World Futures: What Do We Need?
By ANDY ANDREWS
Los Alamos World Futures Institute
This series of articles examines money as a means of facilitating trade, the impact of value perception, and the compacting of perceived time. To do this, it is best to examine the historical perspective and understand the needs of the evolving system of humanity together with the impact of technology on how we do business.
In 3,000 B.C., the estimated population of the world was 14 million people. Around that time, the “city” of Uruk in Mesopotamia, with a population of 50 to 80 thousand people, existed on the Euphrates River in what is now southern Iraq. Surrounded by a 12 to 15 meter wall of 9 km length (40 to 50 feet high and 5.6 miles long) it was the largest city in the world. It had a full time beauracracy and a stratified society as well as protective forces. The city covered an area of 2.3 sq. mi.
Who did what in the city and how did people get along, exchanging goods and services? Since it was a “stratified” society, people had different jobs for which they were compensated. There must have been workers dedicated to the lower levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (food, water, security, safety). Who built the structures, the walls, the streets, and so forth? Who made the clothing? Who distributed the food? If you worked at a menial task all day, where did you get your food and how much would you get? If you provided the food, how could you get a new pair of sandals or the new garment that you needed? And what would the providers get? After all, they need things too.
Clearly, one can dismiss such questions as trivial because we live in modern times and we take our daily business transactions for granted. Consider for a moment, however, if Los Alamos had a population of 60,000 people and was suddenly isolated from the rest of the world but had enough raw materials to satisfy basic needs. We already have in place a stratefied society with vairously skilled workers, product distribution points, a government to ensure order, and on and on. The people of Los Alamos do work to support the community and are compensated by being able to trade in goods and services. But how would we do the compensation accouinting and distribution, both individually and collectively?
In Uruk, German archeologuist Julius Jordan found samples of clay tablets with writing, which became known as cuneiform. But the mystery grew deeper when little clay objects were found in Uruk and elsewhere shaped like jars, animals, loaves, and so on. Subsequently, we learned through the work of archeologist Denise Schmandt-Bessart that the clay tokens were used for correspondence counting, an activity now used to teach children in preschool and Kindergarten. And, Schmandt-Bessert pointed out that the impressions on the clay tablets were records of transactions represented by the tokens themselves.
Suppose you were a grain farmer in the Uruk region way back when. You go to the weekly farmers’ market with you grain to hopefully trade for sheep. At the market, another trader wants to trade five sheep for 20 bushels of grain. The problem is that it was not reasonable for the sheepherder to bring the sheep to the market, for whatever reason. So the sheepherder hands you a large sheep token, five times tha size of a “normal” sheep token. Since you trust the sheepherder, you accept the token and turn over the 20 bushels of grain. It really didn’t happen that way with contacts between people, but bullas, a hollow clay ball with cuneiform on the outside and small clay baubles on the inside, have been found. And all of this was handled by accountants. Was it a contract?
In the city of Uruk, 5,000 years ago, a lot of people lived togther, doing different things, and relying on each other for their existence. In doing so, judgments were made about the value of their work and trades were made to distribute the goods and services. We do the same thing today in our system of organized humanity but with an increased tempo and inside significanly larger communties. Or is it a world communinty?
Next we consider trade outside of the local community….
The Los Alamos World Futures Institute website is at LAWorldFutures.org. Feedback, volunteers, and donations (501.c.3) are welcome. Email andy.andrews@laworldfutres.org or bob.nolen@laworldfutures.org. Previously published columns can be found at www.laDailyPost.com or www.laworldfutures.org.
