Chapter 7 (Part 4) Honor and Degradation, Debt The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
How did the transformation of a human economy to a commercial economy happen? Let's take the case of Greece
Dear Reader,
While reading Chapter 2 of Care of the Species for my other book club, I discovered that the term razas or race in the Spanish language did not refer to people but to domesticated animals, particularly livestock and dogs. This was the case in continental Europe. When we think about race, Hartigan extends its forgotten etymology to plants, his focus. In this case, care refers to the selection and cultivation of specific characteristics of domestic varieties of razas of plants and breeding animals. The jump to people happened much later in the nineteenth century. Quite a contribution to our limited definition of the word nowadays.
I thought I’d share this interesting tidbit while nurturing our football loss to England. Evenly matched but this time the English had better luck! Finally!
It’s been raining and cool here, typical Dutch summer which we have not had in at least 5 years. I love the cool weather. Plus, cycling to a nearby farm to get raw milk is something that still amazes me. The price now is 1 euro for a one-litre bottle, half the price at the supermarket.
What everyday things do you appreciate in your neighbourhood?
Onward,
Melanie
Mid-point recap - where are we with honour?
Initially, we started with the question of why honour is closely tied to fulfilling one’s debts. We are not close enough to answer the question just yet. Instead, Graeber decided to dive deep into the weeds of honour, particularly its relationship to violence, slavery, and female degradation. He thought that honour sounded more and more like debt. It is eerie to read through the concept of honour and see how it is almost interchangeable with debt.
To answer the question, Graeber thought that we needed to understand the roots of the dark side of honour. Some of his conjectures are the following:
Honour relied on female degradation including abusing social institutions like the bride price and dowry institutions
Honour relied on controlling female sexuality as a matter of distinction and to ensure the value of exchange upon marriage
What Graeber has put together is a story of honour’s links to female degradation and also the commodification of human relations. However, in the last three posts, the historical accounts in Early Medieval Ireland and Mesopotamia recorded the low status of women. Graeber wants to push even further to investigate when this transformation happened by looking at a male-heroic society such as Classical Greece.
Today, we turn to Ancient Greece to see if we can answer this question.
Ancient Greek’s male honour tīme
Similar to what we have seen in the Early Medieval Irish example, the Greek term tīme was used similarly to ‘honour price’ which refers to the status of the warrior and any compensatory damages paid that sullied this stature. This term continues to be used in the contemporary lexicon but with the added register of referring to the price of something, a commodity in the market, e.g. the price of tomatoes.
These multiple contradictory meanings evolved from the transformation of Greek society from a humane economy to what would be a commercial system.1 Using the contemporary understanding of the word, he defines it as an open-handed generosity for another irrespective of the financial cost.
It appears that honour as a term means acquiring debts is not too important yet fulfilling one’s debts constitutes it. Similar to what we have seen previously with Medieval Ireland and Ancient Mesopotamia, it comes down to the market transformation in Ancient Greece.
Market transformation in Ancient Greece
Classical Greece, the period between 900 - 701 BC when the Homerian Epics were said to refer to, had no commercial exchange. You could not buy anything using money.
Money existed, but it was not used to buy anything; important men lived their lives in pursuit of honor, which took material form in followers and treasure.
Treasure here referred to prizes or loot or gifts given to them. Cattle and silver were the measures of value within communities and money trading was done with foreigners. This is the same description of what a humane economy was from our previous posts.
According to Graeber, extensive commercial trading happened two hundred years later using the same coinage system for social and limited purposes. Pre-market coins were forms of credit as payments to soldiers, fees and fines made to and by the government. By 600 BC, every Greek city-state had its own coinage system as a mark of independence with a robust market for everyday transactions. This would come to a head when the agora or the plaza came to be a place for debate, social assembly, and what is now more commonly referred to as a marketplace.
Impact of the market on Greek society
Two things immediately happened following the introduction of a commodity market system:
Poor people were quickly enslaved to rich people through debt
Government intervention in solving debt crises, debt resistance, and political unrest
Interestingly, a legislative solution was sending the poor’s children to establish overseas colonies (not abolishing debt peonage itself). The result was that the crisis was averted while Greek cities expanded from Crimea to Marseille. There were two consequences of this expansion across the Mediterranean and elsewhere:
These colonies become entry points to a human chattel slave market.
These chattel slaves’ entry into Greek society meant that a ‘middle class’ emerged and could now participate in political and cultural activities exclusively available to the aristocratic class
These two reasons brought about an interesting dynamic in Greek society: a competition for distinction between the aristocratic class2 and everybody else. This would later impact how honour as a term held contradictory meanings.
Status War for Distinction
Remember when we said cultural practices arise from wanting to be distinct from the status quo? This is another example of one of them.
Both the aristocratic and ordinary citizens battled for distinction against each other. Graeber calls this the ‘aristocratic protest.’ The aristocrats positioned themselves in the non-monetary world of gifts and elite activities.
Funeral and wedding gifts of gold and silver beakers (in contrast with commodity goods such as sausages or charcoal)
Participation in athletic contests (in contrast with gambling)
Engaging with educated courtesans (in contrast with common prostitutes porne found near the agora or state-sponsored brothels for the male citizens)
In the battle for distinction, why was money seen as degrading? Graeber argues that
the thing that really seemed to bother them about money was simply that they wanted it so much. Since money could be used to buy just about anything, everybody wanted it. That is: it was desirable because it was non-discriminating.
He argues that it was the democratisation of desire that put the Greek society in disarray. They wanted money. They needed money. Regardless of who you are. It is this hunger that has upended the basic autonomy of their former lives.
Now, they had to forego their basic needs being met and being the subject of another household.
Debt through loans breaks social relationships, blurring gifts and loans and interest payments
Coinage anonymised what would be social into a pure credit relationship
The emergence of such dilemmas impacted what would be seen as honour in Homer’s Greece. Dare I say, a struggle that lives until today.
Ancient Greek honour - afterword
It would seem that the term tīme came to encapsulate the social order of mutual aid and communal relations into a much-limited sphere. The sphere of the household and family according to Graeber. Elsewhere, honour as a term came to incorporate the logic of the market and credit relations. This logic came with multiple crises and unrest especially those who ended up suffering under heavy interest and loans and losing their household autonomy.
After several thousand years of moral consideration, we are faced with two probable statements without resolution:
all debts are debts of honour
we do not owe any debt to anyone
It is not just moral incoherence as much as our lived reality.
Postscript - Where are the women?
Graeber acknowledges and notices that in many of the surviving texts, none mention females. He said that the wives and daughters of male citizens are insulated from the vagaries of the market and the consequences of debt.
None seem to enter into any debt peonage (except for the male debtor)
It was illegal for daughters of male citizens to work as prostitutes
If we do see the women, they are required to wear the veil (much like in Mesopotamia)
It was usually the male citizens who would bear the brunt of accusations of plying passive sodomy for gifts or money and risk losing their citizenship.3 In Ancient Greece, male honour seems to be visible and at risk here. Women’s value remained circumscribed around limited and controlled participation in public life.
Round-Up
Ancient Greece shows a slight difference compared to other male patriarchial cultures of Early Medieval Ireland and Mesopotamia.
Women and children did not become slaves; slaves came from foreign countries and were introduced into Greek society
Well-off women did not enter prostitution
Women were said to wear veils as a matter of distinction
Ancient records are scant though about the participation of women (pending further archaeological research on my part) and we are left still asking when female degradation played into the concept of honour and debt.
However, by studying an Ancient Greek male honour society, we understand that (aristocratic) honour is primarily defined against money and commodities and less about female control. It is this conception that gets mixed with market logic. The result is that there is a contradiction between honouring debts and the belief that no one is indebted to anyone. It is simultaneously true and false at the same time.
It remains to be seen how female worth is calculated in ancient and contemporary Greek tīme. Perhaps it is less emphasis on gender difference but lies in the concept of household autonomy as argued by Graeber. The introduction of debts, loans, interest, and anonymised transactions all led to the loss of household self-sufficiency especially among the poor. This loss was, ultimately, the most egregious attack on Greek honour, past and present.
Review the previous post
However, in this instance, much of what Graeber refers to about Ancient Greek honour comes from contemporary Greek studies. Though there is a continuity, it is worth noting that the context and language do change.
The aristocratic class is a loose term and consisted of local chieftains and warriors.
Some famous figures accused included Marc Antony and Octavian (Augustus) who had Julius Ceasar as one among many powerful patrons.