The Beginning of Something Beautiful; and, Stolen Culture

On January 2nd, 2002, the European Union successfully destroyed a long standing and vitally important part of Greek culture; the drachma.

Literally everyone on the planet should be aware that Greece had the longest serving currency up until it was destroyed by the EU. This ancient currency was called the drachma and has its roots in ancient Lydia. Although initially developed in Lydia, the ancient Greeks were able to take something absolutely useless and turn it into something that actually works. If you know anything about the landscape of Greece, this is a familiar story.

The ancient Greeks had a knack for taking something really bad and stupid and turning it into something brilliant and functional. The coin is the perfect example of this. The Lydians were an Anatolian group of folks that had their own unique Indo-European language. They were also massively wealthy. When I say wealthy, I mean, the Lydian king, Croesus, is widely considered to be the wealthiest person to ever live. But, that’s what happens when Midas touches your river and then the sand turns to gold; insta-rich.

Anyways, the Lydians developed coin. The first ever circulated coinage. Well, except it was never really circulated. That’s because the only people who had it were the people who were already extremely rich. Croesus and co. could basically walk around buying anything from anyone at the coin price they set. This may seem batshit insane, but if you’re a capitalist, you’re probably thinking, “this is the best system ever created by anyone”.

Lydian currency essentially had no value to people unless they were extremely materialistically wealthy. You may be wondering, “but then why would merchants accept coin instead of something else?” Two answers: 1) literally no choice, and, 2) oooh, look at the shiny thing!!

Why did coin work better in Athens? The answer is so obvious. You have the answer on the tip of your tongue. It requires not much explanation either. Think. Think harder….

The answer is democracy. There is literally no evidence to support this insane claim. Zero written evidence ties ancient democracy in Athens to the development and circulation of coinage. Would there ever be any written evidence suggesting this? Most likely, but thanks to some idiots we don’t have the Alexandrian Library anymore and we’ll never know.

99% of what was written that library is lost. Cool. Awesome. Best day ever. I love people.

Anyways, a bunch of scholars have written a bunch of stuff on the connection between ancient democracy in Athens and the widespread circulation of coinage (Athenian coins showed up in the boot of Italy [Magna Grecia] around 500BCE iirc) in the ancient Mediterranean.

The point of all this is that the EU destroyed something beautiful; the humble ancient drachma. This shouldn't surprise you though because, “ western civilization” (LOL) has been ruining things for literally hundreds of years.

This newsletter is dedicated to the drachma, and acts as a humble reminder that it was a currency used daily for over 2000 years before white people fucked it all up.