Author: Saifedean Ammous is a world-renowned economist and the author of the bestseller “The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking”. His views on economics are in line with Austrian School tradition.
Book: The book explains the basics of our current monetary system (Fiat) with an emphasis on its flaws and consequences to end up with a solution (Bitcoin). The book is divided in three parts (i) Fiat Money, (ii) Fiat Life, and (iii)The Fiat Liquidator. Saifedean starts explaining the creation of fiat money, the technology that backs it up, as well as its key advantages and disadvantages. Then, the author looks for second and third-order consequences of the monetary system and shows the effect that fiat has had on several aspects of our life like family, architecture, or nutrition. Finally, the BTC alternative is discussed focusing on the technology, its fit in the monetary system, and its final costs and benefits.
Opinion: I enjoyed this book a lot. As it happened with Saifedean´s previous work, The Bitcoin Standard, the simplicity with which he explains economics from an Austrian viewpoint is unparalleled. Even if the author is characterized as being ruthless when criticizing other schools of thought, he shows excellent intellectual humility when admitting some of the positive sides of fiat money that he did not consider before (i.e., salability across space). I agree with the author on most of the second/third order consequences of fiat money (e.g., corruption of our diets, science, art, family, academia, etc.), however, I think that in some instances there might be causality problems, and other third factors not considered in the analysis – maybe not every problem is a result of the current financial system. I think that the author should consider some of his points as hypotheses. With regard to BTC as the solver of the system, I still have doubts and need more time to form an educated opinion. Finally, I would recommend reading the Bitcoin Standard first.
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