Trade and Value

[Lythocrist]

Well let me start by saying hello to you all. My last post was on the logic of survival, and how living the 'simple' life is supposed to be 'simple'. Coming off of the word simple... I used to play a multiplayer online game. In the game was trade and money. You traded one thing for another. The money was used only to repair broken items.

The point is... Hold a dollar bill in your hand and think what 'use' it is to you, other than that you can give your hunk of cotton and ink to someone else and they may give you something of 'true' value.

I am a blacksmith. I am 20 years old and live at home I don't have much money to say the least. When I need something another blacksmith has, I will take something I 'don't' need, and present it to them for trade, often times it is something they will have a use for.

Where did trade go? It was all so simple.

I ask my mom about it and she told me about communities that work together and don't really use money, but rather trade. If anyone has any information about any of these places, please let me know.

There is a whole branch of anthropology dedicated to answering the very question you have just posed. Here are some books that look at the issues of exchange/trade economics that have been helpful to me - you'll have to read them and decide for yourself:

Maurice Godelier, "The Mental and the Material."

Maurice Godelier, "The Enigma of the Gift."

Claude Meillaseaux [sic], "Maidens, Meal, and Money."

Claude Meillaseaux [sic], "The Anthropology of Slavery."

Marshall Sahlins, "Tribesmen."

Marshall Sahlins, "Stone Age Economics."

Maurice Bloch, "Cultural Materialsim."

William Rosebury,"Anthropologies and Histories."

Arjun Appadurai, "The Social Life of Things."

Annette B. Weiner "Inalienable Possessions."

If you can wade through that stuff, and then want more, just let me know.

Oh yeah, some others on the forum and I have been discussing those very issues in the "Capitalism, Sustainability, and the Possibility of Global Collapse" thread. You might read through that thread, and see if any of that is helpful.