Money, Finance, Reality, Morality: A New Way to Address Old Problems

460 Pages·2022·8.463 MB·English

by  Edward Hadas

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Money, Finance, Reality,
Morality
A New Way to Address Old Problems
By
Edward Hadas
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Money, Finance, Reality, Morality: A New Way to Address Old
Problems
By Edward Hadas

This book first published 2022
Ethics International Press Ltd, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2022 by Edward Hadas
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Print Book ISBN: 978-1-80441-026-4
eBook ISBN: 978-1-80441-027-1

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Contents
Preface ................................................................................................................ xv
Chapter 1. The problem with money and finance ....................................... 1
In praise of the modern economy ..................................................................... 1
The financial exception ....................................................................................... 5
Why the failure is surprising, and what that means ...................................... 8
Slaves to bad old ideas ..................................................................................... 11
Money is a scarce commodity ................................................................ 12
Money is individualistic .......................................................................... 16
Money tells the exact truth about values .............................................. 19
Chapter 2. Money ............................................................................................. 26
1. Money as a symbol ........................................................................................ 28
2. The Great Exchange ...................................................................................... 42
A definition ............................................................................................... 43
Exchange ................................................................................................... 45
Labour ........................................................................................................ 46
Consumption ............................................................................................ 49
Gift .............................................................................................................. 50
The humanised world ............................................................................. 52
Money and the Great Exchange (preview) ........................................... 54
3. Introduction to money .................................................................................. 67
What money is .......................................................................................... 67
The genius of monetary allocation (allocation itself) .......................... 69
The genius of monetary allocation (balance) ........................................ 73
The genius of monetary allocation (flexibility) .................................... 75
Four complications ................................................................................... 78
Theories of steady monetary value ........................................................ 84
What money-numbers do mean ............................................................. 89
Adding information to money ............................................................... 93
4. The Triptych ................................................................................................... 95
The left section (non-economic money) ................................................ 98
The middle section ................................................................................. 102
The right section (economy without money) ..................................... 104
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5. Money and economic reality ...................................................................... 111
6. What gives money its value ....................................................................... 116
7. The shifting Central Monetary Ratio ........................................................ 121
The Central Monetary Ratio .................................................................. 121
Local problems ........................................................................................ 126
Border problems in one currency ......................................................... 128
Border problems across currencies ...................................................... 130
Money creation problem ....................................................................... 132
Denominator problems .......................................................................... 135
8. Managing the supply of money ................................................................ 138
When is active control of the money-supply helpful? ....................... 138
How can the money-supply be controlled? ........................................ 141
How large should monetary adjustments be? .................................... 143
9. Money is not really a store of value .......................................................... 144
10. Money is not intertemporal credit .......................................................... 152
Chapter 3. Introduction to finance .............................................................. 161
1. Finance as a symbol..................................................................................... 162
2. Economic finance ......................................................................................... 170
Yoking ...................................................................................................... 173
Giving ....................................................................................................... 174
Pooling ..................................................................................................... 175
Taxing (governmental allocation) ........................................................ 176
Changing ................................................................................................. 178
Finance ..................................................................................................... 179
3. Post-aristocratic finance .............................................................................. 180
Traditional land rents ............................................................................ 181
Modern land rents .................................................................................. 183
Government debt .................................................................................... 184
Excessive business income .................................................................... 187
Consumer lending .................................................................................. 187
Finance itself............................................................................................ 188
4. Six general observations on finance .......................................................... 188
5. Two types of financial arrangement ......................................................... 192
Debt .......................................................................................................... 193
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Equities .................................................................................................... 196
6. Ten economic uses of finance .................................................................... 199
1. Helpful financial selection ................................................................ 199
2. Helpful financial unification ............................................................. 201
3. Helpful financial smoothing ............................................................. 202
4. Doubtful financial principle of corporate organisation ................ 203
5. Doubtful financial intertemporal transfers ..................................... 204
6. Doubtful streams of financial income ............................................. 205
7. Doubtful promises ............................................................................. 206
8. Bad financial social power ................................................................ 207
9. Bad financial activity in companies ................................................. 208
10. Bad financial speculation ................................................................ 208
7. Topics in finance and society ..................................................................... 209
Sharp judgements, duller reality .......................................................... 209
Financialisation ....................................................................................... 212
Implications of the precisionist-consistency fallacy .......................... 215
8. Topics in financial morality ....................................................................... 217
The inherent justice of non-aristocratic finance ................................. 218
The concentration of financial power .................................................. 221
Some moral questions ............................................................................ 222
Dividing gain and pain and keeping promises .................................. 225
The value of forgiveness ....................................................................... 226
9. Six confusing words .................................................................................... 227
1. Finance ................................................................................................. 228
2. Savings ................................................................................................. 231
3. Bank ..................................................................................................... 234
4. Investments ......................................................................................... 236
5. Capital .................................................................................................. 238
6. Government debt ............................................................................... 243
10. Four conceptual confusions ..................................................................... 247
1. Compounding returns ....................................................................... 247
2. Pension and government debts ........................................................ 249
3. Two types of prices ............................................................................ 252
4. The mystique of interest rates .......................................................... 255