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> Our thinking here is that people invented money to solve the [Double coincidence of Wants] problem in barter, making trade asynchronous, more efficient and pr

> Our thinking here is that people invented money to solve the [Double coincidence of Wants] problem in barter, making trade asynchronous, more efficient and predictable. Fun fact, that's not true! It's called "the barter myth", and was put forward by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. But anthropologists everywhere have looked for 'pre-money' societies in their field research and haven't really found any. Bartering today happens in systems like prison where people are used to using money, but they aren't allowed to have (or there isn't) any. Everywhere we've looked, we find complex systems of credit, debt and/or quid pro quo. Read it in a book called "Debt: The first 5000 years".

bloaf 9y ago
Wasn't the whole Incan Empire money-free?
- richmarr 9y ago
  Yep. I think the point that Graeber made in his "Debt" book was that non-monetary debt came first, before money or even barter. The Inca system of communal labour could be seen as being based on a debt of work owed to the community.
  - opportune 9y ago
    In that case, could one not also argue that the pope shitting in the woods is simply the pope repaying the food debt he took on by nature? Not everything is debt. I mean, debt may be the cornerstone of our current financial system, but that doesn't mean it always was so. This just seems like grasping at straws to fit the argument.
    - richmarr 9y ago
      > In that case, could one not also argue that the pope shitting in the woods is simply the pope repaying the food debt he took on by nature? Well the validity of that comparison would be whether the woods would be annoyed if the pope shat somewhere else.
    - saltcured 9y ago
      Lots of social animals demonstrate some form of credit/debt accounting in their relationships. I think this is an almost inseparable part of our mind-body systems (a sort of limbic balance sheet) and does not depend on abstract concepts nor symbolic tools like money to still apply an economy to social groups.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
lmm 9y ago
I wouldn't entirely trust that book - I've heard that Graeber plays fast and loose with the facts. (I have no expertise on the economics side of things, but I did notice that his quotation of Tyndale's translation of the lord's prayer does not match what I've seen elsewhere)
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  Not sure about the book, but Adam Smith's barter hypothesis is largely debunked [1]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-...
- notahacker 9y ago
  The details are notoriously weak[1] and it doesn't entirely shy away from imposing Graeber's view that debt is always and everywhere a bad thing, but the actual core argument that money tended to arise as a means of recording debt settlements rather than a veil over barter is a reasonably well supported one. [1]There are long lists of mostly-trivial stuff various bloggers have pointed out Graeber got obviously wrong, which afaik don't include the apparent Tyndale translation error you've spotted or the claim that Keynes' Treatise on Money was his most famous work that stuck out like a sore thumb to me...
simonebrunozzi 9y ago
I've read that book - I highly recommend it.
cynicalkane 9y ago
The "barter myth" isn't really considered valid economic history anymore--and I'm not sure to what extent it ever was--but it's useful to explain the purpose of money in a society that cannot reasonably keep track of informal debt. When modern people in modern economies no longer have access to money (from economic collapse, or being imprisoned, among other things) they often resort to barter. So the barter myth may not explain the economic behavior of primitive tribes, but it might explain us. As for Graeber's book, I'll excerpt from a comment I made a while ago: he is frequently wrong about easily verifiable facts in such a way that it supports his world view. There's no reason to trust a liar when he tries to tell you something you don't know about. One particularly remarkable Graeberism is where he describes the founding of Apple: > Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages but there are plenty others, an exhaustive list of which would be too long for this comment. He's also a somewhat unhinged and deeply horrible person. All this is discussed here by leftist economist Brad DeLong: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fo.. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fo....
- cynicalkane 9y ago
  Too late to edit, but the link at the end got cut off. The whole link is: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fools-day-post.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fo...
- microwavecamera 9y ago
  > Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages Umm...Apple was found in '77. Laptops didn't exist then. Steve Wozniak worked for HP and Steve Jobs worked for Atari when Apple was founded. And IBM didn't even have a facility in Silicon Valley back then. Am I missing something?

bloaf 9y ago

Wasn't the whole Incan Empire money-free?

richmarr 9y ago
Yep. I think the point that Graeber made in his "Debt" book was that non-monetary debt came first, before money or even barter. The Inca system of communal labour could be seen as being based on a debt of work owed to the community.
- opportune 9y ago
  In that case, could one not also argue that the pope shitting in the woods is simply the pope repaying the food debt he took on by nature? Not everything is debt. I mean, debt may be the cornerstone of our current financial system, but that doesn't mean it always was so. This just seems like grasping at straws to fit the argument.
  - richmarr 9y ago
    > In that case, could one not also argue that the pope shitting in the woods is simply the pope repaying the food debt he took on by nature? Well the validity of that comparison would be whether the woods would be annoyed if the pope shat somewhere else.
  - saltcured 9y ago
    Lots of social animals demonstrate some form of credit/debt accounting in their relationships. I think this is an almost inseparable part of our mind-body systems (a sort of limbic balance sheet) and does not depend on abstract concepts nor symbolic tools like money to still apply an economy to social groups.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

lmm 9y ago

I wouldn't entirely trust that book - I've heard that Graeber plays fast and loose with the facts. (I have no expertise on the economics side of things, but I did notice that his quotation of Tyndale's translation of the lord's prayer does not match what I've seen elsewhere)

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Not sure about the book, but Adam Smith's barter hypothesis is largely debunked [1]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-...
notahacker 9y ago
The details are notoriously weak[1] and it doesn't entirely shy away from imposing Graeber's view that debt is always and everywhere a bad thing, but the actual core argument that money tended to arise as a means of recording debt settlements rather than a veil over barter is a reasonably well supported one. [1]There are long lists of mostly-trivial stuff various bloggers have pointed out Graeber got obviously wrong, which afaik don't include the apparent Tyndale translation error you've spotted or the claim that Keynes' Treatise on Money was his most famous work that stuck out like a sore thumb to me...

simonebrunozzi 9y ago

I've read that book - I highly recommend it.

cynicalkane 9y ago

The "barter myth" isn't really considered valid economic history anymore--and I'm not sure to what extent it ever was--but it's useful to explain the purpose of money in a society that cannot reasonably keep track of informal debt. When modern people in modern economies no longer have access to money (from economic collapse, or being imprisoned, among other things) they often resort to barter. So the barter myth may not explain the economic behavior of primitive tribes, but it might explain us. As for Graeber's book, I'll excerpt from a comment I made a while ago: he is frequently wrong about easily verifiable facts in such a way that it supports his world view. There's no reason to trust a liar when he tries to tell you something you don't know about. One particularly remarkable Graeberism is where he describes the founding of Apple: > Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages but there are plenty others, an exhaustive list of which would be too long for this comment. He's also a somewhat unhinged and deeply horrible person. All this is discussed here by leftist economist Brad DeLong: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fo.. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fo....

cynicalkane 9y ago
Too late to edit, but the link at the end got cut off. The whole link is: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fools-day-post.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/04/david-graeber-april-fo...
microwavecamera 9y ago
> Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages Umm...Apple was found in '77. Laptops didn't exist then. Steve Wozniak worked for HP and Steve Jobs worked for Atari when Apple was founded. And IBM didn't even have a facility in Silicon Valley back then. Am I missing something?