The villager parable is too egalitarian. That's not really how it worked.
For most of history, peasants were sustenance farmers, meaning they grew their own food and if the harvest was bad, they could starve. For them, there was no such thing as insurance and they really needed ways to reduce risk. For example, they'd feast their neighbors so that when times were hard, the neighbors would hopefully help them out in turn. Investing in close-knit relationships isn't like barter - it's more like informal credit. Kinship networks still work something like this today.
And this meant they didn't really need money. Social obligations were everything.
But how do people who aren't peasants themselves get food? By extracting rents and taxes, in return for protection and certain services, perhaps plowing fields. Local "big men" might take payment in kind, but for a more organized government, they'd collect taxes using money, which gave the peasants incentives to grow and sell food for money.
So villages would monetize or demonetize depending on the state of nearby governments. A monetized society allows people who aren't farmers to buy food. It allows cities to exist. Therefore, civilization was built on military force, taxes, and rent extracted from peasants, who were the basis of a mostly agricultural economy.
Be glad our civilization isn't built on sustenance farming anymore.
This is a pretty simplistic take as well. Like you end it with saying be glad our civilization isn't built on sustenance farming but in the previous line you say it was built on force, taxes and rent extraxted?
Here's a simple counter factual: how do people who are peasants get anything other than food in your model? If they sell the food to get money, your civilization is already not built on sustenance farming and has a working currency. If they don't have money, they will barter which doesn't seem to exist in your model.
Also yes, kinship is basically informal insurance where a community collectively takes care of each other. Its not what barter is.
The peasants had little use for anything else. They grew their own food and made their own clothes. What else did they need? Tools - either make it or do without.
So why will everyone not do that, make their own food and clothes? Why will we ever need to trade?
The comment specifically mentions people who are not peasants so in that model, there are people who do not grow food but do other things. If we already have a system like that, why will the farmer grow food and also spin clothes when they can just let someone else spin clothes and give them a bit of their food in exchange for that?
How do you think trade guilds started?
As I said, the comment had parts of truth but overall it simplies economics to an extent of a children's book.
I have to simplify to to a children's book to fit into a comment. The full picture of the complexity fills many many books. There are many different cultures in history with many different levels of monetization.
However for 95-99% of the per-indstrial population you are a peasant farmer. You don't need money because you can grow everything you need. (this doesn't mean you do, only that you can)
For the other 1-5% though things are different. The closer you get to 5% the more money everybody (including the peasants!) needs to support your way of life. At 1% you only have peasants and a few "big men". At 5% there are a lot of non-nobility who the farmers are supporting anyway. That is only possible if the farms specialize into whatever grows best for them. In turn that means the farmers need to import the other food items they might want meaning they need money to buy it.
The farmers also need to trust that if they have a crop failure they will still be able to eat. As soon as farmers don't trust they will be able to eat even in case of crop failure they will diversify - the farm will produce less food overall, but no one crop failure will make them starve to death! Either works fine for the farmer but all those city folks starve to death in the second case since the farmer is self sufficient on much less food production than it could produce.
skybrian · · focus · HN ↗
For most of history, peasants were sustenance farmers, meaning they grew their own food and if the harvest was bad, they could starve. For them, there was no such thing as insurance and they really needed ways to reduce risk. For example, they'd feast their neighbors so that when times were hard, the neighbors would hopefully help them out in turn. Investing in close-knit relationships isn't like barter - it's more like informal credit. Kinship networks still work something like this today.
And this meant they didn't really need money. Social obligations were everything.
But how do people who aren't peasants themselves get food? By extracting rents and taxes, in return for protection and certain services, perhaps plowing fields. Local "big men" might take payment in kind, but for a more organized government, they'd collect taxes using money, which gave the peasants incentives to grow and sell food for money.
So villages would monetize or demonetize depending on the state of nearby governments. A monetized society allows people who aren't farmers to buy food. It allows cities to exist. Therefore, civilization was built on military force, taxes, and rent extracted from peasants, who were the basis of a mostly agricultural economy.
Be glad our civilization isn't built on sustenance farming anymore.
altmanaltman · · focus · HN ↗
Here's a simple counter factual: how do people who are peasants get anything other than food in your model? If they sell the food to get money, your civilization is already not built on sustenance farming and has a working currency. If they don't have money, they will barter which doesn't seem to exist in your model.
Also yes, kinship is basically informal insurance where a community collectively takes care of each other. Its not what barter is.
bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
altmanaltman · · focus · HN ↗
The comment specifically mentions people who are not peasants so in that model, there are people who do not grow food but do other things. If we already have a system like that, why will the farmer grow food and also spin clothes when they can just let someone else spin clothes and give them a bit of their food in exchange for that?
How do you think trade guilds started?
As I said, the comment had parts of truth but overall it simplies economics to an extent of a children's book.
bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
However for 95-99% of the per-indstrial population you are a peasant farmer. You don't need money because you can grow everything you need. (this doesn't mean you do, only that you can)
For the other 1-5% though things are different. The closer you get to 5% the more money everybody (including the peasants!) needs to support your way of life. At 1% you only have peasants and a few "big men". At 5% there are a lot of non-nobility who the farmers are supporting anyway. That is only possible if the farms specialize into whatever grows best for them. In turn that means the farmers need to import the other food items they might want meaning they need money to buy it.
The farmers also need to trust that if they have a crop failure they will still be able to eat. As soon as farmers don't trust they will be able to eat even in case of crop failure they will diversify - the farm will produce less food overall, but no one crop failure will make them starve to death! Either works fine for the farmer but all those city folks starve to death in the second case since the farmer is self sufficient on much less food production than it could produce.