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Coins (specie that had a direct connection to a ruler, usually with the name or visage of the ruler struck on them) were invented to facilitate war. They were g

Coins (specie that had a direct connection to a ruler, usually with the name or visage of the ruler struck on them) were invented to facilitate war. They were given to soldiers to allow them to participate in the economy of the conquered. Since the free peasantry wouldn't trade with them (unreliable: they "died for a living"). The ruler demanded to be paid taxes in his own coin. This solved several important problems: reduction of military unrest against the ruler, free peasantry became a reliable source of goods and services, and the ruler could make war as needed. A market economy emerged as a side effect.

suzakus 2y ago
Rulers being on coinage was a later invention. The earliest coins used symbols for the issuing authority, for example the famous Athens owl tetradrachm. A lot of the remainder of your comment about soldiers and being invented for war is rather speculative and needs sources.
Bluestein 2y ago
I had always (superficially) assumed the ruler as part of coinage was, somehow, to lend 'officialness' to the currency. But your informed and informative comment makes sense. Many thanks.-
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  Well, yeah. When a new ruler kills the old one you need to make sure all his old currency dies with it so that the peasants have to pay new taxes.
- nickbauman 2y ago
  David Graber's book "Debt, the first 5,000 years" goes into this in great detail. Highly recommended.
  - kragen 2y ago
    graeber is fascinating and compelling reading, and he may be right about things from time to time, but he is not a reliable guide to reality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years#Critical_reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years#Cri...
    - snapcaster 2y ago
      I read the book then sought out criticisms including some of the ones you linked. Did you read the book? I was actually surprised the criticisms were so weak and/or hadn't read the book. I finished thinking "wow cool ideas, but not sure which parts are fact or ideology" and then the criticisms from economists made it clear they're the ones peddling fairy tales
      - vundercind 2y ago
        A consistent problem I’ve noticed with Graeber is that he seems to attract strident critics who don’t appear to have done more than skim the book they’re criticizing—and maybe not even all of it. It’s as if they read some sentence they don’t like, then red-out from anger for a few pages, then keep going and soon it happens again. It’s really inconvenient if you’re actually interested in reading good-faith commentary on his work.
        notahacker 2y ago
        I quite liked the book actually, but a consistent problem with it is that if you have a half-decent familiarity with some of the relevant background it's basically impossible not to spot that it's full of errors, some of them pretty innocuous and others pretty glaring. Thing is, if you can't help noticing that Apple Computer wasn't, in fact, a non-hierarchical organization formed by ex-IBM engineers working in groups of 20-40 using laptops(!) in their garages and know enough about bond trading to realise than investors aren't getting involved as a means of paying tribute to governments, it's not unreasonable to wonder whether some of the stuff about ancient coinage and unusual tribal approaches to indebtedness might also be embellishments of misunderstood anecdotes or completely the wrong way round. It's really inconvenient that the general response to this by Graeber and his acolytes has been to insist that anyone with the temerity to suggest it might be flawed must be doing so in bad faith.
kragen 2y ago
this is utter speculation; we don't have anywhere near the level of archaeological evidence about the social relations of 7th-century lydia necessary to make statements like this. no inscriptions survive in lydian from that century or the following century, except for the occasional graffito, plus of course words struck on coins. even from later in lydian history, we only have a few dozen texts of any length. the kings before gyges are quasi-mythical; we don't even know how kroisos, the most famous of gyges' successors spelled his own name. we don't know how kroisos's taxation system worked. we don't know if the peasantry was free or enslaved. we certainly don't have any contemporary accounts of social relations between soldiers and peasantry however, we do know that rulers around the mediterranean were levying taxes and making war for thousands of years before the lydians started making specie into coins
- nickbauman 2y ago
  Comment was not meant to cover Lydia; just generally how money emerged. And this is a "cartoon" version of the story.
  - kragen 2y ago
    we weren't talking about money; we were talking about 'Coins (specie that had a direct connection to a ruler, usually with the name or visage of the ruler struck on them)' those specifically emerged in 7th century lydia, and that emergence is what the article is about

suzakus 2y ago

Rulers being on coinage was a later invention. The earliest coins used symbols for the issuing authority, for example the famous Athens owl tetradrachm. A lot of the remainder of your comment about soldiers and being invented for war is rather speculative and needs sources.

Bluestein 2y ago

I had always (superficially) assumed the ruler as part of coinage was, somehow, to lend 'officialness' to the currency. But your informed and informative comment makes sense. Many thanks.-

kmeisthax 2y ago
Well, yeah. When a new ruler kills the old one you need to make sure all his old currency dies with it so that the peasants have to pay new taxes.
nickbauman 2y ago
David Graber's book "Debt, the first 5,000 years" goes into this in great detail. Highly recommended.
- kragen 2y ago
  graeber is fascinating and compelling reading, and he may be right about things from time to time, but he is not a reliable guide to reality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years#Critical_reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years#Cri...
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    I read the book then sought out criticisms including some of the ones you linked. Did you read the book? I was actually surprised the criticisms were so weak and/or hadn't read the book. I finished thinking "wow cool ideas, but not sure which parts are fact or ideology" and then the criticisms from economists made it clear they're the ones peddling fairy tales
    - vundercind 2y ago
      A consistent problem I’ve noticed with Graeber is that he seems to attract strident critics who don’t appear to have done more than skim the book they’re criticizing—and maybe not even all of it. It’s as if they read some sentence they don’t like, then red-out from anger for a few pages, then keep going and soon it happens again. It’s really inconvenient if you’re actually interested in reading good-faith commentary on his work.
      - notahacker 2y ago
        I quite liked the book actually, but a consistent problem with it is that if you have a half-decent familiarity with some of the relevant background it's basically impossible not to spot that it's full of errors, some of them pretty innocuous and others pretty glaring. Thing is, if you can't help noticing that Apple Computer wasn't, in fact, a non-hierarchical organization formed by ex-IBM engineers working in groups of 20-40 using laptops(!) in their garages and know enough about bond trading to realise than investors aren't getting involved as a means of paying tribute to governments, it's not unreasonable to wonder whether some of the stuff about ancient coinage and unusual tribal approaches to indebtedness might also be embellishments of misunderstood anecdotes or completely the wrong way round. It's really inconvenient that the general response to this by Graeber and his acolytes has been to insist that anyone with the temerity to suggest it might be flawed must be doing so in bad faith.

kragen 2y ago

this is utter speculation; we don't have anywhere near the level of archaeological evidence about the social relations of 7th-century lydia necessary to make statements like this. no inscriptions survive in lydian from that century or the following century, except for the occasional graffito, plus of course words struck on coins. even from later in lydian history, we only have a few dozen texts of any length. the kings before gyges are quasi-mythical; we don't even know how kroisos, the most famous of gyges' successors spelled his own name. we don't know how kroisos's taxation system worked. we don't know if the peasantry was free or enslaved. we certainly don't have any contemporary accounts of social relations between soldiers and peasantry however, we do know that rulers around the mediterranean were levying taxes and making war for thousands of years before the lydians started making specie into coins

nickbauman 2y ago
Comment was not meant to cover Lydia; just generally how money emerged. And this is a "cartoon" version of the story.
- kragen 2y ago
  we weren't talking about money; we were talking about 'Coins (specie that had a direct connection to a ruler, usually with the name or visage of the ruler struck on them)' those specifically emerged in 7th century lydia, and that emergence is what the article is about