Considering that modern humans have been around for roughly 200-300’000 years but the oldest known form of money / standardized currency dates back only 3000-2500 bce, what would today look like in a alternate reality where the concept of money was never conceived? Like I guess some form of “the market” has always been around, but still… what if?
Look into the concept of a gift economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
Communities would have social norms revolving around the exchange of goods without expectation of sone kind of payment. You do what you can to provide for your community, and in turn your community provides to you as well.
Social credit
In pre-history, it was believed to be mostly social obligation, gifts, and verbal debts. Such systems work when the groups are very, very small and communities can enforce debts and obligations through social pressure. As the other poster said more succinctly: social credit.
After the domestication of animals, animals and plant products were used as money.
Where I am we have a community. We all help each other, loaning tools or labor, giving gifts. No need for credits or trade most of the time. We just all take turns when someone needs it.
Few weeks ago we had some fresh eggs, we gave it to our neighbors that gave us some tomato plants a few weeks earlier.
It was probably bartering before and if money was never made it would still be the same to this day. Trading lowkey fucken sucks without some form of backed currency. But I’d be totally down to show up at someone’s house and sing some cover songs and originals if they would come over and fix my pipes.
You’re not gonna believe this… there’s totally a system to enable exactly that, called timebanks. It’s a means of exchanging labor wherein everyone’s time is valued equally. https://www.timebanks.org/timebank-map-and-directory
Disclosure: I’m a founding board member and the treasurer for my regional timebank. I’m all in on the timebank kool-aid.
What if I want a product and not labour?
In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS, federal taxation authority, for the non-US audience) is actively disinterested in timebanks as long as they are only exchanging labor on an equal time basis. Unfortunately, the IRS considers exchange of goods to be taxable and therefore wants its cut. So timebanks in the US are pretty strict about goods exchange. There are other means for physical goods that skirt US tax law, such as Freecycle.
It could potentially look like a timebank (https://www.timebanks.org/). Timebanks are a means of exchanging labor wherein everyone’s time is valued equally. By performing services for someone anywhere in a timebank network, e.g. hOurworld.org, you receive that time which you can then use to receive services from someone else.
We only got money in Australia 250 years ago. Before then we had communism, and it was awesome.
It seems to me markets without currency are rare and temporary, so I don’t see markets working in this world of yours. Only way I see this possible is when the tribe’s surplus was never claimed. In a myriad of different tribal constellations, having none that assigned the surplus stockpile seems very unlikely. So this world can only exist before central stockpiling it seems to me. A bit like the description of the Native Americans in Engels’ Family, Private Property and the State.
