DEBT: The First 5,000 Years
While
the "national debt" has been the concern du jour of many economists,
commentators and politicians, little attention is ever paid to the
historical significance of debt.
For thousands of years, the
struggle between rich and poor has largely taken the form of conflicts
between creditors and debtors—of arguments about the rights and wrongs
of interest payments, debt peonage, amnesty, repossession, restitution,
the sequestering of sheep, the seizing of vineyards, and the selling of
debtors' children into slavery. By the same token, for the past five
thousand years, popular insurrections have begun the same way: with the
ritual destruction of debt records—tablets, papyri, ledgers; whatever
form they might have taken in any particular time and place.
Enter
anthropologist David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years (July, ISBN
978-1-933633-86-2), which uses these struggles to show that the history
of debt is also a history of morality and culture.
In the throes
of the recent economic crisis, with the very defining institutions of
capitalism crumbling, surveys showed that an overwhelming majority of
Americans felt that the country's banks should not be rescued—whatever
the economic consequences—but that ordinary citizens stuck with bad
mortgages should be bailed out. The notion of morality as a matter of
paying one's debts runs deeper in the United States than in almost any
other country.
Beginning with a sharp critique of economics
(which since Adam Smith has erroneously argued that all human economies
evolved out of barter), Graeber carefully shows that everything from the
ancient work of law and religion to human notions like "guilt," "sin,"
and "redemption," are deeply influenced by ancients debates about credit
and debt.
It is no accident that debt continues to fuel
political debate, from the crippling debt crises that have gripped
Greece and Ireland, to our own debate over whether to raise the debt
ceiling. Debt, an incredibly captivating narrative spanning 5,000 years,
puts these crises into their full context and illuminates one of the
thorniest subjects in all of history.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David
Graeber teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of
London. He is the author of Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value,
Lost People, and Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and
Desire.
This talk was hosted by Boris Debic on behalf of the Authors@Google program.
While
the "national debt" has been the concern du jour of many economists,
commentators and politicians, little attention is ever paid to the
historical significance of debt.
For thousands of years, the
struggle between rich and poor has largely taken the form of conflicts
between creditors and debtors—of arguments about the rights and wrongs
of interest payments, debt peonage, amnesty, repossession, restitution,
the sequestering of sheep, the seizing of vineyards, and the selling of
debtors' children into slavery. By the same token, for the past five
thousand years, popular insurrections have begun the same way: with the
ritual destruction of debt records—tablets, papyri, ledgers; whatever
form they might have taken in any particular time and place.
Enter
anthropologist David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years (July, ISBN
978-1-933633-86-2), which uses these struggles to show that the history
of debt is also a history of morality and culture.
In the throes
of the recent economic crisis, with the very defining institutions of
capitalism crumbling, surveys showed that an overwhelming majority of
Americans felt that the country's banks should not be rescued—whatever
the economic consequences—but that ordinary citizens stuck with bad
mortgages should be bailed out. The notion of morality as a matter of
paying one's debts runs deeper in the United States than in almost any
other country.
Beginning with a sharp critique of economics
(which since Adam Smith has erroneously argued that all human economies
evolved out of barter), Graeber carefully shows that everything from the
ancient work of law and religion to human notions like "guilt," "sin,"
and "redemption," are deeply influenced by ancients debates about credit
and debt.
It is no accident that debt continues to fuel
political debate, from the crippling debt crises that have gripped
Greece and Ireland, to our own debate over whether to raise the debt
ceiling. Debt, an incredibly captivating narrative spanning 5,000 years,
puts these crises into their full context and illuminates one of the
thorniest subjects in all of history.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David
Graeber teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of
London. He is the author of Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value,
Lost People, and Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and
Desire.
This talk was hosted by Boris Debic on behalf of the Authors@Google program.
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