Book: A Review
Mar. 22nd, 2012 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So I just finished reading one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time.
The book is Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber and, as the book implies, it's a discussion on the history of debt and how humans conduct economic transactions.
Mr. Graeber is an anthropologist by training so he takes a long, deep, world-wide look into these topics to see how people in different times and places thought about these things. His main conclusion is that people have always relied on credit and debt to get through life and that these concepts existed well before money did.
As an example: say we're neighbors in Medieval England. Coins do exist, but we've never seen one and if we have any we save them for taxes not for buying stuff from one another. Instead, I might give you something I produce (say shoes) because you need them. This isn't exactly barter because I'm probably not getting something from you right away. Instead, I'm giving you the shoes on credit. You'll "pay me back" in the future when I need something from you.
This can even work on a larger scale. In Mesopotamia, the city-states were centered around massive temple complexes that basically took in everyone's productivity and then distributed it back out again -- often on credit. Farmers would acquire all sorts of tools and implements and it would be credited against their future grain harvest. The temples started using gold and silver to help value things but they were simply accounting tools and there's no record they actually paid for things in gold.
As things get more complex, money finally starts to show up -- mostly as a way for governments to support their armies. An army needs a lot of stuff so the government pays the soldiers with money and then states all taxes must be paid in the coinage of the kingdom. So now everyone wants the coins and only the soldiers have them -- so they sell things to the soldiers they need in exchange for the coins needed to pay taxes and markets (as we typically understand them) start to flourish. But money goes in and out of fashion over time and deals done on credit takes their place from time to time.
One of the book's other major points is that what money allows you to do is fix a price on wildly disparate things. In many tribal societies, there are "classes" of goods that are equivalent -- one pig = twelve fish = two spearheads, but you can't trade across classes -- no amount of pigs = any amount of copper. Money does away with this and provides an impersonal measuring stick that lets us value all kinds of things. This comes with a couple of interesting side-effects. First, it allows us to deal with complete strangers. So long as we agree to work with money we don't have to have any trust or faith in the other person (if I extend credit to you, I need to know who you are and how trustworthy you are. With cash, you could be a mass-murderer and I don't care because your money is good and I'll never have to deal with you again). The other interesting side-effect is that this impersonal valuation of anything and everything means that human lives can now be valued. This directly applies to slaves, but can apply to you if you fall into arrears. It's nothing personal, you just didn't keep up your end of the bargain so it's off to debtor prison for you.
Anyway, I'm just scratching the surface and not doing the full book enough justice. I strongly recommend this book to just about anyone and everyone who has to deal with money.
later
Tom
So I just finished reading one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time.
The book is Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber and, as the book implies, it's a discussion on the history of debt and how humans conduct economic transactions.
Mr. Graeber is an anthropologist by training so he takes a long, deep, world-wide look into these topics to see how people in different times and places thought about these things. His main conclusion is that people have always relied on credit and debt to get through life and that these concepts existed well before money did.
As an example: say we're neighbors in Medieval England. Coins do exist, but we've never seen one and if we have any we save them for taxes not for buying stuff from one another. Instead, I might give you something I produce (say shoes) because you need them. This isn't exactly barter because I'm probably not getting something from you right away. Instead, I'm giving you the shoes on credit. You'll "pay me back" in the future when I need something from you.
This can even work on a larger scale. In Mesopotamia, the city-states were centered around massive temple complexes that basically took in everyone's productivity and then distributed it back out again -- often on credit. Farmers would acquire all sorts of tools and implements and it would be credited against their future grain harvest. The temples started using gold and silver to help value things but they were simply accounting tools and there's no record they actually paid for things in gold.
As things get more complex, money finally starts to show up -- mostly as a way for governments to support their armies. An army needs a lot of stuff so the government pays the soldiers with money and then states all taxes must be paid in the coinage of the kingdom. So now everyone wants the coins and only the soldiers have them -- so they sell things to the soldiers they need in exchange for the coins needed to pay taxes and markets (as we typically understand them) start to flourish. But money goes in and out of fashion over time and deals done on credit takes their place from time to time.
One of the book's other major points is that what money allows you to do is fix a price on wildly disparate things. In many tribal societies, there are "classes" of goods that are equivalent -- one pig = twelve fish = two spearheads, but you can't trade across classes -- no amount of pigs = any amount of copper. Money does away with this and provides an impersonal measuring stick that lets us value all kinds of things. This comes with a couple of interesting side-effects. First, it allows us to deal with complete strangers. So long as we agree to work with money we don't have to have any trust or faith in the other person (if I extend credit to you, I need to know who you are and how trustworthy you are. With cash, you could be a mass-murderer and I don't care because your money is good and I'll never have to deal with you again). The other interesting side-effect is that this impersonal valuation of anything and everything means that human lives can now be valued. This directly applies to slaves, but can apply to you if you fall into arrears. It's nothing personal, you just didn't keep up your end of the bargain so it's off to debtor prison for you.
Anyway, I'm just scratching the surface and not doing the full book enough justice. I strongly recommend this book to just about anyone and everyone who has to deal with money.
later
Tom
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 03:57 pm (UTC)http://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/28/seminar-on-david-graebers-debt-admin-notice/
I particularly recommend The World Economy is Not A Tribute System (http://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/22/the-world-economy-is-not-a-tribute-system/) and Too Big To Fail: the First 5000 Years (http://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/25/too-big-to-fail-the-first-5000-years/).
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 07:22 pm (UTC)Oh hey, thanks. Those are nice.
later
Tom
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-06 03:53 am (UTC)thanks!