On The Invention Of Money

So, it turns out that we actually don't know how or why money was invented, but we pretty conclusively now know that it wasn't invented as the evolution of a barter economy! This article by David Graeber is fascinating for its account of the anthropological record and insights into possibilities. I really, really like the questions he poses at the close of the article: In short, is Economics a science designed to empirically provide answers about the way the world works, or is it a non-science, designed instead to teach us modes of behavior that are beneficial (and beneficial to whom?) in the societies of today? Read the article, and the relevance of the question becomes not only obvious, but understandably important...