Most textbook discussions of money describe it as deriving from barter.  This is a myth based on the assumption that society consists of autonomous individuals acting out of self-interest. Such an assumption is clearly a projection of a modern ideology of individualism. Even a cursory survey of 20th century anthropology reveals that what we think of as money emerged from objects endowed with ritualistic or even magical value in association with gift-giving customs that provided the initial forms of social solidarity. Seemingly useless objects like shells, animal teeth, or feathers were displayed and given away or even destroyed as signs of social prestige or power. The social bond was essentially one of debt or obligation – either a shared debt to ancestors or a reciprocal debt to contemporaries. In other words primitive societies do not consist of self-interested individuals trading commodities in a mutually beneficial way. 

To explore the historical or anthropological origins of money one must first have some kind of definition of money, and given the threefold functional definition of money it can be argued that truly primitive societies simply did not have money. What they had were objects that functioned as a kind of store of value but not as a medium of exchange or unit of account. The value they stored was not an exchange value or a use value but a value in terms of social prestige or standing. The question then becomes how trading evolved and how these ritualistic objects came to play a role in trade. This is a very different and much more complex process than the selection of one commodity from among those traded to be an intermediate medium of exchange. Contemporary economics does not need to be based on anthropological data about the origins and evolution of trading or the use of money.

Unfortunately the individualistic ideology is embedded in the bedrock of classical economic theory. Adam Smith’s analysis of why one nation was more prosperous than another begins with the assumption of autonomous individuals acting from self-interest in an attempt to better their own lives. [see Markets]

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