Normally you've always been told the history of humanity from the point of view of Wars and conquests however the economy has often explained the path of the human being to the present day better than wars themselves So in today's video we are going to explain how the human being has evolved through the economy how different economic systems have emerged and how humanity has become what it is today so come on let's get to it But before we start simply tell you that this is the first of four installments in which this series on world economic history will be divided So if you like the video subscribe and hit the bell to receive a notification when the rest of the parts come out the economy has always accompanied human beings although in prehistory there were no central banks or markets or even money human beings already traded in a very primitive way okay Let's put ourselves in situation we are in the Paleolithic an era in which human beings lived in nomadic groups that went from cave to cave or setting up temporary huts following large herds of animals or settling where there were fish to catch or many wild fruits to collect at this time the economy revolved within the group itself since in one way or another the group had to organize some members were in charge of looking for food and others performed certain services Generally men hunted and women gathered children were assigned lighter tasks and the elderly usually took care of them but there were also specialists those who made the best tools those who prepared better food or well anything you can imagine these nomadic groups also had their moves between them and warred for resources or territories with other groups however between different groups there was also a very primitive trade in which they could exchange what little they had since at that time the nomadic groups barely stored resources since being nomadic the transportation of these became complicated however with the passage of time human beings began to understand that they could Ar and domesticate animals to later obtain meat milk eggs or skins and they also began to understand that by planting seeds in the ground and taking care of the fruit of these seeds could produce food and have a constant flow of food and that is how agriculture and livestock were born but be careful this is super recent we are talking about just 12,000 years ago the problem is that all these activities required to stop moving and settle in top places and what are top places well places with water nearby preferably the sea or a river places with fertile land and a climate that allowed a good life so human beings began to build permanent shelters for everyone and voila that is how the first towns were born okay do you remember that in nomadic groups there were members of the group who specialized in various tasks because with the food supply assured thanks to agriculture and livestock these specialists became professional and the first artisans and builders began to emerge little by little the Paleolithic was converted into the Mesolithic and then the Neolithic with all this paradigm shift the first agricultural tools such as hoes or plows arrived and also something much more important warehouses and threads that finally allowed humans to store surplus food to consume in times of scarcity or to exchange for other goods and services as towns grew larger and societies a little more complex the economy began to resemble what it is today the artisans who made tools needed to eat the one who planted carrots needed eggs and the one who had chickens needed carrots and tools In short, it was necessary to find a way to trade and that is how the exchanges of goods and services that had been taking place throughout life on a small scale began to be established based on rules barter was simple and more or less everyone was able to set prices according to the products or the complexity of the services purchased in fact markets began to emerge places where citizens from different towns could trade and some even came with a lot of products to trade from other much more distant places This is how the first merchants emerged all of this that I am telling you has its origins in places like Ancient Egypt that took advantage of the Nile Valley or Mesopotamia where they emerged very important city states like Ur or Babylon we can also talk about the civilizations of the Indus Valley like Harapa or Moe Jod Daro the Chinese were some cracks when it came to trading with distant places and they created the Silk Road that connected China with the Mediterranean Sea taking silk with them you see that they didn't rack their brains too much with the name spices and precious stones mainly the incense route connected Arabia and the Horn of Africa with the Mediterranean making incense myrrh and a lot of spices known And finally I want to talk to you about some guys who were also some cracks who would sell a comb to a bald man we're talking about the Phoenicians these guys sailed like crazy and they took their cedar wood Tyrian purple and glass to all corners of the Mediterranean in fact they even founded colonies there like Cádiz in present-day Spain but no This bartering was not enough And let's see this had many limitations What happens if I need meat but those who have it don't need anything that I have also between towns it was very complicated since transporting cows or many kilos of food was not the most efficient thing in the world, something was needed to represent the value of goods and services or in other words, it was time to invent good money. First, writing was invented and we went from prehistory to history specifically to the Ancient Age, things did not go very well at first. At first, shells were used as money in places like Africa or some Pacific islands. But what kind of store of value was that? Anyone could go to the beach and find more, so precious metals such as gold began to be used in the form of ingots, but it was too heavy, something more manageable was needed. As far as we know, the smartest ones who realized that what was needed was to invent coins were the Libyans, a civilization from Asia Minor who introduced the first coins around the 6th century BC. This coin thing was a great invention. Now everyone could trade regardless of whether the other person needed some goods or others, transporting wealth was easy to set prices for things too and storing value became much easier and above all safer but there is even more the coins did not deteriorate over time it was enough not to lose them and they could be divided into smaller units they had everything to succeed So they began to be generally accepted and that friends is how modern money had just increased Romans and Greeks quickly joined in on this new invention and coins began to reach the various ends of the world But before going to that we also have to talk about other inventions of the ancient world even before coins when ingots were still used as money in Mesopotamia temples and palaces stored goods and even offered loans it seems that banks had been born while in Egypt the pharaohs began to charge farmers for the mere fact of inhabiting their lands and in fact they used hieroglyphics to keep accounts of tributes and to record transactions something that was also done in Mesopotamia with their own writing in fact the urn namu code that dates back to 2100 BC establishes the rules of the tributes let's go that taxes and bureaucracy are also inventions of this time come on let's go back to where we left off with the rise of the Greek city-states as great powers money became even more popular the dragma was accepted in a lot of places and some thinkers began to theorize about the economy one of them was Aristotle who defended private property as a source of social peace above communal property and who viewed with some distrust the acquisition of more and more goods for the mere fact of accumulating in fact Aristotle criticized the issue of lending money and charging interest it seemed to him that it was usury and that it was fatal clearly he did not know what was coming Aristotle had several ideas romped believed that the state that is to say the polis had a very important role in the economy ensuring that the basic needs of citizens were covered and that economic practices were fair and Morales argued that the state should regulate the economy to ensure distributive justice and correct extreme inequalities however those who took the economy to another level were the Romans in Rome They knew that trade could be even more practical than spears and swords when it came to building a great Empire. Although, well, it's not something you give up on, but they did do everything possible to promote trade. To do this, they unified the currencies, with the silver denarius and the bronze sestertius being the predominant ones. They created specialized banks, they put a large number of slaves at the service of the empire and they created something very important that until then was not very developed: legal security. And what it is and why legal security is so important. Imagine that tomorrow you want to start a business. Would you prefer to do it in a developed country with laws and regulations that provide security for your investment? Or would you prefer to do it in a country where at any moment the state can take everything away from you or you don't know exactly how many taxes they are going to charge you? Obviously, you will choose the place that gives you the most guarantees, that is, the one that gives you greater legal security. Well, this is what the Romans did, they put their famous Roman law at the service of the economy by creating commercial laws, contracts, and property rights. In addition, the Romans created an immense network of roads and ports that facilitated trade. long distance from Great Britain to Egypt goods circulated easily throughout the Empire but friends not everything is eternal centuries and centuries of existence The endless wars and the different weak and corrupt governments ended up weakening the Roman Empire so much that Rome and its western empire fell in the year 476 the Ancient Age ended and the Middle Ages began and for today we are going to leave it here but don't worry we will come soon with the second part So you know subscribe to be aware of the rest of the deliveries and we will see you soon