Medieval communities did not engage in capitalism or any sort of internal market economy. Your assumption is that history defaults to a modern western mindset where everyone is highly individualistic and only interested in themselves. Yes you would give your neighbor eggs because you know theyll give you nails. Its called a "gift economy" by historians. Anyone who didnt help the community would be ostracized
I dont see how that defeats what i said? I live in the whitest state in the union. Probably a contribution to the racism i see is the lack of interaction with diverse communities. People in the north absolutely have a tendency to think we lre perfect up here and its only the south that has racism and bigotry. But its not remotely the case
I work in the trade industry. Most of these people are conservative boomers. The things these guys say are absolutely horrifying. It isnt just the older guys though. Its the blight of converativism. These dudes say things that sound like they should be said by someone 1000+ years ago or in Saudi Arabia or something. Im talking about not just racism, homophobia, mysoginy but also honor killings, reasons rape can be justified, flying into a blood rage because you feel another has offended your masculinity. Moving to rural America (even in the north) has been incredibly eye opening to how insanely backwards parts of our society is. You have no idea until you see it.
Commerce is not the same thing as capitalism, those words are not synonyms. Take a step back and open a dictionary. Pedantic definitions aside. The idea that capitalism is human nature and that human society and more broadly humans as a species are inherently capitalist is completely made up and ancient couns existing doesnt prove it. Id recommend looking up articles regarding "gift culture'" and "barter culture"
As for opening a history book: i did my undergrad in European history, and have a masters in Archeology. So while im not the definitive expert on the history of commerce and capitalism by any means, I have definitely opened up a couple history books.