Chapter 9 (Part 2) The Axial Age, Debt The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
The Harappa Civilisation existed for three thousand years without money
Dear Reader,
I got a bit excited writing about today’s post. I finally had the chance to connect this week’s work with Graeber’s previous work, The Dawn of Everything. The South Asian archaeological region is still unfamiliar to me, especially the kingdoms that succeed them.
I am slowly building my knowledge and happily piecing the puzzle.
Happy birthday to us! Frontalobe is one year old (actually, I am about three weeks behind) last July 13 and I only calculated recently. I don’t actually celebrate stuff but I thought I should mark this milestone.
Enjoy the berries while they are plentiful. Relish your summer downtime.
Best wishes,
Melanie
Mohenjo-Daro and Harappan Civilisation (3300 - 1300 BC)
Before we begin talking about the small republics, we need to orient ourselves to the thriving urban centres in the Indus Valley. I have written about the egalitarian societies from Graeber’s work, The Dawn of Everything.
In that work, Graeber positions the Indus Valley as an example of a society with an extensive trade and bureaucratisation but without a central authority. This is an important argument because what comes after this are smaller republics and kingdoms centred around, warrior heroes, and the military complex. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. There is a relationship between the collapse of a large organisation with the rise of a warrior society. Graeber observed that this seemed to be the pattern of human society. Peace to war and back. Both exist as part of the human condition.
In this section, he focuses on how a soldier economy gave rise to currency use not seen during the previous civilisation.
But I am jumping ahead of the story.
The credit system in the Indus Valley civilisations
It was a time of relative peace and stability during the periods of 3300 - 1300 BC. There was little evidence of any warfare or violent incursions in any of the three archaeological periods that I have previously discussed:
Early Harappan Phase (3,300 - 2,600 BC) - refers to the increasing occupation of smaller communities around Harappa, Ganeriwala, and Mohenjo-Daro; the development of standardised weights and measures was observed
Mature Harappan Phase (2,600 BC - 1,900 BC) - was characterised by the significant drying that intensified plant cultivation creating two of the largest urban settlements in the region; with its rise, the Indus script standardisation extended into art, utilitarian items, architecture, and exporting the cities’ habits and styles elsewhere; trade reached its peak with import of luxury raw goods from elsewhere into the cities; there was a formation of satellite villages settlements surrounding the area
Late Harappan Phase (1,900 - 1,300 BC) - a cycle of abandonment and emigration occurred attributed most likely to changes in the environment such as the sustained drying of the water in the area; the cities lost their size and bureaucratic organisation
What is clear is the relative peace led to the flourishing of arts and crafts. Harappan cultural status1 meant that specialisation and standardisation became an important impetus for its spread. Their meticulous craft bred trust and admiration across the region.
The urban centres clearly had some form of elite group including accounting specialists that dealt with commerce and trade. The trust in the commerce/credit system ensured that Harappan goods reached the further regions of the Indus River Valley.
The decline of the large city centres (Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and Dholavira near the coast) was attributed to drought in the region. By using over 5,700 years of rainfall data from isotopes in stalagmites in a North Indian cave, Nishant Malik applied the dynamical theory method to correlate the patterns of monsoon rainfall decline and change with the end of the Indus Valley civilisations.
This strengthened the climate change hypothesis for the demise of the Harappans. With no food surplus, everything else collapsed. Unable to feed a large population, the cycle of dissolution followed. Trading could no longer be sustained. There was mass migration. It makes sense to see how scattered populations responded by organising into smaller republics and kingdoms.
Money and the lack of coinage in Harappa
It is peculiar to think that coinage itself was only invented so late in post-Harappan civilisation. The earliest was as late as 400 BC in modern day Afghanistan according to the entry in the British Museum.
Previously, I showed a photo that indicated a contradictory date of 600 BC. I had my doubts over that date for the Gandhara and I would now agree to the consensus (including Graeber’s own) that coinage developed much later than that in South Asia.
So what were they using prior to that?
It was not that people did not have a concept of money. It was that portable and disposable coinage was unnecessary. During this period, standardised weights were far more important as a concept for trading and exchange. It would seem to support Graeber’s argument that a credit system was in place and preferable during relatively stable periods.
A good case is to be made for the existence of Harappan trade across its vast network without the use of money. This credit system relied on a more standardised value system guaranteed by the Harappan state/elite. The material itself, whether gold or silver, was irrelevant in this accounting system.2 Value was computed against a standardised equivalence in goods measured following a binary (for small amounts) and decimal (for larger numbers) system.3
A portable currency was unnecessary because goods can be measured against each other according to values set against a precise system of weights. A ledger of credit and debit ensured that a precise accounting of disparate goods are possible without the need for portable money. Goods weighed accordingly, were enough. In this system, people’s relationships remained important. We can only surmise how debt was calculated and paid off in different forms until we successfully translate early Indus script.
The end of credit and the rise of currency
The end of the Harappan gave rise to kingdoms in the east along the fertile plains of the Ganges river (refer to the modelling map). Here we see a convergence in Greece and Roman-like societies.
The rise of a professional soldier class
A payment system for the army
The existence of a slavery class to replace the work previously done by soldiers
A system built around the coinage-slavery-military complex.
Round-Up
In this post, we took a slight detour to understand the credit economy of the Indus River Valley civilisations. I wanted to integrate what I had read from Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything into this work. This is the foundation of his argument.
Graeber argues that post-Harappan kingdoms were another example of the coinage-slavery-military complex. However, to see this clearly, we need to understand what came before that. We have archaeological evidence that the Harappan civilisation, much like the Mesopotamian civilisations, operated on a complex trading system all based on credit. This was made possible with the standardisation of weights and measures in which all types of goods can be traded against each other. There was little need for money if you can simply exchange any object you have at hand. This worked very well in across the network. We can postulate that debts could be paid up this way as well.
Graeber has a strong case here showing the correlation between a credit system and social stability. Except for defense walls, there was no evidence of any warfare incidents or extensive armoury during the Harappa. It is quite amazing to have a large urban centre, with elites and a bureaucracy, but with no clear monarchial monopoly or authority, and no money. Yet, it flourished for three thousand years.
Re-read the previous post
The term Harappa refers to all the urban centres in the region because of its size and cultural influence in the region. Mohenjo-Daro was only discovered in 1921.
Standardisation slowly developed from multiple convergence in pottery sizes, loom lengths, bricks, stone beads, and clay seals. These were the precursors to the precisely carved cubic weights. See, Mark Kenoyer (2010) Measuring the Harrapan World.
It appears that there are variations to the weight measures but underlying these differences include a shared common value and characteristics. See, Kenoyer.