"This is going to be a long post but i can't see any other way of trying to work out what the hell this debate is actually about"If you look at what Tig says only from the point of view of this thread you will understandably have difficulty about "
what the hell this debate is actually about".
I hope your comprehensive effort to clarify your own thoughts and position did help.
However, as someone who has exchanged with and followed Tig on HC for many years, may I offer this "background briefing".
Tig's debate is not really about gold, money, barter, Economists versus Anthropologists etc, it is about the evil side of Capitalism, State power and his idealistic imagination about the supposed benefits of "true" Socialism.
Tig believes that property should never be in "private hands" since that inevitably leads to exploitation and State theft through taxes.
S0, in this thread he cites "proof" that hunter gathers and other tribal groups must have used some sort of an ideal communal ownership method which was not barter with it's evil of individual ownership.
Money was invented as a convenient way for States to impose and collect taxes. They also could then bestow repayable favours by granting "ownership" rights to certain people so that they in turn could extort unjust payment on tenants and serfs for the use of that which in fact was not genuinely owned, much less earned but "appropriated" through force supplied by the State.
This BTW includes all modern landlords and business owners.
@tigmeister is "widely" researched via accumulation of cognitive bias versions of material on this subject and particularly attracted to those who take a contrary view to conservative mainstream "cosy agreements" on how things are .... even when only to boost their book sales or ego.
He will at least provide a robust documented comeback to anything you post that doesn't fit his latest "idea fix" narrative.
.
