I gather that anthropologists do not believe that barter necessarily preceded money. It is now seen as more of a rationalisation that has come from hindsight.
Take the example in the post about farmers and blacksmiths. It ignores how a farmer could have acquired his farm and seeds while it is also not explained how the blacksmith shop was founded.
I think that before there was money, people would just have helped each other out because that was the only way they could get along. They would all go hunting together to catch the next meal. For example, it would not have been down to one person to hunt who then had an expectation of swapping his catch for something he wanted later on.
Anthropologists argue that the idea of a pure barter economy preceding money is a historical myth with no empirical evidence in human history. Research into modern and historical small-scale societies shows that exchange systems were typically based on gift economies, redistribution, or credit, rather than spot-trading.
Origin of the Myth: The narrative was popularized by classical economists like Adam Smith as a theoretical model to explain the efficiency of money, not as a documented historical reality.
Actual Pre-Monetary Systems: Communities relied on socially embedded reciprocity (gifting) or institutional redistribution (e.g., temples or palaces collecting and distributing resources).
When Barter Occurred: Anthropologists observe that barter typically appears only in societies with existing monetary systems but scarce currency, or between strangers and enemies who do not share social ties.
Consensus: Experts like Caroline Humphrey and David Graeber note that no ethnography has ever described a "pure" barter economy from which money emerged; instead, money likely originated as a unit of account for taxation and state administration
I gather that anthropologists do not believe that barter necessarily preceded money. It is now seen as more of a rationalisation that has come from hindsight.
Take the example in the post about farmers and blacksmiths. It ignores how a farmer could have acquired his farm and seeds while it is also not explained how the blacksmith shop was founded.
I think that before there was money, people would just have helped each other out because that was the only way they could get along. They would all go hunting together to catch the next meal. For example, it would not have been down to one person to hunt who then had an expectation of swapping his catch for something he wanted later on.
If they believe that, they are idiots.
Barter HAD to precede money, as there would be no need for money -- or even the concept of money -- until barter became difficult.
This is their reasoning as supplied by Brave AI:
Anthropologists argue that the idea of a pure barter economy preceding money is a historical myth with no empirical evidence in human history. Research into modern and historical small-scale societies shows that exchange systems were typically based on gift economies, redistribution, or credit, rather than spot-trading.