> This was fuelled by what is known as moka, a system of competitive gift giving, where you give someone in your tribe goods like a pile of pigs and shells, and they are then obligated to give you back more later, and you them more again after that. Whoever gives the most, publicly, becomes the big man.
This reminds me of the Reciprocity and Re-Distribution system in the Inca Empire. There wasn't a system of currency or markets. But there was an Ayni (mutual aid) and Minka (collective work) system, paired with a Mita system: work done for the Sapa Inca which was in return "paid" by the Sapa Inca in feasts, food and goods/gifts. This was all glued together by the concept of Ayllu (family), where these obligations were established through family connections and of course the Sapa Inca had marriage connections with subordinate chiefs.
I myself can't stop thinking about the Inca Empire Economy and how it shows in reality that currency is not about the paper nor number nor symbols, and more about the "I owe you"s that move in the economy.
I’d recommend reading the late David Graeber’s “Debt” which does a good job illustrating exactly what you described, which is how currency is at its core an IOU
I cannot recommend reading this book enough.
So… does it follow that the very wealthy basically hold a massive IOU to the general public?
To expand the sibling comment. In principle the money would reflect IOUs the general public owes them. But also following this logic the way I see it is they accumulated their money was by getting more IOUs through: people employment (being able to command a big pool of work and get a cut of IOUs from it), arbitrage (exchanging lower value IOUs with higher value IOUs), or simply stealing (eg. siphoning government resources).
If by wealthy you mean people with a lot of money specifically, than no, the IOU is the other way around.
They hold IOUs from the general public.
See also Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice.