From wikipedia:
Contrary to popular conception, there is no evidence that societies relied only on barter before using money for trade.[73] Instead, non-monetary societies operated primarily along the principles of gift economics, and in more complex economies, on debt.[74][75][76] When barter occurred, it was usually between strangers or would-be enemies.[77]
If you want to learn a lot more about how economies worked in the past, I highly recommend the book “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” by David Graeber, author of “Bullshit Jobs.” It goes into this topic, and then presents a very detailed world history of economic systems from the perspective of an anthropologist.
Graeber’s work, as always, is truly incredible. Such a shame he died so young
His last book, “Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real LIbertalia” is pretty good if you haven’t read it, if you don’t mind a lot of Malagasy names.
Came here to say exactly this.
If you want to dive even further into why the foundations of modern macroeconomics are bunk, then I can also recommend reading Debunking Economics by Steve Keen.
That book radically changed my worldview, and then I read The Dawn Of Everything and it was changed again.
I’ve been meaning to read that book for a long time but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Definitely give it a try. It’s one of the books that helped me understand the terms “scales falling from my eyes.”
There were multiple books that helped you understand that term?
There’s been a few of them. A People’s History of the United States, 1491, and Humankind are some good examples