Before there was money, there was debt
Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history—as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.
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- Used Book in Good Condition
Future Classic in Economic Anthropology This is a very interesting and important book. Graeber’s writing style is engaging and provocative, enjoyable and fascinating.Graeber has been accused as being overly political in his interpretation of history and anthropology. There is a warrant of truth to this accusation, but Graeber is dealing with highly political, and deeply moral, dilemmas which dominant history and have implications for contemporary circumstances, an apolitical book would be impossible (many philosophers…
An important book that begs to be misunderstood As most of the other reviewers have noted, this is a brilliant and revolutionary book. The author has synthesized a great deal of information from anthropology, history and economics over 5,000 years to come up with a compelling and original account of debt. The accomplishment is even greater, because he makes clear that debt is intimately related to money, capitalism, war and slavery; so understanding debt will change your view of all these things.The bad news is the author made…
Starts strong, but loses cohesiveness. Prof. Graeber is obviously an extremely competent anthropologist, and this well referenced book (with an over forty page bibliography!) contains some very plausible propositions. One is that credit systems emerged before barter and money, and that the state or other authorities with a monopoly on violence instated currency from the top down. Another is that our modern fiat money system is built on nothing more than trust, unreflective of any fundamentals whatsoever (although this is obvious to…