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>>"The issue with Graeber and others is they are looking for a historical account of barter pre-dating a historical record of debt, but they will never find it,

>>"The issue with Graeber and others is they are looking for a historical account of barter pre-dating a historical record of debt, but they will never find it, because the record-keeping begin for the purpose of recording debt." Is this is the case, it seems to me that the issue is not with Graeber and others but, with the guys that claim something about which there is not historical account. >>"We have actual case studies of communities developing money prices from scratch: " The point is not if barter is used sometimes or if some people, in some circumstances, would start using cigarettes as money, but if that's the main history of money, specifically in the context of early states, as has been claimed for many years without any kind of evidence. The burden of proof is not in the guys that examine the historic and archeology evidence, but in the ones that want to sell a narrative without evidence.

sparkie 5y ago
> The point is not if barter is used sometimes or if some people, in some circumstances, would start using cigarettes as money, but if that's the main history of money, specifically in the context of early states, as has been claimed for many years without any kind of evidence. Both sides of the argument are making claims without evidence, because evidence prior to record-keeping of debt doesn't exist, and never will. There are only theories about how money came into being, and some are more plausible than others. Graeber himself contradicts his own "debunking" of Menger's theory: > "All evidence that exists points to money emerging as a series of fixed equivalents between silver – the stuff used to measure fixed equivalents in long distance trade, and conveniently stockpiled in the temples themselves where it was used to make images of gods, etc – and grain, the stuff used to pay the most important rations from temple stockpiles to its workers. Hence a silver shekel was fixed as the amount of silver equivalent to the numbers of bushels of barley that could provide 2 meals a day for a temple worker over the course of a month. It was the Temples that actually had a need to extend a silver system from a unit used to compare the value of a limited number of rare items traded long distance, used almost exclusively by members of the political or administrative elite of the societies in question – to something that could be used to compare the values of everyday items, like planks of wood, jugs of beer, and so forth." Why silver? Why were they already stockpiling silver? How was it decided that silver would be used to measure fixed equivalents in long distance trade? How was it decided the ratio of silver to bushels of barley? What were these political and administrative elite doing when they proposed to offer a certain amount of silver for some long-distance traded rare items? (We have a word for this: 'barter') Why would the foreigners they are trading with even want all this silver? It takes some circular reasoning to get to where Graeber thinks he is, because he misinterpreted Menger to begin with. The above does not discredit Menger at all.
- RobertoG 5y ago
  It seems to me, that nobody is denying the existence of barter. For instance, barter exist in our current modern societies. The question is if there are any evidence that the history of money is fundamentally the history of barter. So, you have record-keeping that contradict the barter history and you have anthropology evidence that human semi-nomad tribes, even if they could barter sometimes, don't organize their society around barter, but, somehow, the more plausible evidence is barter. Don't know what to say to that.
  - sparkie 5y ago
    This is still a misunderstanding of Menger. Menger's argument is not that societies were organized around barter at all. He argues that where barter exists, people will quickly converge onto one or more forms of money for organizing trade. Even if it is not the intention of individual tradesmen, some astute traders will realize that they can profit by matchmaking (a necessity when there is a double-coincidence of wants). These astute traders will pick commodities which have the best saleability (those which are mostly likely to be accepted in exchange for other goods, and which retain value) as their means of measuring trade value. The successful traders will in turn, define which commodities emerges as the common monies in that economy, because traders who chose other (less saleable) commodities as their unit of measure will not be as successful. It is not surprising that there are no historical documents outlining this, for it would likely pre-date even the written word by centuries or millennia. If it were the intention of a matchmaker to profit from establishing trades through use of goods with high saleability, they would also not likely advertise their tactics willingly, as they would be in competition with others attempting to make similar trades. There are many historical accounts of monies being displaced when new, superior forms of money enter into economies, which is an extension of Menger's thesis (Also known as Thiers' Law). If a society is using a form of money which for whatever reason becomes much less saleable, and a new commodity enters the market which is more saleable, the more saleable commodity will eventually displace the old money. So if it were the case that silver was selected (by who?) as the first money, 'for reasons', it seems like they hit jackpot on first try, for silver would remain the most saleable commodity for millennia until it would be later displaced by gold. Call me sceptic, but I don't buy such coincidences.

sparkie 5y ago

> The point is not if barter is used sometimes or if some people, in some circumstances, would start using cigarettes as money, but if that's the main history of money, specifically in the context of early states, as has been claimed for many years without any kind of evidence. Both sides of the argument are making claims without evidence, because evidence prior to record-keeping of debt doesn't exist, and never will. There are only theories about how money came into being, and some are more plausible than others. Graeber himself contradicts his own "debunking" of Menger's theory: > "All evidence that exists points to money emerging as a series of fixed equivalents between silver – the stuff used to measure fixed equivalents in long distance trade, and conveniently stockpiled in the temples themselves where it was used to make images of gods, etc – and grain, the stuff used to pay the most important rations from temple stockpiles to its workers. Hence a silver shekel was fixed as the amount of silver equivalent to the numbers of bushels of barley that could provide 2 meals a day for a temple worker over the course of a month. It was the Temples that actually had a need to extend a silver system from a unit used to compare the value of a limited number of rare items traded long distance, used almost exclusively by members of the political or administrative elite of the societies in question – to something that could be used to compare the values of everyday items, like planks of wood, jugs of beer, and so forth." Why silver? Why were they already stockpiling silver? How was it decided that silver would be used to measure fixed equivalents in long distance trade? How was it decided the ratio of silver to bushels of barley? What were these political and administrative elite doing when they proposed to offer a certain amount of silver for some long-distance traded rare items? (We have a word for this: 'barter') Why would the foreigners they are trading with even want all this silver? It takes some circular reasoning to get to where Graeber thinks he is, because he misinterpreted Menger to begin with. The above does not discredit Menger at all.

RobertoG 5y ago
It seems to me, that nobody is denying the existence of barter. For instance, barter exist in our current modern societies. The question is if there are any evidence that the history of money is fundamentally the history of barter. So, you have record-keeping that contradict the barter history and you have anthropology evidence that human semi-nomad tribes, even if they could barter sometimes, don't organize their society around barter, but, somehow, the more plausible evidence is barter. Don't know what to say to that.
- sparkie 5y ago
  This is still a misunderstanding of Menger. Menger's argument is not that societies were organized around barter at all. He argues that where barter exists, people will quickly converge onto one or more forms of money for organizing trade. Even if it is not the intention of individual tradesmen, some astute traders will realize that they can profit by matchmaking (a necessity when there is a double-coincidence of wants). These astute traders will pick commodities which have the best saleability (those which are mostly likely to be accepted in exchange for other goods, and which retain value) as their means of measuring trade value. The successful traders will in turn, define which commodities emerges as the common monies in that economy, because traders who chose other (less saleable) commodities as their unit of measure will not be as successful. It is not surprising that there are no historical documents outlining this, for it would likely pre-date even the written word by centuries or millennia. If it were the intention of a matchmaker to profit from establishing trades through use of goods with high saleability, they would also not likely advertise their tactics willingly, as they would be in competition with others attempting to make similar trades. There are many historical accounts of monies being displaced when new, superior forms of money enter into economies, which is an extension of Menger's thesis (Also known as Thiers' Law). If a society is using a form of money which for whatever reason becomes much less saleable, and a new commodity enters the market which is more saleable, the more saleable commodity will eventually displace the old money. So if it were the case that silver was selected (by who?) as the first money, 'for reasons', it seems like they hit jackpot on first try, for silver would remain the most saleable commodity for millennia until it would be later displaced by gold. Call me sceptic, but I don't buy such coincidences.