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These areproblems that seem to fade from view as soon as attention is carefullyfocused on them.

Robert C. Berwick

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In order to avoid the inconveniency of such situations, everyprudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labor, must naturally have endeavoredto manage his affairs in such a manner, as to have at all timesby him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, acertain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as heimagined that few people would be likely to refuse in exchangefor the produce of their industry . 1

But when the division of labor first began to take place, thispower of exchanging must frequently have been very muchclogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we shallsuppose, has more of a certain commodity than he himself hasoccasion for, while another has less. The former consequentlywould be glad to dispose of, and the latter to purchase, a partof this superfluity. But if this latter should chance to have nothing that the former stands in need of, no exchange can be madebetween them. The butcher has more meat in his shop thanhe himself can consume, and the brewer and the baker wouldeach of them be willing to purchase a part of it. But they havenothing to offer in exchange

In a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person makesbows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattleor for venison with his companions; and he finds at last thathe can in this manner get more cattle and venison, than if hehimself went to the field to catch them. From a regard to hisown interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows growsto be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armourer.Another excels in making the frames and covers of their littlehuts or moveable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in thisway to his neighbours, who reward him in the same mannerwith cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it his interestto dedicate himself entirely to this employment, and to becomea sort of house-carpenter. In the same manner a third becomesa smith or a brazier; a fourth a tanner or dresser of hides orskins, the principal part of the clothing of savages

No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever beendescribed, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing. "

Lewis Henry Morgan's descriptions of the Six Nationsof the Iroquois, among others, were widely published-and they madeclear that the main economic institution among the Iroquois nationswere longhouses where most goods were stockpiled and then allocatedby women's councils, and no one ever traded arrowheads for slabs ofmeat. Economists simply ignored this information.

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