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“No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money,” wrote the Cambridge anthropology professor

“No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money,” wrote the Cambridge anthropology professor Caroline Humphrey in a 1985 paper. “All available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing.” https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-...

mikem170 5y ago
The source I quoted agrees, saying favors, not barter. People did something before money was invented, right? Parent's raised kids, kids helped parent's when they were older, families banded together, items were traded between villages, across continents, etc.
- samatman 5y ago
  Money in a broad sense is as old as anatomically modern humans, so, no. 80,000 year old grave goods have been discovered, consisting of shells of a consistent size, with holes drilled in them, a few hundred kilometers from the ocean. We know from ethnography of societies which existed until very recently that these collectibles served the same purpose as money. A good complement to Graeber's book is the work of Nick Szabo, I would start here: https://fermatslibrary.com/s/shelling-out-the-origins-of-money https://fermatslibrary.com/s/shelling-out-the-origins-of-mon... You can find most of the rest of his writing on the subject on his blog: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com http://unenumerated.blogspot.com
  - mikem170 5y ago
    But the first source you quoted, the Atlantic article [0], quotes Graeber describing economies which don't depend on money or barter: > Communities of Iroquois Native Americans, for instance, stockpiled their goods in longhouses. Female councils then allocated the goods, explains Graeber. Other indigenous communities relied on “gift economies,” which went something like this: If you were a baker who needed meat, you didn’t offer your bagels for the butcher’s steaks. Instead, you got your wife to hint to the butcher’s wife that you two were low on iron, and she’d say something like “Oh really? Have a hamburger, we’ve got plenty!” Down the line, the butcher might want a birthday cake, or help moving to a new apartment, and you’d help him out. > On paper, this sounds a bit like delayed barter, but it bears some significant differences. For one thing, it’s much more efficient than Smith’s idea of a barter system, since it doesn’t depend on each person simultaneously having what the other wants. It’s also not tit for tat: No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or cake or house-building labor, meaning debts can’t be transferred. > And, in a gift economy, exchange isn’t impersonal. My original reply in this thread was to mention that there have been functioning societies that don't use money. I was replying to a post that couldn't imagine such things. Maybe I'm misunderstanding why you brought up barter economies? I'll have to get back to your first Nick Szabo reference, it doesn't format readable in the browser I'm in front of at the moment (overlapping text). The second link, the blog post, seems to discuss the history of money as opposed to alternatives (like the Iroquois and gift economies mentioned above). [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-...
    - zizee 5y ago
      This "gift economy" sounds someone trying to put a nobel spin on a debt based economy. I bet in many cases if someone got a reputation for not reciprocating "gifts" they'd soon find themselves not receiving anything. Hardly a gift. And why are people "hinting" at things in this economy, and why this is presented as something different from a direct request. How often have you come across people "hinting" at what they really want, when really they are demanding. Sounds like something out of a cliche mobster scene, "lovely tanks you have there Colonel, it would be a shame for anything to happen to them". > No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or cake or house-building labor, meaning debts can’t be transferred. If the bakers wife were to "hint" to the butcher that their friend could do with some extra "iron", whilst simultaneously saying "did you enjoy those scones i gave you" (wink), then the debt is transferred. We can pretend that it wouldn't have happened, but people are people the world over. Some would be nice and help others because they like to help, others would use what leverage they have to get ahead in life. This gift based economy just sounds like a passive aggressive debt based economy, and it doesn't sound real.
      - mikem170 5y ago
        > This "gift economy" sounds someone trying to put a nobel spin on a debt based economy. I saw that same connection myself. Gifts, aka favors, aka "you owe me one", aka debts. > This gift based economy just sounds like a passive aggressive debt based economy, and it doesn't sound real. I brought this up initially (near the top of this thread) in response to someone who couldn't imagine an economy without without money. Such things have existed, as per anthropologists.
      - zizee 5y ago
        Weird, I thought i deleted this comment. I deleted it because I took the time to read the article mentioned above a bit closer. I believe it was arguing that gift-based economies were the origin of debt based economies (aka money) instead of money originating from bartering. Stupidly I had misunderstood what was being written, and then I attacked that imagined position by making the same argument as they were actually making :facepalm:
    - 5y ago
  - bernawil 5y ago
    The book (Debt, The First 5,000 Years) goes over this (IIRC it's in the Games with Sex and Death chapter). It says that these kinds of "weird money" examples like stone wheels in Micronesia, where not really used to trade for goods, but more or less to trade in social favors / honor systems. The early mesopotamian cilivilazations got debt and credit before there was coinage. Farmers bought goods on credit, the debt set in grain for example, to be payed on harvest season. Grain, would be as good as money since that's what you paid your taxes in. The whole region had a sophisticated credit culture and the effects of debt were pervasive. That's why the old testament has provisions against usury, the jubilee, etc.
    - samatman 5y ago
      Debt, the First 5,000 Years is not the only text on this subject and it isn't canon. He's meaningfully wrong about a lot of things, and he's missing the 75,000 years prior to his story beginning completely. I strongly suggest reading some Szabo to fill that picture in. Shell money (ivory money sometimes) was a lot more money-like than Yap stones are.
- robocat 5y ago
  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-Keen-2/publication/269867475_Aboriginal_economy_and_society_at_the_threshold_of_colonisation/links/5b999a4f458515310583e728/Aboriginal-economy-and-society-at-the-threshold-of-colonisation.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-Keen-2/publication/... Has some information relating to Australian Aborigines. 13 Distribution and consumption Fundamentals of distribution were also quite similar in the seven regions, especially in the contrast between the distribution of women’s product to their immediate camp and to certain other relatives such as sons and mothers, and of men’s product to the wider residence group and to wives’ and potential wives’ parents. Specific obligations to certain relatives, processes of ‘demand sharing’ (Peterson 1993), and generalised reciprocity combined to determine patterns of distri- bution (see Keen, in press, chapter 11). In spite of the similarities, the study has revealed some variation in patterns of distribution. Kûnai and Ngarinyin men had specific obligations to provide meat to their parents as well as wife’s kin. Yuwaaliyaay and Pitjantjatjara men provided food to the prospective wife to ‘grow her up’. Obligations on the part of sister’s son to mother’s brother have been recorded in only in two cases (Kûnai and Yolngu); among Sandbeach people the senior of a MB-ZS pair did the giving (including senior sister’s son to junior mother’s brother). Kûnai and Pitjantjatjara husbands gave food to their wives indirectly through the wife’s parent. Consumption prohibitions according to age, gender, initiation and reproductive status were wide- spread, although the uneven data make comparisons difficult. Senior Yolngu men could impose ad hoc pro- hibitions by making production implements (such as canoes) or food itself sacred, and to make certain resources available only to them. 14 Exchange People were able to produce various kinds of valued items which they exchanged for other valued items, according to gender, age, and structural position (such as birth order). In all regions ‘inalienable pos- sessions’ (Weiner 1992; Godelier 1999) included land, waters and related sacra. Inalienable posses- sions had a ‘sacred’ character which enhances their value, making them immune from exchange. In at least some regions inalienable possessions were related to ‘inalienable gifts’ in the forms of sacred objects and ceremonies. These are gifts that retain a connection with the donor such that the gift creates a relationship between donor and recipient (Gregory 1982; Godelier 1999). People exchange inalienable gifts for everyday objects, and in marriage exchange. Movement through the field of exchange relations varied between kinds of society and between individ- uals. Older brothers in the highly polygynous soci- eties had greater opportunities than their younger brothers to accrue control of resources associated with marriage. (see Keen, in press, chapter 12). Marriage exchange articulated both with produc- tion and distribution through marriage gifts and the reproduction of kin networks, and highlights the most obvious contrasts in exchange networks among the seven regions. In contrast to the shifting webs of Kûnai, Pitjantjatjara, and Sandbeach people, and reciprocal exchange among Yuwaaliyaay and Wiil/Minong people, the asymmetrical forms of mar- riage among Ngarinyin and their neighbours, and to an extent Yolngu people, reproduced very structured regional systems of exchange. In the wurnan exchange system of Ngarinyin people and their neighbours, marriage exchanges joined the exchange of foods, raw materials and sacred objects along ‘paths’ linking patri-groups in established sequences. Yolngu probably did not have quite such a neat and tidy system, but they did think in terms of paths of exchange, and items moved in customary directions. The high and very high levels of polygyny among Ngarinyin people and their neighbours and Yolngu people placed certain men at the nodes of exchange networks where they received gifts from intending and actual daughters’ and sisters’ husbands, and made gifts to intended and actual wives’ relatives. These same men (or some of them) led powerful and growing patri-groups, and controlled patri-group sacra.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
I can’t tell if you’re disagreeing or adding context to the parent with this quote. 2 chickens for a lamb would be bartering, but that doesn’t happen.

mikem170 5y ago

The source I quoted agrees, saying favors, not barter. People did something before money was invented, right? Parent's raised kids, kids helped parent's when they were older, families banded together, items were traded between villages, across continents, etc.

samatman 5y ago
Money in a broad sense is as old as anatomically modern humans, so, no. 80,000 year old grave goods have been discovered, consisting of shells of a consistent size, with holes drilled in them, a few hundred kilometers from the ocean. We know from ethnography of societies which existed until very recently that these collectibles served the same purpose as money. A good complement to Graeber's book is the work of Nick Szabo, I would start here: https://fermatslibrary.com/s/shelling-out-the-origins-of-money https://fermatslibrary.com/s/shelling-out-the-origins-of-mon... You can find most of the rest of his writing on the subject on his blog: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com http://unenumerated.blogspot.com
- mikem170 5y ago
  But the first source you quoted, the Atlantic article [0], quotes Graeber describing economies which don't depend on money or barter: > Communities of Iroquois Native Americans, for instance, stockpiled their goods in longhouses. Female councils then allocated the goods, explains Graeber. Other indigenous communities relied on “gift economies,” which went something like this: If you were a baker who needed meat, you didn’t offer your bagels for the butcher’s steaks. Instead, you got your wife to hint to the butcher’s wife that you two were low on iron, and she’d say something like “Oh really? Have a hamburger, we’ve got plenty!” Down the line, the butcher might want a birthday cake, or help moving to a new apartment, and you’d help him out. > On paper, this sounds a bit like delayed barter, but it bears some significant differences. For one thing, it’s much more efficient than Smith’s idea of a barter system, since it doesn’t depend on each person simultaneously having what the other wants. It’s also not tit for tat: No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or cake or house-building labor, meaning debts can’t be transferred. > And, in a gift economy, exchange isn’t impersonal. My original reply in this thread was to mention that there have been functioning societies that don't use money. I was replying to a post that couldn't imagine such things. Maybe I'm misunderstanding why you brought up barter economies? I'll have to get back to your first Nick Szabo reference, it doesn't format readable in the browser I'm in front of at the moment (overlapping text). The second link, the blog post, seems to discuss the history of money as opposed to alternatives (like the Iroquois and gift economies mentioned above). [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-...
  - zizee 5y ago
    This "gift economy" sounds someone trying to put a nobel spin on a debt based economy. I bet in many cases if someone got a reputation for not reciprocating "gifts" they'd soon find themselves not receiving anything. Hardly a gift. And why are people "hinting" at things in this economy, and why this is presented as something different from a direct request. How often have you come across people "hinting" at what they really want, when really they are demanding. Sounds like something out of a cliche mobster scene, "lovely tanks you have there Colonel, it would be a shame for anything to happen to them". > No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or cake or house-building labor, meaning debts can’t be transferred. If the bakers wife were to "hint" to the butcher that their friend could do with some extra "iron", whilst simultaneously saying "did you enjoy those scones i gave you" (wink), then the debt is transferred. We can pretend that it wouldn't have happened, but people are people the world over. Some would be nice and help others because they like to help, others would use what leverage they have to get ahead in life. This gift based economy just sounds like a passive aggressive debt based economy, and it doesn't sound real.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      > This "gift economy" sounds someone trying to put a nobel spin on a debt based economy. I saw that same connection myself. Gifts, aka favors, aka "you owe me one", aka debts. > This gift based economy just sounds like a passive aggressive debt based economy, and it doesn't sound real. I brought this up initially (near the top of this thread) in response to someone who couldn't imagine an economy without without money. Such things have existed, as per anthropologists.
    - zizee 5y ago
      Weird, I thought i deleted this comment. I deleted it because I took the time to read the article mentioned above a bit closer. I believe it was arguing that gift-based economies were the origin of debt based economies (aka money) instead of money originating from bartering. Stupidly I had misunderstood what was being written, and then I attacked that imagined position by making the same argument as they were actually making :facepalm:
  - 5y ago
- bernawil 5y ago
  The book (Debt, The First 5,000 Years) goes over this (IIRC it's in the Games with Sex and Death chapter). It says that these kinds of "weird money" examples like stone wheels in Micronesia, where not really used to trade for goods, but more or less to trade in social favors / honor systems. The early mesopotamian cilivilazations got debt and credit before there was coinage. Farmers bought goods on credit, the debt set in grain for example, to be payed on harvest season. Grain, would be as good as money since that's what you paid your taxes in. The whole region had a sophisticated credit culture and the effects of debt were pervasive. That's why the old testament has provisions against usury, the jubilee, etc.
  - samatman 5y ago
    Debt, the First 5,000 Years is not the only text on this subject and it isn't canon. He's meaningfully wrong about a lot of things, and he's missing the 75,000 years prior to his story beginning completely. I strongly suggest reading some Szabo to fill that picture in. Shell money (ivory money sometimes) was a lot more money-like than Yap stones are.
robocat 5y ago
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-Keen-2/publication/269867475_Aboriginal_economy_and_society_at_the_threshold_of_colonisation/links/5b999a4f458515310583e728/Aboriginal-economy-and-society-at-the-threshold-of-colonisation.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-Keen-2/publication/... Has some information relating to Australian Aborigines. 13 Distribution and consumption Fundamentals of distribution were also quite similar in the seven regions, especially in the contrast between the distribution of women’s product to their immediate camp and to certain other relatives such as sons and mothers, and of men’s product to the wider residence group and to wives’ and potential wives’ parents. Specific obligations to certain relatives, processes of ‘demand sharing’ (Peterson 1993), and generalised reciprocity combined to determine patterns of distri- bution (see Keen, in press, chapter 11). In spite of the similarities, the study has revealed some variation in patterns of distribution. Kûnai and Ngarinyin men had specific obligations to provide meat to their parents as well as wife’s kin. Yuwaaliyaay and Pitjantjatjara men provided food to the prospective wife to ‘grow her up’. Obligations on the part of sister’s son to mother’s brother have been recorded in only in two cases (Kûnai and Yolngu); among Sandbeach people the senior of a MB-ZS pair did the giving (including senior sister’s son to junior mother’s brother). Kûnai and Pitjantjatjara husbands gave food to their wives indirectly through the wife’s parent. Consumption prohibitions according to age, gender, initiation and reproductive status were wide- spread, although the uneven data make comparisons difficult. Senior Yolngu men could impose ad hoc pro- hibitions by making production implements (such as canoes) or food itself sacred, and to make certain resources available only to them. 14 Exchange People were able to produce various kinds of valued items which they exchanged for other valued items, according to gender, age, and structural position (such as birth order). In all regions ‘inalienable pos- sessions’ (Weiner 1992; Godelier 1999) included land, waters and related sacra. Inalienable posses- sions had a ‘sacred’ character which enhances their value, making them immune from exchange. In at least some regions inalienable possessions were related to ‘inalienable gifts’ in the forms of sacred objects and ceremonies. These are gifts that retain a connection with the donor such that the gift creates a relationship between donor and recipient (Gregory 1982; Godelier 1999). People exchange inalienable gifts for everyday objects, and in marriage exchange. Movement through the field of exchange relations varied between kinds of society and between individ- uals. Older brothers in the highly polygynous soci- eties had greater opportunities than their younger brothers to accrue control of resources associated with marriage. (see Keen, in press, chapter 12). Marriage exchange articulated both with produc- tion and distribution through marriage gifts and the reproduction of kin networks, and highlights the most obvious contrasts in exchange networks among the seven regions. In contrast to the shifting webs of Kûnai, Pitjantjatjara, and Sandbeach people, and reciprocal exchange among Yuwaaliyaay and Wiil/Minong people, the asymmetrical forms of mar- riage among Ngarinyin and their neighbours, and to an extent Yolngu people, reproduced very structured regional systems of exchange. In the wurnan exchange system of Ngarinyin people and their neighbours, marriage exchanges joined the exchange of foods, raw materials and sacred objects along ‘paths’ linking patri-groups in established sequences. Yolngu probably did not have quite such a neat and tidy system, but they did think in terms of paths of exchange, and items moved in customary directions. The high and very high levels of polygyny among Ngarinyin people and their neighbours and Yolngu people placed certain men at the nodes of exchange networks where they received gifts from intending and actual daughters’ and sisters’ husbands, and made gifts to intended and actual wives’ relatives. These same men (or some of them) led powerful and growing patri-groups, and controlled patri-group sacra.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

I can’t tell if you’re disagreeing or adding context to the parent with this quote. 2 chickens for a lamb would be bartering, but that doesn’t happen.