Why would I have to wait? Literally everything you mentioned has already occurred.
Neither the Navajo, Ojibwe, Appache, Arawak, Lakota, or Hopi used gold as a currency, and that’s just North America. I defy you to find a culture that used gold as a currency and wasn’t agricultural. As I’ve already said, a million times, gold is fucking heavy. It’s really the least convenient thing you could use for exchange when you’re busy rumaging through the woods for food.
Please, just think about it. So you and everyone on the planet are busy running through the woods searching for food. What would you value? Shiny things or tools that can help you catch food, tasty foods, tools for preparing and/or preserving food, warm clothes, and fancy drinks? Put some method to your madness.
So what? A MoE would develop naturally. Gold makes the best MoE b/c it’s finite, malleable, shiny and ALWAYS maintains its value. ALWAYS. How else are goods and services supposed to be distributed w/o a MoE? Barter doesnt work and always leads to currency being developed.
Your making a false dichotomy between gold and other means of survival. What makes you think you can’t take both with you?
Why would I have to wait? Literally everything you mentioned has already occurred.
I said not to wait. Learn primitive skills and stock up on gold and silver and tools now while you can.
- [Gold] ALWAYS maintains its value. ALWAYS.
See, the term “gold bug” is usually a slur, but you keep repeating this and it continues to be wrong.
- [Gold] ALWAYS maintains its value. ALWAYS.
See, the term “gold bug” is usually a slur, but you keep repeating this and it continues to be wrong.
So why are precious metals considered precious? Human beings love shiny things and will exchange foodstuffs for them. It’s been demonstrated through history that humans turn to metals as MoE and gold is arguably the best for the reasons I mentioned.
This is how it goes:
I gather 30 berries. You give me a bit of gold for the berries. Then whenever you have something I want I give you the gold and you give me the food. What’s the problem?
“How else are goods and services supposed to be distributed w/o a MoE? Barter doesnt work and always leads to currency being developed.”
“How else are goods and services supposed to be distributed w/o a MoE? Barter doesnt work and always leads to currency being developed.”
That book’s been debunked so many times now I can’t keep track. Graeber advocates communism (force).
And BTW: gold was never a monopoly currency. Gold has always been real money divorced from state intervention.
That’s quantifiably false. And I’d be willing to bet that you can’t even outline the basic premises of Graeber’s book. You probably read the angry blog post between him and someone here, where the blogger here admitted to not having read the book!
That doesn’t disqualify my facts. Graeber advocates abolishing private property (the foundation of freedom) and establishing communism where no one has any rights. Menger proved how money came into existence. And if the state is what created money how come there were stateless societies in the past which used money like Medieval Iceland or Early Pennsylvania?
Money will always exist. Even after civ collapse a new MoE will evolve naturally since barter is inconvenient.
Since you’re saying “quantifiably false” it makes me think that you and F4M are using different definitions of the word monopoly. F4M is saying monopoly as in “total barrier entry in the currency market” (I believe, forgive me if I’m being presumptuous), and you’re saying, not incorrectly, that Gold has been the dominant currency historically.
There’s a number of statements 4FM made that are quantifiably false.
First, his understanding of how currency arose and what types of “barter” occured without currency are not historically observable. At all.
Second, the idea that gold as a currency has always been completely independent of the state is not true. In fact, much gold was mined only because of state sponsored operations in South America.
Third, the assertion that gold has always been the dominant currency in every society is false.
Fourth, the idea that hunter/gatherers widely used currency at all is false.
Fifth, the implication that pre-cuurency barter is a system of numeric equivalencies (two chickens for a pair of shoes or something like that) is false.
I won’t debate you on F4M’s consistent attempts to bend reason towards his ideologically-painted notion of “bad civ”. When he is refuted, he responds with youtube links. Anyways, I don’t see how anything could be quantifiably false. If something is demonstrably false, then what good are a slew of examples to prove or disprove the assertion? Or am I misunderstanding?
I also don’t disagree that gold hasn’t always been the dominant currency everywhere, but you can’t deny that it is the historically dominant currency, for a number of reasons. It was such a convenience in ancient times, that a Spartan king (Lycurgus I think) actually banned gold coins and supplanted them with cumbersome iron blocks because they were too conducive to material gain. This proves your point, that gold is not the absolutely dominant currency, but it also does show that gold was certainly desired as a currency by the vast majority of civilizations, at least those ones that desired to foster material gain.
Fourth, the idea that hunter/gatherers widely used currency at all is false.
Fifth, the implication that pre-cuurency barter is a system of numeric equivalencies (two chickens for a pair of shoes or something like that) is false.
So what kinds of economies did H/Gs have? All voluntary actions are part of the market.
Third, the assertion that gold has always been the dominant currency in every society is false.
I never said that. I said that barter economies don’t work so you need a currency, and because of gold’s properties (malleable, shiny, always has value, finite) it only makes sense to use gold as a standard currency after collapse.
“So what kinds of economies did H/Gs have? All voluntary actions are part of the market.”
Usually a barter system that would be more accurately described as “credit.” You like my horse? Take it. Now you owe me one, eventually. You could give me twenty chickens and be considered a cheapskate, or you could give me a calf and I would owe you one. There was a hierarchy of values, but a greater amount of a commodity considered lower on the hierarchy didn’t really add up to one commodity of higher value. What the hell am I supposed to do with twenty chickens? I only need two and they’re easy to come by.
As far as H/Gs that weren’t semi-sedentary, there was mostly gifts. Hey look, these people hunted 5 deer. Awesome. We’re all going to eat now. In return we’ll be sure to find some awesome wild grains and make cereal or something, or better yet turn the hides into clothes.
Part of a market? Sure. I’m willing to grant that. Was there a system of numeric equivalencies as defined by your understanding of barter or currency? No, not at all. It was more like a constant informal IOU. And now here’s a shocker, the first paper currency around in really ancient China was basically a system of written IOUs that you could either sign over to someone else or call up your friend to fulfill. It had nothing to do with commodities.
“I never said that. I said that barter economies don’t work so you need a currency, and because of gold’s properties (malleable, shiny, always has value, finite) it only makes sense to use gold as a standard currency after collapse.”
Yet you don’t understand how barter has worked before the lame example of cigarettes in prison, something that was actually post currency (meaning that people already functioned on the idea of currency as equivalencies). I’m not arguing that people don’t hedge gold as a currency against a failing state. What I am arguing is that gold will not be useful in a society where we no longer have the means to mine or process gold. The malleability of gold doesn’t matter if we’re all hunting and gathering.
The reality is, if you want to do anything close to responsible historical research
a) gold was NOT the standard ALWAYS - this doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t take a lot of research to figure this out . Hell you can probably even just speculate in your head the improbablity of this happening.
b) Birthday Pony is putting up, for the most part, acceptable academic theories
c) Studying this stuff is pretty interesting, and if you read any hard ancient history books that don’t have some ideological axe to grind - your going to find that there are different theories out there to how a lot of this stuff worked (see gift economy for example) - it’s not so clear cut
d) Studying this stuff is well and good and all, but it doesn’t mean squat to how economy functions here and now it’s just…history. I don’t see what the hang ups are.
Note:
I said acceptable - I don’t mean mainstream. I don’t think gift economy is really the orthodox anthropolgy view - but it is a legit argument / theory
there was mostly gifts.
That’s still a market. Anything voluntary is a market. I’m willing to bet that H/Gs were anarcho-capitalist and remained that way until ag lead to civ and civ lead to the state.
Was there a system of numeric equivalencies as defined by your understanding of barter or currency? No, not at all. It was more like a constant informal IOU. And now here’s a shocker, the first paper currency around in really ancient China was basically a system of written IOUs that you could either sign over to someone else or call up your friend to fulfill. It had nothing to do with commodities.
Name me one book aside from Graebers which proves your claims.