To flourish in this complex industry and get beyond the cash-grab herd mentality, you need to understand the psychology of money. To do that, you first need to map the trajectory of how our relationship with money has historically evolved in our culture.
It was the noted philosopher and essayist George Santayana who first said the now oft-misquoted phrase, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” sometimes called Santayana’s Law of Repetitive Consequences.[1]
Perhaps in no industry is Santayana’s cliché more relevant, with its cyclicality of scandals and market implosions. This section plots that course, from ancient rudimentary forms of commerce through the more nuanced interpretations on Wall Street.
We start with “The Origins of the Money-Mind Collective” that establishes the symbiotic relationship between the money and the mind from the earliest utilization of currency as a method of exchanging value.
Subsequently, we explore “The Psychology Behind the Evolution of Commerce” that charts a course through the history of money, banking, and the markets. This is not simply a history review, but an examination of the psychological components of key milestones in the development of money as a system of exchanging and assessing value.
We then fast-forward to “Century of the Self” and examine a remarkable documentary produced by Adam Curtis, extrapolating on his observations of how the theories of Freud related to the self are now applied to techniques to influence mass-consumerism, narcissism, and artificial self-esteem systems.
As we proceed, in “This is How We Do Things Here” and “Would You Put Your Mother In It?” We narrow our range further to explore Wall Street culture.
With “The Right Tools in the Wrong Hands” I present a cautionary tale reflecting what can go terribly wrong when you do not have this fundamental appreciation of the development of the psychology of money.
“The Banality of Corruption” explores the systemic acceptance of a warped version of what the Street has become, and other relevant subjects. Through this awareness, hopefully, you need not repeat the mistakes that so many, so often do.