Flippanarchy

Could start with reading the wikipedia about this book and go from there, maybe check out the book and look up the archaeological and anthropological data yourself, but the gist is summarized there.

"Graeber lays out the historical development of the idea of debt, starting from the first recorded debt systems in the Sumer civilization around 3500 BCE. In this early form of borrowing and lending, farmers would often become so mired in debt that their children would be forced into debt peonage. Because of the social tension that came with this enslavement of large parts of the population, kings periodically canceled all debts. In ancient Israel, the resulting amnesty came to be known as the Law of Jubilee.

Graeber argues that debt and credit historically appeared before money, which itself appeared before barter. This is the opposite of the narrative given in standard economics texts dating back to Adam Smith. To support this, he cites numerous historical, ethnographic and archaeological studies. He also claims that the standard economics texts cite no evidence for suggesting that barter came before money, credit and debt, and he has seen no credible reports suggesting such.

The primary theme of the book is that excessive popular indebtedness has sometimes led to unrest, insurrection, and revolt. He argues that credit systems originally developed as means of account long before the advent of coinage, which appeared around 600 BCE. Credit can still be seen operating in non-monetary economies. Barter, on the other hand, seems primarily to have been used for limited exchanges between different societies that had infrequent contact and often were in a context of ritualized warfare.

Graeber suggests that economic life originally related to social currencies. These were closely related to routine non-market interactions within a community. This created an "everyday communism" based on mutual expectations and responsibilities among individuals. This type of economy is contrasted with exchange based on formal equality and reciprocity (but not necessarily leading to market relations) and hierarchy. The hierarchies in turn tended to institutionalize inequalities in customs and castes. "