Debt: The First 5000 Years

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Debt: The first 5000 Years (English original title Debt: The first 5,000 Years ) is a book published in English in 2011 by the American David Graeber (* 1961), ethnologist , anarchist and economics professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science . It won the British Bread and Roses Award in 2012 and was published in German in the same year. Graeber analyzes the role of debt in history, especially against the background of revolutions and social upheavals, and criticizes various fundamental economic concepts.

background

Graeber gives the motivation for writing the book that debt permeates almost every aspect of our lives. He cites deficit financing as well as consumer and government debt and emphasizes that most people spend at least part of their lives as debtors . He claims that permanent political systems had to find a solution to the “ debt trap ” in order to protect the population from becoming slaves or day laborers to their creditors . He postulates that if Plato or Aristotle were alive today, they would consider the majority of the American population to be debt slaves and that a state is needed to create such a situation at all.

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In Debt: The First 5000 Years Graeber explains the myth of barter and the first occurrence of debt. Using anthropological studies, he describes that trade begins with a simple form of credit, namely the promise to settle the receipt of goods later. Coin money was only invented at least 2000 years later, and barter only came about when money systems collapsed in the meantime. He claims that the creation of the modern banking system was used to finance European wars and that the debts administered by the central banks are essentially government war debts . It therefore provides the necessity of repayment of debt in question and criticized the fact that the developing countries of the Washington Consensus was imposed and has driven in a fault-based dependency. He questions why the morality of debt is stronger than any other kind of morality and why otherwise intolerable suffering appears acceptable.

Graeber also deals with the moral foundations for economic relationships and criticizes the supposedly free market . He describes honor and dishonor as the basis of contemporary civilization and economic order. Money should not be understood as a thing of immanent value , but only as a relationship between things of value. By no longer viewing it as a relationship but as a separate object, money corrupted social relationships . Alleged money creators and money users are assessed with two different standards and this leads to social upheaval:

“'Apparently these people said to themselves: If everyone is to become a miniature capitalist today, why shouldn't we be allowed to create money from nothing?' Now they realize that the American International Group is allowed what they are not allowed to do - a glance at Mesopotamia, ancient Greece and Rome shows that this is the incubation of social upheavals. The debt system, which is based on a ' creation out of nothing ', therefore has nothing to do with markets or science in the eyes of the anthropologist (the formulas at AIG had to be written by astrophysicists because they were so difficult), but with theology. We live in a world of double theology, 'one for the financiers and one for the debtors'. "

- David Graeber : In: Euro crisis: And forgive us our debts , FAZ

From a historical perspective, Graeber divides the development of money and debt into five ages:

  1. The phase of the early urban civilizations ( Egypt , Mesopotamia , Indus Valley , China ) from around 3,000 BC. BC to 800 BC Based on the sources, Graeber mainly deals with Mesopotamia, but postulates similar conditions for the other three regions. The trade was based on credit agreements, and money was primarily a unit of account. State or religious authorities hoarded large precious metal treasures and stocks of goods, the temples and depots also functioned as central points of trade. The indebtedness of private individuals repeatedly led to social crises, which were countered by regular general debt relief.
  2. The " Axial Age " of 800 BC Chr. To 600 AD. Graeber takes over the term "Axial Age" from Karl Jaspers , but extends the period considerably compared to Jaspers. While Jaspers looks at the philosophical and religious developments, Graeber puts the economic changes of the time in the foreground and considers the spiritual change as their consequence. Coins made of precious metals were introduced independently of one another, but almost simultaneously, in China, northern India and the Mediterranean region . This happened in each case in a phase in which numerous small states in the region were constantly at war with one another, the coins had been introduced by the states to pay for their mercenary armies, since the previous credit system was not very suitable: “a heavily armed itinerant soldier is the very definition of a poor credit risk ". The precious metal was procured by the armies plundering state and temple treasures on their campaigns, as well as through the massive use of slaves (prisoners of war) in gold and silver mines. Ultimately, an economy based entirely on slave labor emerged. Debt relief was abolished, the impoverishment of impoverished free citizens (and the resulting social unrest) had been avoided by resettlement in conquered areas or by direct state support ( bread and games ). The spiritual consequence of the exchange of goods, which had become impersonal due to coinage, were materialistic views that postulated the pursuit of profit as the only guiding line for human activity. Against this, idealistic philosophical and religious schools, from which today's world religions, classical Greek philosophy and Confucianism emerged, turned. These finally prevailed after the basis of the conquering economies fell away due to the formation of great empires.
  3. The " Middle Ages " from 600 to 1450. The time of the free village brands of the early European Middle Ages, as well as the free cities, municipalities and city leagues of the High Middle Ages.
  4. The "Age of the Great Capitalist Empires " from 1450 to 1971.
  5. Graeber finishes his book with the current phase from the lifting of the gold standard of the US dollar on August 15, 1971, called "The Beginning of Something Yet to Be Determined".

Reviews

Reviews see the work in connection with various social protests since 2011. ( Protests in Spain 2011/2012 , Arab Spring , Protests in Greece 2010–2012 , Occupy Wall Street ). The Financial Times compares the work with those of Marcel Mauss , Karl Polanyi and Keith Hart .

For Frank Schirrmacher , the then editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , the book shows that "practically all uprisings, upheavals and social revolutions in European history [...] arose from a situation of over-indebtedness". Debt is a category that cannot be left to the interpretation of the system of "apparently economic reality" alone. Because at its core, debts are “a moral principle and a moral weapon”, and have been power-bound since the time of Mesopotamia . “If Plato came to us with a time machine […], he would not be surprised to see people who have to work, not to live their lives, but to pay a debt for which their life is not enough. In his time they were called slaves. ”In ancient times, for example, debts were repeatedly canceled and the land redistributed.

For Thomas Meaney in the New York Times , “Graeber, in the best of ethnology, treats debt caps , subprime mortgages, and credit default swaps as if they were exotic practices of a self-destructive tribe. The book, written in a cheeky, engaging style, is also a philosophical investigation into the nature of guilt - where it came from and how it came about. "

The former chief economist of Deutsche Bank Thomas Mayer bases his analysis of the central bank economy in the context of the development of the banking industry on Graeber's book.

expenditure

Web links

Interviews

Reviews

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c An Interview With David Graeber: Debt's History, Implications, and Critical Perspective . Interview by Alex Bradshaw. imaginenoborders.org, April 2011. April 2011 German translation ( Memento of the original from February 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / systempunkte.org
  2. ↑ a b c socialtextjournal.org: Review of David Graebers debt ( Memento of September 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 13, 2011
  3. ^ A b c d Frank Schirrmacher : Euro crisis: And forgive us our debts . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , November 13, 2011, accessed on November 13, 2011.
  4. ↑ businessweek.com: David Graeber: the antileader of occupy wall street , accessed November 13, 2011
  5. ^ Gillian Tett : Debt: It's back to the future . In: Financial Times , September 9, 2011, accessed November 13, 2011.
  6. ↑ Thomas Meaney: Anarchist Anthropology . In: The New York Times , December 8, 2011, accessed July 6, 2015. "In the best tradition of anthropology, Graeber treats debt ceilings, subprime mortgages and credit default swaps as if they were the exotic practices of some self-destructive tribe. Written in a brash, engaging style, the book is also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of debt - where it came from and how it evolved. "
  7. ↑ Thomas Mayer (Economist) : Welcome to the ZBG economy , March 2012 p. 3
  • David Graeber: Debt: The First 5000 Years. Melville House, New York 2011:
  1. ↑ pp. 21-42
  2. ↑ pp. 43-72
  3. ↑ p. 3
  4. ↑ S. 89-126
  5. ↑ pp. 165-210
  6. ↑ pp. 211-221
  7. ↑ pp. 223-250
  8. ↑ p. 213
  9. ↑ pp. 251-306
  10. ↑ pp. 307-360
  11. ↑ pp. 361-391