From wikipedia:
Contrary to popular conception, there is no evidence that societies relied only on barter before using money for trade.[73] Instead, non-monetary societies operated primarily along the principles of gift economics, and in more complex economies, on debt.[74][75][76] When barter occurred, it was usually between strangers or would-be enemies.[77]
If you want to learn a lot more about how economies worked in the past, I highly recommend the book “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” by David Graeber, author of “Bullshit Jobs.” It goes into this topic, and then presents a very detailed world history of economic systems from the perspective of an anthropologist.
Graeber’s work, as always, is truly incredible. Such a shame he died so young
I’ve been meaning to read that book for a long time but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Definitely give it a try. It’s one of the books that helped me understand the terms “scales falling from my eyes.”
Yup. Capitalism is built on a foundation of lies.
The other thing I think may just be straight up a pro-capitalist-propaganda myth is “homesteading.” Honestly, do we have any evidence that that has ever happened in human history? It seems like every extample a Libertarian (with a capital “L”) might come up with is actually an example of theft of land. From either indigenous peoples or from pre-capitalist land owners.
Money is just a representational tool for value. A service rendered might make you in-debted to the person and you will have to render a service in return to get out of it. No money is involved, but if a person rendered you a big service and you return the favor with a small service, it might make the other person less inclined to help you again in a big way.
The introduction of something that represents a value is a logical step when keeping track of debt. Be it salt, cows, labor or even money.
Gift economies are of course probably hotly debated topics. I’d love to see a multi-year experiment that allocates a large area to a group and lets them try out such an economy. I don’t know how they will interface with the real world to get good (medicine, electricity, …) or if it will just throw them back into the dark ages and they’ll have to progress from there.
I’m not terribly sure what your response has to do with my comment in particular. I’m not sure why you responded to me and not the OP. I guess just because that first line of my comment agreed with OP?
Whatever the case, do you have a significant other? Kids? Parents? Is your relationship with any of them as transactional as what you’re describing?
“Happy 18th birthday, Jimmy. I wanted to let you know that the total cost for services rendered in the course of your raising comes to,” *hands Jimmy an invoice, “$227,261.63. Would you like to pay that in a lump sum or do you need to discuss a payment plan?”
It’s understandable if you’ve spent your whole life in capitalism to not really be able to think outside of that particular box, but I recommend looking into it. I can’t say I’m terribly well-read on the subject, but I think a book worth reading on the subject is Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics (which is available to read for free online.) If you want something a little more hard-core, there’s Kropotkin’s “The Conquest of Bread”. Both of those will probably speak pretty well to the question of whether a gift economy can coexist with things like modern technology. (Spoiler: Those works definitely argue it can.)
I’m not terribly sure what your response has to do with my comment in particular.
Yup. Capitalism is built on a foundation of lies.
Whatever the case, do you have a significant other? Kids? Parents? Is your relationship with any of them as transactional as what you’re describing?
You may be surprised to know that not everybody grows up in a nice family. You further be surprised to find out that some parents have children so that they can be taken care of later in life - I take care of you, you take care of me. There are children paying rent to their parents right this moment.
The further away the relationship, the more quid pro quo comes into play. The fact that there are some people who do not require some kind of compensation (love, hugs, material good, money, …) for some actions, doesn’t mean that won’t require it for others. People can have unconditional love for another person and still demand payment or compensation from another.
Have you never had a friend group? Like that’s a dead-ass simple ‘study’ of a gift economy. Sometimes someone pays for lunch, sometimes someone pays for beer, sometimes someone brings weed or bakes cookies or sings a song. Everyone helps everyone else out. Each according to their need, based on their ability. Or is that not something you’re familiar with, because if not, you need better friends.
Yes, and then there’s the one who always receives gifts but never contributes. The free rider problem is present even at this tiny scale. Reputation takes care of it, generally, when the friend group decides to stop hanging out with the non-reciprocal individual.
I haven’t heard of any proposal that could scale up a reciprocal economy like this up to a city of thousands (let alone millions). The issue is Dunbar’s number: our brains simply cannot track relationships with thousands of people.
Capitalism is way further along the chain of economic system development.
It essentially builds upon coinage and debt systems to be able to issue credit for people to invest in land and equipment to increase productivity of workers.
Capitalism is not strictly necessary but it did speed up the productivity development without spreading the gains equally. Right now we have a great opportunity to take these productivity gains and split them equitably via wealth redistribution but people will need to vote left for that.
It’s not capitalism itself that is bad it’s mostly how it’s being used and the built-in accumulation of money that translates to power that translates to political power that’s the problem with it.
Capitalism as a force for good is a lie, it’s a force for increasing productivity and investment and accumulation of wealth. Capitalism itself is just another tool to be used by the people for the people.
Makes sense. In a small community everyone knows each other and can rely on trust/reputation to keep things fair.
Back in the late 60s and early 70s the banks in Ireland went on strike to protest some laws. They thought that they’d cripple the economy and people would demand they reopen. Instead, people used cash for most transactions and if they needed to write a check they’d go down to the pub and the pub owner would vouch for their credit. The banks eventually gave up because their tantrum didn’t work.
Another example was when the British pulled out of Hong Kong. People who were paid with checks from a British bank would just endorse the check to someone else, who’d endorse it to someone else, who’d endorse it to someone else. The checks were rarely cashed, they just kept circulating.
if they needed to write a check they’d go down to the pub and the pub owner would vouch for their credit
Well that was an unexpectedly hilarious turn
It’s Irish AF. They recently relaxed drunk driving laws because rural elderly were just sitting at home drinking, which is apparently less healthy than sitting in a pub drinking.
it’s not even really a small community thing, it’s just about general culture and people’s ability to feel safe.
If you’re not lacking for anything then why wouldn’t you help others out?
There’s a difference between helping others out and working an unpaid job for others. When you help someone it’s on your terms. You can always walk away if they ask you to do something you don’t want to do.
Normally if you have a job then you’re paid to do things you might otherwise not want to do. I like the example of an artist. If you’re an artist then maybe you’ll be happy to paint someone’s portrait for and even give it to them as a gift. However you’re unlikely to want to sit there all day creating character art for someone else’s video game project (a lot of meticulous, tedious, and/or uninteresting work).
And you forgot: slavery. Sparta basically enslaved surrounding hellenic population ( so called hellots ). Many Athenian politicians were quite disgusted with the harsh conditions Spartans enforced on hellots. Basically they maintained “population control” by slaining hellots en masse when their population grew too much ( Spartans were somewhere around of 10-15% of their dominion )
