ancient Mesopotamia (a beginning form of credit) the author shows us how the ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of mankind.
The ascent of money is described as an evolutionary process with development throughout history of new mediums of exchange. Capital mutations bring about the creation of new markets and new products, which are created by a system under capitalism, which provides growth in the monetary system to accommodate economic growth and expansion of the population. One example of the ongoing change in the world of business and technology that is cited: of the 100 largest private companies in the year 1919 only 29 remained in the top 100 by the year 2000.
The author shows us the development of new tools in the supply of money from barter systems to using commodities as money, to the first coins in the Mediterranean region (600BC), to the Inca Empire which had no money (presumably applauded by Karl Marx but not John Lennon), to precious metals backed by coinage in the era of Pizarro, to the introduction of banking systems with the Medici Empire in 15th Century Florence, to the introduction of stocks, bonds, insurance, and international money markets, and to the subprime mortgage debacle.
Within the narrative we get the broad sweep of many of the greatest economists including Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek, Ludvig von Mises, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Marx, Frank Knight, JM Keynes, and Milton Friedman.
The Author asserts that the basis of money is TRUST. National currencies therefore float in value compared to other currencies depending upon international confidence and expected stability. Credit also is dependent upon the commitment that loans will be repaid. According to the author with other things being equal, more “money” only increases prices and does not enrich a nation.
One theory espoused by a number of individuals in popular discourse is the world would be better off if there were no money! The author does not refute this argument directly, perhaps assuming that his readers are schooled in basic economics. Economic history teaches that in a culture where there is no money, a monetary system is created in order that goods and services can be exchanged between individuals. Only if no item in the culture has any value would there be no need for money. If anything, perhaps the life of an individual, does have value then there would arise the desire for a monetary system in order to protect or exchange the items of value between individuals. Ferguson does mention the “no money” topic regarding both Karl Marx and the Inca civilization. Little is known about the Inca Empire except that its time of prosperity was very short. Marxism seemed to flourish during the first half of the twentieth century but seemed to collapse by the end of the century, with many formerly Communist or socialist nations moving back toward widespread property rights and capitalism.

Upon reading this book, one finds it almost unconscionable that the leading business schools do not require mastery of a course in financial history as a core component of the ubiquitous MBA. Despite being reasonably well read and a graduate of "a well known eastern business school", I was shocked at how much of this material was new to me - and terribly relevant. And I would argue that those who have been working in finance are aware of further critical nuances to where we are and how we got there. In this country alone, we now have 200 years of substantial history in the realities of finance, but have no societal commitment to recording this experience and disseminating it to the actors in the market today. It would be as if West Point decided cadets need only to learn weapons and organization, leaving military history to the esoteric fringe. Sobering.