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Comment by bullen | Hacker News Reader

Most people misunderstand the accounting part of why salt was important, everyone knows what salt looks like and how much it's worth. It's a value comparator = it's used to compare other products (for example if a sheep is worth say 750 grams and a cow is worth 850g then you can exchange sheep and cows with some salt to cover the difference) this is the most valuable characteristic of money, something universal to build trade from. Seashells also work well in some places, not as a store of value but as trade enablers. I'm guessing no exchange was ever made in the history of man without this kind of value comparative, long before the term money was even discovered.

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> I'm guessing no exchange was ever made in the history of man without this kind of value comparative, long before the term money was even discovered.

I used to think this as well but it's apparently not true! In hunter gatherer tribes (and probably early agricultural groups) it sufficed for two parties to agree that one was getting the better deal and agree there was a debt. Then in a later transaction the debt would likely go the other direction, as the party in debt for the first transaction overpaid. This cycle seems to have repeated indefinitely if everyone stayed on reasonably good terms. Importantly, the stability of communities was the bedrock of these types interactions. Once communities got extremely large (1000s) or travelers became common place, the kind of comparative you're discussing seems to have become more important.

I'd recommend reading "Debt, the First 5000 Years" to learn more

I'd like to think that too, but realistically everyone has always known that debt was stupid, you never know when/how you'll get shafted, just like lying. Agreed, back then that was true all of the time, but all the better reason to not venture into that sort of crackpot system, specially when you have salt/shells just laying around...

In nature there is no such thing as borrowing from the future (natures favourite debt is borrowing from the past = chop wood 2 years before you're supposed to burn it to give it time to dry, plant months before you harvest, share discoveries without copyright/patent, that sorta thing), it's a purely human/predatory thing to think you can fool others into debt; sacrificing their own offspring like that: because either way you turn it you're probably not going to want to be around when it's time to pay the "real" price of debt = voluntary slavery, then energy collapse followed by a shitstorm of domino-effects! History rhymes they say.

I think all economic "professors", writing books about a past they have no clue about, probably suffer from this good old quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

Eventually you'll see how biased/"sunk cost" David Graeber was to think that "stone-agers had debt too" like they would care... it was probably salt/shells as lubrication or smack them over the head before the deal was over.

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced debt only came with generalized written/read language and all the book-keeping crap the Italians discovered in the 14th century, about the same time the first Chineese dude forbid silver with punishement of death and started printing paper bills...

So yes, there was debt but not the kind of orderly debt you and I are thinking about, but rather the debt of people exploiting others for decades and almost getting away with it; "debt", those stories never seem to get fairy-tale endings though.

So what is really different this time? Nothing!

Trust me if it's one story that has been on repeat for the last 20-30 centuries it's monetary inflation, and energy inflation never seems to agree with that; because you can't print energy: all revolutions are monetary, but before that they are increase in entropy!

Seen that we're on the peak of the largest possible energy bubble, by time of storage (millions of years of sunlight creating coal, oil and gas), powering the largest fictionary money/debt bubble any monkey could be fooled into believing, I would say it's time to talk to David Graeber about what really happened in the past!

The real connection is violence! Debt is voilence postponed; salt means peace, atleast for now!

> I'd like to think that too, but realistically everyone has always known that debt was stupid, you never know when/how you'll get shafted, just like lying.

That may be true with one-off interactions, but in smaller communities or with individuals that you have regular (trading) contact with, screwing someone over would make you into a social pariah.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory#Infinitely_long_ga...

Theories are great, but really if you live in a village of 100 people I don't think you need theories to understand that you have to behave to survive.

Between two tribes of 100 I'm pretty sure it was permanent war; unless they where symbiotic, in which case I would call them one tribe of 200.

Energy (heat, water, food) where really scarce when you hadn't figured out coal, oil and gas yet or now after those discoveries of reserves have peaked.

I think it requires atleast one day of cold, thirsty, hunger to be able to understand what social in those days felt like.

As for game theory it's just a pretentious labeling of "force the hand" incentives when many people are involved, you don't need a theory for that, it's allready proven.

Basically it's why debt (as inflation = negative real rates) works in the first place: somebody gives you an incentive to not give a damn about your own kids future by pointing at theories that have failed over and over again in history but somehow they still manage to "socially" convince you that it's ok because everyone is doing it!

Everything in life is a pyramid scheme, but most things end up being ponzi schemes, you just have to learn to see the difference.

"Between two tribes of 100 I'm pretty sure it was permanent war; unless they where symbiotic, in which case I would call them one tribe of 200"

Well you would be wrong to call them one tribe. The US and Mexico have a symbiotic relationship, are they one country?

And it's good that you are "pretty sure" it would be war, but would you like to post any sources at all? Or is this just your gut feeling?

"Basically it's why debt (as inflation = negative real rates) works in the first place: somebody gives you an incentive to not give a damn about your own kids future by pointing at theories that have failed over and over again in history but somehow they still manage to "socially" convince you that it's ok because everyone is doing it!

Everything in life is a pyramid scheme, but most things end up being ponzi schemes, you just have to learn to see the difference."

You have gone really off topic here and I am struggling to see what this has to do with the original topic. You also seem to have an agenda that isn't really related to the topic of debt in the ancient world.

Debt doesn’t have to be seen as borrowing from the future, it can also - depending on culture- be seen as borrowing from the past. I give you the difference of a cow and a sheep now, and next year when I need it, I will have a claim that may help me survive. Even today that attitude exists in some cultures and some families.

What you just described is debt from the view of the lender, it's still debt.

Now imagine if the lender could just print cows! Now you know how the current clown show is run (debt = inflation, as real interest rates go below zero)!

And by failing to understand it you are punishing your own kids.

I see that you are just making it up as you go along.

We have physical documents recording debts well back into the Sumerian period. At the time, financial records were inscribed in clay and stored in government buildings. When a city was sacked, these buildings would be torched, baking the clay tablets to ceramic, and then burying them under ash, preserving them for the ages. We have tens of thousands of these documents.

So, no, finance was not, in fact, invented in 14th-century AD Italy. And, no, formal, legally-binding debt existed long before there was currency.

Interesting. Along the same lines I would imagine it was one of the easiest “currencies” to confirm the authenticity of... a quick lick and you’ll know whether or not you’re being ripped off with a counterfeit.

Same with gold, you could munch on a gold piece to test it's authenticity.

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