Conflict reigns over the history and origins of money

Re:Conflict reigns over the history and origins of money by MrEfficiency on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @10:21AM (#17758149)

As I've gotten older, I've stopped caring about these black and white style comparisons.

Instead of saying that money was used to facilitate trade OR used to pack back debts, why not both?

Given how useful money is, I only imagine that it solved many problems that many civilizations and villages ran into.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Conflict reigns over the history and origins of money by ratman on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @11:01AM (#17758535)

    Recent research from the Americas adds new questions to
    the debate. These investigations suggest that money
    independently appeared for different reasons and assumed
    different tangible forms in many parts of the world,
    starting thousands of years ago.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Conflict reigns over the history and origins of money by thinkingemote on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @01:44PM (#17760131)

What I took from the article is that it was both, but that it started with paying back debts, and markets occured shortly because of that. So you get 100 shells for the debt of your daughter to a neighbour, now what will you do with these shells? Find stuff to buy.

To me it seems like it's almost instantaneous, but you could imagine that there would be a period of time where the 100 shells couldn't be traded, they were there to represent the debt of the bride, which would be paid pack like any debt.

[ Parent | on HN ]