If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?
For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.
Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
The barter system was a primitive way of doing things that could hardly be applicable to the kind of commerce we have in this modern times. The large-scale commercial transactions of today cannot be supported by a simple barter system. And that is perhaps how it is being replaced with a more efficient means of doing transactions a long time ago. We used gold, silver, copper, and other precious stones to make things easier.
Printing money out of thin air is a rampant problem. And the solution is not barter. The solution is crypto. There is no cheating or faking in crypto.