Is there a transcript of this? I don't really have headspace for a video but I could dip in and out of reading some text.
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
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Anarchism and Social Ecology
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tl, dr.
Back in the day, economists thought that tribal people used straight up barter to swap goods and services. This guy suggests that it's more likely that people would just share/give each other what was needed. Spearmakers would make spears and let anyone in the tribe grab one, and the spearmaker would be fed by all. From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
That’s inside of a tribe. Between tribes might have been different.
If there are no benefits to hoarding surplus, then people don’t.
I have the impression you are mixing up topics. This video is talking about the myth of barter as the predecessor of money.
This was not communism. This was carefully enforced fairness. People gave the spearmaker food in return for his efforts, and when he wasn't making spears he was expected to fend for himself.
Well I think it's communism
Sees bottom up, emergent organization.
Is this top down, prescribed administration?
Communism doesn't have to have to be top-down. I honestly don't believe that it ever can be, and that people who try to do things that way are either naive and doomed to failure or liars doing a great job manipulating everyone.
I honestly don't believe that it ever can be
20th century Marxism polluted the word Communism. even Marx said he would not call himself a Marxist.
The administration of things is still a state no matter how much they wish it wasn't.
I think the key difference is that good behavior was facilitated and enforced by personal relationships. It’s not clear how this social arrangement could exist at larger scales.
At had a few things that look similar, but it was nothing like what Marx imagined.
Marx isn't the only communist philosopher
Thanks!
This link is not a transcript but it's on this topic and is referenced in the video description:
Thank you, I appreciate this!
Hard same - I noticed this option:
It's not pretty but will probably work fine enough.
Oh I don't get that on mobile view in a browser. I might have to dig a bit deeper for this, but thank you!
Oh goodness you are correct, I don't see it either! It won't let me select and copy it either. What a bummer that it's so inaccessible.
I copied the YouTube transcript via PC since the mobile version didn't show for you:
Thank you, I appreciate you 😊
Economist think that before the use of money barter was the main tool for economical exchange.
In reality, barter is close to inexistent in tribal society, early society relies on the gift economy rather than barter.
Rather than trading apples for spears, a person would distribute the extra apples they got to their neighbor, then of they need a spear they ask their neighbor of they can borrow their spear or if they could make one for him.
I'm not sure of our was in the video or not but there is also a social expectation of reciprocity, so once a person give something to their neighbor, the neighbor then feel a responsibility to give something back. It works between tribes as well.
(Talking about that, my neighbor has been giving me tomatoes all summer, I should make a cake for them)
Thank you, that makes sense. In the communities I participate in I've experienced a slight preference towards gift economy rather than explicit bartering, so this resonates with me.
Your neighbor sounds great. If you do make them a cake, please let us know what you made!
My take: a reasonably universal method of payment beats barter, because in a barter economy you can get stuck trying to exchange beans for oars, while the oar maker wants wood or carrots, and the wood cutter needs pumpkins or saw blades instead of peas. :)
However, a universal method of payment will create a finacial sector, and to avoid adverse outcomes, activity in the financial sector needs to match certain criteria. Typically there's a state regulating things. In an anarchist economy, regulation would decentralized, but there would have to be regulation.
E.g. if there's a currency, there has to be a mechanism protecting against issuing forged currency. It doesn't have to be goons with guns (recent takes have involved cryptography instead of them), but a mechanism has to exist.
My take: a reasonably universal method of payment beats barter, because in a barter economy you can get stuck trying to exchange beans for oars, while the oar maker wants wood or carrots, and the wood cutter needs pumpkins or saw blades instead of peas. :)
Right. And that goes to the point of the video, which is that there was never a barter economy. For the obvious reason you point out: that it would be a pain in the ass for everyone involved. Back in the early days of humanity long distance trade probably consisted of small, high value objects - eg trading tin from Cornwall for glass beads from Egypt - for which there was an understood "exchange rate" to simplify barter, while the day-to-day economics of the community would be more of a gift economy, I give you what you need, you give me what I need, we shame free riders into behaving themselves, and everything works out.
IIRC David Graeber argued that the first money was actually credit - or money as a unit of account - as in "you give me a bushel of beans and now I owe you one set of oars, but you can transfer that debt to the woodcutter in exchange for wood and now I owe him one set of oars instead". And so forth.
Which might also be in the video, but I didn't have time to listen to it all the way through either 😆
It is briefly mentioned in the video