Debt: The First 5000 Years - autonomous learning

19 2 DEBT
The same tensions can be observed between neighbors, who in
farming communities tend to give, lend, and borrow things amongst
themselves-anything from sieves and sickles, to charcoal and cooking
oil, to seed corn or oxen for plowing. On the one hand, such giving
and lending were considered essential parts of the basic fabric of human
sociability in farm communities, on the other, overly demanding
neighbors were a notorious irritant-one that could only have grown
worse when all parties are aware of precisely how much it would have
cost to buy or rent the same items that were being given away. Again,
one of the best ways to get a sense of what were considered everyday
dilemmas for Mediterranean peasants is to look at jokes. Late stories
from across the Aegean in Turkey echo exactly the same concerns:
Nasruddin's neighbor once came by ask if he could borrow his
donkey for an unexpected errand. Nasruddin obliged, but the
next day the neighbor was back again-he needed to take some
grain to be milled. Before long he was showing up almost every
morning, barely feeling he needed a pretext. Finally, Nasruddin
got fed up, and one morning told him his brother had already
come by and taken the donkey.
Just as the neighbor was leaving he heard a loud braying
sound from the yard.
"Hey, I thought you said the donkey wasn't here!"
"Look, who are you going to believe" asked Nasruddin.
"Me, or some animal"
With the appearance of money, it could also become unclear what
was a gift, and what a loan. On the one hand, even with gifts, it was
always considered best to return something slightly better than one had
received.78 On the other hand, friends do not charge one another interest,
and any suggestion that they might was sure to rankle. So what's
the difference between a generous return gift and an interest payment
This is the basis of one of the most famous Nasruddin stories, one that
appears to have provided centuries of amusement for peasants across
the Mediterranean basin and adjoining regions. (It is also, I might
note, a play on the fact that in many Mediterranean languages, Greek
included, the word for "interest" literally means "offspring.")
One day Nasruddin's neighbor, a notorious miser, came by
to announce he was throwing a party for some friends. Could
he borrow some of Nasruddin's pots Nasruddin didn't have
many but said he was happy to lend whatever he had. The next