Read more
A decade after the financial crisis, there is a growing consensus that economics has failed and needs to go back to the drawing board. David Orrell argues that it has been trying to solve the wrong problem all along.
Economics sees itself as the science of scarcity. Instead, it should be the science of money (which plays a surprisingly small role in mainstream theory). And money is a substance that turns out to have a quantum nature of its own.
Just as physicists learn about matter by studying the exchange of particles at the subatomic level, so economics should begin by analysing the nature of money-based transactions. Quantum Economics therefore starts with the meaning of the phrase 'how much' - or, to use the Latin word, quantum.
From quantum physics to the dualistic properties of money, via the emerging areas of quantum finance and quantum cognition, this profoundly important book reveals that quantum economics is to neoclassical economics what quantum physics is to classical physics - a genuine turning point in our understanding.
About the author
David Orrell is a scientist and writer of books on science and economics. According to the Sunday Times ‘Orrell is an engaging and witty writer, adept at explaining often complicated theories in clear language.’ His latest books are The Money Formula: Dodgy Finance, Pseudo Science, and How Mathematicians Took Over the Markets, written with Paul Wilmott; and Economyths: 11 Ways Economics Gets It Wrong (Icon Books, 2017).
Summary
The emerging science of quantum economics can help us create a ‘real-world’ economics that actually works for us all
Additional text
‘On the cusp of an earlier revolution, Karl Marx said all that is solid melts into air and all that is holy is profaned. Constructing a less mechanistic and even more revolutionary science of quantum economics, David Orrell proves it so. Orrell does not dabble in metaphor or metaphysics: he intellectually, persuasively and corrosively transmutates money into a quantum phenomenon. In the process, classical economics is profaned to good effect and a quantum future glimmers as a real possibility.’
Report
'As money becomes more digital and diffuse, it also becomes more quantum. In this timely and illuminating book, David Orrell brings us to the frontier of where economics, physics and psychology intersect. You'll never look at money the same again!' Dr Parag Khanna, author of Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
