Homework Four
Your Name
Your Institution of Affiliation
March 11, 2017
Graeber: Myth of Barter
1 Economists, from Adam Smith to the present, argue that money evolved out of a barter economy. How do they arrive at this conclusion? Explain their thinking. Why does this “myth” have such staying power?
1 Most economists believed that money was the result of barter economy, because they think that this transition came from the necessity to facilitate easier trading relationships as compared before. In Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, he used the example of a baker and a butcher, where one wanted the goods of the other but the others doesn’t like anything that the previous one offers. The solution according to Smith, is to create a currency, and this is the reason why they reached their conclusion and why this ‘myth’ still exist today.
2 If there is no historical evidence of a barter economy, what kinds of economic institutions existed before money? What are the examples that Graeber discusses?
2 According to Graeber, some of the other types of systems that have existed aside from barter includes the credit system and the exchange labor system.
3 Graeber argues that acts of barter typically only take place between strangers or enemies. Why? What is it about the nature of Barter that makes it an unlikely basis for society?
3 According to Graeber, barter only occurs...