[yxhuvud]

Back to bartering? There have never been a big scale bartering system as they always end up being debt based since that is a lot more convenient for all parts.

6000 Years of Debt is a book that can be recommended for information about that. It is not a very good description of the present, but it captures the past very nicely.

[scott_s]

I believe you mean "Debt: The First 5000 Years". I'm still reading it. It's good for understanding these ideas, but it spends a lot of time in the beginning in "the language of debt" and how it relates to religions. That is interesting in its own right, but not why I picked up the book.

[nunb]

yeah, that religious part was a bit far-fetched. (As a hindu/brahmin I LOL'd).

I've read several different theories of money and I don't find the debt vs coincidence-of-wants bifurcation that Graeber alludes to such a big difference in practice.

He pretty much hangs his whole approach off of that, but the two can be reconciled quite easily in my mind.

I wish everyone would read David Graeber (first) and then Detlev Schlichter.

[kamjam]

That was my point.