Debt's History, Implication and Critical Perspectives

by David Graeber Friday, May. 18, 2012 at 6:48 PM
mbatko1@hotmail.com

Graeber currently teaches social anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London.

"What we learned in 2008 is that everything they told us about markets was a lie. Markets don’t run themselves, and debts don’t always have to be paid. If we’re talking about the real big players, the rules are different, even 13 trillion in gambling debts (by some estimations) can be made to disappear. We can’t deny that money is at core a political phenomenon, not an economic one—or at the very least, that it has now become so. But if that’s the case, then if democracy is to mean anything, it has to mean that it’s not just the richest 1% of the population that gets to decide who had to keep the exact letter of their promises and whose promises can be scotched or renegotiated…but everyone."

Original: Debt's History, Implication and Critical Perspectives