Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Historians could never decide whether John Law was a knave or a madman, so in his lifetime he was called both. His name still stands for the man who printed a country into ruin.

Mackay refuses both labels. He calls Law "neither knave nor madman, but one more deceived than deceiving," a man who understood money better than any man of his day.

Hold on to that verdict, because it changes the whole story. If Law was a plain crook, the Mississippi Scheme is a crime, and you can feel safely superior to its victims. If he was right about credit and still went over the edge, the story is far less comfortable: clever people, acting in good faith, with a plan that genuinely worked at first.