3 ms·

What's stopping the debtor from just defacing their half? Making it slightly incompatible with the half of the creditor?

• brnaftr361 5y ago
  The video Marvel_boy[0] posted details one of the conventions. In that case it's a subtractive process, so defacing the receipt in that case would be of no benefit, perhaps even disadvantageous. In other cases, such as tax records, it would only be to someone's disadvantage to destroy. Of course this all depends on the convention used to draw it up. Speculatively: There could simply be an ass whoopin' dished out, theft is a sin, or a threat to credit. From my understanding the vast majority of people never travelled very far, the estimate I heard was about 30mi being the known world to most folks. So having a bad reputation is a pretty good disincentive. It's also my understanding that debt, rather than barter, was the predominate mode of exchange (a la Graeber), but that would've been trusted neighbors and necessities in communal self-interest; so bad credit and the consequent marred reputation could spell disaster. I don't imagine that most documents recorded on tally sticks were Josiah giving neighbor Jebediah five carrots for future remuneration of seven; rather strange gentry arranging commercial exchanges, and the state issuing and recording taxes. I'm not an expert, though. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DkyahZplFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DkyahZplFo