Wealth disorder

[Retinend]

Ok, well I look forward to reading it.

[Johnny Yesno]

Ok, well I look forward to reading it.

I must get round to reading the book myself. That lecture is an illuminating summary, though.

[Retinend]

I'm not sure our ideas of profit are the same. The existence of currency doesn't necessitate profit. As we know, all money is IOUs, but if the IOU is "you've given me a bronze sword and in return I will give you silk of equal value" then there's no profit. Profit is surplus value: a person produces something for someone else who then sells it at the value of materials + labour, and adds an extra cost on - that added cost is the profit.

My intended emphasis was on the spread of manufactured objects that relied on boating expeditions. These had to be financed.

[Pingers]

My intended emphasis was on the spread of manufactured objects that relied on boating expeditions. These had to be financed.

Again I disagree (I'm not just doing this to be a pain, honest!). You could have a group of 3 potters for example - between them they make a load of pots, they make a boat, put the pots on the boat and sail up the coast, where they trade them for olive oil of equal value, which they load on to the boat and take home. No profit there.

[Retinend]

OK I guess it's theoretically possible that they paid them for the pottery in oil and then measured out in some extra oil the expenses of the travel (and the deliverer was always 100% honest/accurate about this) and they did this all just to be friendly. Hard to imagine, but theoretically possible. But the cuneiform receipts (going back to 40 centuries B.C.) do show payment in currency, so this kind of tit-for-tat trading wasn't to be forever.

[Zetetic]

"Equal value" is a hard concept to make work.

On the one hand, by definition, any exchange involves things of equal value. Those things were exchangeable for these things.

On the other hand, clearly each party finds the other thing more valuable to them than what they already have. (Setting aside exchanges for performative reasons or something.)

[Pingers]

OK I guess it's theoretically possible that they paid them for the pottery in oil and then measured out in some extra oil the expenses of the travel (and the deliverer was always 100% honest/accurate about this) and they did this all just to be friendly. Hard to imagine, but theoretically possible.

I think bartering was of necessity. If you live somewhere with lots of clay and you learn how to make pottery, but the nearest olive trees are 70 miles away and you're sick of boiling all your food, then the obvious thing to do is make more pots than you need, then go and swap them for olive oil. If where the olives are doesn't have good clay then it works the other way around.

[Zetetic]

I wonder if you can make more sense out of this by looking at either:
- Excess for investment.
- Opposition to fairness.

[Pingers]

We could use a modern example - a workers co-op. Let's say a co-op is founded. They borrow from a non-profit lender and buy some land where they grow fruit and veg. They then sell the produce to a cooperatively-run greengrocers, covering just their costs and enough to pay each member the living wage. Where is the profit in this?

[Pingers]

You're not telling me there's nothing wrong with this man

[Johnny Yesno]

I think bartering was of necessity. If you live somewhere with lots of clay and you learn how to make pottery, but the nearest olive trees are 70 miles away and you're sick of boiling all your food, then the obvious thing to do is make more pots than you need, then go and swap them for olive oil. If where the olives are doesn't have good clay then it works the other way around.

David Graeber says that this idea of historic on-the-spot bartering is a 200-year-old myth. He argues that economists have more recently backed away from this claim because no one has been able to find any examples. Instead, what have been found are societies that give 'gifts' on the understanding that there will be reciprocity on the basis of need at some point.

https://youtu.be/CZIINXhGDcs?t=1268

He talks about the Sumerian credit system and those cuneiform records you mentioned here: https://youtu.be/CZIINXhGDcs?t=2275

[Retinend]

He talks about the Sumerian credit system and those cuneiform records you mentioned here: https://youtu.be/CZIINXhGDcs?t=2275

Thanks for considerately timestamping the relevant part.

I don't disagree with him so much as not know how to respond to all the things he says. Clearly he didn't come at his talk from the same angle that we are coming to the topic as, since this thread is asking if we can stigmatize wealth-hoarding and the way this conversation is moving it is becoming more about microeconomics and less about macroeconomics.

1.he is talking about "credit coming first" and putting a heavy emphasis on it to counter a common dogma. The dogma is that, in the great whiggish run of history, that barter leads to cash which leads to credit. In fact, credit comes first. He also emphasizes how sophisticated the Sumerians were with calculating interest on credit. Expense accounts, bar tabs, everything is on credit. Scales were not fine-weighted enough to measure gold - only to measure fruit etc.

2. Debt was no problema for the ancient Sumerians: they solved their financial problems with debt cancellation measures. People still had enough to get by and everyone accepted that real wealth was in assets. When financial crises happened, because families were more self-sufficiant and were able to migrate into the countryside and live cheaply, a periodical "wipe-out" was instituted."Amargi", Sumerian word, means "return to mother" which was a festival that commemorated these wipe-outs.

3. Coins fucked everything up. It was made to pay soldiers because soldiers were often part-time thieves and would enrich the government and extend their reach over a country. It also formalized the collection of tax, handily. Once the state had control over money there was no way in which they would start wiping out debts ever again.

So this is from 2012. I get the impression he is addressing the prevailing wrong beliefs about debt. We should remember that economies have existed which prioritize wholesale trade based on barter and didn't "believe in" credit-based numbers in times of crisis.

Is that more or less what you took from it too?

[Johnny Yesno]

Thanks for considerately timestamping the relevant part.

I don't disagree with him so much as not know how to respond to all the things he says. Clearly he didn't come at his talk from the same angle that we are coming to the topic as, since this thread is asking if we can stigmatize wealth-hoarding and the way this conversation is moving it is becoming more about microeconomics and less about macroeconomics.

1.he is talking about "credit coming first" and putting a heavy emphasis on it to counter a common dogma. The dogma is that, in the great whiggish run of history, that barter leads to cash which leads to credit. In fact, credit comes first. He also emphasizes how sophisticated the Sumerians were with calculating interest on credit. Expense accounts, bar tabs, everything is on credit. Scales were not fine-weighted enough to measure gold - only to measure fruit etc.

2. Debt was no problema for the ancient Sumerians: they solved their financial problems with debt cancellation measures. People still had enough to get by and everyone accepted that real wealth was in assets. When financial crises happened, because families were more self-sufficiant and were able to migrate into the countryside and live cheaply, a periodical "wipe-out" was instituted."Amargi", Sumerian word, means "return to mother" which was a festival that commemorated these wipe-outs.

3. Coins fucked everything up. It was made to pay soldiers because soldiers were often part-time thieves and would enrich the government and extend their reach over a country. It also formalized the collection of tax, handily. Once the state had control over money there was no way in which they would start wiping out debts ever again.

So this is from 2012. I get the impression he is addressing the prevailing wrong beliefs about debt. We should remember that economies have existed which prioritize wholesale trade based on barter and didn't "believe in" credit-based numbers in times of crisis.

Is that more or less what you took from it too?

That is more or less it, yes. Regarding your last point about barter, Graeber argues that that kind of on-the-spot bartering is only known to have occurred among people who were already used to handling money who, for one reason or another, experienced the collapse of their money supply.

I agree that this is only tangentially related to the op. However, I wanted to rebut your claim regarding the history of the profit motive, particularly in connection with bartering. The truth appears to be more complex and based on need rather than profit, and that is surely the kind of argument we should be using to bring down the 'But it's always been this way' narrative.