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I'm fairly sure that's not accurate. Source for "most" economies not having money? It would appear based on some simple googling that "money" has existed in ma

I'm fairly sure that's not accurate. Source for "most" economies not having money? It would appear based on some simple googling that "money" has existed in many cultures going back 30,000 years, in two forms: "money of account" and "money of exchange". Of both of those they have taken various forms. Minted coins did not appear until around 3,000 years ago.

cyberax 3y ago
"Monetary economy" means that it uses money for the exchanges, rather than barter. Most pre-industrial economies were not monetary. Barter economy certainly existed, probably from before the Human Sapiens. But _money_ is a relatively recent invention.
- ETH_start 3y ago
  Good paper from the progenitor of the blockchain, Nick Szabo, positing that the first moneys emerged up to 75,000 years ago and possibly enabled Homo sapiens sapiens to supersede Neanderthals: https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/C...
  - cyberax 3y ago
    I seriously doubt that currency (a standardized medium of exchange) existed in prehistoric times. But barter economy certainly did, we have plenty of archeological evidence for it. Still, even the barter economy was used for mostly "optional" activities. People were not dependent on it for survival, a tribe could live just fine on their own, without trade.
    - Wytwwww 3y ago
      > currency (a standardized medium of exchange) That's a pretty recent innovation, standardized coins didn't appear until the 600s BC, barely 100-150 years or so prior to the Greco-Persian wars. Widescale international trade existed for 1000+ years prior to that as far as we know, you don't necessarily standardized money for that.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        I'm not sure why you're describing 600s BC as "recent"?
        Wytwwww 3y ago
        Because we know that there were much older civilizations during the bronze age which relied on long distance international trade and at least their ruling classes were dependent on it for their survival.
      - ETH_start 3y ago
        Large scale international trade relied on standardized forms of money for thousands of years before the first coins were minted: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105873118 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105873118
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  > Barter economy certainly existed What is the best evidence for this historically? Anthropologists strongly dispute this idea, and believe barter was mostly used for trade between total strangers (e.g. traders from outside your society or "economy") Graeber's Debt: the first 5000 years covers this topic
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > What is the best evidence for this historically? Mostly archeological. There are many burials that contain items that were clearly not locally sourced. In some cases, they had to be transported for thousands of kilometers. And quite often this was done for non-functional items such as jewelry or dyes.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- kspacewalk2 3y ago
  Er... Money has existed for thousands of years, and has replaced barter in any society with even moderate amounts of specialization, and a population size that gets into the thousands. In Roman times, this was already the case for thousands of years. Money is one of the great enablers of trade and specialization, of empire building. Barter economy cannot sustain any of that, because barter economy does not scale. Money is a relatively recent invention in the time scale of our species existence, but that's still 3-4 thousand years of near-ubiquitous use, minimum.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    The Roman Empire was basically modern. It had currency, banks, loans with interest, etc. At the same time, the Slavic countries up north still were pre-monetary. There was little to no currency, but there was extensive trade in fur, salt, and other goods.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    Was there money in pre-1778 Hawaii? Not that I have been able to figure out. I believe it was a gift economy. There certainly was specialization in Hawaii, and with a population of over 100,000 would seem like a good counter-example. > Barter economy cannot sustain any of that, because barter economy does not scale. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money , "There is no evidence, historical or contemporary, of a society in which barter is the main mode of exchange;[23] instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-monetary_economy#Other_moneyless_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-monetary_economy#Other_mon... list other money-less systems including "the Incas and possibly, also the empire of Majapahit". Both were empires.
    - 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
      Hawai'ians had a number of skilled trades, and a caste system where a working class served a ruling class. Taxes were levied by the higher classes, and were paid in an amount based on the unit of land that was worked via subsistence farming. Those taxes were paid in the form of material goods (textiles, livestock, agriculture, etc). The material goods were the medium of exchange used to pay back a debt. Therefore, Hawai'i did have money, in the form of commodity money (objects having intrinsic value in addition to value as a method of payment), which is distinct from barter in that there are specific recognizable units of exchange (specific amounts of commodity money used to pay a specific amount of debt). Material goods were also used as money for trade between islands. [1] https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/8ba72f47-47d6-4c91-8414-c3c8634fc8f0/content https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitst... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahupua%CA%BBa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahupua%CA%BBa [3] https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kona/history1g.htm https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kona/history1g.... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20140605052446/http://www.hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&CategoryID=299 https://web.archive.org/web/20140605052446/http://www.hawaii...
- noselasd 3y ago
  This is highly dependent on the location. We certainly know there was a large interconnectede monetary economy around the middle east and the mediterranean around 3000 years ago. The roman empire was largely a monetarian economy as well, about 2000 years prior to what is commonly referred to as "pre-industrial", they had quite an extensive banking system as well.

cyberax 3y ago

"Monetary economy" means that it uses money for the exchanges, rather than barter. Most pre-industrial economies were not monetary. Barter economy certainly existed, probably from before the Human Sapiens. But _money_ is a relatively recent invention.

ETH_start 3y ago
Good paper from the progenitor of the blockchain, Nick Szabo, positing that the first moneys emerged up to 75,000 years ago and possibly enabled Homo sapiens sapiens to supersede Neanderthals: https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/C...
- cyberax 3y ago
  I seriously doubt that currency (a standardized medium of exchange) existed in prehistoric times. But barter economy certainly did, we have plenty of archeological evidence for it. Still, even the barter economy was used for mostly "optional" activities. People were not dependent on it for survival, a tribe could live just fine on their own, without trade.
  - Wytwwww 3y ago
    > currency (a standardized medium of exchange) That's a pretty recent innovation, standardized coins didn't appear until the 600s BC, barely 100-150 years or so prior to the Greco-Persian wars. Widescale international trade existed for 1000+ years prior to that as far as we know, you don't necessarily standardized money for that.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      I'm not sure why you're describing 600s BC as "recent"?
      - Wytwwww 3y ago
        Because we know that there were much older civilizations during the bronze age which relied on long distance international trade and at least their ruling classes were dependent on it for their survival.
    - ETH_start 3y ago
      Large scale international trade relied on standardized forms of money for thousands of years before the first coins were minted: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105873118 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2105873118
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tomjakubowski 3y ago
> Barter economy certainly existed What is the best evidence for this historically? Anthropologists strongly dispute this idea, and believe barter was mostly used for trade between total strangers (e.g. traders from outside your society or "economy") Graeber's Debt: the first 5000 years covers this topic
- cyberax 3y ago
  > What is the best evidence for this historically? Mostly archeological. There are many burials that contain items that were clearly not locally sourced. In some cases, they had to be transported for thousands of kilometers. And quite often this was done for non-functional items such as jewelry or dyes.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
kspacewalk2 3y ago
Er... Money has existed for thousands of years, and has replaced barter in any society with even moderate amounts of specialization, and a population size that gets into the thousands. In Roman times, this was already the case for thousands of years. Money is one of the great enablers of trade and specialization, of empire building. Barter economy cannot sustain any of that, because barter economy does not scale. Money is a relatively recent invention in the time scale of our species existence, but that's still 3-4 thousand years of near-ubiquitous use, minimum.
- cyberax 3y ago
  The Roman Empire was basically modern. It had currency, banks, loans with interest, etc. At the same time, the Slavic countries up north still were pre-monetary. There was little to no currency, but there was extensive trade in fur, salt, and other goods.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Was there money in pre-1778 Hawaii? Not that I have been able to figure out. I believe it was a gift economy. There certainly was specialization in Hawaii, and with a population of over 100,000 would seem like a good counter-example. > Barter economy cannot sustain any of that, because barter economy does not scale. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money , "There is no evidence, historical or contemporary, of a society in which barter is the main mode of exchange;[23] instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-monetary_economy#Other_moneyless_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-monetary_economy#Other_mon... list other money-less systems including "the Incas and possibly, also the empire of Majapahit". Both were empires.
  - 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
    Hawai'ians had a number of skilled trades, and a caste system where a working class served a ruling class. Taxes were levied by the higher classes, and were paid in an amount based on the unit of land that was worked via subsistence farming. Those taxes were paid in the form of material goods (textiles, livestock, agriculture, etc). The material goods were the medium of exchange used to pay back a debt. Therefore, Hawai'i did have money, in the form of commodity money (objects having intrinsic value in addition to value as a method of payment), which is distinct from barter in that there are specific recognizable units of exchange (specific amounts of commodity money used to pay a specific amount of debt). Material goods were also used as money for trade between islands. [1] https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/8ba72f47-47d6-4c91-8414-c3c8634fc8f0/content https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitst... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahupua%CA%BBa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahupua%CA%BBa [3] https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kona/history1g.htm https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/kona/history1g.... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20140605052446/http://www.hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&CategoryID=299 https://web.archive.org/web/20140605052446/http://www.hawaii...
noselasd 3y ago
This is highly dependent on the location. We certainly know there was a large interconnectede monetary economy around the middle east and the mediterranean around 3000 years ago. The roman empire was largely a monetarian economy as well, about 2000 years prior to what is commonly referred to as "pre-industrial", they had quite an extensive banking system as well.