Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Our 2024 read is another highly cited but intimidating David Graeber book! He argues that debt should be the central point in the study of economy and money. He also thinks about creating a humane money system.

Read along with us every Thursday in 2024.

Afterword What the book is and isn’t

Chapter 1 On the Experience of Moral Confusion

Chapter 2 The Myth of Barter

Chapter 3 Primordial Debts

Chapter 4 Cruelty and Redemption

Addendum David Graeber’s (2012) Notes on the Violence of Equivalence

• Part 1 A humane economy and the purpose of money

• Part 2 What are social currencies and operationalising the humane economy

• Part 3 Lele of the Congo - The social currency of blood debts

• Part 4 Tiv of Nigeria - How slavery transformed a social currency

Chapter 5 A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations

• Part 1 Communism - First Moral Principle

• Part 2 Exchange - Second Moral Principle (Separation in Equivalence)

• Part 3 Hierarchy - Third Moral Principle (Violence, Charity, and Non-Equivalence)

Chapter 6 Games with Sex and Death

• Part 1 Foundations - What is a humane society? What is primitive money? What is the principle of money in this society?

• Part 2 Example - What happens during brideprice or bridewealth exchanges?

• Part 3 Example - What happens during blood money payments?

• Part 4 Example - In what instance does money stand in for people?

• Part 5 Example - When a system of debt becomes the means for the destruction of people

Chapter 7 Honour and Degradation

• Part 1 Honour and its roots to violence - The uncomfortable relationship between honour and slavery

• Part 2 Honour and the degradation of women in Early Medieval Ireland and Mesopotamia - Some possible roots in brideprice abuse and mixing social with commodity currency

• Part 3 Honour and further degradation of women - The origin of patriarchy is a counter-culture backlash against temple sexual rituals in Sumeria

• Part 4 Honour and the transformation of Greek heroic society - The bifurcation of Greek society between elite (gift) and ordinary folk (commodity)

• Part 5 Conclusion - The Western value of freedom and property rights is a false equivalence

Chapter 8 Credit versus Bullion

• Graeber proposes his monetary thesis: during peacetime, credit systems trump coinage

Chapter 9 The Axial Age

• Part 1 The Mediterranean War Complex: During the time of war, coinage use expands

• Part 2 The Indus Valley Civilisation: They existed for three thousand years without coin use

  • Addendum (Part 1): The Indian Republics: The Vedic Culture created a soldier class without money

  • Addendum (Part 2): The Indian Republics: The Rigveda provided the cosmic-social foundation of the soldier class

  • Addendum (Part 3): The Indian Republics: The political and religious experimentation between Vedic, Buddhism, Jainism

  • Addendum (Part 4): The (end of) Indian Republics: How the monarchy won

• Part 3 The Chinese Dynasties: The ritual warfare of the Shang Dynasty - the recruitment of army conscripts by kin

  • Addendum (Part 1): The networked kingdom of the Zhou - the rise of ritual bureaucracy and army professionalisation

  • Addendum (Part 2): The Eastern Zhou - the transition period in coin use

  • Addendum (Part 3): The Warring States - evidence of the rise of bureaucracy and a professional army

• Part 4 The Axial Age: Materialism 1 - The pursuit of profit in China

• Part 5 The Axial Age: Materialism 2 - Substance - The coinage-military-slavery complex resulted in the materialist turn in Greek philosophy

Chapter 10 The Middle Ages

• Part 1 The Roman Empire: The military failure of Rome

• Part 2 Ashoka’s Age and Buddhist Expansion: the foundation of charity and commerce in Buddhist monasteries