Did money start as trading, debt, or temple record-keeping?
Research question: What do ancient Mesopotamian records show about whether money started as barter, credit/debt, or temple accounting?
The records summarized here show that silver measured by weight functioned as a general-purpose money, used to pay tributes to temples and able to change hands to settle obligations between economic agents 2. A 2019 document argues that money was a centralized social construct rather than a decentralized market invention that arose to overcome the problems of barter 3. This contrasts with the conjectural story, favoured by Austrian School and Anglo-American neoclassical economists, that money developed as a cost-saving improvement on barter 1, and mainstream economics still holds that money has a commercial origin arising from exchange 4. The facts do not directly address whether credit/debt or temple accounting was the origin, so the question is only partly answered, and the newest fact dates from 2024, about two years before October 2026 4.
Sources
"Austrian School economists and their Anglo-American neo-classical cousins favour a “conjectural” history of money where it is conceptualised as a cost-saving development of barter."The case for the ontology of money as credit: money as bearer or basis of “value” (2020)
"the silver measured in weight was used like general-purpose money: it was a “token” that served to pay the tributes to the temples but that could be changed hands to create and to settle obligations between different economic agents"The origin of money from the money-debt approach (2019)
"Money was not a technological innovation that emerged in a decentralized manner and under the heat of market forces to overcome the impediments of barter. It was a social and centralized construct"The origin of money from the money-debt approach (2019)
"Mainstream Economics states that money has a commercial origin."Money and power (2024)