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The myth of barter

Summary:
The myth of barter Even in the most advanced industrial economies, if we strip exchange down to its barest essentials and peel off the obscuring layer of money, we find that trade between individuals and nations largely boils down to barter. Paul Samuelson You will find similar nonsense stories told in almost all mainstream textbooks today. And the truth, as so often when it comes to economics fairytales, is quite another: No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing. Caroline Humphrey

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The myth of barter

The myth of barterEven in the most advanced industrial economies, if we strip exchange down to its barest essentials and peel off the obscuring layer of money, we find that trade between individuals and nations largely boils down to barter.

Paul Samuelson

You will find similar nonsense stories told in almost all mainstream textbooks today. And the truth, as so often when it comes to economics fairytales, is quite another:

No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing.

Caroline Humphrey

Lars Pålsson Syll
Professor at Malmö University. Primary research interest - the philosophy, history and methodology of economics.

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