[juhanima]

It might be interesting also to consider why people with less money tend to be generous by nature and wave off small debts on account of a culture of mutual support. Bret Deveraux in the series about farming[1] has the insight that ancient and medieval subsistence farming operated at the absolute limit of survival on purpose, for the simple reason that any possible surplus would be taken away anyway by the tax collector and his henchmen to finance the king's endless wars. That's why the area of cultivated land for instance was kept at or near the absolute minimum.

This had the result that a single farmer was not able to cumulate any kind of a buffer of surplus against a lean year. As a countermeasure the subsistence farmers developed a culture of mutual help and solidarity, where it simply was not socially acceptable not to help the neighbor, who had lost their crops. As long as at least some of the members of the community had a decent yield, the whole community survived.

Reading this was very eye opening to me and it at least sounded plausible. ACOUP is often mentioned here, deservedly. This was one of the best gems I have found.

[1] https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...