Yes but you’re saying exactly the same thing he’s saying…
Then you try to ways to help him out until you’ve felt you repaid your “debt”.
So you have your debt to the chicken farmer. You try to find ways to help him, and he says: I don’t really need anything much, maybe some lumber is the only thing I need. So now you go to the sawmill, get lumber from them, transfer the debt to them. But now you’re in debt with the sawmill, and the cycle continues…
Your debt thing changes exactly nothing, you still need to go around until you find someone who needs your potatoes. It just changes the time at which you need to do it.
People never have just one need, and you can also repay the “debt” with your labor not just other goods. He may say I need lumber, but you could say “I don’t have lumber but I can help around the farm, I can cook you some meals, I can watch your kids, take your cows to pasture, etc.”. If you are a productive member of society you or the person can find some way to repay the debt. If you are utterly useless to them then they won’t give you the chicken or may give it to you as charity, but most people aren’t useless. I can think of ten things around my house that pretty much any able bodied person could do and that would be helpful to me.
Also it doesn’t have to be immediately exchanged, again this is built off trust. Maybe the farmer doesn’t need help now but come harvest time he’ll need some extra hands. Same with the potatoes, he may not need potatoes now but he’ll probably want some eventually.
You can see this reciprocity in a lot of close relationships, especially within families. You may never exchange money with a person but you get stuff for them, make stuff for them and do stuff for them under the assumption that they’ll get you back. It may not completely even out in monetary terms but your fine with it because it simplifies a lot of things.
Yeah, but if you love growing potatoes, but you hate watching the kids, cooking meals, take cows to pasture, it’s so much nicer to just be able to pay in potatoes than needing to do so much shit you don’t like.
Yes but you’re saying exactly the same thing he’s saying…
So you have your debt to the chicken farmer. You try to find ways to help him, and he says: I don’t really need anything much, maybe some lumber is the only thing I need. So now you go to the sawmill, get lumber from them, transfer the debt to them. But now you’re in debt with the sawmill, and the cycle continues…
Your debt thing changes exactly nothing, you still need to go around until you find someone who needs your potatoes. It just changes the time at which you need to do it.
People never have just one need, and you can also repay the “debt” with your labor not just other goods. He may say I need lumber, but you could say “I don’t have lumber but I can help around the farm, I can cook you some meals, I can watch your kids, take your cows to pasture, etc.”. If you are a productive member of society you or the person can find some way to repay the debt. If you are utterly useless to them then they won’t give you the chicken or may give it to you as charity, but most people aren’t useless. I can think of ten things around my house that pretty much any able bodied person could do and that would be helpful to me.
Also it doesn’t have to be immediately exchanged, again this is built off trust. Maybe the farmer doesn’t need help now but come harvest time he’ll need some extra hands. Same with the potatoes, he may not need potatoes now but he’ll probably want some eventually.
You can see this reciprocity in a lot of close relationships, especially within families. You may never exchange money with a person but you get stuff for them, make stuff for them and do stuff for them under the assumption that they’ll get you back. It may not completely even out in monetary terms but your fine with it because it simplifies a lot of things.
Yeah, but if you love growing potatoes, but you hate watching the kids, cooking meals, take cows to pasture, it’s so much nicer to just be able to pay in potatoes than needing to do so much shit you don’t like.