And the results may not always be what you might expect. There is a culture in the south Pacific somewhere (I forget which one) that used stone axes as a form of currency. Since the axes deteriorated through use, there was always a demand, and that demand supported the entire economy. When western explorers encountered these people, they naturally traded their superior metal tools to them. But since the metal axes and knives did not deteriorate like the stone axes, the entire economy was disrupted. Because people no longer needed new tools on a regular basis, the axe-makers and the merchant villages that purchased from them could no longer support themselves, and their communities collapsed. Without the need to trade with other villages, the food-producer communities no longer communicated regularly with outsiders, and the entire culture suffered as a result.