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Prerna's Reviews > Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
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Prerna's review
bookshelves: 2022-reading-goals, anarchist-theory-and-fiction, david-graeber, history, non-fiction, socio-political-economic-theories
May 31, 2022
bookshelves: 2022-reading-goals, anarchist-theory-and-fiction, david-graeber, history, non-fiction, socio-political-economic-theories
I've been trying to assuage my guilt this year, guilt I've been permanently feeling for no apparent reason since I was 8. The truth though, is that my guilt is also an ugly, warped, narcissistic thing. I tend to be so self-centred that when I hear of a well respected intellectual's death, my first thought is something along the lines of 'oh shit, I haven't really read anything by them, and now I have to.' It happened with bell hooks, it happened with David Graeber. And so here I am. Reading Graeber's books this year. Because forget empathy, compassion, sympathy. I just have to make it about me. (Is it ironic that I just finished reading All About Love by bell hooks because I HAD to and only got entirely bored to the point of yawning after every other sentence? Yes, it probably is.)
I have been trying my best to not see human relations in terms of exchange, but I am a product of my culture that has been subjected to decades of imperialist globalisation schemes and whelp. So it would be no exaggeration to say that this book has been a godsend. Perhaps the most impressive lesson for me was Graeber's phenomenal deconstruction of the creation myth of monetary economics and the standard textbook explanation of origins of money. Say it with me kids: barter was never the way societies organized themselves, it has always been (drumroll please) DEBT! The origin of economy lies in debt and what we call money now has always just been tradeable debt obligations.
Debt has also always been intertwined with religion, notions of sin and guilt. There's a moral value associated with it. What makes it all the more problematic in today's world is that we have created systems wherein the choice of repaying debts is only selectively available. Debt is facilitated and mediated by a set of existing class relations, and debt in turn strengthens these relations. It's like a sickening symbiotic relationship, really. The question we all need to ask ourselves right now is this: what is the hold that the idea of debt has over our imaginations?
Albeit for selfish reasons, (although in my defense, when is reading ever not selfish?) I'm glad I finally got around to properly reading Graeber.
I have been trying my best to not see human relations in terms of exchange, but I am a product of my culture that has been subjected to decades of imperialist globalisation schemes and whelp. So it would be no exaggeration to say that this book has been a godsend. Perhaps the most impressive lesson for me was Graeber's phenomenal deconstruction of the creation myth of monetary economics and the standard textbook explanation of origins of money. Say it with me kids: barter was never the way societies organized themselves, it has always been (drumroll please) DEBT! The origin of economy lies in debt and what we call money now has always just been tradeable debt obligations.
Debt has also always been intertwined with religion, notions of sin and guilt. There's a moral value associated with it. What makes it all the more problematic in today's world is that we have created systems wherein the choice of repaying debts is only selectively available. Debt is facilitated and mediated by a set of existing class relations, and debt in turn strengthens these relations. It's like a sickening symbiotic relationship, really. The question we all need to ask ourselves right now is this: what is the hold that the idea of debt has over our imaginations?
Albeit for selfish reasons, (although in my defense, when is reading ever not selfish?) I'm glad I finally got around to properly reading Graeber.
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Reading Progress
August 23, 2020
– Shelved
August 23, 2020
– Shelved as:
to-read
February 1, 2022
–
Started Reading
May 31, 2022
– Shelved as:
2022-reading-goals
May 31, 2022
– Shelved as:
anarchist-theory-and-fiction
May 31, 2022
– Shelved as:
david-graeber
May 31, 2022
– Shelved as:
history
May 31, 2022
– Shelved as:
non-fiction
May 31, 2022
– Shelved as:
socio-political-economic-theories
May 31, 2022
–
Finished Reading
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Rossdavidh
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Mar 18, 2022 08:04AM
Ooh, this looks intriguing. I await your review with interest.
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Oh, it's beyond interesting! But I've been reading it at a snail's pace.
Prerna wrote: "Oh, it's beyond interesting! But I've been reading it at a snail's pace."Some books are best read that way, to give time for mental digestion.
Rossdavidh wrote: "Prerna wrote: "Oh, it's beyond interesting! But I've been reading it at a snail's pace."Some books are best read that way, to give time for mental digestion."
Some books are and maybe this one is, but sometimes my brain just slows down like it has for the last two months and I so want to clear the ram memory or something!😭😭😭
It's so psychological: "I'm gonna calculate and keep track of exactly what I really feel you owe me."
Brian wrote: "It's so psychological: "I'm gonna calculate and keep track of exactly what I really feel you owe me.""Yes! Graeber even talks about how a parent-child relationship also works on this premise, and how the very act of procreation and parenting is basically like paying back a generational debt. This might seem far-fetched but it's only because I am not even half as eloquent as Graeber.
JimZ wrote: "Nice review!"Thanks, Jim!
Prerna wrote: "Yes! Graeber even talks about how a parent-child relationship also works on this premise, and how the very act of procreation and parenting is basically like paying back a generational debt. This might seem far-fetched but it's only because I am not even half as eloquent as Graeber."I think it works this way in cases where the would-be grandparents make explicit demands for grandkids (or at least explicit requests). I'm afraid my own mum was too polite to make it clear she desperately wanted grandkids, and so I waited too long and she never met her future granddaughter. Who looks exceedingly like her (minus the brightly dyed hair), which adds to my guilt pangs on that score.
Awww Ross, I'm sorry to hear that your mother never got to meet your daughter. I don't intend to ever have kids myself, but I know my mother will try to persuade me otherwise whenever she gets the chance.
