Economics, Anthropology and the Origin of Money as a Bargaining Counter

Patrick Spread, "Economics, Anthropology and the Origin of Money as a Bargaining Counter "
English | ISBN: 1032322276 | 2022 | 318 pages | PDF | 23 MB
For many decades economists have disputed with economic anthropologists over the origins of money. Economists claim that money emerged from barter exchange; anthropologists claim that it originated as a ‘unit of account’ in the temples and palaces of ancient Mesopotamia. This book argues that money originated as a bargaining counter in a system of money-bargaining, emerging almost seamlessly from barter-bargaining. This is not the ‘money’ of mainstream economic conception – a ‘veil’ cast over a system of resource allocation defined in mathematical terms.