David McWilliams (on the history of money)
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Umbrella
4.6 • 69.9K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2026
⏱️ 96 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David McWilliams (The History of Money: A Story of Humanity) is a journalist, writer, and economist. David joins the Armchair Expert to discuss having an unusually calm Irish family upbringing, being practically prescribed to study economics, and the impact that his father being screwed by the system had on him as a kid. David and Dax talk about his early, life-changing realization that no one actually has control over the economy, why economics should be seen as a form of communication about the world, and how the human advent of fire helps us to understand money. David explains the idea that the technology of trading money was an alternative to war, how money amplifies the trust necessary to function in complex societies, and why the reason that money is weird is because we are weird.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. |
| 0:06.5 | Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:10.0 | Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:13.9 | Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. |
| 0:17.3 | I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman. |
| 0:19.5 | Hi. |
| 0:20.4 | Today we have an economist on and this, I've been wanting to do this for a while. |
| 0:24.7 | And I think it was maybe probably Malcolm who planted the seed, which is Malcolm Gladwell said. |
| 0:29.6 | It is really peculiar how powerful money is in our lives. Yes. And how it is a forbidden topic. |
| 0:37.1 | I know. |
| 0:38.3 | It's like there isn't a more relevant force that we don't talk about. |
| 0:42.6 | I agree. |
| 0:43.3 | It's so interesting. |
| 0:44.8 | For everything. |
| 0:45.7 | I think because we know intuitively it leads to envy. |
| 0:48.3 | Yeah. |
| 0:49.1 | So you just avoid it to avoid envy. |
| 0:51.3 | Or like bragging or something. |
| 0:54.0 | Like there are traps. |
| 0:55.9 | But, like, if you work with someone, they go, how much do you make? |
| 0:58.5 | The issue is, well, I'm afraid to say, because if I make more than them, we have issues. |
| 1:02.4 | Yes. |
... |
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