I love the sequence where he just quotes intro to history/economics books who are all parroting the same thing. "Imagine a shoe-maker wanted carrots, but the carrot farmer didn't want shoes." I realized how many times I had heard that example without questioning it.
For those who don't have the time to read, essentially the idea that "before money, people bartered their goods ineffeciently" is bullshit. In all of anthropology and history, there are exactly zero recorded examples of pre-monetary societies using "bartering" as the basis of good exchange. In societies without money, they generally distribute goods on an egalitarian-like basis. This is done through "gift exchange" and debt. Unlike capitalist debt which has interest payments to incentivize the lender, pre-monetary lending was done with the knowledge that you live in same village as this person so they will eventually get you back. So for the shoe-maker example who wants carrots, the carrot farmer would "lend" the shoe-maker a dozen carrots. The carrot farmer knows that one day when his son needs new shoes, he can go over to the shoe-maker and expect to get paid back. Debt, before money, was an extension of trust. Only in societies where money is the norm and then that money is abrubtly removed do we see bartering for profit, because they are trying to compensate for lack of money.
And it gets even better when he gets to market economies, how they are propped up and created ONLY because of a state enforcing its will on people. How the state then creates an army, and pays them in a wage of coin, then requires the coin to paid for taxes, creating a subservient class of people all employed to the wage earners of the state.
This is a great introductory summary! I would just add that Graeber describes the non-monetary economies in somewhat less idyllic terms.
In societies without money, they generally distribute goods on an egalitarian-like basis. This is done through “gift exchange” and debt.
Some societies used egalitarian/needs-based distribution, e.g. the Iroquois with their Longhouses. But most were based on various personal relationships rather than an overarching moral system. (The gift economies were infamously competitive and could lead to mutual ruination.) So the neighbors lending each other things on trust was more about pursuing private interest under the existing social conditions rather than collective good as such - you would still have the rich and poor. But the result was communities based on trust, interdependence, and traditional autonomy, which was a "primitive", but peaceful and viable way to live. Even when neighbors were deeply indebted to each other, they'd still have to treat each other as equals, take each other's needs into consideration, and in general negotiate terms based on ability to pay rather than "you owe me 6% interest because the paper says so, motherfucker".
Graber's great thesis is that money and debt expressed in terms of money changed everything, because they made rational and coldly mathematical the relationships that had once been warm and human. They helped reduce persons to private property stripped of rights. But this same rationality also gave rise to philosophy, which eventually brought about the radical ideas about the abolition of slavery, money, markets, and individualism...
So there's a great dialectic in the historical vision he paints. Over and over in history money sows the seeds of its own destruction, but is recreated again by state actors seeking control only to blow up in everyone's faces again. It's not simply 'primitive communism good, capitalism bad'.
Again, your summary is great. I just want to rave about how much more awesome there is in Graeber's Debt book.
I love the sequence where he just quotes intro to history/economics books who are all parroting the same thing. "Imagine a shoe-maker wanted carrots, but the carrot farmer didn't want shoes." I realized how many times I had heard that example without questioning it.
For those who don't have the time to read, essentially the idea that "before money, people bartered their goods ineffeciently" is bullshit. In all of anthropology and history, there are exactly zero recorded examples of pre-monetary societies using "bartering" as the basis of good exchange. In societies without money, they generally distribute goods on an egalitarian-like basis. This is done through "gift exchange" and debt. Unlike capitalist debt which has interest payments to incentivize the lender, pre-monetary lending was done with the knowledge that you live in same village as this person so they will eventually get you back. So for the shoe-maker example who wants carrots, the carrot farmer would "lend" the shoe-maker a dozen carrots. The carrot farmer knows that one day when his son needs new shoes, he can go over to the shoe-maker and expect to get paid back. Debt, before money, was an extension of trust. Only in societies where money is the norm and then that money is abrubtly removed do we see bartering for profit, because they are trying to compensate for lack of money.
And it gets even better when he gets to market economies, how they are propped up and created ONLY because of a state enforcing its will on people. How the state then creates an army, and pays them in a wage of coin, then requires the coin to paid for taxes, creating a subservient class of people all employed to the wage earners of the state.
something very much related to this topic is that the modern concept of the Westphalian State was a direct result of the Thirty Years War which was one of the most brutal wars ever waged on European soil (Wikipedia article for one of the worst massacres of the war just to give you a taste. the city of Magdeburg was almost entirely depopulated.). when we learned about it in school it really struck me that the "reasons" we're given for wars are almost always bullshit and put in place to coerce the populace to fight for the interests of their rulers.
This is a great introductory summary! I would just add that Graeber describes the non-monetary economies in somewhat less idyllic terms.
Some societies used egalitarian/needs-based distribution, e.g. the Iroquois with their Longhouses. But most were based on various personal relationships rather than an overarching moral system. (The gift economies were infamously competitive and could lead to mutual ruination.) So the neighbors lending each other things on trust was more about pursuing private interest under the existing social conditions rather than collective good as such - you would still have the rich and poor. But the result was communities based on trust, interdependence, and traditional autonomy, which was a "primitive", but peaceful and viable way to live. Even when neighbors were deeply indebted to each other, they'd still have to treat each other as equals, take each other's needs into consideration, and in general negotiate terms based on ability to pay rather than "you owe me 6% interest because the paper says so, motherfucker".
Graber's great thesis is that money and debt expressed in terms of money changed everything, because they made rational and coldly mathematical the relationships that had once been warm and human. They helped reduce persons to private property stripped of rights. But this same rationality also gave rise to philosophy, which eventually brought about the radical ideas about the abolition of slavery, money, markets, and individualism...
So there's a great dialectic in the historical vision he paints. Over and over in history money sows the seeds of its own destruction, but is recreated again by state actors seeking control only to blow up in everyone's faces again. It's not simply 'primitive communism good, capitalism bad'.
Again, your summary is great. I just want to rave about how much more awesome there is in Graeber's Debt book.
Great post, this guy Graebers.
:gold-anarchist: