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I generally enjoy reading Smolenski's writting, but this article was less valuable to me. Maybe it was because the article was aimed at an academic audience, or perhaps it was because it felt a little bit like it was a meta debate about which academic discipline needs to pay attention to the other.
Either way, she makes a nice point about Adam Smith not necessarily implying there ever was such a thing as the "Age of Barter." And I also appreciated the her emphasis that value emerges from the decisions of individuals.
Value, in all its permutations, is clearly of overriding importance for human social organization. The subjective process of valuation, which occurs within the 'conscience' of each person, motivates action in habitual ways.
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Anthropologists cannot accurately describe it [value] without taking into account bottom-up methodological approaches that centre the individual as a locus of motivation and social action.
It's not a terribly long read. Check it out, if you find academic debates to be your kind of thing.
No free access to the full article? The abstract doesn't say a lot.
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Huh, it was free earlier this AM. Try this link.
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Not free now unless you have an account -
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That's strange. I don't have a wiley account. Try going to it from her post about it on X (https://x.com/NSmolenski/status/1955653248229974021).
That's how I got to it.
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Interesting read. Bitcoin certainly is an interesting anthropological phenomenon! As pointed out by the article sophisticated economy relies upon MoE to enable complexity and Bitcoin now provisions an alternative to the state imposed fiat monopoly that has become dominant. The state clearly does not want Bitcoin to develop as a serious competitor to their fiat money because their fiat hegemony gives the state and the bankers so much power and leverage. Power corrupts and fiat money has corrupted our politics and monetary system. The politicians and bankers have too much power and leverage - restore a free market to money and fix the crony capitalist politics that are destroying our economies and societies!
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I liked her point that value comes from individual decisions, not some “Age of Barter.” Her focus on looking at people’s actions from the ground up makes a lot of sense.
Sounds interesting but I doubt I’ll have time to look at it.
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