Adelia Ritchie, PhD
1 min readFeb 18, 2021

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"To give an example, Hammurabi, the great ruler of ancient Babylon, and the US founding fathers both created well-functioning societies. Hammurabi’s was based on hierarchy, with the king at the top and the slaves at the bottom, while the Americans’ was based on freedom and equality between all citizens. Yet the idea of equality, Harari will claim, is as much a fiction as the idea that a king or rich nobleman is ‘better’ than a humble peasant. What made both of these societies work was the fact that within each of them everyone believed in the same set of imagined underlying principles. In a similar vein, money is a fiction that depends on the trust that we collectively put in it. The fact that it is a ‘myth’ has not impeded its usefulness. It has become the most universal and efficient system of mutual trust ever devised, allowing the development of global trade networks and sophisticated modern capitalism."

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Adelia Ritchie, PhD
Adelia Ritchie, PhD

Written by Adelia Ritchie, PhD

Author of "The Accidental Expat: A Costa Rican Adventure", science lover, contributing editor at SalishMagazine.org, expat, seeking the interesting and unusual