debt: the first 5000 years. by David graeber.

[scaredyclassic]

Wow.

[FlyerInHi]

Sounds interesting.

Talking about debt absent money, I like the term “debt of gratitude.”

[scaredyclassic]

i was up until 3 am on monday reading THE UTOPIA OF RULES, by graber, a history of bureacracy straiht through

by this fellow who was a mover and shaker in the occupy wall street movement and who is said to have coined the phrase WE ARE THE 99%. it sounds kind of dry, right, a history of bureacracy, but it is anything but. its hilarious and brilliant. so he wrote this book on debt whcih when you look at the reviews in the front promises a work of genius. and I think it might be. check it out net time youre ina bookstore. international bestseller by an anarchist anthropologist who got kicked out of his yale professorship for being an activist wacko. its good good stuff…

[scaredyclassic]

This debt book is the most interesting book I have ever read.

[phaster]

[quote=scaredyclassic]This debt book is the most interesting book I have ever read.[/quote]

skimming the first chapter

on page 2

I spoke of poverty, of the looting of public resources, the collapse of societies, endemic violence, malnutrition, hopelessness, and broken lives.

“But what was your position?” the lawyer asked.

“About the IMF? We wanted to abolish it.”

“No, I mean, about the Third World debt.”

“Oh, we wanted to abolish that too. The immediate demand was
to stop the IMF from imposing structural adjustment policies, which were doing all the direct damage, but we managed to accomplish that surprisingly quickly. The more long-term aim was debt amnesty. Some­ thing along the lines of the biblical Jubilee.

https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf

just happened to recall a PBS video which mentioned something about the concept of eliminating debt was associated with the Jewish Revolts Against the Romans and the willingness of rebels to use murder to achieve their ends won the “extremist” the name ZEALOTS

http://video.pbs.org/video/1354548543/

the actual translation of the historical text WRT to debt is:

“made haste to burn the contracts belonging to their creditors, and thereby to dissolve their obligations for paying their debts; and this was done in order to gain the multitude of those who had been debtors, and that they might persuade the poorer sort to join in their insurrection”

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=Joseph.%20BJ%202.430

so from what I gather, the poor feeling screwed and wanting some kind of reset (via anarchy) is an idea that goes back thousands of years

skimmed a few videos of the author describing his idea of debt forgiveness and IMHO think its dumb/unworkable (w/in a modern society)

for example if there is debt forgiveness then isn’t a program like social security considered a debt transfer program of the young to old?

on second thought looking only at the data (i.e given demographics, existing global economic trends) and ignoring economic/political self interest of the old and special interest groups like the AARP that lobby politicians, perhaps following the example set by ZEALOTS thousands of years ago would solve the modern day problem of unsustainable wealth transfer!

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