How Money began with a simple village?
Everyone seems to be doing what they see others doing — blindly, repeatedly, without questioning.
How Money began with a simple village?
Everyone seems to be doing what they see others doing — blindly, repeatedly, without questioning.
So, should we also just… continue? Or should we stop for a moment and ask? If we try to understand the current complex system as it is, we might get lost in its chaos. So, let’s simplify. Let’s rewind. Let’s imagine how it might all have started — with a small village, a few people, and some very basic needs.
Imagine a village. In it, people have different skills: there are farmers, potters, ironsmiths, and a few strong guards. Now obviously, the farmer is the primary producer. He toils in the sun, grows crops, and makes sure there’s food. After a few months of hard work, he has food to eat. So his survival? Done (All the hard efforts paid off).
But sustaining life isn’t just about survival. He needs utensils to cook the food — enters the potter. He needs tools to till his field next season — comes the blacksmith. He needs protection from thieves and wild animals — that’s where the guards or soldiers come in. Suddenly, it’s clear — no one is really independent. Everyone, no matter how skilled, needs others.
The Birth of Dependence
So how does it work? The farmer gives rice to the potter. The potter gives pots to the iron-smith. The iron-smith gives tools to the farmer. This is how barter likely began — people exchanging one thing for another based on need. Simple and fair… until it wasn’t.
What if the potter didn’t need rice this month? What if the iron-smith made too many tools but couldn’t eat metal? Things got messy. So people started negotiating based on demand and supply. The more people wanted what you had, the more valuable it became. Congratulations — we just invented the open market.
The Soldiers — Now comes an interesting twist. The farmer, potter, and iron-smith all worked hard. Their value was visible. But what about the soldiers? They didn’t farm. They didn’t make pots. And during peaceful times… they kind of just stood around.
People began questioning — “Why give them anything? They’re not doing anything!” But then one night, a neighboring village attacked. Crops were burnt. Granaries looted. People scared. Suddenly, the value of security wasn’t so invisible anymore. You can’t negotiate protection when the threat is already at your door. You need it before. You need it always. And that’s when the idea took shape — a system where a small share of everyone’s produce went to the ones who protected them, even in peace.
This was the first tax. Not a burden. But a necessity born out of reality — that without land and safety, you have nothing to grow, nothing to cook, and nothing to trade.
Let’s bring this ancient village to today. Let’s meet those five young men from Dhanbad. They had land. They had enough to eat. They had families and roots. And yet, they left everything behind… traveled thousands of kilometers… risked their lives to earn ₹25,000–₹35,000 per mont something they could’ve managed back home. Why? Because even if you have food, you need others’ help in society to sustain. And in today’s society, money is the modern version of rice, tools, and security — all wrapped in one. You can’t go to a doctor and offer him two bags of wheat. You can’t ask for a child’s education with a bucket of potatoes. You need money, because money is the permission slip for accessing services in this modern system.
Thus, What started in a village… with a farmer and a potter… has now become an invisible web we call an economy. But at its core, it’s the same: Humans needing humans — and creating systems to survivetogether. This story we just told — is not just a thought experiment. It’s the mother of this thing we now call money. And maybe understanding money that origin is the first step to solving the very real problems we face today.
We’ll continue this journey in the next chapter which can be found here: https://medium.com/@milan.dharm/the-shining-shortcut-to-power-f108525e16ce
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