pull down to refresh
102 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 4h \ on: "Ancient tally sticks across three civilizations challenge myths about money" econ
This can't possibly be correct. The historical record may not show that barter does precede financial money in an evolutionary way but it definitely does not show that it definitively does not.
Barter and money predate scholarly writing, so how would we even have such an account?
Right! I don't know how the guy could prove such a thing, but I read it as "People assume barter came before money, but that isn't more true than money came before barter." Maybe I am being too charitable, as his statement is stronger than that.
I suppose he thinks that demonstrating that money is really old is enough to prove that barter didn't necessarily predate it.
I should have read the actual paper...
reply
I haven't read it either, but money being created by the state to track tax obligations is a very common view.
It doesn't make much sense to me why money would be a valuable commodity, though. The oldest taxation we know about was in-kind: farmers had to give a share of their crop, for instance.
If gold wasn't being used as money already, why would farmers even have gold to pay their taxes with?
And, if they didn't already have gold coins, why would some government bureaucrat think to distribute gold to them for the purpose of collecting it back later?
And, if it wasn't already money and they didn't just distribute gold coins, how did they convince farmers to accept gold coins in exchange before gold coins were a medium of exchange?
The story really doesn't make much sense.
On the other hand, we know that money emerges pretty quickly in economies (POW camps, MMO games, etc.) and if there were a medium of exchange in circulation there's no mystery at all as to why the government would collect it as tax payment.
reply
I get really annoyed at these guys. They go straight from "ledgers were used to track tax obligations" to "money is created by the nation state and taxation should be used to manage the supply." Seriously, if you actually read the linked article, that's what they say.
It's so mind-bendingly stupid that I have trouble even responding.
The most likely truth is that both things developed concurrently:
- ledgers for tracking obligations, and those ledgers may have been enforced by some sort of chieftain or authority
- commodity based moneys for facilitating barter and exchange
I really don't see how any of that leads at all to the claims of the MMTers. And there's no way in hell that the chieftains recording obligations on ledgers had any notions that they were doing this to stimulate or manage the economy.
These guys are mush heads.
reply
Even as I was writing my response, I was thinking about how so many of the obligations in small communities would have been informal: i.e. I helped you rescue a goat last spring so now I need help fixing my roof, and even there it wouldn't be consciously calculated and tracked.
As society gets bigger, it's harder to keep track of that stuff and some people are more prone to score keeping than others, so they may have started keeping tallies. It also becomes easier to freeride, so people take more notice of who isn't pitching in, which is easier to do if you give some token of value when someone helps you.
There was also probably an informal tribute system with the upper class who provided protection or salvation or whatever. Those gifts/taxes may have been loosely tracked but a universal numeraire would be needed to compare the worth of a tribute of wheat with a tribute of wool. Once that numeraire exists, the farmer may give wheat plus other assets in tribute during lean harvests.
etc. etc.
Money solves so many problems that it's just not surprising for money-like things to pop up.
reply
What's really bothering me is that this is the behavior of activists masquerading as academics. Take something that the data plausibly shows, then irresponsibly extrapolate it to their desired policy position.
Examples include:
- Academic documentation of historical discrimination faced by transgenders --> Men should be allowed in womens' bathrooms
- Academic observations of rising global temperatures --> We need to phase gas cars out by 2035 or face extinction
- Academic documentation of discrimination faced by women in the workplace --> All differences in labor market outcomes between men and women must be attributable to discrimination
So irresponsible, but very dangerous and persuasive to some people, because the first part of each of those arguments are true and well grounded in fact. It's the extrapolation that's false, but also since the activists have a veneer of academic respectability, it's hard for a layperson to argue back.
reply