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 was under the impression that if you go back far enough to a millennium ago, peasants weren't trading for iron or having a miller grind their grain, and they were definitely spinning their own yarn.
There is a continuum. As iron became cheaper (even before the industrial revolution) peasants started trading for iron tools. It started with "the big man" owning a plow that everybody borrowed, but eventually the richer in the village would save up to buy their own (most families operated on a cycle of rich and poor depending on how grown up the kids where - just before they left home to seek their fortunes the farm was rich, just after the one heir had to support the aging parents, and the babies making them poor). Weather was the other factor, you could only save up if the crops did well.
A large part of this was legal ability. If only the "big man" could own a plow there was no point in trying to save up for one. This ability to have your own increased the farms productivity, in turn allowing the family to buy more (but often they would split the farm so two kids could inherit) While you could grind your own grain, often "the big man" wouldn't allow it.
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.
strken · · focus · HN ↗
I would welcome correction.
bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
A large part of this was legal ability. If only the "big man" could own a plow there was no point in trying to save up for one. This ability to have your own increased the farms productivity, in turn allowing the family to buy more (but often they would split the farm so two kids could inherit) While you could grind your own grain, often "the big man" wouldn't allow it.