ZombiePriest

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Barter

If you have found a group that uses barter as their primary mode of exchange you have found what no one else has been able to find and you need to publish immediately. Until then....

Gift exchange, not barter, is/has been the primary method of intergroup trade in non-monetary economies. Barter has NOT been observed to be the "de facto standard of trade" within any community. Despite your assertion, Potlatch, Koha & Moka are NOT examples of barter, not a one. They are almost universally describe as being examples of "gift" exchange/economies that are primarily or wholly non-economic in nature.

Barter is an form of economic exchange (where individuals seek to maximize their utility) involving the direct exchange of goods between individuals. Most people do not distribute goods within the family using barter nor do they try to maximize their individual utility in such intra-family exchanges. To do so most would consider sociopathic. Almost all families almost all the time distribute goods within the family utilizing reciprocity (a non-economic mode of exchange) not barter. There has been no hunter/gather tribe documented to distribute goods intra-group (between tribal members) using barter on any more than the most marginal of basis, if at all. 24.36.14.161 (talk) 08:41, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

ZombiePriest said:

Bartering is just exchanging goods for goods - it has nothing whatsoever to do with maximising utility.

This is not the meaning most economists, anthropologists, sociologists & other specialists define barter.

This would include all non-monetary & monetary forms of exchange, everything is then barter. Gift exchange, which anthropologists & economists explicitly define as NOT being barter exchange, would, according to you, in fact be just another example of barter.

Only Austrians agree with you.

For everyone else this is patently absurd and, even worse, utterly useless. There would be no distinction between exchanging the salt in your hand for the pepper in your child's hand and exchanging your money for the car of a private individual with whom you have no existing relationship and in which you try to give the least for the most, no distinction between economic (the latter) & non-economic (the former) exchange.

Luckily everyone else doesn't agree with you. For them barter is a non-monetary spot transaction (the relationship begins & ends once goods have been exchanged) where each individual acts in their own self interest (economic exchange). In contrast to the self-interest characteristic of barter, Gift exchange is instead fostered by means of reciprocity & redistribution, "each takes according to their needs, and gives as they have". 24.36.14.161 (talk) 04:37, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Please just read this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter

ZombiePriest (talk) 06:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

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The Wiki article mainly reflects the common, colloquial usage of the term. But even here not every exchange of goods for goods is classified as a barter transaction. I have never heard the term 'barter' used in reference to the exchange of goods for goods within the family.

Anthropologist, sociologists & economists do NOT use the term barter to signify any & all exchange of goods for goods. 24.36.14.161 (talk) 20:15, 11 September 2013 (UTC)