Until a few months ago the terms Grexit , Spexit or Brexit They could seem to us to be the name of racehorses or new energy drinks, when in fact they are Anglo-Saxon acronyms that refer to the hypothetical departure of Greece, Spain or the United Kingdom, respectively, from the EU. On this occasion, we will leave aside the Spexit and Brexit and we will focus on the Grexit . Last July, and in injury time, Greece was able to save the start by accepting the impositions of the Troika . Said exit would have meant, inevitably, returning to the drachma … very difficult because, literally, it does not fit in purses, it breaks all pants pockets and carrying it in your hand is a danger to the physical integrity of everyone you meet on the street.
We already spoke at the time of the Sumerian economy that was based on barter, where the kings annually issued tables of equivalences between the different products with which they were traded, with silver being the stabilizing and reference element. Let us imagine a peasant who wants to buy a lamb to celebrate the wedding of his daughter and goes to the market with a certain amount of barley to exchange. What happens if the cattle handler does not need barley? The solution was very easy. The peasant could go to any sacred precinct where his barley was exchanged for its equivalent in silver; With the silver in his possession, he could already buy the lamb with the confidence that this metal would be accepted by any merchant. A curious element is that the silver that the temple gave him was presented in the form of rings weighing 8 grams or spirals in case of large quantities. He not only could wear them comfortably on his fingers and arms, but the rings could be divided into four parts of 2 grams each, like small change. Let's say that the silver rings served as our "money." Well, in the 5th century B.C. The most widely used monetary unit for trade between the Greek city-states was the drachma.
Etymologically, the word drachma derives from the verb δράττω which means «grab a handful «. The drachma of Antiquity, used as currency before the use of coins, was a handful of six metallic iron rods called obolos . So, having returned to "this drachma » all Greeks would have had holes in their pockets, they would have had to make suitable purses, obviously impractical and uncomfortable, and it would have been dangerous to walk down the street with money in hand... and not because it was going to be stolen . And speaking of stealing, according to the Greek historian Plutarch in his work Parallel Lives , Lycurgus of Sparta he attempted to stamp out theft and corruption by abolishing all old gold and silver coins, and ordering new iron coins to be minted at such a low value that the Spartans had to exchange the purses for horse-drawn carts.
And with this change alone Lacedaemonia was freed from many kinds of crimes; for who was to steal or bribe, or cheat, or take from one's hands a thing that could neither be concealed, nor excite greed, nor be profited by tearing it to pieces? […] Whereas an iron coin, which was an object of ridicule, had no attraction for the other Greeks, nor any esteem; Thus, foreign effects could not be bought with it at any price, nor could a commercial ship enter the ports, nor approach Laconia, either a talkative sophist, or a greeter and a charmer, or a man of bad dealings with women, or a goldsmith. and silver, not having money:in this way, deprived the luxury of its incentive or pabulum, by itself it vanished; and to those who had more than others it was of no use, since there was no way to show their abundance, which had to be confined and idle.
[Logically, the drachma to which Greece would have returned is the one it abandoned after adopting the euro and which only resembles the handful of six obols in name]