> Why couldn't there be a history where people were keeping track of debts and then started trading the things on which they kept track of debts and then whammo! You got money.

There can be and it would fit my understanding of the theorem because there's a connection between the new money thing and the previously valued debt thing and a connection between the debts and whatever valuable thing they came from.

I'm pretty sure your last paragraph fits the Austrian model. The point would be that the tradable thing can't be arbitrary. It has to be based on what people already value.

Undisciplined

I don't care much for the regression theorem.

Using the Mises framework—the regression theorem—we can infer that it is 

 for money to emerge as a result of a government decree or government endorsement or social convention.

 and even then, I'm could see a quite useful money emerging from social contract.

Why couldn't there be a history where people were keeping track of debts and then started trading the things on which they kept track of debts and then whammo! You got money.

(I suspect this is the influence of Graeber on me, but maybe also Mitchell Innes)

I don't fully buy the credit theory of money, but I think that people are smart and pretty early on in human history, people recognized that it was useful to sometimes acquire a thing for no other purpose than to trade of to another person. It's almost like we can't help ourselves but try to trade stuff. And money is close to trade in my mind. Like you can't have much trade without money just kind of happening.

history

econ

How Money Acquires Its Value

I don't care much for the regression theorem. 

> Using the Mises framework—the regression theorem—we can infer that it is *not possible* for money to emerge as a result of a government decree or government endorsement or social convention.

I'm not sure I'd use *not possible* so much as *not as useful* and even then, I'm could see a quite useful money emerging from social contract. 

Why couldn't there be a history where people were keeping track of debts and then started trading the things on which they kept track of debts and then whammo! You got money. 

(I suspect this is the influence of Graeber on me, but maybe also Mitchell Innes)

I don't fully buy the credit theory of money, but I think that people are smart and pretty early on in human history, people recognized that it was useful to sometimes acquire a thing for no other purpose than to trade of to another person. It's almost like we can't help ourselves but try to trade stuff. And money is close to trade in my mind. Like you can't have much trade without money just kind of happening.