Trade existed. Trade over privately owned goods. Also known as capitalism. Capitalism is a broad term and people in this thread are zoning in on modern day liberal interpretation of capitalism because they can't wait to get their late stage capitalism verbiage in. Please, everyone take a step back or open a history book.
Commerce is not the same thing as capitalism, those words are not synonyms. Take a step back and open a dictionary.
Pedantic definitions aside. The idea that capitalism is human nature and that human society and more broadly humans as a species are inherently capitalist is completely made up and ancient couns existing doesnt prove it. Id recommend looking up articles regarding "gift culture'" and "barter culture"
As for opening a history book: i did my undergrad in European history, and have a masters in Archeology. So while im not the definitive expert on the history of commerce and capitalism by any means, I have definitely opened up a couple history books.
Haha sort of. People have a very superficial understanding of topics but a lot of confidence and anger. I don't know why I even bother with these forums/communities. My hope is lurkers don't feel alienated here because they aren't left of Bernie enough. The older I get, the more I notice people talk with a lot of confidence about stuff they have no idea about.