Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

we look at the simplifications that are
Here
necessary in the teaching of disiplinary
often
to students or the general public.
knowledge
their early encounters with new disciplines
In
receive simplified explanations of the
students
causes, origins, effects and functions
complex
phenomena and concepts. The idea is that
of
extended study, the nuance will appear
through
the complexity will emerge. This is not
and
to the human sciences, and we explore
unique
a world without money. How would
Imagine
exchange things and get what they
humans
You might imagine people trading things
need?
different things: four eggs for a bottle of
for
two cows for a horse. Pursue it further and
milk;
we find that this system of exchange,
quickly
barter, is inefficient and inconvenient;
called
example, when you need to exchange half
for
horse for a donkey, without killing the horse.
a
or later someone, somewhere, so the
Sooner
goes, has the idea of money. Given this
story
money might even seem inevitable.
story,
has been a feature of economics
Barter
since the advent of the modern
textbooks
right up to the present day, usually
discipline
as the way of things in “simple, early
described
until someone invented money
economies”
1999). We checked a number of IB and
(Randall
economics textbooks and found
undergraduate
every one of them described barter in early
that
societies. The story of barter has
pre-modern
told and retold for a long time, perhaps
been
it neatly presents pre-money economic
because
as problematic.
exchanges
Smith described it as “higgling,
Adam
swapping, dickering”—so eventually
haggling,
came along to free us from these
money
problems.
this story about barter is a myth.
However,
example of a barter economy, pure and
“No
in Chapter 7, II.5. Unacknowledged
genetics,
uncorrected simplifications can lead to
and
example below refers to how, in explaining
The
complex origins of money, textbooks
the
us to an economic fairy tale of “simpler
refer
of the past. We invite healthy
societies”
whenever simple societies are
scepticism
as the key to understanding complex
presented
Keep in mind whether there is a
phenomena.
between simplicity and accuracy, and
trade-off
this may affect the acquisition and transfer
how
knowledge.
of
has ever been described, let alone
simple,
emergence from it of money,” wrote
the
Humphrey, anthropology professor
Caroline
Cambridge University, decades ago (1985).
at
sociologists, anthropologists and
Numerous
economists agree: the ethnographic
political
does not support the story. When there
record
a record, barter almost exclusively occurs
is
strangers or enemies (that is, between
between
who share no relationship); or, later,
people
people who were accustomed to
between
but could not use it for some reason,
money
as hyperinflation or shortage. What is
such
not only is there no evidence for the
more,
of barter, there is plenty of evidence
myth
it. David Graeber, anthropology
against
at the London School of Economics,
professor
as follows.
writes
fact, our standard account of monetary
“In
is precisely backwards. We did not
history
8II. Perspectives
II.3 Simplicity and accuracy: The
textbook problem
significant problems of knowledge.
an example from natural sciences, in Mendel’s
Box 8.3: The myth of barter, the inevitability of money and our moral imagination
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