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I'm begging on hands and knees for everyone in this thread to read Graeber's "Debt: the first 5,000 years." The notion that debts have to be paid is very odd. I

by 1-more 6y ago

I'm begging on hands and knees for everyone in this thread to read Graeber's "Debt: the first 5,000 years." The notion that debts have to be paid is very odd. If I went to a bank and asked for a loan to bet on a horse, they'd laugh me out of the building. But if they knew that no matter what they could get the money back from me, they'd cut the check. That's where we are right now with non-dischargeable debts. Who holds risk for making loans is not an iron clad law of nature; it's a matter of political will that we have changed over time.

anitil 6y ago
I tried hard to read that book, but really struggled to get through it unfortunately. It seemed right down my alley but I couldn't get in to it. Might be time to dig it out and try again
mannanj 6y ago
Would you recommend against the newest addition: Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Year or the 2012 release?
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Don’t read it. Save your brain for a book that isn’t riddled with so many errors Brad DeLong wrote ten articles on the errors in Chapter 11. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.htm... > I have read David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years thoroughly and despite Graeber’s readability, scholarship, and erudition, it is a very bad book. Its tone is much too polemical. More important, when it gets to the more recent history that I know well, it is riddled with errors and distortions. Beyond that, it suffers from serious conceptual confusions, and in his excellent critique, Robert Murphy has only scratched the surface. https://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/02/gabriel-rosser-on-david-graebers-debt-the-first-5000-years.html https://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/02/gabriel-rosser-on-da... >> How the poor debtors still sell their daughters, How in the drought men still grow fat « Code and Culture: At Unfogged there’s a review (and a very funny comments thread) pointing out that the following sentence contains six factual claims all of which are incorrect: > 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 above is a quote from Debt about Apple. Here is the index of posts about errors in Chapter 11. https://www.bradford-delong.com/.services/blog/6a00e551f08003883400e551f080068834/search?filter.q=Graeber https://www.bradford-delong.com/.services/blog/6a00e551f0800...
inshadows 6y ago
I've read first two chapters and had to put it down. The first two chapters clearly outlines the agenda or "the side" of the author. Nothing wrong with that. Authors side is basically debtor: good lender: bad I have empathy for the horrific stories author shares, but my logic was seeking the obvious topic that never came (in those two chapters). What if lenders decided to not lend? Wouldn't that leave those poor souls in Madagascar in even worse position? The book is propaganda.

by 1-more 6y ago

anitil 6y ago

I tried hard to read that book, but really struggled to get through it unfortunately. It seemed right down my alley but I couldn't get in to it. Might be time to dig it out and try again

mannanj 6y ago

Would you recommend against the newest addition: Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Year or the 2012 release?

barry-cotter 6y ago
Don’t read it. Save your brain for a book that isn’t riddled with so many errors Brad DeLong wrote ten articles on the errors in Chapter 11. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.htm... > I have read David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years thoroughly and despite Graeber’s readability, scholarship, and erudition, it is a very bad book. Its tone is much too polemical. More important, when it gets to the more recent history that I know well, it is riddled with errors and distortions. Beyond that, it suffers from serious conceptual confusions, and in his excellent critique, Robert Murphy has only scratched the surface. https://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/02/gabriel-rosser-on-david-graebers-debt-the-first-5000-years.html https://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/02/gabriel-rosser-on-da... >> How the poor debtors still sell their daughters, How in the drought men still grow fat « Code and Culture: At Unfogged there’s a review (and a very funny comments thread) pointing out that the following sentence contains six factual claims all of which are incorrect: > 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 above is a quote from Debt about Apple. Here is the index of posts about errors in Chapter 11. https://www.bradford-delong.com/.services/blog/6a00e551f08003883400e551f080068834/search?filter.q=Graeber https://www.bradford-delong.com/.services/blog/6a00e551f0800...

inshadows 6y ago

I've read first two chapters and had to put it down. The first two chapters clearly outlines the agenda or "the side" of the author. Nothing wrong with that. Authors side is basically debtor: good lender: bad I have empathy for the horrific stories author shares, but my logic was seeking the obvious topic that never came (in those two chapters). What if lenders decided to not lend? Wouldn't that leave those poor souls in Madagascar in even worse position? The book is propaganda.