Chris's Reviews > Making Money

This is the follow-up to Going Postal, in which the former con-man Moist von Lipwig sets up the new Ankh-Morpork post office and thwarts the evil corporate wiles of the Clacks.

When my co-workers asked me what I was reading, I told them, "It's a fantasy about.... About banking."

I know, I know, it sounds like a bizarre topic for a fantasy novel, even for a Discworld novel, but gods bless Terry Pratchett, he can even make basic economic theory interesting. Why is it not that bad that a penny costs more than a penny to make? Why don't we need gold to back our currency anymore? Why do these little pieces of paper in our wallets actually mean anything?

It could be implied, from reading this, that modern economics are a result of a grand, elaborate con.

You see, money is only worth something because we say it is. Oh, we can pretend it's based on gold, which we think is valuable because it's rare, or shiny. We can pretend it's based on the integrity of our nation, and hope that our nation's integrity never falters. We can base it on anything we want, but the key is this - the paper in your wallet only has value because we all agree that it does.

Now the reason this book isn't an economic treatise, of course, is because it has a plot. Golems, assassins, and madmen conspire to rule the economic future of the city, and all of them want Moist von Lipwig out of the way....