“This book is an essay in what is derogatorily called “literary economics,” as opposed to mathematical economics, econometrics, or (embracing them both) the “new economic history.” Brought ahead of the Academy program in NYC as recommended reading, Kindleberger describes the system for collective human delusion.
“Money is a public good; as such, it lends itself to private exploitation.”
Markets are emotional weather systems pretending to be rational machines. Panic spreads socially. Euphoria spreads socially. Civilization periodically hallucinates value into existence and then acts shocked when the hallucination collapses. When everyone suddenly sounds certain. When complexity gets replaced by slogans. When risk gets renamed innovation.
Every historical bubble proves humanity has learned absolutely nothing..
A lot of those books are trying to answer why smart people collectively lose their minds around money?
Kindleberger attacks it historically. Soros attacks it philosophically. Kahneman attacks it cognitively. Michael Lewis attacks it narratively.
This also made me notice the pattern. The Academy list overall also splits into two camps: 1) Books about edge [positioning, analysis, frameworks] and, 2) those about surviving your own nervous system [How to think under uncertainty without becoming religious about your own models.]