tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post1165787331407633758..comments2024-03-28T07:50:06.102-04:00Comments on Mike Norman Economics: David Graeber: Debt: the Myth of Bartermike normanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03296006882513340747noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-75776441106046276192017-05-23T12:26:29.411-04:002017-05-23T12:26:29.411-04:00History is generally taken to be the period after ...History is generally taken to be the period after events began being recored and prehistory the period before writing systems were in use or at least where there are extant records.<br /><br />I would extend that definition a bit to include evidence than writing that historians are not just guessing about.<br /><br />So I would say that history begins in an area where sufficient substantiation exists to say that certain events took place in an approximate time frame.<br /><br />History is a story that is substantiated. Prehistory is a narrative constructed on the basis of evidence that doesn't force a narrative.<br /><br />In other words, there has to be some criterion(a) for distinguishing truth and falsity, or estimating probability, in order to distinguish history from guessing and just-so stories.<br /><br />There is also the question here of distinguishing history from myth and legend.<br /><br />So the line of demarcation between history and prehistory is blurred by the "mists of time."Tom Hickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08454222098667643650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-19672531505404955342017-05-23T11:52:50.052-04:002017-05-23T11:52:50.052-04:00Just out of interest, Tom, what dates do you consi...Just out of interest, Tom, what dates do you consider "prehistory?" This question is <b>no reflection</b> on, or reference to, what you said. Just curious. (Everyone seems to have different dates to categorize "neolithic," "neanderthal," "ancient," "prehistoric," "bronze age," etcetera, etcetera.)MRWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13878920695841363553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-62785867492012954182017-05-23T11:02:58.945-04:002017-05-23T11:02:58.945-04:00The barter issue is significant because the story ...The barter issue is significant because the story told by conventional economics is that barter exchange led to money exchange to address the need for "double coincidence of wants" in barter exchange. <br /><br />The conclusion was that what is really happening in economic exchange is barter of goods, and money only serves as convenient that constitutes a neutral veil over the barter process. <br /><br />This implies that a monetary production economy is essentially the same as a barter exchange economy and money plays no role in the run so consideration of money can be dispensed with. <br /><br />This is a reason that conventional economics ignores the role of finance and money and banking other than the interest rate as the price of money.<br /><br />The just -so story of barter being the origin of money is part of the conventional narrative that underlies the framework of conventional economics.Tom Hickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08454222098667643650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-88488653762069991892017-05-23T10:54:53.957-04:002017-05-23T10:54:53.957-04:00Hudson is still talking about advanced societies.
...<i>Hudson is still talking about advanced societies.<br /><br />No, he's not. Did you listen to it? He’s talking about how societies EVOLVED. And Graeber wasn’t just talking about African tribes in sub-Saharan Africa.</i><br /><br />We know how stone age people lived and interacted in small tribes in prehistory owing to the primitive tribes that are still be found contemporaneously, for example, in the Amazon rain forest.Tom Hickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08454222098667643650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-72093682241980546722017-05-23T09:50:28.818-04:002017-05-23T09:50:28.818-04:00Zoomin?Zoomin?Peter Panhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09473311771939167712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-63124207861725809172017-05-23T07:01:26.245-04:002017-05-23T07:01:26.245-04:00"Get even....""Get even...."Matt Frankohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11978352335097260145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-27700492093527086382017-05-23T04:17:57.412-04:002017-05-23T04:17:57.412-04:00I will watch it soon. I will watch it soon. Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-43027519108954991182017-05-23T03:03:10.792-04:002017-05-23T03:03:10.792-04:00Kaivey, did you ever watch this? This is the calib...Kaivey, did you ever watch this? This is the calibre of American education until after WWII. http://www.veoh.com/watch/v16706342cB97DkDJ. Just need to watch the "101" version. It's a hoot.MRWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13878920695841363553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-45496413019827505632017-05-23T02:54:37.997-04:002017-05-23T02:54:37.997-04:00Agreed. Used to know the name of the guy who dream...Agreed. Used to know the name of the guy who dreamt up the barter story in the 1890s, but I've forgotten. But so what? Anyone with half a brain who ever visited a good museum would know about the Sumerian/Mesopotamian tablets. They were in my grade nine history book, fercrissake.MRWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13878920695841363553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-61850488049724492252017-05-23T02:49:36.303-04:002017-05-23T02:49:36.303-04:00'In textbooks all around the world the history...'In textbooks all around the world the history of economics is summarized thusly: first came barter, then money, only later were credit and debt invented. The problem with this presentation is that “barter” economies pretty much never existed.'<br /><br />David Greamer. Anthropologist. Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-42742165690094816922017-05-23T02:45:50.165-04:002017-05-23T02:45:50.165-04:00Okay, but mainstream economists have been pushing ...Okay, but mainstream economists have been pushing Adam Smith and his assumptions on barter for a long time. This is why David Graeber addressed it in his book. Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-89318161761100921412017-05-23T02:26:45.034-04:002017-05-23T02:26:45.034-04:00Because the right wing economists at the great uni...<i>Because the right wing economists at the great universities going back to Adam Smith have been trying to con everyone into believing that capitalist business dealing had always been the way.</i><br /><br />That’s way too simplistic, Kaivey. Universities weren’t divided into right- and left-wing in Adam Smith’s time, and economists were only called that after the discipline was established in the first third of the 20th C. [Accountancy, on the other hand, was established in the 12th C by Ibn Khaldun (sp?), who also established historiography, or the study of history.]<br />MRWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13878920695841363553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-78717857635533836812017-05-23T02:17:14.091-04:002017-05-23T02:17:14.091-04:00Hudson is still talking about advanced societies.
...<i>Hudson is still talking about advanced societies.</i><br /><br />No, he's not. Did you listen to it? He’s talking about how societies EVOLVED. And Graeber wasn’t just talking about African tribes in sub-Saharan Africa. (The upper half of Africa was part of the great Golden Age of Islam and universities like the oldest in Egypt, and the three at Timbuktu where one had 22,000 students…that part of Sahara was verdant then.)MRWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13878920695841363553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-12677899688180035672017-05-23T01:36:36.989-04:002017-05-23T01:36:36.989-04:00Hudson is still talking about advanced societies. ...Hudson is still talking about advanced societies. Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-27503839159271353282017-05-23T01:34:56.285-04:002017-05-23T01:34:56.285-04:00Because the right wing economists at the great uni...Because the right wing economists at the great universities going back to Adam Smith have been trying to con everyone into believing that capitalist business dealing had always been the way. Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-3256951789629408982017-05-23T01:02:47.079-04:002017-05-23T01:02:47.079-04:00Michael Hudson and his team of fellow experts that...Michael Hudson and his team of fellow experts that convened first at the Peabody Museum 20 years ago, then Harvard, have written a series of books on the economies and practices of the ancient world. The latest (5th) book in the series, <i>Labor in the Ancient World</i> [published 2015] begins in 10,000 BC. with massive public sites built in Turkey.<br /><br />These experts Hudson is working with are “leading Assyriologists and Egyptologists and Mycenaean Greek specialists as well as archaeologists on how early societies mobilised the labour force, especially for large public building projects such as temples, city walls and other infrastructure,” says Hudson.<br /><br />Hudson says in this extraordinary interview: “…ten years ago we had our fifth colloquium on “Labor in the Ancient World.” There have been so many revolutions in archaeology and Assyriology and even Egyptology in the last ten years that we’re only publishing this volume now, to be completely up-to-date.” For instance, they have the “actual bills and accounting statements for what’s paid to labour to build the pyramids.<br /><br />To put it politely, the comments above about tribes and how societies worked are not borne out by the evidence. They’re extrapolated myth coined from the same bad education most of us got. You’ll be surprised to know the truth.<br /><br />I suggest you listen to this wonderful interview if interested. Transcript also available at the same site.<br />http://michael-hudson.com/2015/04/sovereignty-in-the-ancient-near-east/MRWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13878920695841363553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-11564999540301792972017-05-22T18:58:35.935-04:002017-05-22T18:58:35.935-04:00.... and where does that leave the ones who got it....... and where does that leave the ones who got it wrong in the first place?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-53032871049605115842017-05-22T18:53:19.415-04:002017-05-22T18:53:19.415-04:00The bit that confounds me is why it takes an acade...The bit that confounds me is why it takes an academic to point out what every kid in the schoolyard knows (not to mention the chimpanzees): - ' who owes who what; who is zoomin who'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-678680937290975622017-05-22T18:07:54.814-04:002017-05-22T18:07:54.814-04:00"Barter is also all around us all the time: I..."Barter is also all around us all the time: I do my next door neighbor various favors and he does me various favors in return. No cash changes hands. " <br />Isn't that exactly what grabber meant by the mental credits and debits? There's a fuzzy balance sheet in you and your neighbors heads. It's not like you and you neighbor exchange favors at the same time explicitly as one in exchange for the other. It's not an exactly one-to-one exchange. It good for both of you to help each other out, but if you're constantly helping with nothing in return, it starts to be clear that the balance sheet has tipped in one direction.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15197727918414570446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-70260153184707260832017-05-22T15:30:15.032-04:002017-05-22T15:30:15.032-04:00It's like Wikipedia is non profit. It could ca...It's like Wikipedia is non profit. It could carry adverts and make the founders billions. Is it that people feel the need to be helpful even across the globe? Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-51677003340399716342017-05-22T15:22:56.078-04:002017-05-22T15:22:56.078-04:00But this owing people favours can't work in la...<i>But this owing people favours can't work in larger societies.</i><br /><br />There is actually a lot more of this than most people think offhand. It is not necessarily directly economic but it has economic benefits for the parties indirectly. This is an important feature of networking. Society is a vast network of relationships of different types. There is also a certain amount of reputational transitivity in addition to reciprocity.Tom Hickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08454222098667643650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-5796326126399472582017-05-22T15:06:07.073-04:002017-05-22T15:06:07.073-04:00Exactly. Tribal societies were cooperative. Taking...Exactly. Tribal societies were cooperative. Taking more than one needed or threatening the tribe's ability to survive was grounds for punishment, exile or death. <br /><br />Sebastian Junger's excellent book Tribe explores this concept of socially supportive community as it relates to war. Noah Wayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12012500819097539976noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-41316986860722837122017-05-22T14:26:47.565-04:002017-05-22T14:26:47.565-04:00Graeber does say that tribes sometimes bartered wi...Graeber does say that tribes sometimes bartered with each other. Although we know that tribes often exchanged gifts, and it wound be a time of celebration where young people found partners. This was to keep the gene pool healthy, although they didn't think about that. Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-9112826524561704932017-05-22T14:09:50.259-04:002017-05-22T14:09:50.259-04:00It's well known that barter is used when there...It's well known that barter is used when there is economic breakdown or collapse. It's a substitute for monetary exchange rather than a cause or origin of it.<br /><br />It's true that barter is ancient but it was used intergroup (trade) rather than intra-group. An economy, even a proto-economy, is intra-group.<br /><br />From what we can tell, hunter-gathering societies were organized on social exchange rather than economic exchange. Economic exchange doesn't emerge until the beginning of agriculture and the advent of surpluses that were storable, that is, the first economies appear to have been grain-based economies where accounting records were in terms of grain. <br /><br />Exactly how the concept of money was developed is unclear but grain is a candidate for a prototype since it was relatively stable, and it could be aggregated and divided easily. But it was a commodity and money is not a commodity, so grains were probably thought of as "money." <br /><br />But the people of time understood credit and debit pretty much as we do now. The concept of money seems to have originated from the credit-debit relation.<br /><br />Graeber points out that the credit-debit relation arises from earlier social factors involving mutuality, reciprocation, and obligation.Tom Hickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08454222098667643650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2761684730989137546.post-57167970603309642892017-05-22T13:57:59.149-04:002017-05-22T13:57:59.149-04:00He was talking and primitive societies, which is h...He was talking and primitive societies, which is how man evolved over thousands of years. Adam Smith made an assumption. Barter is not found in any primitive society, says Graeber. It makes sense. But this owing people favours can't work in larger societies. Kaiveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195639305785321786noreply@blogger.com