What, exactly, is money?
Money defies a concrete definition. It can be exchanged for goods and services but is neither. It takes the form of paper and metal currencies but can be as ephemeral as numbers transferred from one computer to another.
Bill Bernstein questions money itself and offers a concise, insightful examination of the problem of money, an abstract construct that has no more or less value than what we assign to it. Digging into the foundations of economic systems, he questions how we use money, why we use it, and if, indeed, the concept does more harm than good.
Originally created to assign value to things, money now has value of its own. People spend lifetimes accruing numbers in stocks, savings, and investments. Those who "own" the most money are seen as successful; those who don't are condemned to lives of hardship. It seems an odd obsession, this insistence on the importance of an illusionary idea.
Bernstein strips the illusion away, using simple language for those of us who aren't economists. Is money truly essential for a society, and if not, what are the alternatives?
About the Author: After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Bill Bernstein lived in India before returning to his hometown of Dallas, Texas. He owned a travel agency and secured a master's degree in counseling.
Bernstein now works at a nonprofit agency assisting survivors of human rights abuses. He has served as co-chair of a national coalition of experts and advocates helping the survivors of human trafficking. He has run for Congress, played in the World Series of Poker, and lives in Dallas with his wife, alongside two (occasionally three) dogs and two cats.
