Debt: The First 5000 years / Review
I don’t read as much as I would like to — lack of disciple. I decided I want to change that. Sharing a short review of the books I read is part of the improvement process. Here goes my first recommendation of the year.
DEBT: THE FIRST 5,000 YEARS
BY: DAVID GRAEBER
Americans own about 70% of the national debt while foreign entities own 30%. Check the U.S. Treasury Numbers here: http://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt
What does the National Debt mean to us? What is the definition of debt? I’m not economically savvy, but I do consider understanding the origins of our economic system is crucial. What if I tell you barter systems never existed? What if I prove you all societies are communistic at their roots?
These type of questions get answered through David Graeber’s work. His book is a review of how debt shaped society. In the realm of morality, debt is the measure of one’s trust in another. In a geopolitical scale debt is an instrument of power. Indeed, it is a thought-provoking book and I just wonder what do economist think of David’s research? That might be my next task as his words are a true reversal of conventional wisdom.
Some excerpts from the book:
“In fact, our standard account of monetary history is precisely backwards. We did not begin with barter, discover money, and then eventually develop credit systems. It happened precisely the other way around. What we now call virtual money came first. Coins came much later, and their use spread only unevenly, never completely replacing credit systems. Barter, in turn, appears to be largely a kind of accidental byproduct of the use of coinage or paper money: historically, it has mainly been what people who are used to cash transactions do when for one reason or another they have no access to currency.”
“In fact, communism is the foundation of all human sociability. It is what makes society possible (…) I will call this ‘baseline communism’: the understanding that, unless people consider themselves enemies, if the need is considered great enough, or the cost considered reasonable enough, the principle of ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’ will be assumed to apply.”
Curious about the book? Here is David talking at Google a couple of years ago.
Enjoy the reading!
