Barter is actually extremely rare. Most people at most times in most pre-modern societies exchanged goods on a gift/favor system. Like you’d invite all your neighbors for feasts, they’d do the same for you, then when you hit a rough year they’d invite you to more feasts to get you through it. Or kings would take turns exchanging fancy bullshit gifts, and perhaps go to war if they felt like they were getting too little out of it.
orthodox economists literally think innumerate tribespeople in central europe were keeping precise records of how many sheep everyone owed to everyone else
Yeah. Gift/favor economies are more social and less formal than a money economy, but that doesn’t mean they’re really better. These economies still routinely developed slavery, serfdom, and vassalage.
Barter is actually extremely rare. Most people at most times in most pre-modern societies exchanged goods on a gift/favor system. Like you’d invite all your neighbors for feasts, they’d do the same for you, then when you hit a rough year they’d invite you to more feasts to get you through it. Or kings would take turns exchanging fancy bullshit gifts, and perhaps go to war if they felt like they were getting too little out of it.
orthodox economists literally think innumerate tribespeople in central europe were keeping precise records of how many sheep everyone owed to everyone else
This is basically communal life
It’s still a type of exchange, just less formal and rigid than modern ideas of trade. It’s community life.
Yeah. Gift/favor economies are more social and less formal than a money economy, but that doesn’t mean they’re really better. These economies still routinely developed slavery, serfdom, and vassalage.