TIL: Contrary to popular conception, non-monetary societies did not mainly rely on barter as a means of trade, but relied on gift economics and sometimes debt.
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]
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 )
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.
Thanks for the recommendation! I had a reminiscent Reddit reflex, where I looked the writer up to see if it wasn't a 'guns, germs and steel' type of popular history, but was pleasantly surprised.
If you want to dive even further into why the foundations of modern macroeconomics are bunk, then I can also recommend reading Debunking Economics by Steve Keen.
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.
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.
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.)
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).
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.