34. Money by Yuval Noah Harari ★★★★★
Credit arrangements of one kind or another have existed in all known human cultures. The problem in previous eras was not that no one had the idea or knew how to use it. ⑴ 미래가 현재보다 더 나을 것으로 믿지 않았기 때문에 사람들이 많은 신용 거래를 원하는 경우가 좀처럼 없었던 것이 문제였다. They generally believed that times past had been better than their own times and that the future would be worse. To put that in economic terms, they believed that the total amount of wealth was limited. ⑵ People therefore considered it a bad bet to assume that they would be producing more wealth ten years down the line. Business looked like a zerosum game. Of course, the profits of one particular bakery might rise, but only at the [benefit / expense] of the bakery next door. The king of England might enrich himself, but only by [robbing / stealing] the king of France. You could cut the pie in many different ways, but it never got any bigger.
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