Introduction
Money was not born from the inconveniences of barter, but from the need to regulate human obligations. Anthropological analysis proves that debt and money emerged simultaneously as tools for stabilizing social relations. In this article, we deconstruct the myth of barter and examine how debt mechanisms have shaped morality, law, and power structures throughout the centuries. You will learn why the history of money is a cycle of struggle between trust and violence, and how modern finance has transformed promises into instruments of discipline.
The Myth of Barter and State Money: The Genesis of Violence
The history of civilization pulses to the rhythm of two phases: the age of credit and the age of bullion. In times of peace, credit based on trust and reputation dominates. In periods of war, bullion triumphs, as gold and silver are anonymous and easy to loot. The popular myth of barter, which claims money was created for the convenience of traders, finds no support in historical sources. Barter usually appears between strangers or in crisis situations when trust vanishes.
The true source of markets was state money. Rulers issued coins to pay armies and then demanded taxes from subjects in that same currency. This mechanism forced the population to sell goods to soldiers, creating markets based on fiscal coercion. In these systems, honor and violence became the foundations of debt—an insult to honor was grounds for retaliation or compensation. In response to debt pressure, patriarchy emerged; strict moral codes were intended to protect women's bodies from being commodified and sold for their fathers' debts.
Human Economy and the Morality of Debt
Unlike commercial exchange, a human economy treats money as a currency of relationships rather than a token for closing transactions. Here, the goal is to maintain bonds, not to sever them. Different civilizations developed distinct approaches: Asia based credit on temple reputation, Africa on social currencies, and Europe on Roman law. The latter defined freedom as dominium—the absolute right of ownership—which objectified human relationships.
Modern debt morality is based on the axiom that every debt must be repaid. This assertion is moral rather than economic—it serves to legitimize violence against the debtor and relieves the creditor of the burden of empathy. However, from an anthropological perspective, the refusal to repay a debt born of injustice or violence can be seen as an act of reclaiming freedom. For freedom is not the absence of obligations, but the capacity to make authentic promises without coercion.
Finance and the New System: From Coercion to Promise
Ancient civilizations understood the destructive power of debt, which is why they regularly declared jubilees—the universal cancellation of debts that stabilized the state. Today, we have moved away from the gold standard, but bullion has been replaced by the apparatus of military-financial sovereignty. Modern finance uses debt as a precise instrument of discipline, where morality is selective: the system negocitates with the powerful while harshly punishing the weak. This is mathematical violence hidden within spreadsheets.
In this context, self-ownership becomes a paradox—man becomes simultaneously the master and the slave of his own obligations. To regain agency, we need a new system that distinguishes debt as a just promise from debt as a tool of exploitation. This perspective requires restoring money to its original function: a technology of trust that serves the community rather than its dissolution. The condition for freedom is a commitment that strengthens mutual recognition, not the soulless arithmetic of debt.
Summary
Has money, once a promise of community, transformed into a soulless instrument of power, distancing us from fundamental freedom? Or does it still hold the potential to become a currency of relationships, strengthening social bonds and building a future based on mutual trust rather than the threat of enforcement? History teaches us that debt systems without mechanisms for mercy and reset inevitably lead to social collapse. It is time to reclaim the language of obligations before the arithmetic of debt consumes what remains of our morality.
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