> These interactions were the binding connection points in the society.
They were also terribly inefficient.
If you had apples, I wanted apples and had chickens but you didn't need chickens, but would love some potatoes, we'd now have to go and find somebody that would complete the chain at the right time, for the right amount. That quickly gets annoying, so we might say "ah, whatever, you're going to need chickens some day in the future, how about I just give you a paper that guarantees to you that I will give you three chickens when you bring back that paper to me?" and that's just fine.
Now, next week you want some honey, and the bee keeper will trade for chickens, but you really don't want to keep running back and forth and transport the chickens around town, so you just give him the note and he will come to me and get the chickens. We've now created a currency, albeit a simple one, backed by chickens. Money is such a currency, it just makes trading more efficient.
I'm all with you that local economies and intricate webs of relationships are important, but I disagree that they're so important that it makes sense to run after a shirt for days. Yes, sure, you'll meet plenty of interesting people, talk to old friends etc etc, but at some point you have to raise your chickens and fix your roof, you can't spend all of your time doing side quests for barter items.