Quantum Economics: The New Science of Money

by David Orrell

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785785085
Publisher:	Amberley Publishing
Publication date:	06/06/2019
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	1,038,939
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.00(d)

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).

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Quantum Money

Chapter 1 The quantum world 23

Chapter 2 How much 53

Chapter 3 Quantum creations 75

Chapter 4 The money veil 99

Chapter 5 The money bomb 123

Part 2 The Quantum Economy

Chapter 6 The uncertainty principle 151

Chapter 7 Quantum games 175

Chapter 8 Entangled clouds 215

Chapter 9 Measuring the economy 261

Chapter 10 We-conomics 293

Appendix 321

Notes 327

Acknowledgements 375

Index 377

Editorial Reviews

Orrell has explained his ideas in a very lively style, providing the history and a basic explanation of the physics; and goes on to explore the various consequences of this dual nature, which neo-classical economics did not foresee. The book should be read, not only by economists but also by all decision-makers.’

Asghar Qadir

‘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

Beautifully written, inherently ethical, and often hilarious, this book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the weird, and getting weirder, world of modern finance.’

Margaret Wertheim

‘Reading David Orrell’s Quantum Economics is equivalent to playing a game of 3-D chess against the concept of value itself. The book easily switches between physical, economic and metaphysical conceptions of value, revealing their hidden parallels and paradoxes. The result is at once an explanation of our current economic predicament, a diagnosis of how we got there and a credible guide to the sort of “out of the box” thinking that is likely to get us out of it. After you’ve forgotten about the latest wheeze about the financial crisis, you’ll be returning to this book.’

Steve Fuller

‘Rich with suggestive insights on every page and written in an accessible style, this book will both engage and infuriate its audience. For those of us who feel trapped in the professional cocoons of the like-minded, this book offers a chance to escape from the iron cages we have built.’

Peter J. Katzenstein

‘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.’

James Der Derian