With widespread homologizing power I mean a power structure across cultures assimilating these to something new, unified. Typically empires.
I think the only thing we don’t agree on is our interpretation on how societal abstractions arise. You seem to champion the bottom up approach. I’m suggesting the bottom up always leads to top down. Both are needed i guess.
If you were right there would have been barter societies that made the rise of money necessary. But there was no such thing. No barter societies to be found.
Money was almost always a thing of empires because that’s what empires do: abstracting, standardizing, co-integrating and scaling the cultural patterns they find.
Great convo.
I’d probably frame societal abstractions more along the lines of centralization vs decentralization, but we could quibble in a long tangential thread regarding that framework.
I don’t believe that barter alone lead to the emergence of money, as credit existed along side barter and is IMO older than barter.
I’m fully willing to concede the notion of the growth of civilization from small groups to the nation state as an accelerant or amplifier of shared abstractions, but draw the line in the notion that scaling those conditions are requisite for that phenomenon to exist.
Agreed. Great convo and I think our viewpoints aren’t that far from each other
Not at all, and in fact, thank you for helping me to sharpen my thought process.
Plebs together strong
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