Comment by pauselaugh

astrange had the right context but characterized it not-so-correctly. Modern agriculture's origin involved power structures where farmers were forced to be unable to be self-reliant, and would instead trade their crops at a market to get the other things they needed. The powers that be then had a nice, centralized place to take their cut and exchanges to offramp goods into currency. we're seeing it all over again with crypto via fiat reliance