News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:In praise of cash by dragonwriter on Friday March 03, 2017 @01:29PM (#13784915)
> In what societies have humans used barter?

All of them, including (but not limited to, since barter predates money) all the ones that also have a money economy.

Re:In praise of cash by scott_s on Friday March 03, 2017 @01:47PM (#13785088)
The book "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" (https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/debt/) makes a compelling case that no societies on record have depended on a barter economy. The author also argues that debt even predates state sponsored currency.
Re:In praise of cash by dragonwriter on Friday March 03, 2017 @02:03PM (#13785268)
Debt obviously predates states sponsored currency. Heck, money economies (that is, ones in which there is a generally accepted medium of exchange and unit of account for debt) predate state sponsored currency (or even states). I've never even heard of that being an active argument.

And the question was about using barter, not depending on barter exclusively; every society has used barter.

And, in any case, debt and barter are not opposed; a system that uses debt of arbitrary commodities without a commonly-accepted unit of account is still a barter system (barter systems with debt certainly have existed, whether or not they were ever the dominant basis for any economy.)

Re:In praise of cash by scott_s on Friday March 03, 2017 @02:20PM (#13785421)
The comment that got this whole subthread started was that we would "return to barter." That implies that there was a time where economies were primarily barter based, and that the question "In what societies have humans used barter?" likely meant primarily barter. So my understanding of the question was not using, but primarily barter.
Re:In praise of cash by asldkfjasfd7 on Friday March 03, 2017 @02:49PM (#13785707)
It depends on some definitions, but I've read that's not the case. Jericho region is said to have been exclusively barter based until ~7,500 BC

And it depends on what you mean by "depended on". The central authorities of the day maybe preferred to rely on financial tools, but the people themselves performed a non-insignificant amount of commerce using barter.

"2 knicks on this clay tablet reminds me that I gave Tom two bushels of wheat, and Tom will return to me 2 pelts," contrived example to make the point aside, such scenarios as I understand it, were (and are) pretty common.

It depends on what context you're looking from. Bankers might say it's a ridiculous, outdated notion, and sell the idea it's never really existed. Poor people might say yeah well, it's all we really have.

Re:In praise of cash by scott_s on Monday March 06, 2017 @09:41AM (#13802889)
The book "Debt" is decidedly not written by a banker. The author, David Graeber, was part of the Occupy movement, among other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber