4 ms·

With barter is meant (in the context of Graeber's book) trading tit for tat, without having a currency to go between. E.g. a farmer buying a book and paying wit

by 317070 6y ago

With barter is meant (in the context of Graeber's book) trading tit for tat, without having a currency to go between. E.g. a farmer buying a book and paying with apples. The book says that this barter method is almost never used, and instead people tend to keep track of favors and things they owe in a more vague way. And every now and then, these debts are settled in a communal fashion. But barter is not used. So the farmer just asks for the book and gets it. And when autumn comes, and the bookstore owner feels like having an apple, he just goes to the farmer and asks for some. But the two transactions are not really linked.

gorgoiler 6y ago
Right. I feel like that’s nit picking (your parent; not you.) Of course I (teacher) don’t buy potatoes by teaching the farmer’s children Dijkstra. Instead of bartering we chooses to track our debts. Using Bitcoin as a cryptographically secure distributed debt tracker sounds great. But Bitcoin right now feels like a bunch of technology enthusiasts have blessed the world with such a debt tracker while also saying ”btw you collectively owe us $630,000,000,000 worth of stuff”.
- 317070 6y ago
  Also, this digital debt tracker uses numbers, which most of these communal debt systems do not do. Because different people put different value to things, tracking debt in numbers is not how it is done (the book goes in a lot of detail how this works). This is what makes bitcoin a currency, a way to track debts rather than having them implicit. I'm not sure where on the globe you are at, but where I am from, groups of friends buy rounds of beers at the bar. You do not keep track of whose turn it is to pay the round or whether someone is buying more expensive stuff, but since you are friends you make sure things are fair over time. But implicitly, not tracking numbers and accounts. And Graeber argues that that is actually the method that predates currency. Not barter. I fully agree on the hilariously large "primordial" debt we somehow owe the early miners.
- pharmakom 6y ago
  Bitcoin does not track debt, it tracks Bitcoin assets.

by 317070 6y ago

gorgoiler 6y ago

Right. I feel like that’s nit picking (your parent; not you.) Of course I (teacher) don’t buy potatoes by teaching the farmer’s children Dijkstra. Instead of bartering we chooses to track our debts. Using Bitcoin as a cryptographically secure distributed debt tracker sounds great. But Bitcoin right now feels like a bunch of technology enthusiasts have blessed the world with such a debt tracker while also saying ”btw you collectively owe us $630,000,000,000 worth of stuff”.

317070 6y ago
Also, this digital debt tracker uses numbers, which most of these communal debt systems do not do. Because different people put different value to things, tracking debt in numbers is not how it is done (the book goes in a lot of detail how this works). This is what makes bitcoin a currency, a way to track debts rather than having them implicit. I'm not sure where on the globe you are at, but where I am from, groups of friends buy rounds of beers at the bar. You do not keep track of whose turn it is to pay the round or whether someone is buying more expensive stuff, but since you are friends you make sure things are fair over time. But implicitly, not tracking numbers and accounts. And Graeber argues that that is actually the method that predates currency. Not barter. I fully agree on the hilariously large "primordial" debt we somehow owe the early miners.
pharmakom 6y ago
Bitcoin does not track debt, it tracks Bitcoin assets.