[p2p-research] quote on early history as gift economies

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear friends,

this is a quote from anthropologist david graeber, that has a bearing on our
earlier discussions on how to characterize tribal societies:

"One of the traditional roles of the economic anthropologist is to point out
that the standard narrative set out in economic textbooks – the one we all
take for granted, really, that once upon a time there was barter; that when
this became too inconvenient, people invented money; that eventually, this
lead to abstract systems of credit and debt, banking, and the New York Stock
Exchange – is simply wrong. There is in fact no known example of a human
society whose economy is based on barter of the 'I'll give you ten chickens
for that cow' variety. Most economies that don't employ money – or anything
that we'd identify as money, anyway – operate quite differently. They are,
as French anthropologist Marcel Mauss famously put it, 'gift economies'
where transactions are either based on principles of open-handed generosity,
or, when calculation does take place, most often descend into competitions
over who can give the most away. What I want to emphasise here, though, is
what happens when money does first appear in something like it's current
form (basically, with the appearance of the state). Because here, it becomes
apparent that not only do the economists get it wrong, they get it precisely
backwards. In fact, virtual money comes first. Banking, tabs, and expense
accounts existed for at least 2 thousand years before there was anything
like coinage, or any other physical object that was regularly used to buy
and sell things, anything that could be labeled 'currency'.
(http://www.metamute.org/en/content/debt_the_first_five_thousand_years)




-- 
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