Comment by sirclueless | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sirclueless | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know about you, but I have had down periods in my life, when I wasn't actually producing anything of value. If we actually used a barter economy then I would starve, or be reduced to sweating in a field growing plants. But since we live in a world where money is transferrable and credit is obtainable, I can weather those periods just fine and live in a decent house with air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter.

The best evidence that people really like to have transferrable currencies is that they develop independently in just about every market in the world. For example, ancient Africans used Cowry shells. Players of the videogame Diablo 2 used a particular ring, the Stone of Jordan.

While there's certainly fraud and even systemic failure at times, it's hard not to appreciate all that liberal economics has done for our quality of life.

It actually turns out that barter is one of the founding myths of modern economics. Notice that economics books always have these invented stories of quaint towns (or savage tribes) of people in the same community bartering; they don't actually offer historical evidence. Turns out there is none. When people trade in a community, credit systems predate currencies, which predates barter. This is the opposite of the usual myth (where everyone barters like fools, then they use currency, then they tech up to credit).

And they also make the strange assumption they'd be engaging in the "spot trade," which also is ahistorical. It's not like you'd come to me with shoes and I'd hand over a sack of potatoes. If we're neighbors, our relationship wouldn't be about market transactions (unless I suppose we're hostile and untrusting, so we'd better trade simultaneously so we don't rip each other off).

I think Graeber's _Debt: The First 5,000 Years_ is the most illuminating source on the subject. (http://www.amazon.com/Debt-The-First-000-Years/dp/1933633867)

I was reading some artist biographies from the 1800s recently. What amazed me was the credit system that allowed them to work and travel nearly as freely a the modern hacker would do. Instead of credit cards you had a network of IOUs, which enabled the economy to keep going.

Of course much of that network got wiped out in the 30s recession.

Is it impossible to imagine a system where fellow human beings would help you even if you didn't produce anything of value?

Given that such systems already exist, I would hope not.

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