Ep 397: Larry White and the First Principles of Money

The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma

We take money and banking and finance for granted -- but the way they exist in the world is not the only way they could exist. Lawrence H White joins Amit Varma in episode 397 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss ideas, ideologies, money, crypto and the field he pioneered, free banking. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Lawrence H White on Twitter, Wikipedia, Cato, GMU, Amazon and Google Scholar. 2. Free Banking in Britain – Theory, Experience and Debate 1800-1845 -- Lawrence H White. 3. The Clash of Economic Ideas -- Lawrence H White. 4. Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin? -- Lawrence H White. 5. The Incredible Insights of Timur Kuran — Episode 349 of The Seen and the Unseen. 6. The Long Divergence — Timur Kuran. 7. The Problem With Digital Public Goods -- Episode 56 of Everything is Everything. 8. Seeing Like a State — James C Scott. 9. Javier Milei's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. 10. For a New Liberty -- Murray Rothbard. 11. Laissez Faire Books. 12. Capitalism and Freedom -- Milton Friedman. 13. Power and Market -- Murray Rothbard. 14. Economics in One Lesson — Henry Hazlitt. 15. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal -- Ayn Rand. 16. Man, Economy and State -- Murray Rothbard. 17. Gold and Economic Freedom -- Alan Greenspan. 18. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution -- Bernard Bailyn. 19. Is Nonprice Competition in Currency Inefficient? -- Lawrence H White & Donald J Boudreaux. 20. Demonetisation and welfare -- Shruti Rajagopalan and Lawrence H White. 21. Narendra Modi takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma. 22. Anarchy, State and Utopia -- Robert Nozick. 23. Civilization III. 24. The Fatal Conceit — Friedrich Hayek. 25. The Private Mint In Economics: Evidence from American Gold Rushes -- Lawrence H White. 26. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass -- Frederick Douglass. 27. Lombard Street - A Description of the Money Market -- Walter Bagehot. 28. Has Government Any Role in Money? -- Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz. 29. Antifragile -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb. 30. What Really Happened? — Lawrence H White on the 2008 Financial Crisis. 31. Gambling with Other People's Money -- Russell D Roberts. 32. The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure -- John Allison. 33. Check Your Financial Privilege -- Alex Gladstein. 34. Resistance Money: A Philosophical Case for Bitcoin -- Andrew Bailey, Bradley Rettler and Craig Warmke. 35. Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptoassets -- Fabian Schär and Aleksander Berentsen. 36. The Denationalisation of Money -- Hayek. 37. The Theory of Free Banking -- George Selgin. 38. Money: Free and Unfree -- George Selgin. 39. The Experience of Free Banking -- Kevin Dowd. 40. Fixing the Knowledge Society -- Episode 24 of Everything is Everything. 41. The Four Quadrants of Conformism — Paul Graham. 42. The Outlaws -- Episode 61 of Everything is Everything. 43. Guru -- Mani Ratnam. 44. Sholay -- Ramesh Sippy. 45. Don -- Chandra Barot. 46. Red Plenty -- Francis Spufford. 47. Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood -- Joachim Fest. 48. The Madeira, Lords of Atlantis, Man Or Astro-Man?, Satan's Pilgrims and Badmarsh & Shri on Spotify. 49. Godzilla Minus One -- Takashi Yamazaki. 50. Amarcord -- Federico Fellini. 51. Roma -- Federico Fellini. 52. I Vitelloni -- Federico Fellini. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Amit’s newsletter is active again. Subscribe right away to The India Uncut Newsletter! It’s free! Amit Varma and Ajay Shah have launched a new video podcast. Check out Everything is Everything on YouTube. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. Episode art: ‘Money on the Mind’ by Simahina.