Part 2: A Look Back: From Seashells to Bits, How Human Desire Shaped Commercial Empires

Previously, we completed an intellectual “deep dive”: like geologists, we peeled back the complex and ornate surface of the business world—composed of capital, brands, markets, and models—and drilled all the way down to the deepest, molten core of the entire commercial continent. There, we discovered the eternal, unchanging energy source driving all tectonic movements—human nature.

We have mapped the four fundamental forces of this energy. The infinite desire for “more” is “Greed,” providing the initial acceleration of “growth” for the business world. The intrinsic inclination towards “less effort” is “Laziness,” calibrating the eternal yardstick of “efficiency.” The instinctual protection of “self-interest” is “Selfishness,” which, through a long game of interactions, gave birth to “trust,” the cornerstone of commercial civilization. The deep-seated anxiety about “future uncertainty” is “Fear,” which became the “mother of demand” for the entire risk management and financial industry.

We further clarified how these four forces, through the magical alchemy of the “transaction,” match desires to miraculously create immense “value.” We saw how human ingenuity elevated the accidental, lightning-flash “transaction” into a replicable, scalable, and sustainable system, which we call a “business model.” Finally, we identified the most powerful “catalyst” for this system—technology. It acts as a two-faced giant: on one side, a “Desire Amplifier,” constantly creating and defining new needs; on the other, a “Cost Compressor,” relentlessly driving the democratization of commerce.

With this, our theoretical framework is complete. We now possess a unique set of analytical tools, an “X-ray” that can see through business phenomena to the essence of human nature behind them.

However, a theory, no matter how internally coherent its logic, is at best an exquisite castle in the air if it cannot be used to explain the history of the real world. Our ambition is far greater than this. We want to know not only “what is,” but more profoundly, “why” and “how.” We yearn to understand how this underlying code, over the course of ten thousand years of real history, step by step, wrote the complex, ingenious, and yet contradictory commercial civilization we live in today.

Therefore, from this point forward, we will embark on an intellectual “expedition.” We will board a time vessel named “Humanity” and set sail from the very dawn of commercial civilization. Our course will follow the currents of technological change, ever forward. We will journey through four great eras:

In the Primeval Era, we will see how, driven by “Laziness” to overcome the most primitive obstacles to trade, humanity invented the two foundational pillars of “division of labor” and “money.”

In the Imperial Era, we will see how “Greed” was amplified to the level of states and monarchs, driving the sails of the Silk Road and the Age of Discovery, connecting the world into a community of shared desires for the first time.

In the Industrial Era, we will see how the pursuit of “efficiency” was pushed to its extreme. The roar of machines liberated humanity from the shackles of nature for the first time, but simultaneously created standardized desires and standardized lives.

In the Information Era, we will see how bits and networks precisely capture, quantify, and convert our every subtle, personalized desire into an unprecedented commercial empire built on data.

This will be a long, but absolutely thrilling journey. What we will see is not a dry analysis of business cases, nor a simple list of historical events. We will witness a flowing, living epic. We will see how the standardized management of Roman legions provided the earliest organizational template for large corporations. We will see how the joint-stock ventures of Venetian merchants sparkled with the wisdom of modern shareholding systems and financial insurance. We will see how the assembly line of the Ford Model T and the information-flow recommendation algorithms in our smartphones today follow remarkably similar business logic.

My friends, through this systematic historical retrospective, we will gain a true form of “insight”—an ability to cut through different eras, different industries, and different technological facades to get straight to the core of business problems. Because we will ultimately discover that no matter how the external forms of business change, from seashells to bits, from clay tablet contracts to smart contracts, the object they serve has remained constant; the underlying logic they follow has remained constant.

Human nature is the eternal river that flows through the entire history of business. Sometimes it is calm, sometimes it is turbulent, but it is always there, shaping the landscape on both its banks with an unstoppable force.

Now, let us take a deep breath and turn the hands of time back ten thousand years. There, is where the first light of commerce began to rise.

Chapter 2: The Primeval Era: The Dawn of Efficiency and the Forging of Trust (c. 10,000 BCE to 500 BCE)

Section 1: From Barter to a “General Equivalent”

I. The Victory of Laziness: The Emergence of Specialization of Labor

Let us, for a moment, withdraw our thoughts from the grand historical narrative and focus once again on a specific, microscopic scene. Let’s imagine ourselves as ordinary members of a tribe living in that primeval era. In this age, there are no merchants, no markets, not even “work” as we understand it today. Survival is the one, all-encompassing issue.

To stay alive, you must master all survival skills. At dawn, you risk attack from wild beasts to hunt for prey in the forest. At noon, under the scorching sun, you must identify and gather edible plants. In the evening, you return to your cave to polish stone tools and mend animal hides with clumsy hands. At night, you must remain ever vigilant, preventing the bonfire from dying out or predators from approaching.

What kind of life is this? It is a life of being a “jack-of-all-trades,” but it is also an “extremely inefficient” one. You divide all your time and energy equally among hunting, gathering, manufacturing, and sentry duty. This means you can never achieve a high level of skill in any single area. You cannot outrun the swiftest deer, nor can you craft the sharpest stone axe. Every day is a frantic struggle just to meet the most basic needs of survival. Your life is tightly wrapped in a sense of fear—the fear of “always being busy, yet always being in want.”

This state profoundly violates one of the most fundamental and precious tendencies of human nature: laziness.

We must stress again that “laziness” here is by no means a pejorative term. It does not refer to a love of ease and a hatred of work, but to the instinctive pursuit of a better “input-output ratio” deep within the human heart. It is a form of wisdom, an inner drive to “obtain equal or even greater returns with less energy consumption.” It is this drive that made humans dissatisfied with measuring the earth with their feet, so we domesticated horses and invented the wheel; dissatisfied with fighting nature with bare hands, so we created tools and ignited fire.

And in the primeval era, this desire for “efficiency,” this “laziness” that sought liberation from “endless, all-purpose labor,” would inevitably lead humanity to seek a smarter survival strategy. This strategy was the “specialization of labor.”

This great transformation likely did not originate from the visionary top-down design of some tribal leader, but rather “emerged” spontaneously from countless daily observations and individual choices.

Perhaps there was a member of the tribe, let’s call him “Hawkeye,” who was born with sharper vision and greater speed than others. He discovered that if he spent all his time tracking and hunting, the amount of prey he could acquire far exceeded what his own family could consume in a day. He might catch three rabbits in a day, but his family only needed one. The other two became his “surplus.”

At the same time, there was another member of the tribe, let’s call him “Dexterous Hands.” He might have been physically frail and not a good runner, but he had a pair of incredibly nimble and steady hands. He found that if he avoided the risks of the forest and instead spent his days in the relative safety of his cave focusing on polishing stone tools, he could produce five sharp stone axes a day, while he himself only needed one. The remaining four became his “surplus.”

A similar scenario played out for a woman we might call “Root.” She was familiar with the habits of plants and knew where to find the plumpest tubers. The amount of food she could gather in a day was enough for two families. That extra half was her “surplus.”

When “surplus” began to appear commonly in the hands of different members of the tribe, a new possibility quietly dawned.

One day, “Dexterous Hands,” returning to the tribe empty-handed after a long day of hunting, dragged his tired and hungry body. He saw “Hawkeye” dressing the third rabbit he had caught that day. At “Hawkeye’s” feet lay the dull stone axe he had been using for a long time.

At this moment, a thought that transcended the previous accidental exchange between “Guo” and “Shi,” a more social idea, sparked in both their minds simultaneously.

“Hawkeye” thought: If I hold on to these two rabbits I can’t eat, they will soon spoil. And my axe is really not very good anymore. If I could trade one rabbit for a new stone axe from ‘Dexterous Hands,’ then tomorrow, I could process my prey much faster, and maybe even chop some wood to reinforce my shelter.

“Dexterous Hands” thought: If I hold on to these four extra axes, they can’t fill my stomach. If I could trade one axe for one of ‘Hawkeye’s’ rabbits, my family could have a full meal tonight.

Once established, the logic of this exchange would spread through the tribe like a virus.

“Hawkeye” would no longer need to spend any time polishing his clumsy stone tools. He would confidently “outsource” this task to “Dexterous Hands.” He would devote all his energy to what he did best—hunting. Because he knew that any “surplus” he acquired could be traded for the tools he needed from “Dexterous Hands.”

“Dexterous Hands” would no longer need to worry about food every day. He would peacefully hone his skills in his “workshop,” creating ever sharper and more durable tools. Because he knew that each of his “surplus” creations could be traded for the food he needed to survive from “Hawkeye.”

And “Root,” the expert gatherer, could use her surplus tubers to trade for meat from “Hawkeye,” improving her family’s nutrition, or trade for tools from “Dexterous Hands,” allowing her to dig deeper and reap a larger harvest.

This was the birth of the “specialization of labor.” It was a quiet, yet revolutionary social transformation. Its essence was an implicit, profound “contract” among the members of the society: each of us will no longer strive to be a “mediocre generalist,” but will choose to become an “excellent specialist.” Each of us gives up on inefficient, repetitive labor in fields we are not good at, and instead focuses our limited, precious time and energy on the one point where we have the greatest “comparative advantage.”

This transformation was a great victory for the efficiency-seeking “laziness” in human nature. Because the result it brought about was an explosive growth in the “total output” of the entire tribe.

When everyone focused on their own field, practice made perfect, and their professional skills improved rapidly. “Hawkeye” would become a more accurate archer, and “Dexterous Hands” a greater craftsman. The total productivity of the society was no longer the simple sum of individual efficiencies but experienced an exponential “multiplier effect.”

More importantly, it liberated everyone from the isolated state of “self-sufficiency.” Everyone began to depend on the professional services of others while providing their own professional output for others. An invisible “social collaboration network” of interdependence began to quietly form.

However, this great “victory of laziness,” while opening the door to efficiency, immediately brought a new and deadly challenge.

When “Hawkeye,” with his three rabbits, wanted to trade for a stone axe, a bundle of tubers, and perhaps a piece of animal hide, he would immediately find himself in a massive “transaction maze.” He needed to find the people who had these things and who also happened to need the rabbits he had. The probability of this “double coincidence of wants” occurring in an ever-expanding trade network became increasingly low.

The enormous obstacle of barter stood like a great mountain in the path of the specialization of labor. If this problem was not solved, this efficiency revolution could only remain as small-scale mutual aid among acquaintances within the tribe, and could not evolve into a larger-scale “market” among strangers.

Human “laziness,” after enjoying the initial dividends of division of labor, would never tolerate getting bogged down in this new kind of “diligence”—the extremely exhausting effort of “finding people to trade with.” It urgently cried out for a new tool to once and for all solve this bottleneck in transaction efficiency.

History had set the stage perfectly for the entrance of the next great invention.

II. The Quantification of Greed: The Rise of Cowrie Shells and Precious Metals

Our ancestors, driven by the inner wisdom of “laziness,” successfully unlocked the “Pandora’s box” of efficiency through the great social transformation of the “specialization of labor.” The total output of the tribe grew explosively. Every individual evolved from a “mediocre generalist” into an “excellent specialist.” An invisible social collaboration network had already taken shape.

However, the joy of this victory was fleeting. They soon discovered that although they had broken free from the shackles of “self-sufficiency,” they were immediately bound by another, heavier, and more frustrating set of chains. These chains were the massive obstacles of “barter.”

Let’s return to “Hawkeye’s” dilemma. As the best hunter in the tribe, his skills improved daily under the system of specialized labor, and the “surplus” prey he brought back grew more and more abundant. He was no longer content with just trading for a stone axe; his desires, nurtured by his “surplus,” began to become more specific and varied. He wanted to trade for a warmer animal hide cloak for his partner from “Fox Pelt,” the seamstress; he wanted a larger pottery jar from “Potter” to store fresh water; and he wanted to get some herbs from the tribe’s shaman, said to cure his child’s cough.

His “greed,” or rather his longing for a better life, was so reasonable, so clear. Yet, when he carried a fat antelope into the center of the tribal exchange ground, filled with anticipation, what he faced was a nearly unsolvable “transaction maze.”

He found “Fox Pelt,” the skilled woman who sewed hides. However, “Fox Pelt” didn’t need antelope meat today; she had just gotten enough food from another hunter yesterday. What she really wanted now was a small pot to brew herbs.

Disappointed, “Hawkeye” had to leave and find “Potter.” The craftsman was interested in the antelope meat, but he believed that his largest pot, the culmination of all his efforts, was worth far more than one antelope. He felt it was worth at least one and a half antelopes. But how could “Hawkeye” “divide” half an antelope without it spoiling? More importantly, what “Potter” urgently needed right now was actually a sharp little stone knife for carving patterns on his pottery.

So, “Hawkeye” had to drag the increasingly heavy antelope to find “Dexterous Hands.” Fortunately, “Dexterous Hands” could indeed make such exquisite stone knives. Unfortunately, his family had gotten sick from something they ate yesterday, and now he wanted nothing but the herbs from the shaman that could cure diarrhea.

A vicious cycle was formed.

To fulfill his initial series of simple and modest wishes, “Hawkeye” might need to spend a whole day, or even several days, in exhausting “triangular” or even “multi-angular” trades. He might first have to trade his antelope for three stone axes that “Dexterous Hands” didn’t urgently need, then use two of those axes to trade with another tribe member for some preserved salt fish, and then use the salt fish to slowly trade for the things he originally wanted from “Fox Pelt,” “Potter,” and the shaman.

In this process, enormous “transaction costs” were consumed. These were not just costs of time and physical effort, but also opportunity costs and psychological costs. The antelope might have become less fresh during this long series of errands. More importantly, the immense frustration of “my hard work cannot be smoothly exchanged for the life I want” would act like a poison, corroding the very foundation of the specialization of labor.

If the more “surplus” “Hawkeye” had, the more pain he felt in exchange, then his “motivation” to maintain high-efficiency production would be severely weakened. The “laziness” in human nature would once again prevail. He would think: Rather than all this trouble, I might as well just hunt one rabbit for myself and spend the rest of the time sewing my own hides and making my own pots.

When this kind of thinking began to spread, the entire society faced the immense risk of “regressing” back to a state of self-sufficiency. The efficiency revolution started by “laziness” was on the verge of being throttled by another, higher and more complex form of “laziness”—the “dread of the hassle of trading.”

It is precisely when faced with such seemingly unsolvable dilemmas that human ingenuity shines its brightest. Some of the most brilliant minds, through countless failed exchanges, must have begun to conduct a profound “thought experiment”:

The reason we suffer so much is because the “things” we exchange are themselves too “specific.” An antelope, a hide, a pot—they have specific forms, specific uses, they cannot be precisely divided, nor are they easy to carry and preserve. Can we find a “thing” that may have no specific use in itself, but can “represent” the value of all other things?

The emergence of this idea was another earth-shattering cognitive leap in human business history, second only to the “specialization of labor.” We were no longer trying to solve the unsolvable problem of the “double coincidence of wants”; we chose to bypass it. What we needed was no longer a cycle of “A for B, B for C, C for A,” but a new model: “A for X, B for X, C for X.”

This “X,” this great, transformative “intermediary medium,” was the earliest form of “money” in human history, known in economics as a “general equivalent.”

So, what kind of thing was qualified to become this “X”?

The spotlight of history did not immediately and accurately shine on gold and silver. Before they took the stage as “natural money,” humanity conducted long and interesting “regional experiments” all over the world. Different civilizations, according to their unique geographical environments and cultures, were all coincidentally searching for the “X” that suited them best.

In some inland, pastoral tribes, they chose to use “cattle” or “sheep” as the standard of value. In their lives, livestock were the most important assets, representing food, leather, and the ability to reproduce. But they soon discovered fatal problems: cattle and sheep could not be precisely divided. You couldn’t pay “half a live sheep” for a stone axe. They were also not easy to carry, and worse, they could get sick and die.

In some coastal, fishing and hunting civilizations, people tried using “dried fish” or “salt blocks.” They were better than livestock—they could be divided and were easier to preserve. Especially in inland areas, “salt,” due to its physiological necessity, once became a very “hard currency.” In ancient Rome, part of a soldier’s pay was in salt, which is the origin of the English word “salary.” 【The word salary derives from the Latin salarium, which originally referred to a Roman soldier’s allowance to buy salt (sal).】 But their problem was that they were too easily consumed, and if you lived in a place with an abundance of salt, its value became negligible.

Ultimately, among the many candidates, one thing stood out for its unique, almost perfect attributes, becoming the first widely used, true “world currency” in human history.

It was the “cowrie shell.”

When we look back and examine this choice today with a rational, economic eye, we cannot help but be deeply impressed by the wisdom of our ancestors. A small, seemingly insignificant cowrie shell, especially the lustrous kind found only in specific seas, almost perfectly met all the stringent conditions for becoming a “general equivalent”:

First, scarcity. It wasn’t just any stone on the beach or a common grain of sand. Its supply was limited, requiring specialized and risky labor to obtain. This ensured that its value would not plummet due to over-collection. This well-calibrated scarcity is the foundation of credit.

Second, ease of division and counting. The unit value of a cowrie shell was not high, but their shapes and sizes were relatively uniform. This made them ideal for small-scale, daily transactions. A bundle of herbs might cost ten shells; a stone axe, a hundred. This finely “granular” measure of value was completely incomparable to barter.

Third, portability and durability. Shells are small, light, and do not easily decay. A person could easily string all their wealth together, wear it around their neck, or carry it in a leather pouch to a distant land. This “mobility of wealth” greatly promoted long-distance trade.

Fourth, difficulty to counterfeit. In an age without anti-counterfeiting technology, the unique and complex patterns and luster of natural cowrie shells were the best “security features.” This ensured the stability of the monetary system, preventing the early risk of bad money driving out good.

And so, a historic moment occurred.

When “Hawkeye” next carried his antelope to the market, he no longer needed to find the “Dexterous Hands” who had a stone axe and also happened to need antelope meat. He only needed to find the buyer who needed it most and was willing to pay the highest price for the antelope—perhaps a tribal chief preparing for a feast.

He received a full bag, say, five hundred cowrie shells, from the chief. Then, with these shells, he could leisurely fulfill all his wishes. He used one hundred to buy the sharpest stone axe from “Dexterous Hands.” He used two hundred to get the hide cloak he had long admired from “Fox Pelt.” He used another fifty to buy herbs from the shaman.

The remaining fifty, he could save for a rainy day.

In this entire process, the efficiency of transactions changed dramatically. The once congested and frustrating “transaction maze” was completely straightened out into a high-speed, smooth “highway of value.” The cowrie shells were the standardized “value trucks” driving on this highway.

A more profound transformation occurred on the level of human nature.

The birth of “money,” for the first time, provided a clear, quantifiable “scale” for that intangible, vague, and ineffable human desire—”greed.”

Before this, “Hawkeye’s” “greed” could at most be expressed as “possessing more prey.” But prey spoils, and storage is a huge problem. His desire was thus severely limited by the physical world.

But now, he could convert all his “surplus” labor into strings of non-perishable, gleaming cowrie shells. He could clearly “see” and “calculate” his wealth. If he had five hundred shells today, he would desire a thousand tomorrow. This digitized “greed” became an unprecedented, powerful driving force that could be accumulated and passed down.

“Greed” was no longer an abstract adjective; it became a concrete “noun” that could be placed in the first column of a balance sheet. The rules of the “wealth game” for the entire human society were completely changed by this small shell.

Of course, the cowrie shell was not the ultimate solution. As productivity further developed, the total amount of social wealth increased dramatically. Larger-scale and longer-distance trade began to emerge. The value of the cowrie shell, as a form of “fiat money,” ultimately depended on everyone’s “consensus.” Moreover, it was relatively fragile and easily damaged.

Humanity needed something with more “intrinsic value,” something rarer and more stable, to carry a larger scale of wealth.

And so, at the next turn of history, the two metals that could shine with eternal light even in the darkness—gold and silver—ascended the stage. They possessed all the attributes superior to cowrie shells: absolute scarcity, astonishing chemical stability (never decaying), extreme malleability (easy to divide and shape), and a value of “beauty” recognized by all civilizations.

They were “natural money.”

When the first piece of gold, minted into a standard shape and weight, circulated in the market, commercial civilization completed its final and most important piece of infrastructure construction of the primeval era.

From the “specialization of labor” to the birth of the “general equivalent,” this was the first, and most brilliant, answer our primeval ancestors gave when faced with the eternal contradiction between “efficiency” and “cost.” They started with “laziness,” but ultimately paved the way for the infinite expansion of “greed.”

The “transaction maze” of barter that had once trapped “Hawkeye” was blown wide open. A brand-new, grand avenue paved with money, leading to wealth and prosperity, now lay before human civilization.

III. The Solution for Fear: Early Models of Warehousing and Lending

In our unfolding historical narrative, we have witnessed two great cognitive leaps. The first was the wisdom known as “laziness,” which guided our ancestors onto the path of “specialization of labor,” thus providing the first leverage for social output. The second was the desire known as “greed,” which drove humanity, stuck in the mire of “barter,” to find a “general equivalent” called “money,” thereby paving an unprecedented highway for the flow and accumulation of value.

Our protagonist, “Hawkeye,” the excellent hunter, has had his life turned upside down by these two transformations. He no longer needs to master a dozen skills just to survive; he only needs to focus on hunting, his specialty. Nor does he need to exhaust himself in trade; he can easily convert all his “surplus” labor into strings of cold, hard cowrie shells, or a few heavy, gleaming silver pieces that promise him a wonderful future.

He has become one of the first “rich men” of the tribe.

However, just as “Hawkeye” clutched those five hundred new cowrie shells, or those three hard-earned pieces of silver, feeling that unprecedented sense of fulfillment called “wealth,” a new, strange, and cold emotion, like a phantom, quietly crept into his heart.

Before this, the threats he faced were concrete and tangible: beasts in the forest, sudden blizzards, or the hunger of food shortages. These were “dangers.”

But what he felt now was an intangible, pervasive anxiety directed towards the future. He began to toss and turn at night, pondering questions he had never considered before: Where should I hide this wealth? If I hide it in a crack in the cave wall, could it be secretly dug out by some idle member of the tribe? If I carry it with me, could I be attacked and robbed by another tribe on my next hunt? If these shells get damp, will they lose their luster and become worthless? More importantly, if the tribe suffers an unprecedented drought next year and no one can harvest anything, what’s the use of me holding on to these shells and silver pieces that I can’t eat or drink?

This emotion is “fear.”

It is no longer a direct reaction to present danger, but a deep-seated anxiety about future “uncertainty.” It is a sophisticated “mental anguish,” unique to intelligent beings, that accompanies the advanced concept of “wealth.” The more “surplus” a person possesses, the more intense this fear becomes. Because what they are afraid of losing is not just today’s dinner, but the culmination of all their past labor and the guarantee of all their future possibilities.

“Fear,” this seemingly negative and passive force of human nature, is at this moment about to play an unexpectedly constructive role. It will become a catalyst, forcing humanity to seek a systematic solution that can “defy time” and “manage risk.” This solution will open up a vast new world that we today call “finance.”

The earliest form of this solution, likewise, did not spring from the grand design of some genius, but evolved spontaneously from the most basic and primitive need for security.

When “Hawkeye’s” fear also became the common fear of the other “rich people” in the tribe—like “Dexterous Hands” and “Fox Pelt”—they would inevitably reach a consensus: individual, scattered, and hidden methods of storing wealth are extremely fragile and unreliable. They needed a “collective,” “professional” wealth management center with a “strong credit endorsement.”

So, in that primeval era, what kind of institution could satisfy all three conditions at once?

The answer is almost singular: the temple, and by extension, the “royal warehouse” controlled by the tribal chief or monarch.

Let’s analyze why they became the prototype for the first “banks” in human history.

First, was their powerful “security capability.” The temple was usually the strongest and most magnificent building in the entire tribe, with high walls and guards, making it a physical “safe.” The warehouses controlled by the monarch were guarded day and night by the most elite soldiers. Storing wealth here was obviously much safer than hiding it in a crack in one’s own cave. This directly addressed the fear of “theft.”

Second, was their professional “management capability.” Taking ancient Egypt and Babylon as examples, temples and royal warehouses developed complex warehousing management systems very early on. They had special priests and scribes responsible for counting, recording, sorting, and storing the “wealth” deposited. In the early days, this wealth was mostly in the form of grain that could be stored for long periods. Every deposit would be precisely recorded on a clay tablet or papyrus, and the depositor would be given a “certificate of deposit.” This system ensured the safety of the wealth and also solved “Hawkeye’s” worries about shells getting damp or grain spoiling. This addressed the fear of “wealth depreciation.”

Finally, and most crucially, was the supreme “credit endorsement.” In the minds of the people at the time, the temple was a place of direct communication with the gods, representing sanctity, justice, and eternity. “Dedicating” or “storing” wealth in the temple was in itself an act of making a covenant with the gods, carrying a natural and unquestionable credibility. The monarch, as the supreme ruler of the secular world, had his credit guaranteed by the machinery of violence he controlled—the army and the law. No one would dare to easily default on a debt to the temple or the monarch.

And so, a new business model was born.

“Hawkeye” no longer needed to lose sleep over his five hundred cowrie shells. He would solemnly take them to the temple. The temple priest would carefully count them in his presence, then inscribe in cuneiform on a clay tablet: “Hawkeye, deposited 500 cowrie shells,” and stamp it with the temple’s seal. The priest would give this tablet to “Hawkeye” as a “proof” that he could withdraw his wealth at any time.

To obtain this “peace of mind” service, “Hawkeye” of course had to pay a price. The priest might tell him that according to the will of the gods, the temple would take ten percent of his stored wealth each year as an offering. This was the earliest form of “custody fee” or “management fee” in human history.

For “Hawkeye,” this was a deal well worth making. He exchanged a small “loss” of his wealth for the “certainty” of the rest. What he bought was an intangible, yet priceless commodity called “security.” His “fear” was successfully “commercialized” by this system.

However, the story has only just begun. If things had stopped at the level of “paid storage,” it would have remained a static, passive “warehousing” business. The truly great and revolutionary change occurred in the minds of the priests and scribes responsible for guarding the wealth.

They were the most intelligent and knowledgeable group of that era. In their day-to-day, tedious work of bookkeeping, they keenly discovered a profound and subversive pattern:

All the people who deposited their wealth, like “Hawkeye” and “Dexterous Hands,” would not all come to withdraw all their wealth on the same day. Today, “Hawkeye” might come to withdraw ten shells for daily necessities. Tomorrow, “Dexterous Hands” might come to take out twenty to pay for his child’s medicine. But at any given point in time, the temple’s vast, cool treasury was always filled with a huge amount of wealth that was temporarily “unused.”

This wealth just lay there, silently, motionlessly. It was “idle,” it was “asleep.”

At this very moment, from outside the temple gates came the anxious prayers of another man. Let’s call him “Nong” (Farmer). He was a young and energetic farmer who had just reclaimed a large piece of fertile land on the outskirts of the tribe. Everything was ready, except for one thing: seeds. He did not have enough “initial capital” to buy all the grain needed to sow this land.

He faced a huge dilemma: he had the “ability” to create future wealth, but he lacked the “key” to start the process. He too was gripped by a kind of “fear”: the fear of “missing an opportunity,” the fear of “potentially having nothing to show for the next year.”

And so, between the mountains of “sleeping wealth” inside the temple and the young farmer outside who was desperately craving “start-up capital,” a huge “value potential difference” was formed.

And that clever priest, he became the first person to dare to stand at the top of this “value waterfall” and personally carve out the first opening.

He made a decision that was incredibly bold, even somewhat sacrilegious for the time. He called “Nong” aside and said to him in a low voice: “The gods have heard your prayers. The temple can ‘lend’ you one hundred bags of seeds from the grain that belongs to the gods and is temporarily unused. But you must swear in the name of the gods that after the autumn harvest, you will not only return one hundred bags to the temple, but you must also ‘offer’ an additional twenty bags as the ‘price’ for using the gods’ wealth.”

“Nong” was ecstatic. He agreed to the terms without hesitation.

This was the birth of the first “loan” in human history. And those extra twenty bags of grain were the “interest.”

Let’s carefully dissect the earth-shattering financial logic contained in this seemingly simple act.

First, the priest (the banker) profoundly understood the value of “time.” He realized that “one hundred bags of grain today” and “one hundred bags of grain next year” have different values. The former, because it can be invested in production to create new wealth, has a higher value. That difference is “interest.” Interest is the “pricing” of the value creation of “capital” over the dimension of time.

Second, the priest (the banker) conducted the earliest “risk assessment.” The reason he dared to lend the grain to “Nong” and not to the notorious lazybones of the tribe was because, based on his knowledge of “Nong,” he judged him to be a diligent, capable borrower with good credit who would be able to “repay the principal and interest” in the future. He was using his professional judgment to hedge against the fear of the “loan not being repaid.”

Finally, and most magically, this act achieved the creation of wealth “out of thin air.” Note that the grain in the temple treasury, which originally belonged to “Hawkeye” and others, did not decrease. It was only temporarily and fluidly allocated, in the form of “bookkeeping,” to the person who needed it most and could make it most productive. The total wealth of the society genuinely increased because of “Nong’s” successful farming.

A new, more advanced business model had come full circle.

It started with the public’s “fear” for the security of their wealth, and through a “centralized custody” model, it gathered the scattered, sleeping capital of society into a huge “capital pool.” Then, based on professional risk assessment, it precisely “lent” the water from this “pool” to the value creators who were most in need of it and could best use it to irrigate fruitful harvests. Finally, by charging “interest,” it allowed capital itself to participate in the feast of wealth appreciation.

This model is the essence of “finance.” It is a sophisticated “converter of risk and time.” It originates from fear, and ultimately becomes humanity’s most powerful tool for combating fear and smoothing out the uncertainties of the future.

From hoarding grain to financial insurance, the initial and most fundamental driving force behind this long evolutionary path has always been that seemingly most insignificant, yet infinitely creative emotion in human nature—fear. It makes us dissatisfied with what we have today, and makes us yearn for the peace of mind of tomorrow. And for that peace of mind, we are willing to pay a price, and it is this price that has nourished the largest, most complex, and most powerful industry on our planet.

Section 2: The Game of Trust: The Earliest Commercial Laws and Contracts

I. Commercial Clauses in the Code of Hammurabi

In the historical panorama we have unfolded, the hardware system of commercial civilization seems to be largely in place. The specialization of labor brought about the first leap in the efficiency of social output; the birth of money provided a standardized solution for the measurement and circulation of value; and the early models of warehousing and lending found the key to accumulating and reinvesting wealth against the challenges of time and risk.

Our protagonist “Hawkeye,” represents the first generation of successful “merchants” or “producers” of that era. He held an increasing amount of wealth and possessed the possibility of leveraging the future through borrowing. In theory, a golden age of commercial prosperity seemed imminent.

However, the evolution of reality is far more complex and fraught with difficulties than theoretical deduction. A new, more fundamental, and more deadly specter began to quietly emerge amidst the increasingly frequent trading activities. This specter originated from the oldest and most powerful instinct of our human nature—selfishness.

Let’s imagine a new scenario. Our “Hawkeye,” after accumulating sufficient wealth, decides to no longer hunt personally. He wants to “upgrade” his business. He decides to play the role of a “capitalist” and “organizer.” He finds three young but promising hunters in the tribe and reaches an oral agreement with them: he will provide them with the finest bows and arrows and an ample supply of food—his “capital investment”—while the three young hunters, as his “employees,” will go out to hunt every day and turn over all their prey to him. In return, at the end of each month, “Hawkeye” will pay each of them a “salary” of one hundred cowrie shells.

This business model seems so common and basic today. However, in an era without laws, without contracts, where everything relied on oral promises and fragile moral constraints, what challenges would this model face in its operation?

The challenges appeared almost immediately.

The first month, the cooperation was pleasant. The young hunters, eager to prove their abilities and earn that handsome income at the end of the month, worked diligently. At the end of the month, “Hawkeye” paid them as promised.

But by the second month, things began to subtly change. One of the hunters, let’s call him “Slacker,” discovered that even if he slacked off one day and only caught a scrawny rabbit instead of a fat antelope as usual, the hundred shells he received at the end of the month did not change. His “selfish” gene began to whisper in his ear: Since everyone gets paid the same, why should I work so hard? And so, he began to shirk his duties.

Another hunter, “Sly Tongue,” had a different idea. One day, deep in the forest, he was lucky enough to catch an extremely rare silver fox with a lustrous pelt. He knew that if he secretly sold this fox pelt to a nobleman in a neighboring tribe, he could get a price equivalent to several months’ salary. So, he chose to conceal this huge gain from “Hawkeye,” secretly pocketing the “excess profit” that should have belonged to the team.

And when “Hawkeye” discovered that his monthly costs were fixed, but the output of prey he received was decreasing month by month, even starting to incur losses, his own “selfishness” was bound to be awakened. He would think: If you are not honest, why should I keep my promise? At the end of the third month, he might find an excuse, such as “this month’s harvest was too poor,” and refuse to pay or cut the salaries of the three hunters.

A complete “negative feedback loop” was formed.

The initially promising business model, which could have achieved a “win-win for all parties,” inevitably spiraled towards “suspicion,” “betrayal,” and “collapse” under the repeated games of the “selfish” human instinct.

This small, fictional business case reveals the common dilemma faced by all commercial activities of that era. Whether it was employment relationships, lending relationships, or simple sales of goods, as soon as the parties to the transaction went beyond the scope of blood relations and close kin into the broader society composed of “strangers,” a fundamental question was exposed:

Why should I trust you?

Why should I believe that if you borrow my grain, you will definitely return it with interest next year? Why should I believe that the bag of wheat you are selling me doesn’t have sand mixed in at the bottom? Why should I believe that as my agent, when you travel to distant lands to do business, you will honestly turn over all the profits to me?

In a “dark forest” where everyone only pursues “short-term maximization of self-interest,” any form of business cooperation that needs to span time is impossible. Because the benefit of “defaulting” is too high, and the cost is too low. The level of commerce in the entire society would be forever confined to the most primitive, instantaneous stage of “cash on delivery.”

The collaborative network of specialized labor would be torn apart. The flow of value through money would be blocked. The credit expansion of finance would be a fantasy.

The entire edifice of commercial civilization, on the eve of its rise, was missing its most crucial cornerstone. This cornerstone is “trust.”

However, true trust never arises from an “overestimation” of human nature. On the contrary, it arises from a profound insight into the “weaknesses” of human nature, and the most rigorous, systematic “institutional hedging” against these weaknesses.

The first great monarch in human history who profoundly understood this and, with the force of a thunderbolt, firmly and permanently embedded this missing cornerstone into the structure of human society appeared on the fertile Mesopotamian plain, nourished by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

He was Hammurabi, the sixth king of the First Babylonian Empire.

The era in which Hammurabi lived, around the 18th century BCE, was a time of high commercial prosperity, but also of increasingly sharp social contradictions. The city of Babylon, as one of the world’s largest commercial metropolises at the time, attracted people of different regions, races, and beliefs through its bustling trade caravans. An unprecedentedly complex and huge “society of strangers” was formed. And the various forms of commercial fraud, debt disputes, and contract breaches caused by “selfishness” that we just described were being fiercely played out in every corner of the city every day.

Hammurabi, a brilliant statesman, keenly realized that if he allowed this chaotic and disorderly game to continue to spread, the foundation of his vast empire would inevitably be eroded and disintegrated from within. What he needed was not empty moral preaching, but a clear, tough set of “rules of the game” that everyone had to follow.

And so, by his decree, the oldest and most complete written legal code known to exist in human history was carved in beautiful cuneiform script on a black basalt stele over two meters high, and solemnly erected in the central square of Babylon.

It is the Code of Hammurabi.

This code is far more than just a compilation of cold legal articles. It is more like a detailed “system design manual” aimed at building “social trust.” For the first time, it used the ultimate power of “state violence” to provide a mandatory “credit endorsement” for every “promise” in the business world.

Let’s bypass the articles on criminal and family law and go straight to its core. Of the 282 laws in the code, nearly one-third are directly and closely related to commercial activities. They act like sharp scalpels, precisely cutting into all the “necrotic spots of trust” in the business activities of the time:

First, the code established clear and insurmountable “red lines” for the most core financial activity of the time—lending.

The code stipulated that the annual interest rate for lending grain could not exceed 33.3%, while the annual interest rate for lending silver could not exceed 20%. Any interest rate exceeding these limits was considered illegal, and the lender could even lose their entire principal as a result.

The significance of this provision is extremely profound. For the first time in human history, it legally distinguished the boundary between “normal commercial interest” and “usury.” It protected borrowers with productive capacity, like our farmer “Nong,” from falling into a debt trap of endless compounding interest due to a single natural disaster or misfortune. It was telling all participants in society: finance is a tool that serves real production, and its “greed” must be confined within a reasonable and sustainable range. The earliest foundation for a healthy, trust-based financial market was thus laid.

Second, the code provided a standardized and unalterable “notarization process” for all “contractual” acts.

The code repeatedly emphasized that for any important commercial activity, whether it was sales, leasing, employment, or lending, a “written contract” must be made. These contracts were recorded on wet clay tablets, detailing the subject matter, quantity, price, and the rights and obligations of both parties. More importantly, the contract had to be witnessed by “witnesses,” who would also press their seals on the tablet. Finally, this clay tablet document would be baked dry, becoming as hard as stone, and a copy would be kept by the temple or an official institution.

This process may seem cumbersome by today’s standards. But at the time, it was an invention of genius. It transformed a vague “oral promise” into a tangible, verifiable, and undeniable “physical evidence.” By involving “witnesses” for “social supervision” and “official archives” for “third-party credibility,” it greatly increased the difficulty and cost of “defaulting.” When the evidence in black and white (or rather, black on clay) was presented, any glib denial would become pale and powerless.

Finally, and most strikingly, the code established an absolute “line of responsibility” for the “quality” of products and services, with “life” as the price.

The law in the code concerning builders is chilling to read even thousands of years later: “If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. If it kills the son of the owner, then the son of that builder shall be put to death.”

This seemingly cruel “eye for an eye” principle of retribution, holds the most profound and simple understanding of business trust. It was an extreme way of sending the clearest possible signal to all “producers” and “service providers” in the market: you must bear unlimited responsibility for the final outcome of the products and services you deliver.

This provision completely eliminated any fluke mentality psychology of “cutting corners” or “passing off shoddy goods as quality ones.” Because it pushed the cost of “default” directly to the infinite level of “life.” A builder, when laying every brick and stone, would have a “Sword of Damocles” named “death” hanging over his head. This bone-deep fear ultimately shaped an almost instinctive reverence for “quality” and “professionalism.”

When the Code of Hammurabi was solemnly erected in the central square of Babylon, it acted like a huge, invisible “lighthouse of trust,” illuminating the entire business world.

It did not attempt to eliminate “selfishness” from human nature. On the contrary, it acknowledged the eternal existence of “selfishness.” But through a precisely calculated “reward and punishment system” enforced by state violence, it successfully changed the “calculation method” of “selfishness.”

Before the code, for a rational, selfish merchant, the most profitable strategy might have been “fraud” and “default.”

After the code, it made him soberly realize that “fraud” and “default” might bring a one-time, short-term windfall, but what would follow would be the severe punishment of the law, the bankruptcy of his credit, and even the end of his life. In this situation, a truly “rational” and “selfish” merchant would find that the only long-term beneficial strategy was to be “honest and trustworthy.”

The code did not make humanity more noble overnight. But it successfully made “immoral” behavior “unprofitable.”

This is the great power of institutions. It is like building sturdy riverbanks and dams for the raging river of human nature. It is not intended to stop the river’s flow, but to guide this powerful force towards a more constructive destination, one that can irrigate the flowers of civilization.

The Code of Hammurabi was the first magnificent “trust infrastructure project” built for commercial civilization in human history. With the plumb line of the law, it clearly delineated the boundaries of “selfishness” for every participant in the business world. With these boundaries, for the first time, strangers could confidently engage in large-scale, time-spanning commercial cooperation.

The nightmare of “business model collapse” due to human suspicion that had once plagued “Hawkeye” was brought to a definitive end. The great wheel of commercial civilization finally had the solid “keel” it needed to break through the darkness and sail towards broader seas.

II. Delineating the Boundaries of Selfishness: The Birth and Protection of Ownership

The Code of Hammurabi stood like a solemn statue in the center of Babylon, providing a sacred and inviolable guarantee, in the name of the state, for all contracts and promises in the business world. With this cornerstone of “trust” in place, it would seem that the great wheel of commerce was ready to set sail towards endless prosperity.

However, if we shift our gaze slightly away from the black basalt stele engraved with the law, and delve into the streets and alleys of the city-state of Babylon, into the most vivid business scenes unfolding, we will find that a more precedent and fundamental question than “how to fulfill a contract” still hovered like a ghost over every transaction.

Let us imagine such a scene. A merchant from the south, whom we shall call “Nabi,” leads a sturdy donkey, considered an important strategic asset at the time, into the market of Babylon. He wants to trade this donkey for a batch of precious timber from a northern merchant named “Iddin.” After some haggling, they finally agree on a fair price. They find witnesses and are ready to draw up a perfect contract on a clay tablet, as stipulated by the code.

At this very moment, a seemingly minor, yet potentially transaction-derailing incident occurs.

A passerby, a former tribesman of “Nabi,” suddenly stands up and loudly proclaims: “This donkey cannot be disposed of by ‘Nabi’ alone! According to the most ancient traditions of our tribe, important property like a donkey belongs to the entire tribe ‘in common.’ Although ‘Nabi’ is its current user, he does not have the right of ‘exclusive possession.’ To sell it, he must have the consent of the council of elders.”

This small interlude instantly drags the entire transaction into an unsolvable legal and ethical quagmire.

The northern merchant, “Iddin,” would immediately be plunged into great confusion and fear: Who am I actually doing business with? Is it with this person, ‘Nabi,’ or with the invisible ‘tribe’ behind him? If I give the timber to ‘Nabi’ today, and tomorrow his tribal elders come to demand the donkey back on the grounds that the ‘transaction was unauthorized,’ what should I do? The Code of Hammurabi, while stipulating the sanctity of contracts, did not, and could not, define who was qualified to stand as the “first party” in that contract.

This is the question of “ownership.”

If “ownership” is vague and entangled, then any “right to transact” built upon it will be illusory and unreliable. The magnificent edifice of “trust” that Hammurabi built, though sturdy, was suspended in mid-air. It needed a harder, more fundamental foundation to hold it up steadily.

This foundation is the clear, unequivocal social recognition of “private property.”

So, how did this concept that seems so self-evident to us today—”what’s mine is mine”—come to be established, step by step, from nothing, in the long course of human history?

This, too, is not a story of moral evolution. It is not because humanity suddenly became more respectful of the individual. On the contrary, it is the result of a “social consensus” on efficiency, reached after tens of thousands of years of cruel and realistic games between the most powerful driving force of human nature—”selfishness”—and different modes of production.

Let us turn the hands of time back further, to a time long before the city of Babylon, to the “hunter-gatherer” era of humanity.

In that era, the concept of “tribal common ownership” did not stem from some noble communist ideal, but from the most brutal, yet most efficient “realistic choice” for survival.

Imagine our old friend “Hawkeye” and a dozen of his companions, after several days of pursuit and encirclement, finally succeeding in hunting a massive mammoth. The meat from this mammoth is enough to keep the entire tribe from starvation for the next month.

At this moment, is it possible for “Hawkeye,” who contributed the most, to declare that this mammoth is his “private property”?

The answer is: absolutely not.

First, from the perspective of the mode of production, hunting a mammoth was the product of “collective collaboration”; no single individual could accomplish it alone. The spoils naturally had the attribute of a “public good.”

Second, from the perspective of storage technology, in an era without refrigeration, such a huge amount of fresh meat would spoil in a very short time. For “Hawkeye” personally, it was impossible to “consume” or “preserve” this enormous wealth on his own. “Privatizing” it would have been meaningless and extremely inefficient for him.

Finally, from the perspective of risk management, hunting was fraught with immense “uncertainty.” “Hawkeye” might be a hero today, but tomorrow he could break his legs chasing a buffalo and come back empty-handed. His deepest “fear” was the worry of falling into hardship in the future. Therefore, the most beneficial, most “selfish” long-term survival strategy for him was precisely “sharing.” Today, he shares the mammoth he hunted to ensure that tomorrow, when he returns empty-handed, he can also share in someone else’s catch, thus forming a “mutual insurance network” for the entire tribe to hedge against risk.

Therefore, in the hunter-gatherer era, “public ownership” was the optimal “survival algorithm” inscribed in the genes of every member of society. Anyone who dared to challenge this algorithm, to attempt to “privatize” the fruits of common labor, would be seen as an enemy of the entire group and be ruthlessly exiled.

However, when the mode of human production underwent its most fundamental and greatest transformation—the “Agricultural Revolution”—the entire realistic basis supporting “public ownership” began to be completely dismantled from the ground up.

Let’s introduce a new character, “He” (禾, meaning grain). He was the first in his tribe to tire of the uncertain, hand-to-mouth life of hunting and gathering. The “laziness” deep in his heart—that is, the craving for “stability” and “predictability”—led him to make a stunning decision. He stopped wandering and chose a piece of fertile land near a water source, close to the tribe.

Then, he began a long and arduous “investment” on the scale of a “year.”

In the spring, he toiled with all his might to turn over the hard soil. In the summer, he had to endure the scorching sun, day after day, weeding the fields and chasing away birds from his seedlings. In the autumn, when everyone saw the golden ears of grain, he still had to complete the harvest through back-breaking labor. In the winter, he needed to build a dry, secure granary to store the grain that would see him through the cold season.

Throughout this entire process, his labor exhibited several new characteristics completely different from “hunting”:

First, the individuality and long-term nature of the labor. The output of this land was no longer the instantaneous result of collective collaboration, but the fruit of his own, or his family’s, continuous, measurable labor invested over a full year.

Second, the storability and exclusivity of the fruits of labor. Grain, unlike the fresh meat of a mammoth, could be easily stored for his own family’s stable consumption over a long period. Moreover, he was fully capable of building a fence around his granary to prevent others from taking it at will.

Third, the strong correlation between labor and output. The more, and the more meticulous, his labor, the richer the reward from the land. This strong correlation of “you reap what you sow” was completely incomparable to the “luck”-based production of hunting.

And so, as “He” stood before his granary, piled high with golden grain, a new and utterly subversive thought must have blazed in his mind:

“This is mine.”

The emergence of this word, “mine,” was a world-shaking “mental earthquake” in human history. It marked the first clear emergence of “individual consciousness” from the chaotic ocean of “collective consciousness.”

This thought was a manifestation of his purest, most legitimate “selfish” emotion. Because he knew that every single grain was soaked with his own sweat and that of his family. It was not ownerless spoil of war, but a “crystallization of value” condensed from the most precious things in his life—time and labor.

However, old ideas do not easily exit the stage of history.

When the other members of the tribe, still following the “hunter-gatherer” tradition, saw “He’s” granary on a food-scarce winter day, they would naturally, according to the “public ownership” algorithm passed down for millennia, come to demand a “share.”

An inevitable, fierce conflict between the old and new concepts erupted.

“He” would defend his granary to the death, because he was defending his own life of the past year. And the tribesmen demanding a share also felt they were in the right, because they were following the “rules” of the tribe from time immemorial.

In its initial stages, this conflict may have ended in tragedy. The “traditionalists,” with their superior numbers, might have forcibly divided “He’s” labor.

But the long-term consequence of such a division would have been disastrous.

The following spring, “He” would have had no motivation to repeat that arduous farming. Because he had learned the hard way that in a society that does not protect the fruits of individual labor, “diligence” and “foresight” are not rewarded but instead invite plunder. The most “rational,” “selfish” choice for him would be to revert to being a hunter who lived day to day.

And others, who had witnessed “He’s” success and were preparing to follow his example to cultivate their own land, would also completely abandon the idea.

The final result would be the regression of the entire society to that low-efficiency, primitive state of struggling on the brink of subsistence. The brand-new door to civilization and abundance, opened by the agricultural revolution, would be slammed shut by the absence of “ownership.”

It was countless, painful “social trial and errors” like this that eventually led the wisest minds in every tribe—the elders and chiefs—to realize a profound truth:

The protection of the “selfish” rights of the individual is, in the long run, the only effective way to guarantee the maximization of the “collective” interest.

And so, a new, transformative “social consensus” began to be painstakingly forged within various civilizations. This consensus was the recognition and protection of “private property rights.”

It may have first appeared in the form of unwritten, customary law. For example, it was tacitly understood that whoever cultivated a piece of land had the priority right to farm it and harvest its produce. Then, this custom would slowly be carved onto the totem poles that symbolized tribal authority. Eventually, as we see in the Code of Hammurabi, it would be elevated to the expression of the highest will of the state, to be mandatorily protected by the most stringent legal articles.

The code stipulates: “If a man steals the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.” “If a man breaks into a house, they shall put him to death in front of that break and bury him.”

These seemingly cruel articles are, in essence, drawing a burning, insurmountable “boundary” around the newly born social rule of “ownership.” They were a declaration by the most powerful machinery of violence of the state to all: no one has the right, under any pretext, to infringe upon the private property that another individual has obtained through legitimate labor.

The birth of “ownership” was the first, great social recognition of the individual’s “selfish” rights. It was like awarding every “He” who worked hard to create value a “medal of property rights” endorsed by the entire society.

With this medal, he dared to confidently make long-term, future-oriented investments. He dared to build his granary larger and stronger. He also dared to take his surplus grain, which he could not eat, to the market for exchange, because he knew that the cowrie shells and silver he received in return were also his own sacred and inviolable property.

Only when the concept of “this is mine” was firmly established, did the phrase “let’s make a deal” truly have a solid foundation.

Commercial civilization, this towering tree that takes long ages to grow, finally, at this moment, sank its roots deep into the firm, fertile soil of “private property rights.”

Conclusion

At this point, our primeval journey, spanning nearly ten thousand years of space and time, has finally reached its first station. Following in the footsteps of “Hawkeye,” “Nong,” “He,” and “Nabi,” we have, in an almost archaeological fashion, unearthed the two earliest and most central cornerstones of commercial civilization from scenes sealed by time.

Looking back, we see a magnificent tableau of chaos and creation. Commerce, like a newborn infant, had all its actions driven by the most basic instincts. It lacked a clear self-awareness, merely stumbling forward, groping its way, pulled and pushed by the four eternal underlying forces of human nature—Greed, Laziness, Selfishness, and Fear.

In the mire of “barter,” it felt the suffocation of inefficiency. And so, guided by the invisible hand of “Laziness,” it stumbled upon the first great efficiency tool in human business history—money. From heavy and perishable grain to light and gleaming shells and precious metals, this invention called the “general equivalent” was like a bolt of lightning that pierced the darkness, instantly illuminating the rugged path of value circulation. It liberated people from the shackles of the “double coincidence of wants,” allowing the radius of trade, for the first time, to extend beyond the narrow circle of acquaintances and close neighbors.

However, as the radius of trade expanded and strangers began to meet, the vacuum of trust allowed the unbridled horse of “Selfishness” to run wild. Fraud, betrayal, and endless suspicion nearly strangled this fragile bud of commerce in its cradle. It was upon these ruins, in the desperate craving for order, that commerce accomplished its second, and more decisive, creation. It established the first great cornerstone of trust in human business history—law and contract. Starting from that solemn basalt stele in Babylon, a new social consensus was painstakingly forged: promises must be kept, property must be protected. It did not eliminate selfishness, but it successfully made “dishonesty” “unprofitable.”

Money, the sharp “spear of efficiency.” Law, the solid “shield of trust.” These were the two foundational, great creations that commercial civilization completed in its chaotic “infancy.”

They were not isolated tools, nor were they accidental discoveries. They are like the most fundamental, core “operating system source code” in the computer world of our time. One line of code defined how value was to be measured and exchanged; another line stipulated the behavioral boundaries and responsibilities of the exchanging parties. For the thousands of years that followed, no matter how the business world evolved, no matter how complex and dazzling the “applications” that grew upon it—be it the caravans on the Silk Road, the joint-stock companies of Venetian merchants, or the multinational giants of the industrial age—every single one of their operations had to call upon these two most primitive, most fundamental lines of underlying code.

The most ancient Chinese classic of wisdom, the I Ching (Book of Changes), describes the moving picture of commercial civilization after this “operating system” was successfully running, in an almost poetic brushstroke: “At midday, they held a market. They caused all the people under heaven to assemble, and all the goods under heaven to be gathered. They exchanged them and went home, and each one got what they wanted.” 【This is a paraphrase of a line from the I Ching, specifically from the commentary on the “Appended Judgments” (Xici Zhuan), describing the legendary origins of markets in ancient China.】

At high noon, the market opens. People from all four corners of the earth, bringing all their goods, gather from afar. Here, they match and exchange their desires, and then, satisfied with what they needed, they each disperse.

These few short words, lacking any grand narrative, contain the most beautiful essence of commerce: peace, abundance, collaboration, and mutual benefit. What it depicts is the ideal state of commercial harmony that humanity could achieve after freeing itself from inefficiency and suspicion.

Now, this “operating system,” carrying infinite hope, has completed its internal testing. Its two core lines of code—efficiency and trust—have been firmly written into the genetic sequence of human civilization.

Next, it will be installed onto more powerful and vast “hardware.” The massive machines called “Empires” are about to take the stage of history. With war, power, and state-level greed, they will provide this commercial operating system with unprecedented computing power and network bandwidth, driving it to launch a truly global great expedition.

The “infancy” of business is over. A magnificent “Imperial Era,” where power and capital dance together, is slowly drawing back its curtain.