Currency Older Than Money: A Foundation for Cultural Mutualism

Esteem is a currency older than money. Before the existence of money, esteem was the measure of social standing, and this social standing was the basis of trust. Trust served as the basis of credit, such that one could access economic resources by utilizing one's trustworthiness, relying on one's esteem for one's credit-worthiness with others. In many cases, this esteem was established a priori to the need for credit, by the building of credit in the form of “gifting,” which was wielded as a form of “reciprocal altruism,” or reciprocity with delayed returns. In other cases, it could be maintained by holding to one's word, such as by returning with something of equal or greater value to the one extending credit in gift or mutuum (loan for consumption).

Before money, the only way around the need for reciprocal altruism or mutuum could be had by means of bartering. But bartering is clumsy and rare, or must itself be accompanied by reciprocal altruism or customary mutuum to round the edges where equivalency is hard to get. That is, bartering requires the “double-coincidence of wants,” the condition of two parties each having what the other wants, without needing it for themselves, and in equivalent proportions relative to one another. All too often, one party will instead have something that they themselves need, or that they would rather exchange for something else, rather than make an exchange with someone who has something for exchange that is not currently desirable or found to be of equivalent value. This leaves the exchange unmade, unless relying on some form of credit, such as reciprocal altruism or customary mutuum, either for the entire exchange or to round out the difference in equivalency where bartering does occur.

Esteem has two sides, honor and dignity. Some push back on the idea of honor having any social relevance, suggesting that honor cultures, which resulted at times in feuds, have been displaced by contemporary dignity cultures, and for good reason. While there may have been problems with honor cultures, the truth of the matter is that honor and dignity cannot be happily divorced, and that a society that demands dignity where it has not been earned is prone to cultural degeneration. Instead, they function analogous to supply and demand in the field of economics.

Supply, representing something offered, and demand, representing something wanted, are both best satisifed together, such as by way of a competitive market equilibrium, where the two meet. That is, where the buying power behind that which is wanted corresponds in value to that which is being offered, exchanges occur, but where there is no such correspondence no such exchange may happen. It must be remembered that effective demand represents prior supply, in that in order to establish demand through buying power one must previously have produced something that can be given in exchange. In a market economy, this is money. But where demand has high hopes it does not back with a will to pay, or where supply wishes to sell more at a price found unreasonable to demand, exchange is missed, and, as a result, dearth or glut result.

Similarly, honor represents something offered, whereas dignity represents past honors already-accepted. Where honor and dignity agree on the level of esteem to be exchanged, much as supply and demand agree upon a price level, the optimal satisfaction is attained by each, because equilibrium has been reached. But where dignity makes claims without honor to back it, such as is done under the banner of cultural Marxism, or where honor demands too much from dignity, as under the herald of cultural nationalism, both fail to reach their optimum levels, and dearth or glut of social esteem results.

Social esteem may otherwise be understood...

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