Exchange Economy from Archaic Times to the Present and Practices from Example Countries
Mehmet Şükrü NarArkaik Toplumlardan Günümüze Değiş-Tokuş Ekonomisi ve Örnek Ülke Uygulamaları
Mehmet Şükrü NarFrom the Archaic period to the present, people have exchanged surplus goods for the goods they need in certain periods of their lives. The exchange economy, which forms the basis of any economic system and trade, is assumed to both meet a need and protect social fabric by improving social relations. In fact, the exchange mechanism differs according to various principles within the historical development phase of the economy such as mutual exchange, distribution, redistribution, and market exchange in which goods and services are traded nationally and globally. Many of these approaches, which conceptualize as exchange economics, carry cultural modes. This is because, in many ways, the obtaining and sharing of food has both economic and cultural characteristics. Therefore, when a person is taking part in an economic cycle or making a decision, he/she considers not only the existing conditions but also many criteria such as religious beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, ideology, historical background, and value judgments.
In this sense, primitive societies used natural resources to a minimum extent due to the lack of technological facilities and limited needs. The economic cycle varied according to traditions, habits, religious beliefs, and geographical conditions. Since primitive societies did not have surplus production, the economic operation was associated with the collection of products, sharing and distribution, consumption, and redistribution due to the accumulation of resources, and to a certain extent these principles differed from one community structure to another. The most important rule of trade in the era when economic relations were mostly based on natural rules was the sharing of goods and services by means of the economy of exchange.
The gradual increase in population and the fact that mankind passed from garden agriculture or hunter-gatherer stage to settled life caused agricultural activities to be more intense. The principle of equal product sharing, which was valid among the community members in the past, became outdated and the most productive or dominant members of the community started to receive the largest share. As a result, social and economic differences between members increased, and social stratification began. In this period, social stratification was reshaped depending on kinship relations, sacredness, and age and sex classification. In this sense, traditional societies, different from hunter-gatherer groups, are thought to have consumed the products they accumulated from nature in the context of the subsistence economy and save the remaining resources using their underdeveloped technologies. Traditional communities, which have a self-sufficient economic structure, usually obtain the products they need by means of a system of exchange with neighboring tribes. This process lasted until the 18th-century industrial revolution. By that time, as production increased, the local economy was not enough anymore, and trade was moved beyond the nation as new markets were sought. The segments that were further enriched by trade (especially multinational corporations) obtained a significant capital accumulation. New classes or distinct groups such as capitalists, employers, and employees arose. The relations between production and trade were re-determined according to technological developments.
Moving to today, modern social economy has frequently faced financial crises since money began to be used as a tool of exchange. The most well-known of these is the 1929 economic crisis that is called the Great Depression. Aside from this crisis, the recent economic crisis started in the US real estate market caused a global crisis in 2008, and negatively affected many countries. While some countries are less affected by this financial crisis, some European countries such as Greece, Spain, and Italy and Latin American countries such as Argentina, Venezuela, and Mexico are economically deprived. In order to get rid of this impasse and meet economic needs, people and civil society organizations tend to return to the primitive trade practices implemented in the archaic period. For example, in Argentina, people in the economic crisis established exchange markets called “Trojans” in many parts of the country. A similar situation can be seen in another Latin American country, Venezuela. Groups starting among friends and spreading through social media aimed to get rid of the negative effects of the crisis by exchanging products they needed such as rice, corn flour, oil, eggs, sugar, and napkins. In Greece, in order to minimize the negative effects of the economic crisis, exchange markets were established with the method called “Trouke” in ancient Greek, in cities with a high density of population, such as Athens, Volos, and Patras. In order to overcome the economic crisis in Ukraine, companies obtained the goods they needed by exchanging goods.
Therefore, in cases where money is not used or is insufficient, simple/primitive exchange methods such as silent commerce and potlatch can be used to address the basic needs of people, even though they are not considered to be an alternative to modern or retrogressive economic models used. Furthermore, the exchange economy can coordinate societies’ different practices, both in socio-economic and cultural terms and can reorganize social relations, thus helping the societies form their sense of belonging.
