Debt is philosophical inquiry into the nature of debt. It continues on from the work of Marcel Mauss, who initially pushed back on the myth of barter. Debt is made up of two parts, the first addresses the different myths and lens for thinking about debt, while the second provides an overarching history.
In the first part, Graeber explores what it is we talk about when we talk about debt. He discusses the myth of the barter economy stemming from Thomas Paine, the primordial debt to society, the redemptive debt to god, the moral nature of hierarchical debt, and the human debt associated with death and slavery.
In the second part, Graeber divides the history of debt between four stages: the axial, the middle ages, the capitalist empires, and the present, which is yet to be properly determined. This history encapsulates Europe, the Middle East, India and China. It also regularly brings in other examples too that serve to contrast things. All in all, he traces the existence of debt as relating to sex, violence and politics.
For me, one of the interesting things was how fragile the various systems are. It often feels like ‘this is the way it always was’ when the mortgage comes out of my salary, but then after reading Graeber’s book I was left thinking about how these things continue to change.
The other point of interest were the stories we tell about money and how they serve as a form of colonialism. For example, Batman’s treaty involves the exchange of goods for land:
Batman’s party met with Aboriginal people several times, presenting gifts of blankets, handkerchiefs, sugar, apples and other items, and receiving gifts of woven baskets and spears in exchange. On 6 June, Batman met with eight elders of the Wurundjeri, including Ngurungaetas Bebejan and three brothers with the same name, Jika Jika or Billibellary, the traditional owners of the lands around the Yarra River.
For 600,000 acres of Melbourne, including most of the land now within the suburban area, Batman paid 40 pairs of blankets, 42 tomahawks, 130 knives, 62 pairs of scissors, 40 looking glasses, 250 handkerchiefs, 18 shirts, 4 flannel jackets, 4 suits of clothes and 150 lb. of flour.[4]
Source: Batman’s Treaty – Wikipedia
However, this possession was not just about ‘land’, but also the way in which land was envisaged.
Overall, Debt serves as a start of a conversation, a book to be mined. Although there are always going to be limits or conjecture to such a book. See Juan Conatz’s review for an example of an alternate view.
David Graeber’s Debt, The First 5,000 Years, is an interesting and thought-provoking book. It is worth reading as a history of debt, credit, and money. However, it has a mistaken basic concept, that debt is at the center of human economics and society, generally downplaying the significance of human labor (which was correctly emphasized in Marx’s economic theory). For this reason, Graeber has a mistaken analysis of the Great Recession and the current economy. He presents a limited and nonrevolutionary vision of a post-capitalist future, quite in contrast to the revolutionary anarchist-communist (libertarian socialist) program of Kropotkin and others.
Source: Review of Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber by Juan Conatz
Personally, I find books like this hard as I do not have the background to be critical. For me, it is as much about debt as a topic as it is about how we got to now.
Debt is one of those books that I had seen referenced to over the years, however I had little idea what to expect when I took it on. I guess I had never really thought that much about the concepts of debt and money. However, on completing the book, I am not sure how I could see the world again without considering it.
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