This is an article I wrote for the Mises Institute on my observations of commodity money in a small farming and fishing village in Iraq.
In 2007 I did a seven-month deployment to Iraq. I was posted in multiple farming and fishing villages in al Anbar province. However, I do not wish to discuss the war or national defense. I want to concentrate on what, in my estimation, was a much more important issue to the people in the villages: money.Please leave any thoughts and comments below, I welcome your feedback.
Edward: nice article and interesting observations.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Did you see any evidence of personal IOUs circulating as money (that is, instead of the sheep itself, some sort of promissory note redeemable in (say) sheep at some point in the future?).
Hi David
ReplyDeleteI saw personal IOUs, but they did not circulate. They were contracts between 2 individuals. The contracts of credit I saw were young men borrowing money from older men to build a house for themselves or buy a peice of farming/fishing equipment. The older men did this as a free service, meaning they did not charge interest.