Anonymous #3 5w

Because why tf would a farmer want arrows for hunting. The accepted theory of proto-currency is that it began as a matter of social status. On some Micronesian islands (specifically Guam and Palau) the practice survived until relatively recently. They used huge fucking circular rocks called Rai stones (pictured) that oftentimes weren’t even moved and used as a mostly honor-based system. More Rai stones meant higher social status, meaning more village trust and better marriage

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Anonymous #3 5w

The “status-based” currency was possibly even prohibited in commercial use. Anyway, the first currency in western civilization ended up being crops funnily enough. This is only because farmers couldn’t pay for goods immediately and crops became a form of credit and debt (bc crops take time to grow). Eventually, ancient Mesopotamia would give farmers a clay token in exchange for grain deposits, and fixed quantities of barley became the first measure of account.

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Anonymous #3 5w

Little side note: The oldest known texts in the world are clay accounting tablets of barley deposits. Even when silver was introduced to economies, it was used in tandem with grain. Grain was used to calculate values, labor time, land value, and to make payments while silver was used to pay taxes and trade long-distance (between cities or nations)

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Anonymous #4 5w

Money of account. Their payment for their time was in the form crops. If they traded with others, they had money of exchange (real currency). Those were only tied together in western civilization because temples financed most foreign exchange so they gave a fixed exchange rate between grain and silver, leading to capitalism. Indigenous Americans would’ve eventually recreated it without western intervention, as the Aztecs already used copper axe blades and cocoa beans

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Anonymous #4 5w

Profit is the surplus value produced by workers and appropriated by their bosses under capitalism. Without money, how do you quantify value? Without capitalism, who is producing commodities that are then sold?

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Anonymous #5 5w

1. Value is technically never give a dollar value in economics whereas price is. 2. What?

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