I bookmarked it. I'll watch it when I get home. I think I've heard the argument somewhere before that the earliest form of money was actually debt-based currency rather than commodity money. That would certainly align with the clay tablet discussion. Plus, currencies like gold would have been difficult to use as money until technology emerged to refine them to a high purity.
Interesting video on money, quite a different take than I hear from bitcoiners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-D5FERQzU4
My summary of the video: There were never any barter economies. Money predates writing (the oldest writing cuniform on clay tablets were accounting records). Money is always tightly tied up with state power, primarily because states can enforce payment for debts owned which originated from people accidently harming other people.. the governmental power steps in and says "A owes B X amount of state-approved money to make this right." Thus, the value of a currency without intrinsic value is imparted to it by the power of the state that controls that money. Taxes just tie it even tighter to the governmental power. Every central power (state) has it's own money, with few exceptions (e.g. the Euro experiment, which is failing).
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