Debt: The First 5000 Years - autonomous learning

17 6 DEBT
I I I I I
What makes Medieval Irish laws seem so peculiar from our perspective
is that their exponents had not the slightest discomfort with putting
an exact monetary price on human dignity. For us, the notion that the
sanctity of a priest or the majesty of a king could be held equivalent to
a million fried eggs or a hundred thousand haircuts is simply bizarre.
These are precisely the things that ought to be considered beyond all
possibility of quantification. If Medieval Irish jurists felt otherwise,
it was because people at that time did not use money to buy eggs or
haircuts.28 It was the fact that it was still a human economy, in which
money was used for social purposes, that it was possible to create such
an intricate system whereby it was possible not just to measure but to
add and subtract specific quantities of human dignity-and in doing so,
provide us with a unique window into the true nature of honor itself.
The obvious question is: What happens to such an economy when
people do begin to use the same money used to measure dignity to
buy eggs and haircuts As the history of ancient Mesopotamia and
the Mediterranean world reveals, the result was a profound-and
enduring-moral crisis.
Mesopotamia (The Origins of Patriarchy)
In ancient Greek, the word for "honor" was tfme. In Homer's time, the
term appears to have been used much like the Irish term "honor price":
it referred both to the glory of the warrior and the compensation paid
as damages in case of injury or insult. Yet with the rise of markets
over the next several centuries, the meaning of the word tfme began to
change. On the one hand, it became the word for "price"-as in, the
price of something one buys in the market. On the other, it referred to
an attitude of complete contempt for markets.
Actually, this is still the case today:
In Greece the word "timi" means honor, which has been typically
seen as the most important value in Greek village society.
Honor is often characterized in Greece as an open-handed generosity
and blatant disregard for monetary costs and counting.
And yet the same word also means "price" as in the price of a
pound of tomatoes.29