Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Most of the cuneiform tablets found in the ancient near east of the second millennium B.C. are remnants of business deals. And business deals typically involve one party going into debt to the other. When the business deal was concluded and the debt repaid, the tablets were smashed. Both parties were thus released from the agreement and were thus free to walk away. As such, these business deals contained underlying assumptions about the parties involved. First, there is the assumption that the parties were equal. They each begin with a clean slate upon which to make their marks and entered into the transaction freely. The second is that the agreement is impersonal. Once the deal is completed each party can walk away without any sense of obligation to the other. Thirdly, it must have been assumed that each participant in the agreement acted solely for his own benefit, caring little or nothing about the other party. An agreement may have been conceived of, in the abstract, as benefiting both parties, but it also must have been acknowledged that each party would have to look out for his own interests. The notion that an invisible hand guided economic transactions is a relatively modern idea. Of course, whenever there is debt there is the danger of non-payment. A common occurrence was for farmers to borrow against their upcoming harvest. But if a harvest was bad then the loan could not be repaid and foreclosure would ensue. As ownership of the land transferred from small farmers to wealthy lenders, farmers became tenant farmers on large estates. Thus arose landed aristocracies. What Graeber supposes is that the existence of these debt transactions were so pervasive, so common, and the consequences of failing to repay these debts was so dreadful, that it played a profound role in shaping the psyche and worldview of the people of those early times. He goes into great detail describing how the language of debt and business covenants seeps into the language of the world religions. Debt wasn't just a dark cloud hanging over early civilization, but pervading smog. If one was foreclosed upon one stood to lose his livelihood. He might have to sell his children, his wife, or himself into slavery. All of this gets ramped up with the introduction of coinage. What is money? David Graeber approaches this question by telling us the story of money's origin. Money in the form of coins stamped out by governments first appears in different parts of the world simultaneously, around 600 B.C. In each case the pattern was the same - coins were produced to pay soldiers. With the promise of payment huge armies could be raised. Armies, of course, need to be outfitted and supplied. This was accomplished by requiring taxes to be paid in the form of the newly minted coins. Farmers and artisans now needed to acquire the coins, and so had to provide for the military since it was they who had coins to spend. To this end, markets arose where goods could be exchanged for money. Thus we see how money, militaries, and markets arose in tandem as inventions of the state. Money represents the power to make purchases. Money separated from its social context has no value, whether it is gold or paper. Even gold has no intrinsic value. And so if a farmer is not used to the medium, then what is there to force him to accept it? Answer: the requirement to pay taxes in that medium. And with an army standing behind the king, resistance to the edict is futile. Money in this sense is like an I.O.U. It is debt. When I offer up this token, you must provide me with goods. In the marketplace the purchaser is the creditor, and the seller is the debtor. The general population must bear the burden of this debt - this national debt which is war debt. Armies are expensive to maintain. And an early form of competition was that to raise the biggest, baddest army around. And so there was great incentive to invade one's neighbors to plunder their gold and silver which could be melted down and minted into more coins. A prime target would be gold and silver mines. The conquered peoples would be enslaved to work those mines to produce ever more gold to pay the growing army. Slavery, then, became an integral and substantial part of this militarized money system. Monetary values become attached to everything under the sun. Since land foreclosures are used to satisfy monetary debts, monetary values are attached to the land. Land, therefore, comes under control of moneyed interests. Slavery becomes commonplace as human beings also have monetary values attached to them. Besides submitting passively to this sorry state of affairs, the population of farmers and artisans might respond in one of two ways. First, they might abandon civilization and head for the hinterland where they might fend for themselves away from the clutches of dynastic rulers, huge armies, and predatory merchants. Or they might stage a rebellion. And Graeber shares the observation that populist rebellions in ancient times always carried with them two demands - relief from debt and a redistribution of land. The realities of money and debt pervaded all aspects of ancient society. Graeber writes about the great religions which arose in this era, all of which struggle with notions of debt. ("Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.") What do we owe God? What do we owe our king or nation? What do we owe our parents? Each of these questions represents an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. Be they social questions or spiritual questions, they represent the materialization and quantification of the intangible. One has to wonder what the influence is upon our modern science where nothing is said to be real that cannot be quantified - that cannot be counted, weighed, or measured. In all aspects of culture we seem to be witness to the alienation of the human being from the spirit. Indeed, Graeber characterizes this period as one of increasing materialization. The economic, political, and social ethos of debt and money has been so pervasive for so long in our society that it is hard to imagine how things might be different. Graeber spends a great deal of time surveying various "human economies" that contrast to the patterns of debt-riddled, predatory civilization. He demonstrates how it was not barter that preceded money economies, but rather various systems of credit that amounted to mutual assistance. Before money people did not come to the market to trade and barter goods for goods. No, markets are a thing created by money as we have seen. Rather, before money and markets business was typically done on credit, but not in an impersonal way, for in the small town or village there was no walking away, though if you proved too much of a deadbeat you might be driven away or ostracized. In a human economy everyone was beholden to everyone else. If a hunter had a big catch, he shared it with everyone. A human economy is a gift economy. Relationships are personal. It would be offensive to go around and settle all of one's accounts, because it would be understood that you no longer wished to be beholden to anyone. But for a community to truly function perpetual cooperation and involvement with one another is a necessity. Graeber looks to these ancient and so-called primitive societies for clues as to how modern humanity might shape a harmonious, peaceful society on a sounder footing than we currently have, and have had all these centuries. In today's modern age the business mentality is pervasive and the challenge to come up with alternative attitudes seems insurmountable. Economic ideology promotes impersonal self-centeredness as if it were the last word on the human condition. Greed is said to be good and corporate dictatorships the most expedient economic forms, and the current system the best of all possible social and economic systems. Money is debt and originates in war debt. The government sides with creditors who argue against any notion of debt restructuring, debt forgiveness, or default. But the strength of a creditor's claim is nothing without the implied violence of government and law. If the threats that stand behind the debts were to vanish, perhaps the financial hegemony that rules the world today would crumble under its own weight. Or perhaps all that is needed is a jubilee as was declared in Biblical times. If the debt of the world would vanish by means of such a governmental decree, then the true economy may gain by it. The true purpose of economic activity, after all, is to match production with consumption, but this process is interfered with by the very things that are supposed to facilitate it - markets, finance, and mediums of exchange. Ancient rulers, perceiving the degenerating state of the kingdom, sometimes would impose a jubilee - a canceling of all or most debts - typically against the wishes of the landed aristocracy. But it seems that a jubilee would only be of temporary benefit if the same practices and attitudes regarding money and debt continued.At this juncture, we owe a debt of gratitude to David Graeber for framing the issue with such insight and understanding. Graeber seems to have hit upon an archetype against which all of history, including modern history, is to be measured. All of our modern social relationships and institutions have been infested with a selfish, impersonal, and predatory mind-set which seems to be fundamental to civilization. We are left, however, with wanting a solution that calls for more than just debt cancellation. All business deals are deals with the devil as long as we make them with the same lack of humanity we've done since before the introduction of coinage. Our very sense of morality has seemingly been framed by predatory lenders. How can we find our humanity again?

"Debt" is a brilliant book. Most of the negative reviews and comments are simply absurd, pretentious, biased, and/or ill-informed. This is a book worth reading and understanding - which takes thinking. Other reviewers have done a good job of providing summaries, which I do not repeat here. That said, a couple of nits: a good editor needs to go through and catch certain missing references - e.g., Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"; and there are others.Also, Chapter 12 is weak. Mostly, I think that occurs because there are fundamental changes occurring now which are not explained; but one needs the history as this book presents it to begin appreciating the nature of the changes. Those changes include the fact that an important distinction between debt and currency was a simple function of how quickly the form of money was convertible in the past into uses - warriors needed coinage convertible now rather than debt convertible in the future, for instance, to eat or purchase other goods and services. These days, that can be accomplished with "cyber money" - which should be differentiated from commodities, debt, and coinage. [As an aside, some critical reviewers make reference to 'liquidity preference' as a different way to explain the phenomena Graeber describes; but that is a misnomer, as well as something which only matters when liquidity exists. An essential point Graeber makes - which should be rather self-evident without having to say it - is that there was no liquidity per se in many situations, hence social relations were sufficient. Indeed, social relations become the foundation of local economies that operate without coinage and with a currency predicated on trust. But, those social relations also morph into something very different when they are perceived as debt within certain contexts - i.e., the social relations themselves are transformed. This is obviously not a matter of liquidity preference - especially if one is no longer even allowed the expression of 'preference' insofar as one is reduced in social status to slave or 'dead' person. So, any reviewer referring to 'liquidity preference' obviously was not understanding the theme or purpose of Graeber's book.]The information form of cyber money can in essence be converted rather quickly and locally into any other form - commodities, debt, or coinage. Thus, cyber money is an evolutionary change that introduces a new set of issues - including such novel questions as high velocity currency exchange which deals in fractional differences across myriad currencies converted back into an original currency that gains value when properly arbitraged - or loses value when computer programs amplify parallel bad 'bets'. (Marshall McLuhan would recognize these 'extensions' of money as medium - and Mumford would recognize new money as part of technics in the emerging civilization). In the past, this would have required delays. Now, exotic 'derivatives' create extraordinary gains and losses almost instantaneously by essentially creating 'tranches' of the 'area between the curve and the abscissa' of manufactured error terms in 'the magic' of linear equations turned into a financial calculus of chaos (albeit artificially induced, and constructed on the marvelous fiction that one can actually separate 'risk' from 'assets' to be sold as a separate tradable financial instrument). One can act as a day-trader with debt, cash out, and go to dinner with the coinage. That would be the 'magic' to which Graeber refers, as mentioned by Goethe.This means that cyber currency decouples former relations of coinage to war, and debt to greater social stability (my simplification). Or, should I say, the relations become confused and conflated - as 'derivatives' sever the social relations of debt and cloud the perception that risk always resides in reality itself. On the other hand, I was also surprised that the role of fossil fuels (especially oil) essentially substituting as "black gold" (precious minerals) in place of "precious metal" commodities was not more discussed. Whereas, the currency was decoupled from the gold standard, pricing oil in U.S. dollars essentially meant that oil acted as the value-setting commodity. When I worked in the Energy Information Administration, in fact, a colleague of mine pointed out at the time that the EIA models and forecasts failed to account for the fact that a stable U.S. price of oil did not mean stability in the global economy, once all currencies were floating.When we consider that Pax Britannica and Pax Americana have both been predicated on securing fuel supplies from places beyond their national borders, coinage and debt become linked in rather unique ways to the fuel supplies for the military operations to secure the fuel supplies. This is undergoing a different kind of radical change, illustrated by the U.S. military's preoccupation with seeking alternative energy sources so they don't overextend as happened with the lightning invasion of Iraq where troops were separated from the tankers needed to refuel. Whereas the military used to be characterized as running on its belly (food supply), it now runs on its barrel (fuel supply). But, it also is shifting its strategies to technical substitutes for warriors who need coinage; as with high-technology weaponry like drones procured from corporations which prefer cyber money they simultaneously arbitrage in markets for risk to profit off of both high velocity delivery vehicles and high velocity trading. Additionally, it employs data mining and other advanced computing to the cybernation of security, surveillance, logistics, communication, etc., which are 'privatized' through government purchase.What we need to understand is how cyber money alters the 'debt regime of global power'. For instance, energy source can be 'programmed' into the equations for cyber money - as is done with customer-selectable supply of power to and from utilities by green energy. Again, this is just a personal nit, because the questions can't be properly understood, in my view, without appreciating Graeber's anthropological exploration. Consider, for instance, how cyber money can essentially convert 'usury-free' transactions into and out of conventional interest-based transactions with computer programming that incorporates the legal assumptions of whatever local system one wants - in a manner akin to other forms of convertibility. All this is part of the 'logics' of construction programmed into computer applications, which then can be 'interpreted' however one chooses - unless use of the computer itself is rejected. Once in the computer, however, even the 'rounding error' of calculation becomes a profit opportunity - as in the cumulative addition of error fractions into 'ghost accounts' that can then be transferred to someone's bank account without necessarily even having committed something detectable as a 'crime'.What remains inescapable - and not really addressed in Graeber - is Nature (versus God) as the creditor in relations of entropy as debt where the real game becomes planetary species sustainability. There, it seems to me, cyber money has a novel use not yet explained. I suggest further that 'syntropy' is a radically redefined concept beyond 'innovation' to transform capitalist 'growth' into cooperativist 'sustainable development' that constitutes a new moral and spiritual regime transcending entropy and other forms of debt. What potentially makes it different is the recognition that evolutionary change is the only way forward because entropy inherently alters the possibilities of going backwards in other than decay; hence necessitating creating and organizing the fundamentally new and better. What remains problematic, however, is the distortions of policy and polity which can continue to program the extraction of wealth from debt subordinated classes, communities, nations, and other entities - especially by failing to understand the ecological economics (or bioeconomics) of sustainability. In place of 'debt', or what we might call in Ruth Benedict's terms 'negative cultural synergy', we need 'positive cultural synergy', or 'creative investment in the future'. Amartya Sen's notion of 'positive' versus 'negative' freedom is relevant here. In essence, it is a matter of human choice and design whether to produce scarcity or sustainability. The future is Bergsonian. Whether that is dystopian or eutopian is what the struggle is over.BTW - there's an interesting full length YouTube film on a related topic that is fun to watch after reading "Debt" at [...]

本書は将来の社会科学の古典となりうべき書物ではないでしょうか。それくらい複合的でマクロな観点から、緻密で具体的な分析が提示されています。ちなみに本書の要約は、雑誌「現代思想」の債務危機特集（２０１２年２月号）で村松圭一郎さんがなさっています。そちらもぜひ参照してください。主要なポイントが簡潔にまとまっていると思います。したがってここでは、そこでは取り上げられていなくて個人的に印象に残ったエピソードを紹介したいと思います。１．株式会社の起源株式会社の発生にイスラームの商慣行が影響を与えていたことは知っていたが、その理論的根拠までは知りませんでした。グレーバーによれば、最初に形而上的な実体としてのcorporationに理論的根拠が与えられたのは、１２５０年のインノケンティウス４世の教会法によってであり、これによって、時間的に永遠でどこにでも現われ（ubiquitous）、まるで個人のように人格を持つものとして扱われるという法的人格が規定された。このためには、時間と永遠を別物として扱うアウグスティヌス的伝統からの決別が必要であり、それを用意したのがスコラ哲学（特にトマス・アクイナス）であった。こうした法的人格は最初は修道院や大学などに適用され、それが徐々に拡大されて、結果的には東インド会社の成立を持って完成される。もちろんそれは、商業、征服、冒険の複合体として。２．世界経済の出発点としての中国１５世紀、中国ではちょっとした銀ラッシュが起こっていた。それまで中国では、自律的な経済圏を営んでいたため、国家が発行する貨幣が信用として価値を持ち、したがってマテリアルな物（金、銀）は貨幣となっていなかったのだが、銀が大量に市場の流れて以降、銀が実質的な貨幣となっていた。もちろん銀は無尽蔵にあるわけではないので、銀を独占し、市場を独占する傾向にある大商人と、困窮化しがちな農民との格差拡大を阻止するために、銀を輸入して銀の市場価値を低くしておく必要があった。そこに都合よく出てきたのが新大陸の銀である。この銀が中国に輸入されるようになってからが真の世界経済の発生である。ちなみに、このような観点のもとに立つと、従来のいわゆる「価格革命」の原因の説明が根底から覆される。端的に言えば、銀は（金も）ヨーロッパ市場には流れない。インフレの原因は、私有化されたスペインの国債の投機である。ところでグレーバーは、最後の最後で、人間は本当の意味では誰にも何も負っていない（つまり負債は無い）と結論付ける。これは一見したところ、彼の相互負債、相互依存に立脚する「コミュニスム」の定義（コミュニスムとは、平たく言えば助け合いのこと）とは反するものである。しかし、個人的にはこの感覚に非常に共感を覚える。我々は友人、家族、恋人などに何らかの恩義、ありがたみを感じつつも、にもかかわらず、自分は個人として絶対的に自由だという感情を、少なくとも私は持っている。つまり彼は、負債という関係だけにとらわれないような新たな倫理の可能性にかけているといえる。公的な負債は踏み倒されるべきだと主張している。したがって、我々と国家との関係は非人格的である以上、そこに道徳的義務感を感じる必要はまったくない。つまり奨学金は払う必要はまったくない。あんなもの踏み倒して当然である。覚えておけよ、日本学生支援機構。

著者は著名な人類学者…なのだが、アナキスト活動家なので将来的にニアル・ファーガソン教授のような金融マスコミ芸人にはおそらくならない（なれない）。しかし本書はファーガソン教授の『The Ascent of Money』なぞ足元にも及ばない本物の「金融史」だ。金融関係者の皆さん、経済学部の学生さん、ご一読を。ただ警告として、かなり哲学的なので、「忙しいのに500頁の哲学的金融史なぞ読んでる暇はない」という方は敬遠なさっても仕方がないかと。哲学的である理由は、「根源的な巨大な問い」から始まるという点。「Debtとは何か？」である。その語源は？「Debtをhonourする」というが、それでは、「honour」とはそもそも何なのだろう？その問いとともに、著者は古代の言語の闇、古代の「生の営み」と古代人の世界観の闇に読者を連れ出すのである。のっけから言語哲学のような展開になるので、単純に「マネーの誕生」を解説してくれ、という読者（ワタシだ）は面食らう。話が神話になり、神学になり、宗教史、哲学史、戦争史、奴隷史、とさまざまに展開していく。「等価交換は可能か」「可能だと人間は捉えてきたのか」という問いが長々と考察される。「市場の誕生」と戦争経済と国家の絡みが描き出される。読みながら、読者の中にこれまた巨大な疑問が生じる。全てがこのように絡み合っている中で、果たして「経済学」という学問が独立して成立し得るのだろうかと。取り敢えず本書の売りはこうだ。経済書では原始経済をバーター経済と解説する。その不便さが「通貨の誕生」で克服されたと。しかし人類学の記録においては、世界中どこを見渡しても、「原始バーター経済」の証拠（記録）は全くないのだそうだ。個人的にはこれだけで私は満足だ（「経済学者に（また）騙された！」と知っただけで満足）。原始経済はコミュニティ内の「貸し借り」である。始原は「クレディット」なのである。まあ考えてみれば、伝統的村社会において「等価値のバーター」などそう単純に成立しないだろうな、とはコロンブスの卵的に分かる。アダム・スミスが語る「対等者同士の市場」は、当時においても存在しない一種のユートピアだったのだと著者は言う。「通貨」も「市場」も自然発生などしない。戦乱と国家の強制によって誕生するのである。そして「通貨」は誕生したり消えたりしてきた。人類は古代から現在まで変わらず「debt」と「マネー」に頭を抱え続けてきた。それをどう捉え、どう扱うべきかと。ちなみに本書の領域ではないが、主流派経済学のモデルには「debt」と「マネー」が組み込まれていない。人類はいまだに悩んでいる。

Τhis book is simply a masterpiece. Absolutely essential reading for those interested with the history of debt and money. It is one of those books that change the way you see the world. Graeber masterfully moves from the beginnings of money, on the basis of human societies, to the role of debt and money throughout the last approximately 5,000 years, to the implications of making money as a unique moral imperative, in what is capitalism, in relations of Adam Smith with Islamic theologians - philosophers such as the Ghazali of the 11th and 12th centuries and finally what to do today. In short it is a classic book.

Engaging, readable introduction to one of the most important concepts of all: debt, the real origin of money. Along the way we explore the frequently repeated relationships with violence, slavery and empire. Even if you don't follow all of Graeber's ideas (I didn't), there's still plenty to make you think. This should be read by anyone contemplating studying Economics - to tell them what won't then appear in their courses, and to encourage them to ask why this is.Graeber is bringing to a popular audience the fruits of recent studies of ancient economies, primarily by anthropologists and archaeologists rather than by economists (who tend to just repeat Adam Smith or invent the evidence to fit their thinking.) Fans of this may like to progress to Michael Hudson's "Killing the host", or some of the academic collections co-edited by Hudson & Wunsch, or Randy Wray.

Anthropology finally challenging the daft Economics presumption that Money came after Barter - all that academic Economics drivel about a cobblers swapping shoes for carrots in happy villages...