bite #1: wtf is money

If you ever took a high school econ class, you may remember the quintessential American hero, Adam Smith. The famous economist whose well known for the creating “the invisible hand” and writing The Wealth of Nations.

He is also associated with explaining the origins of money through barter. Back in the day, Adam would have to exchange three apples to receive four oranges from me. Humans have the inherent inclination to barter but given its inconvenience, societies naturally progressed toward the use of money. Credit was only claimed to have been developed in recent times, as a more “complicated financial tool.”

For the last few centuries, researchers have debated the origins of money. Anthropologists, economists, historians, sociologists. 

David Graeber specifically refutes Adam Smith’s take, in a 400 page book called Debt. That credit and debt relationships existed long before the invention of coins or dollar bills.