History & the security of property https://archive.is/dRXEK Principle of least authority https://archive.is/TqjwS Birth of insurance https://archive.is/Q9Oyu Origins of the joint-stock company https://archive.is/EvOHS Kula ring https://archive.is/ICf4I Archiveshttps://archive.is/Zqi9H
-
Very interesting Nick. Don´t you think that Double entry Accounting was key for joint-stock companies to thrive?
-
-
The idea is that double entry accounting makes joint-companies much more easy to audit, so it dramatically lowered the cost of trust for equity holders.This allowed for much more longer and well funded enterprises, initially long sea commercial journeys to the americas and indias
-
This article describes the historical importance of double entry accounting. It also states that Bitcoin is triple-entry accounting (not so sure about that, but it could be). The historical part of accounting is interesting though.https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-important-invention-in-the-last-500-years-c90b0151c169 …
-
Why are you not sure if Bitcoin is triple-entry accounting?
-
I just haven´t thought enough about it
-
I´d say it is triple entry accounting, nevertheless I don't think that the mutability of 2 entry accounting is a real issue. Most frauds do not involve rewriting entries, they are more sophisticated than that.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
1/3 According to Wikipedia there were examples of both joint stock companies and double-entry bookkeeping in antiquity in Italy and the middle ages in the Middle East, _but_ they only became used on a widespread scale in the high middle ages in Italy...
-
2/3 Through their adoptions in the commercial maritime republics of Genoa and Venice, both of whom rapidly adapted technologies like that in order to compete against each other. We probably owe 30% of western civilization to the fact that Venice and Genoa couldn't just get along.
-
3/3 If I had everything to do over again I think I would want to study medieval italian history. Back then I would have thought it was archaic, but the more I learn the more it looks like they invented the modern world, and the modern world is converging on late medieval Italy.
-
One further thought. I just looked up when _paper manufacture_ was introduced to Italy. According to Wikipedia, it was in the 1350's in the North, but my faulty personal memory says production was earlier in Amalfi in Campania, around the first half of the 1200's.
-
Compare both dates to the 1346 that our host mentions and it starts appearing like both the joint stock corporation and double-entry bookeeping were like computer programs everyone knew about but noone had a computer to run them on until the 1300's.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.