Currency Saga

Picture by:Striker Boo

Greetings Space Person!  First let me say that it's super nifty that you travelled millions of light years just to meet me.  Secondly, and more importantly, there is a $5 charge to set your saucer down here.  I suppose I could accept space cash instead.  Did your species seriously invent the hyper space inter dimensional improbability engine before stumbling on to currency?  Well buckle your seat belt martian.  I'm about to lay some knowledge on you.


Before money was invented people had to trade with each other through the barter system, which works a little something like this.
(Dramatization for instructional purposes only.  Not technically or historically accurate.)

Once upon a time there was a tribe of cave persons.  Each of them had their strengths and weaknesses.  If they all worked together they could survive the harsh wilderness they inhabited.  Wilma is the best hunter in the tribe.  Her freakishly strong thighs allow her to pursue her prey in perpetuity.  Fred is the best gatherer in the tribe.  His keen palette allows him to discern the edible flora from the poisonous variety.  Barney is the best crafter in the tribe.  Man just has a way with his hands, what can I say?  Betty is very pretty and very clever so everyone agreed that she could stay.
One day Wilma returns to camp dragging a Mastodon that she doggedly wore down for weeks.  She proceeds to carve that sucker up and this draws the attention of the other tribe members.

"Barney want skin.  Skin is best part."  Wilma wasn't going to use the skin anyway because she doesn't have the tools or time to cure the hide.  But she can see that it is valuable to Barney and she realizes that she can extract something of equal value from him in return.  She agrees to trade Barney the skin for a sweet mastodon onsie that will keep her warm in the impending cold months.  Wilma loves the fashionable yet functional cave apparel.  She claims that she has become one with the spirit of the mastodon now, whatever that means.  Barney knows that he can make 5 more just like it from all that skin, so he feels good about the trade too.

A flurry of bartering ensues as each of the tribe members has to procure the goods/services they need to survive and propagate the species.  "Barney want make mammoth mushroom stew.  Me trade Fred these Mastodon Mittens for mushrooms and meat."

Now Fred wants those Mastodon Mittens because then he could pick prickley pears without pricking his pinkies.  Fred flipping loved prickley pears.  But Fred doesn't have any meat so he has to trade half his mushrooms to Wilma to get some of that sweet mammoth meat.  He gives the other half of his mushrooms and that sweet sweet mammoth meat to Barney, and Barney gives Fred the Mastodon mittens.  Having traded away all of his food Fred immediately went off in search of prickley pears.

"Barney make mammoth mushroom stew now.  Barney is good provider for cave family."  Betty, the tribes speech language pathologist offers to help Barney with his speech impediment in exchange for a serving of the mammoth mushroom stew.

Since your backwards martian culture never invented money I bet y'all use the barter system.  Ammirite space bro?  So your species would have simply shared the resources to ensure that everyone was clothed and fed?  You're a gob nobbing space socialist is what you are!  Don't think I'm going to let your universal enlightenment mumbo jumbo distract me.  In this one way culturual exchange I'm teaching you about the value of money so that you can pay me $10 (or space cash equivalent) to park your saucer here.  The price went up on account of you being a space socialist, welcome to capitalism space bro. Well you could have parked somewhere else, but you didn't did you?  You've already parked here, so you've got to pay even if you move.  Company policy.  Now where was I...(to be continued)