Money and Trade Considered

In 1705, a Scottish economist with a dangerous imagination asked a question that would haunt finance for centuries: what if money didn't need to be gold? John Law's radical proposal suggested a national bank issuing paper currency to stimulate trade and kickstart a stagnant economy. It was, in its time, nothing short of heretical. The ideas in this treatise didn't just influence economics; they invented it. Law laid groundwork that Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes would later build upon without always acknowledging their debt. This is the book where modern monetary theory begins: dense, daring, and disturbingly prescient about the power and peril of paper money. It remains essential reading for anyone who wants to understand where our financial system came from, and why it still behaves the way it does.