alt Hacker News> Like really, think about it. These weights were very precise. And they had to be, because "weight" was basically equivalent to "money." So there had to be a standard, and that standard had to be enforced when the weights were produced. And the weights had to remain trustworthy as they were distributed elsewhere for use in the trade. Someone was obviously "in charge" lol
I disagree. You seem to imply that the standards existing means there must be a State? Or are you saying, literally, at one point someone said the weight of a thing is this, and people agreed? The latter is a MUCH softer point and completely compatible with the anarchism that Graeber describes.
What's the connection between the IETF and the State? No State mandates that everyone uses TCP/IP, every ISP, device maker etc just follows the standard because that's the consensus. It's self enforcing - you don't get to participate if you don't interop. Doesn't that make IETF in charge? What if the IETF suddenly came out as a Nazi organization and released RFCs with white supremacist words inserted absurdly into standards as requirements? Do you think consensus would just go along with what they said? No? That's the difference between consensus and what you seem to be implying by someone "Being in Charge."
Another good example of this is language itself. Everyone speaks the same language, but nobody's actually in charge of what goes into it or how it's spoken.
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I'm saying some kind of institution was in charge of the manufacture and certification. Much like the weights produced by Sumer, which was uncontroversially a "state"
It's exactly the opposite. With languages/standards, both parties has incentives to have mutual understanding so they don't need anyone else to enforce symbol equality. But with these weights, or money in general, there's huge incentive to deceive each other, so someone has to enforce the equality. That someone can be the parties themselves, but if one party lack the ability, it necessitated the creation of third-party enforcer, which can grow to be a state.
Even then, with languages, whenever there's incentive to deceive it also immediately unravels. See: exaggeration, and necessity to create whole new language of legalese for contracts.