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It's a pleasure to read an article by a writer who understands of the history economic thought, though I suspect I will disagree with him on a lot of things. A

It's a pleasure to read an article by a writer who understands of the history economic thought, though I suspect I will disagree with him on a lot of things. Anyway, this is interesting. I'll look up these economists. On the face of it, I think it's interesting how economists are hesitant to consider money real. Money is fictional to most economists. What's real is consumer surplus, utility or some other abstract way of reasoning about consumption. ...skeptical eyebrow. I liked David Graeber's book about money. First, because I like his intellectual shit-stirring. Second, because I think he's right about the origin of money. Money evolved from debt. Debt did not evolve from money, as liberal 17/18th century thinkers assumed. Beyond this relatively simple point, I don't think he had much of anything concrete. But, as he talked about little local revolts and the role debt played... idk. Makes you think. In any case, from a reactive european perspective in the post financial crisis world... I suspect that what business cycles are is a system wide insolvency. It turns out tat some of the money isn't real. That is, some of the debts floating around the economy are not going to be paid. The dollar isn't worth a dollar, your bank doesn't really have your money, the stock will never pay a dividend, the national debt will never be repaid, someone isn't as rich as they think they are, the mortgages are in arrears. The crisis, whether it's a on banks, devaluation of assets, currency inflation... this is a bankruptcy proceeding, a negotiation determining who really owes who what, given that not everyone can get paid.

dnautics 8y ago
david graeber's book is great, although i too take a lot of the anti-money tone with a grain of salt. If you're in a marginalized subcommunity, a concrete ledger of debts is far better than an informal ledger of debts, as a position to stand on to defend your ground. You may like "the great wave: price revolutions..." by david hackett fisher for the role of economic conditions on local revolts and global revolution.
- daniel-cussen 8y ago
  To me, the problem with Debt is that while it indicts compound interest as harshly as it deserves, for all its hidden downstream consequences, it does not propose a real alternative to it. He proposes just not paying debts, but this means nobody accumulates capital, even literal seeds. It is as though he proposed the alternative to sugar be starvation. While those are both equally invalid choices, and are arguably the economic models of capitalism and communism respectively, there is no balance to be struck between the two, and they both lead to death, be it from malnutrition or diabetes. It is only barely better to strike a balance[0]. What we need, really, is bread and fasting, and what this would entail is missing from that book. [0] Before insulin injections, diabetics, universally having developed the deficiency late in life, were indicated to eat very little, and lived ~5 years at most after diabetes developed, IIRC.
  - dnautics 8y ago
    to be fair (and possibly to graber's discredit for not identifying this), we kind of do have a rolling debt jubilee in that events fall off your credit rating every seven years and you can declare bankruptcy. Also, a lot of the systemic problem with our debt system (like incrementally stealing value from the labor class) derive from its centralized nature; it's been about 150 or so years since decentralized debt economies (free banking in the US and Sweden) have been around and one wonders if with modern technology - mostly in the field of communication and ease of financial transactions - would enable a more robust, resilient, and just economic system.
    - pas 8y ago
      How does the debt system steal from the labor class?
- steanne 8y ago
  that reminds me of the recent article on indonesia using postcards in their rice-distribution program https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/07/10/627355954/how-postcards-solved-the-problem-of-disappearing-rice https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/07/10/6273559...
JackFr 8y ago
Hated Graeber's book on debt, but I thought the idea that debt preceded money was uncontroversial. Homer & Sylla go back at least to the Sumerians in 'A History of Interest Rates'
- 0x445442 8y ago
  I didn't read the book but here's the way I think about things. Federal Reserve Notes represent a proxy for some "work" to be done in the future. Gold represents a proxy for "work" that's already been done. If what Graeber is getting at is the notion that I'll give you these widgets or perform this service now in exchange for some widgets or work to be done later then I would agree, debt did exist before money.
- dnautics 8y ago
  the money replaced barter model is a pretty prevalent just-so story in econ departments. It even made it into a PSA infomercial (starting about 1:30, but the whole thing is a gem) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUvm9UgJBtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUvm9UgJBtg
cyberpunk0 8y ago
The history of economic thought is oppression and greed. Time and Time again.
- sctb 8y ago
  If this is constant then you don't need to keep posting about it, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
crdoconnor 8y ago
>Beyond this relatively simple point, I don't think he had much of anything concrete. He also made a pretty good case for gold's intrinsic value and economic importance being driven by war.
nickik 8y ago
> It's a pleasure to read an article by a writer who understands of the history economic thought He basically wrote two paragraphs with the most oversimplified and honestly often wrong intellectual history of economics. > First, because I like his intellectual shit-stirring. You mean you like it if somebody writes a book criticizing another profession even while he clearly has not studied either modern economics or even the history of intellectual thought in economics. I wish more people would do that, sound like a healthy thing for science. > Second, because I think he's right about the origin of money. Money evolved from debt. Debt did not evolve from money, as liberal 17/18th century thinkers assumed. That was one of the nice tricks he pulled. If he actually bothered to read the history of economic thought and not the 2min cliff notes he would have found tons of interesting and complex thought about money and its origins. He later claims that anthropologists had studied gift giving and debt economy then were the once that studied these things, while economist had done so 50 years earlier and were far more nuanced and with greater integration with economics then the the later anthropologists. However Graeber is so anti-economics that he literally refused to read that literature to such extend he made the incredible embracing mistake and mis-characterizations that I could not take him seriously. He didn't know the primary economist who wrote about origins of money and when writing about him he claimed 'he only added math to Smith argument'. That is particularly embracing because Carl Menger was known for not using a lot of math. So where did this notion of 'adding math come from'. Well there is another Carl Menger (the son) who was a mathematician. So quite simply Graeber is so certain that he is correct and all economist are stupid that he never read the most influential economist on the very topic he claims to criticize economist about. Graeber himself has admitted that money can arrive both from sustained interaction and trade, as well as from debt systems. So his whole me against the economist argument never even made sense, most economist didn't disagree with his main point. What he did was trying to make this simple point and the argument that debt is not always good (Britain in Madagascar and so on) and then he hoped people would buy the rest wholesale.
- crdoconnor 8y ago
  >You mean you like it if somebody writes a book criticizing another profession even while he clearly has not studied either modern economics or even the history of intellectual thought in economics. I wish more people would do that, sound like a healthy thing for science. You do realize that it's a history book and is not actually about economics at all? I didn't read much in that book that even discusses modern economic thought. The closest he gets is debunking the story about money arising because of a coincidence of wants. That's hardly a lynchpin of modern economic thought though - it's a story told to 19 year olds in econ 101. A lot of people don't like him because he's left wing, I suppose.
deadmetheny 8y ago
Reminds me of an amusing story I read somewhere a while back: >It is the month of August; a resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. >Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one. >The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the butcher. The Butcher takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the pig raiser. The pig raiser takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel. The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that, in these hard times, gave her “services” on credit. The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 dollar bill to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there. >The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything. At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 dollar bill, after saying he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town. >No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  Deadly. This is exactly the sort of reason I enjoyed the book. Its interesting how the story adapts to being told backwards. In most economic stories, the man would spend the dollars and stuff would happen.
- nextweek2 8y ago
  It's not that clever, they might be out of debt but they are also out of creditors. Nobody got richer or poorer just balances were settled. That's kind of the point of money.
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    Exactly. > However, the whole town is now without debt And without credit. I next expect to hear a ingenious story about someone who pays off a car loan in a way that results in an empty bank account.
Symmetry 8y ago
I liked Debt until I got up to the chapter on the 20th century where I knew something about the history involved and, well, you have stuff like "Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages." The whole chapter was filled with stuff like that and made me realized I shouldn't have been trusting the rest of the book.
- sumedh 8y ago
  I was going to buy the book but after reading your comment, I wont.

dnautics 8y ago

david graeber's book is great, although i too take a lot of the anti-money tone with a grain of salt. If you're in a marginalized subcommunity, a concrete ledger of debts is far better than an informal ledger of debts, as a position to stand on to defend your ground. You may like "the great wave: price revolutions..." by david hackett fisher for the role of economic conditions on local revolts and global revolution.

daniel-cussen 8y ago
To me, the problem with Debt is that while it indicts compound interest as harshly as it deserves, for all its hidden downstream consequences, it does not propose a real alternative to it. He proposes just not paying debts, but this means nobody accumulates capital, even literal seeds. It is as though he proposed the alternative to sugar be starvation. While those are both equally invalid choices, and are arguably the economic models of capitalism and communism respectively, there is no balance to be struck between the two, and they both lead to death, be it from malnutrition or diabetes. It is only barely better to strike a balance[0]. What we need, really, is bread and fasting, and what this would entail is missing from that book. [0] Before insulin injections, diabetics, universally having developed the deficiency late in life, were indicated to eat very little, and lived ~5 years at most after diabetes developed, IIRC.
- dnautics 8y ago
  to be fair (and possibly to graber's discredit for not identifying this), we kind of do have a rolling debt jubilee in that events fall off your credit rating every seven years and you can declare bankruptcy. Also, a lot of the systemic problem with our debt system (like incrementally stealing value from the labor class) derive from its centralized nature; it's been about 150 or so years since decentralized debt economies (free banking in the US and Sweden) have been around and one wonders if with modern technology - mostly in the field of communication and ease of financial transactions - would enable a more robust, resilient, and just economic system.
  - pas 8y ago
    How does the debt system steal from the labor class?
steanne 8y ago
that reminds me of the recent article on indonesia using postcards in their rice-distribution program https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/07/10/627355954/how-postcards-solved-the-problem-of-disappearing-rice https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/07/10/6273559...

JackFr 8y ago

Hated Graeber's book on debt, but I thought the idea that debt preceded money was uncontroversial. Homer & Sylla go back at least to the Sumerians in 'A History of Interest Rates'

0x445442 8y ago
I didn't read the book but here's the way I think about things. Federal Reserve Notes represent a proxy for some "work" to be done in the future. Gold represents a proxy for "work" that's already been done. If what Graeber is getting at is the notion that I'll give you these widgets or perform this service now in exchange for some widgets or work to be done later then I would agree, debt did exist before money.
dnautics 8y ago
the money replaced barter model is a pretty prevalent just-so story in econ departments. It even made it into a PSA infomercial (starting about 1:30, but the whole thing is a gem) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUvm9UgJBtg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUvm9UgJBtg

cyberpunk0 8y ago

The history of economic thought is oppression and greed. Time and Time again.

sctb 8y ago
If this is constant then you don't need to keep posting about it, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

crdoconnor 8y ago

>Beyond this relatively simple point, I don't think he had much of anything concrete. He also made a pretty good case for gold's intrinsic value and economic importance being driven by war.

nickik 8y ago

> It's a pleasure to read an article by a writer who understands of the history economic thought He basically wrote two paragraphs with the most oversimplified and honestly often wrong intellectual history of economics. > First, because I like his intellectual shit-stirring. You mean you like it if somebody writes a book criticizing another profession even while he clearly has not studied either modern economics or even the history of intellectual thought in economics. I wish more people would do that, sound like a healthy thing for science. > Second, because I think he's right about the origin of money. Money evolved from debt. Debt did not evolve from money, as liberal 17/18th century thinkers assumed. That was one of the nice tricks he pulled. If he actually bothered to read the history of economic thought and not the 2min cliff notes he would have found tons of interesting and complex thought about money and its origins. He later claims that anthropologists had studied gift giving and debt economy then were the once that studied these things, while economist had done so 50 years earlier and were far more nuanced and with greater integration with economics then the the later anthropologists. However Graeber is so anti-economics that he literally refused to read that literature to such extend he made the incredible embracing mistake and mis-characterizations that I could not take him seriously. He didn't know the primary economist who wrote about origins of money and when writing about him he claimed 'he only added math to Smith argument'. That is particularly embracing because Carl Menger was known for not using a lot of math. So where did this notion of 'adding math come from'. Well there is another Carl Menger (the son) who was a mathematician. So quite simply Graeber is so certain that he is correct and all economist are stupid that he never read the most influential economist on the very topic he claims to criticize economist about. Graeber himself has admitted that money can arrive both from sustained interaction and trade, as well as from debt systems. So his whole me against the economist argument never even made sense, most economist didn't disagree with his main point. What he did was trying to make this simple point and the argument that debt is not always good (Britain in Madagascar and so on) and then he hoped people would buy the rest wholesale.

crdoconnor 8y ago
>You mean you like it if somebody writes a book criticizing another profession even while he clearly has not studied either modern economics or even the history of intellectual thought in economics. I wish more people would do that, sound like a healthy thing for science. You do realize that it's a history book and is not actually about economics at all? I didn't read much in that book that even discusses modern economic thought. The closest he gets is debunking the story about money arising because of a coincidence of wants. That's hardly a lynchpin of modern economic thought though - it's a story told to 19 year olds in econ 101. A lot of people don't like him because he's left wing, I suppose.

deadmetheny 8y ago

Reminds me of an amusing story I read somewhere a while back: >It is the month of August; a resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. >Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one. >The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the butcher. The Butcher takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the pig raiser. The pig raiser takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel. The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that, in these hard times, gave her “services” on credit. The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 dollar bill to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there. >The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything. At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 dollar bill, after saying he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town. >No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

dalbasal 8y ago
Deadly. This is exactly the sort of reason I enjoyed the book. Its interesting how the story adapts to being told backwards. In most economic stories, the man would spend the dollars and stuff would happen.
nextweek2 8y ago
It's not that clever, they might be out of debt but they are also out of creditors. Nobody got richer or poorer just balances were settled. That's kind of the point of money.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  Exactly. > However, the whole town is now without debt And without credit. I next expect to hear a ingenious story about someone who pays off a car loan in a way that results in an empty bank account.

Symmetry 8y ago

I liked Debt until I got up to the chapter on the 20th century where I knew something about the history involved and, well, you have stuff like "Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their laptops in each other's garages." The whole chapter was filled with stuff like that and made me realized I shouldn't have been trusting the rest of the book.

sumedh 8y ago
I was going to buy the book but after reading your comment, I wont.