924
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Since January 1, 2014
- A History of the World since 1300 (68)
- History of Rock, 1970-Present (50)
- A Brief History of Humankind (48)
- Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science (35)
- The Modern World: Global History since 1760 (35)
- The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future (28)
- Introduction aux éthiques philosophiques (27)
- Jesus in Scripture and Tradition (25)
- Roman Architecture (25)
- Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender (23)
- Descubriendo la pintura europea de 1400 a 1800 (22)
- Introduction aux droits de l'homme (19)
- Buddhism and Modern Psychology (18)
- Calvin: Histoire et réception d'une Réforme (17)
- The Ancient Greeks (16)
- À la découverte du théâtre classique français (15)
- The French Revolution (15)
- Letters of the Apostle Paul (14)
- Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases (14)
- Christianisme et philosophie dans l'Antiquité (14)
- Egiptología (12)
- Western Music History through Performance (10)
- The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture (9)
- The Great War and Modern Philosophy (9)
- Alexander the Great (9)
- Greek and Roman Mythology (9)
- Human Evolution: Past and Future (9)
- Phenomenology and the Conscious Mind (9)
- Masterpieces of World Literature (8)
- Villes africaines: la planification urbaine (8)
- Greeks at War: Homer at Troy (7)
- Pensamiento Científico (7)
- MongoDB for Node.js Developers (7)
- Fundamentos de la escritura en español (7)
- Introduction to Psychology (7)
- Programming Mobile Applications for Android (7)
- The Rooseveltian Century (6)
- Karl der Große - Pater Europae (6)
- Fake News, Facts, and Alternative Facts (6)
- Reason and Persuasion Through Plato's Dialogues (6)
- The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (6)
- A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior (6)
- Lingua e cultura italiana: avanzata (6)
- L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (5)
- Understanding Einstein: The Special Theory of Relativity (5)
- Dinosaur Paleobiology (5)
- Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas (5)
- War for the Greater Middle East (4)
- Emergence of Life (4)
- Introduction to Public Speaking (4)
- The Kennedy Half Century (4)
- Problèmes métaphysiques à l'épreuve de la politique, 1943-1968 (4)
- Designing Cities (4)
- Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe (3)
- Paleontology: Early Vertebrate Evolution (3)
- Orientierung Geschichte (3)
- Moons of Our Solar System (3)
- Introduction à la philosophie de Friedrich Nietzsche (3)
- Devenir entrepreneur du changement (3)
- La Commedia di Dante (3)
- History of Rock and Roll, Part One (3)
- Formation of the Universe, Solar System, Earth and Life (3)
- Initiation à la programmation en Java (3)
- La visione del mondo della Relatività e della Meccanica Quantistica (3)
- The Music of the Beatles (3)
- Analyzing the Universe (3)
- Découvrir l'anthropologie (3)
- Postwar Abstract Painting (3)
- The Science of Religion (2)
- La Philanthropie : Comprendre et Agir (2)
- Highlights of Modern Astronomy (2)
- Materials Science: 10 Things Every Engineer Should Know (2)
- The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome (2)
- Lingua e letteratura in italiano (2)
- Gestion des aires protégées en Afrique (2)
- Géopolitique de l'Europe (2)
- Introduction à la programmation en C++ (2)
- Découvrir la science politique (2)
- Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes (2)
- The European Discovery of China (2)
- Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication (2)
- Philosophy and the Sciences (2)
- Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity (2)
- The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (2)
- The Science of Gastronomy (2)
- Galaxies and Cosmology (2)
- Introduction to Classical Music (2)
- Art History for Artists, Animators and Gamers (2)
- L'art des structures 1 : Câbles et arcs (2)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (2)
- The World of Wine (1)
- Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis (1)
- William Wordsworth: Poetry, People and Place (1)
- The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction (1)
- Switzerland in Europe (1)
- The World of the String Quartet (1)
- Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1)
- El Mediterráneo del Renacimiento a la Ilustración (1)
- Science of Exercise (1)
- Социокультурные аспекты социальной робототехники (1)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (1)
- The Rise of China (1)
- The Renaissance and Baroque City (1)
- Visualizing Postwar Tokyo (1)
- In the Night Sky: Orion (1)
- Oriental Beliefs: Between Reason and Traditions (1)
- The Biology of Music (1)
- Mountains 101 (1)
- Moral Foundations of Politics (1)
- Mobilité et urbanisme (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Thinking (1)
- Making Sense of News (1)
- Magic in the Middle Ages (1)
- Introduction to Italian Opera (1)
- Intellectual Humility (1)
- The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone (1)
- Human Origins (1)
- Miracles of Human Language (1)
- From Goddard to Apollo: The History of Rockets (1)
- Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1)
- Handel’s Messiah and Baroque Oratorio (1)
- Theater and Globalization (1)
- Gestion et Politique de l'eau (1)
- Une introduction à la géographicité (1)
- Frontières en tous genres (1)
- Créer et développer une startup technologique (1)
- Découvrir le marketing (1)
- Escribir para Convencer (1)
- Anthropology of Current World Issues (1)
- Poetry in America: Whitman (1)
- Introducción a la genética y la evolución (1)
- Shakespeare: On the Page and in Performance (1)
- The Civil War and Reconstruction (1)
- Dinosaur Ecosystems (1)
- Développement durable (1)
- Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us (1)
- Imagining Other Earths (1)
- Learning How to Learn (1)
- Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (1)
- Web Intelligence and Big Data (1)
- Andy Warhol (1)
- Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life (1)
- Practicing Tolerance in a Religious Society (1)
- Subsistence Marketplaces (1)
- Physique générale - mécanique (1)
- Exercise Physiology: Understanding the Athlete Within (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1)
- What Managers Can Learn from Great Philosophers (1)
- A la recherche du Grand Paris (1)
- The New Nordic Diet (1)
- A New History for a New China, 1700-2000 (1)
- The Magna Carta and its Legacy (1)
- The Age of Jefferson (1)
- History and Future of Higher Education (1)
- Éléments de Géomatique (1)
- 21st Century American Foreign Policy (1)
- The Law of the European Union (1)
- Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society (1)
- Introduction to Data Science (1)
- Configuring the World (1)
- From the Big Bang to Dark Energy (1)
- Animal Behaviour (1)
- Programming Mobile Services for Android Handheld Systems (1)
- The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art (1)
- Care of Elders with Alzheimer's Disease (1)
- Contagious: How Things Catch On (1)
- Constitutional Law - The Structure of Government (1)
- Narratives of Nonviolence in the American Civil Rights Movement (1)
- Christianity: From Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200-1650) (1)
- Age of Cathedrals (1)
- Controversies of British Imperialism (1)
- Big History: From the Big Bang until Today (1)
- Bemerkenswerte Menschen (1)
- The Art of Poetry (1)
- Superpowers of the Ancient World: the Near East (1)
- America Through Foreign Eyes (1)
- Advertising and Society (1)
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:




Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:
Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
How Capitalism is Based on Trust in the Future
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on February 8, 2014 (go to class or lectures)


Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
60, banker, two, ten, future, one, growth, reserve, dwindling, capitalistic, king, growing, covered, tomorrow, 250, income, enterprises, imagination, trust, Sumer, hundreds
economics is often seen as a notoriously complicated subject
understanding modern economic history and the rise of the system is quite easy
to understand it, you have to only understand a single word:
the most unique and important characteristic of the modern capitalistic economy is that it is constantly: every year we have more goods, more money
in 1500, the global production of goods and services is estimated to be equality to billion dollars in today's dollars
annual per capita production: $550 per year
in 2013, this is approximately trillion dollars
annual per capita production: $8800 per year
the way the economy grows
example
you want to open up a bakery but you don't have the money
you go to the bank and ask for a loan
the bank has money to give you because people put their earnings into the bank
e.g. a contractor just built an Italian restaurant and earned a million dollars and he puts this in the bank
you present your business plan to the
if the banker is convinced, then she can take the one million dollars and give them to you
you hire the same contractor to build your bakery for one million dollars
he takes the money from you and deposits it in his bank account
the contractor now has million dollars in his bank account
but in the bank, there is only one million dollars
but let's say the contract had come to you while building your bakery and said there were problems and now the cost is not one million dollars but two million dollars
so you go to the bank, get another million from the bank and pay it to the contractor who puts it in the bank
so the contractor has three million dollars in his account but there is only million in the bank
banks are allowed to loan dollars for every dollar that they actually possess
this is called the " requirement" (or cash reserve ratio) is a central bank regulation employed by most, but not all, of the world's central banks
this means that over 90% of the money in the banks is not by actual money
if everyone came at one time and wanted their money, the banks would not be able to give it to them
this may seem like a fraud, but actually it's not a fraud and it's been working in an amazing way for of years
it's not a deception but an amazing tribute to the abilities of the human
what enables banks and the entire capitalistic economy to survive and flourish, and covers the money in our bank account, is our trust in the
banks loan money trusting that one day -generating businesses will be built
this is how the capitalist economy functions, by trusting the future, and this is why it grows so rapidly
the secret of capitalism is that it finances present expenses with money that has no cover in the present and only may have cover in the future
for most of history, the economy was frozen, it hardly grew at all because it was very hard to finance new because people did not trust in the future
if you wanted to build a bakery in the Middle Ages before the rise of the capitalist system, you would need to pay a builder and buy an oven and pots and pans and spoons, but you can't start earning money until you build the bakery, and so the economy was trapped in this viscous circle
economic growth was slow and limited, hard to start and expand
the way out of this was with the capitalist system which is based on credit
people agree to represent goods that don't exist in the present with a special kind of money called credit
later you pay back the credit with interest
money is based on , credit is a special kind of money which is based on trust in the future
pre-capitalist economies were based on trust of things that existed in the present, e.g. using your countries coins required trust in your current
credit is more sophisticated is money which is based on trust in things that may exist in the future
we have evidence of credit in the past
loans from ancient
but most people didn't want to extend much credit because they didn't trust that the future would be better than the present
people in pre-scientific societies didn't believe much in progress, they tended to feel that the world was better in the past
to put this in economic terms, people believed that the total amount of wealth in the world was at best stable if not
the revenue of a particular bakery might rise, but only at the expense of another bakery
one city might flourish but only if another city becomes impoverished
that's why many cultures concluded that being rich and making large amounts of money was sinful and bad
credit is the difference between the size of the economic pie today and the size of the economic pie
if you believe that the pie will stay the same, there is little reason to give others credit
most loans in the pre-modern world were small, short-termed, and subject to high interest
Ideas and Concepts:
On how capitalism is based on trust in the future, via today's History of Humankind class:
"According to reserve requirement regulations, most banks in the world are allowed to loan up to ten dollars for every dollar that they actually possess. This means that up to 90% of the money in world banks is not covered by actual money that they can pay out, and if everyone wanted to withdraw their money from their bank accounts all at one time, no bank would be able to honor this and they would collapse. This may seem like a fraud, but actually it's not a fraud, and it's been working in an amazing way for hundreds of years. It's not a deception but an amazing tribute to the abilities of the human imagination. What enables banks and the entire capitalistic economy to survive and flourish, and what covers the money in all of our bank accounts, is our trust in the future. Banks loan money trusting that one day income-generating businesses will be built, and so the secret of capitalism is that it finances present expenses with money which, at present, has no cover and only may have cover in the future.
For most of history, however, economies were frozen, hardly growing at all since it was very hard to finance new enterprises since people in general did not trust that the future would be better than the present. Instead, pre-capitalist economies were based on trust of things that existed in the present, e.g. people used their kingdom's or empire's coins because of the trust they had in their current king or emperor. But if they wanted to build a bakery, they would need to pay a builder and buy an oven and pots and pans and spoons, yet they didn't have the money for this and wouldn't be able to start earning money until they built the bakery, and so the economy was trapped in this viscous circle:they couldn't get loans because in general people did not believe that the future could be any better than the present.
This began to change in Europe in the 16th and 17th century for two reasons:(1) the age of colonization began to hint to both kings and merchants that the future might indeed be better than the present:e.g. if they invested their money in ships and sailors, these may one day sail back loaded with riches, and (2) the scientific revolution began to produce better ships, navigational equipment and other technology which increased the chance that those ships would come back loaded with riches. Based on this model of future optimism driven first by colonization and carried forward by advances in science, the global economy has been growing ever since:in 1500, the global production of goods and services is estimated to be 250 billion dollars in today's dollar value, in 2013 it was approximately 60 trillion dollars."
"According to reserve requirement regulations, most banks in the world are allowed to loan up to ten dollars for every dollar that they actually possess. This means that up to 90% of the money in world banks is not covered by actual money that they can pay out, and if everyone wanted to withdraw their money from their bank accounts all at one time, no bank would be able to honor this and they would collapse. This may seem like a fraud, but actually it's not a fraud, and it's been working in an amazing way for hundreds of years. It's not a deception but an amazing tribute to the abilities of the human imagination. What enables banks and the entire capitalistic economy to survive and flourish, and what covers the money in all of our bank accounts, is our trust in the future. Banks loan money trusting that one day income-generating businesses will be built, and so the secret of capitalism is that it finances present expenses with money which, at present, has no cover and only may have cover in the future.
For most of history, however, economies were frozen, hardly growing at all since it was very hard to finance new enterprises since people in general did not trust that the future would be better than the present. Instead, pre-capitalist economies were based on trust of things that existed in the present, e.g. people used their kingdom's or empire's coins because of the trust they had in their current king or emperor. But if they wanted to build a bakery, they would need to pay a builder and buy an oven and pots and pans and spoons, yet they didn't have the money for this and wouldn't be able to start earning money until they built the bakery, and so the economy was trapped in this viscous circle:they couldn't get loans because in general people did not believe that the future could be any better than the present.
This began to change in Europe in the 16th and 17th century for two reasons:(1) the age of colonization began to hint to both kings and merchants that the future might indeed be better than the present:e.g. if they invested their money in ships and sailors, these may one day sail back loaded with riches, and (2) the scientific revolution began to produce better ships, navigational equipment and other technology which increased the chance that those ships would come back loaded with riches. Based on this model of future optimism driven first by colonization and carried forward by advances in science, the global economy has been growing ever since:in 1500, the global production of goods and services is estimated to be 250 billion dollars in today's dollar value, in 2013 it was approximately 60 trillion dollars."