When Money Stops Working

One mechanism, three times, a century apart, in seven parts. What it is like, why it happens, what it takes away, and what it takes to stop one.

7 modules · about 70 minutes

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Start · module 1

Free while the series is being written 4 of the 7 modules are written, and every one of them is free to read now. Nothing is charged and no account is needed.

The 7 modules

Modules are written to be read in order: each one opens on the question the last one closed with. Start wherever you like.

1 Money That Will Not Wait A wage spent within hours of being paid, and prices that doubled every day. Coming soon Free

2 There Is No Printing Press It has happened about fifty times, and never once because a machine was switched on. 7 steps · 10 min · Free 3 Money You Have Not Raised A war, a bill it could not pay, and a central bank that was doing the spending itself. 7 steps · 10 min · Free 4 Somebody Else's Fault Every government named an enemy outside, and every one of them kept the financing running. 6 steps · 9 min · Free 5 What It Takes Away Savings, contracts, the price itself, and a quarter of the people. 8 steps · 12 min · Free

6 How It Ends Three endings, one condition, and only one of them was designed. Coming soon Free

7 What Does Not Come Back Prices stop within weeks. Trust takes decades, and sometimes never arrives. Coming soon Free

←All economic history

Country data from the World Bank (CC BY 4.0) and the UNDP Human Development Report (CC BY 3.0 IGO)
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