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I’m going to assume that you’re basing your opinion of Graeber on Brad DeLong’s unhinged attacks on his work and character. There are no factual mistakes in “De

I’m going to assume that you’re basing your opinion of Graeber on Brad DeLong’s unhinged attacks on his work and character. There are no factual mistakes in “Debt” that impact the solidity of Graeber’s conclusions or historical narratives, most inaccuracies were minor and corrected in subsequent editions without changing the character of the book or the arguments within. Many if not most of DeLong’s attacks of inaccuracies are matters of interpretation, and in such cases it’s generally better to give the words of more accomplished and respected academics more weight than less accomplished or respected peers. As to where Graeber stands in relation to DeLong, I quote Graeber from a post here on HN: “I hate to be seeming to blow my own horn, but when there's a crazy person out there using dishonest methods to try to destroy your intellectual reputation, and where there are honest people like you apparently taking the bait, some things have to be pointed out. The best measure of the accuracy and relevance of scholar's work is what other scholars in the field think of it. If you want to measure my standing as a scholar in anthropology, you might want to consider the fact that the most eminent scholar in the field, Marshall Sahlins, co-wrote a book with me. If you want to assess the merit of Debt, you might wish to consider the fact that there have now been two different scholarly conferences specifically dedicated to engaging with the book, attended by Classicists, Assyriologists, Medievalists, Economic Historians, Anthropologists, and other specialists in the fields addressed in the book. Do you think that would have happened if it was a "intellectually bankrupt" work full of obvious mistakes? For instance, Brad DeLong has been an economic historian for decades now. Has anyone even thought to hold conference to discuss the implications of any of DeLong's writings or ideas? Finally, if the argument is that I'm clueless when it comes to economics, I might ask why you think it is that on Tuesday I will be presenting a macroeconomic seminar at the Bank of England. Sorry, but you've been suckered by a liar and a con man. I've honestly tried to just ignore the guy, hoping he'll eventually go away, but since he won't, I guess I have to explain what's really going on.” - David Graeber, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164707

skybrian 5y ago
It would be interesting to read a review of Debt by some other economist. I don’t think this can be settled by quoting DeLong or Graeber, considering the bitterness of this feud.
- thoughtstheseus 5y ago
  I work at a large institutional investment firm and have read David’s book. He adds to the conversation around debt in unique and thought provoking ways. For me, that’s what matters about the book.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Unfortunately most academic economists are not going to touch it. It's a sprawling, highly polemic work by a marxist anthropologist. Much of the book focuses on various moral issues portraying history as a sequence of just and unjust acts, oppressors and oppressed, and finally there are some call for coordinated debt forgiveness. That's not really inviting for academic economists that need to focus on quantitative or experimental research and would get nothing by wading into these debates. So those with economic training who do touch it will be outside Academia or on the margins. Here are some: * https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.htm... * http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-debt-first-5000-years.html http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-debt-... * https://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/debt-the-first-500-pages/ https://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/debt-the-first-500-pages/ * https://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/25/too-big-to-fail-the-first-5000-years/ https://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/25/too-big-to-fail-the-fir... The general consensus of these reviews is "man, he gets a lot of stuff wrong, and I don't agree with the central thesis, but boy what rich examples, and interesting insights are in this book." The reason deLong waded in is that he has a very promiscuous mind and likes to think about Soviet tank strategy in World War 2, financial markets, and public policy. And he shares all those ruminations on his blog. So he'll pick it up, but he has tenure and (apparently) lots of leisure time. There aren't many others in the same position.
  - quadrangle 5y ago
    Graeber was certainly not Marxist. And the whole nature of his new book and the rest of his work is the opposite of the idea of portraying history as a "sequence" of acts at all let alone defining them in some just/unjust binary.
    - 5y ago
cynicalkane 5y ago
To name just one of Graeber's essential lies: he makes the claim that Federal Reserve issuing American debt is privately controlled and weaves an extensive chapter based in fundamental ways on this misapprehension. This is a lie that's not "minor" nor "a matter of interpretation" nor unrelated to the "character of the book or arguments within": it's a fundamental misapprehension of the most important debt instrument in modern history (perhaps all history). In a book about debt in history. I don't really care too much for Graeber's self-important response. If the answer is, yes, Graeber's entitled to say what he wants because people celebrate and have conferences about him, and those who disagree are implied to be beneath him... well, the brazen self-importance is so astonishing that I can't rightly understand how one can agree with that degree of self-importance so directly presented, especially when it comes paired with no actual defense of his statements -- not even a link. Statements of the form "I'm right because I'm important, and that's all I need to say" are not usually tolerated from almost anyone as a substitute for basic, bare truths. That they are accepted here is not only a comment on the character of Graeber but on the character of his followers.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > To name just one of Graeber's essential lies: he makes the claim that Federal Reserve issuing American debt is privately controlled From a short piece of writing from the St. Louis Fed itself, linked to in another comment below: >The Federal Reserve Banks are not a part of the federal government, but they exist because of an act of Congress. Now, we could quote the next few lines too, for a bit more context: > So is the Fed private or public? The answer is both. While the Board of Governors is an independent government agency, the Federal Reserve Banks are set up like private corporations. Clearly, it's a rather unique institution that makes arguments that it is privately controlled or not rather harder to resolve. But that also means that this is not "an essential lie" by Graeber. He has elided some of the complexity in favor of what he sees as a more important truth, without saying something that it categorically false.
  - cynicalkane 5y ago
    American debt is issued entirely by Congress and the Treasury, and its monetization controlled by the Fed's Board of Governors, which is appointed by the government and independently operated. There's no means of control over these two things outside the U.S. government. There's also the FOMC, but this is relatively unessential such that it's unlikely to be related to whatever "essential truth" Graeber has in mind. In particular, they don't set monetary policy but do whatever the Board of Governors orders in that regard.
unmole 5y ago
> There are no factual mistakes in “Debt” that impact the solidity of Graeber’s conclusions or historical narratives, most inaccuracies were minor and corrected in subsequent editions without changing the character of the book or the arguments within. It's been a while since I read Debt but I distinctly remember Graber's disingenuous take on Adam Smith's famous "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." Graber argues that this is wrong because English (Or was it Scottish?) shopkeepers of the time mostly sold goods on credit and thus the customers were in fact depending on their benevolence. I don't know about you but to me that is complete batshit. The book also makes a way too big of deal about The Myth of Barter. While that is interesting from an anthropological perspective, Graber makes it sound like the bulk of modern economics is somehow based on this myth. I get why the book is popular. It posits to tackle big questions and contains the usual tropes against the state, big business, banks etc. that a left leaning audience will be more than willing to eat up. But I don't think it provides any new perspectives on economics that bear any resemblance to the real world.
- quadrangle 5y ago
  I don't think your summary of why Debt was/is popular will hold up to scrutiny. If you investigate with an open mind why people appreciate the book, it won't be merely because it plays up anti-state and anti-biz, anti-bank tropes. There's tons of other books that do that which people do not find comparable insightful. The emphasis of the myth of barter and the rest of the stuff about how debt works is interesting especially because it doesn't set out to make the story simpler. He makes the story far more complex and intriguing. It leaves people with the capacity to hold more lightly to our assumptions about the nature of money and power and the economy. None of these things should be taken as inevitable laws of society or something. We recognize that there are many different ways to think about these things. And the simple part is to stop thinking that we all know some supposedly obvious idea like "we must pay our debts" and to start wondering a lot more about all the complexity and presumptions that go into how debt fits into our relationships and situations. I doubt you'll find readers of Debt who come away extra confident that they now know the answer to how things "really" work. Most readers probably feel more that they have a view of how much there might be out there to understand, and they are willing to be less overconfident and more questioning about it all.

skybrian 5y ago

It would be interesting to read a review of Debt by some other economist. I don’t think this can be settled by quoting DeLong or Graeber, considering the bitterness of this feud.

thoughtstheseus 5y ago
I work at a large institutional investment firm and have read David’s book. He adds to the conversation around debt in unique and thought provoking ways. For me, that’s what matters about the book.
rsj_hn 5y ago
Unfortunately most academic economists are not going to touch it. It's a sprawling, highly polemic work by a marxist anthropologist. Much of the book focuses on various moral issues portraying history as a sequence of just and unjust acts, oppressors and oppressed, and finally there are some call for coordinated debt forgiveness. That's not really inviting for academic economists that need to focus on quantitative or experimental research and would get nothing by wading into these debates. So those with economic training who do touch it will be outside Academia or on the margins. Here are some: * https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/hummel_on_graeb.htm... * http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-debt-first-5000-years.html http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/book-review-debt-... * https://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/debt-the-first-500-pages/ https://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/debt-the-first-500-pages/ * https://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/25/too-big-to-fail-the-first-5000-years/ https://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/25/too-big-to-fail-the-fir... The general consensus of these reviews is "man, he gets a lot of stuff wrong, and I don't agree with the central thesis, but boy what rich examples, and interesting insights are in this book." The reason deLong waded in is that he has a very promiscuous mind and likes to think about Soviet tank strategy in World War 2, financial markets, and public policy. And he shares all those ruminations on his blog. So he'll pick it up, but he has tenure and (apparently) lots of leisure time. There aren't many others in the same position.
- quadrangle 5y ago
  Graeber was certainly not Marxist. And the whole nature of his new book and the rest of his work is the opposite of the idea of portraying history as a "sequence" of acts at all let alone defining them in some just/unjust binary.
  - 5y ago

cynicalkane 5y ago

To name just one of Graeber's essential lies: he makes the claim that Federal Reserve issuing American debt is privately controlled and weaves an extensive chapter based in fundamental ways on this misapprehension. This is a lie that's not "minor" nor "a matter of interpretation" nor unrelated to the "character of the book or arguments within": it's a fundamental misapprehension of the most important debt instrument in modern history (perhaps all history). In a book about debt in history. I don't really care too much for Graeber's self-important response. If the answer is, yes, Graeber's entitled to say what he wants because people celebrate and have conferences about him, and those who disagree are implied to be beneath him... well, the brazen self-importance is so astonishing that I can't rightly understand how one can agree with that degree of self-importance so directly presented, especially when it comes paired with no actual defense of his statements -- not even a link. Statements of the form "I'm right because I'm important, and that's all I need to say" are not usually tolerated from almost anyone as a substitute for basic, bare truths. That they are accepted here is not only a comment on the character of Graeber but on the character of his followers.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> To name just one of Graeber's essential lies: he makes the claim that Federal Reserve issuing American debt is privately controlled From a short piece of writing from the St. Louis Fed itself, linked to in another comment below: >The Federal Reserve Banks are not a part of the federal government, but they exist because of an act of Congress. Now, we could quote the next few lines too, for a bit more context: > So is the Fed private or public? The answer is both. While the Board of Governors is an independent government agency, the Federal Reserve Banks are set up like private corporations. Clearly, it's a rather unique institution that makes arguments that it is privately controlled or not rather harder to resolve. But that also means that this is not "an essential lie" by Graeber. He has elided some of the complexity in favor of what he sees as a more important truth, without saying something that it categorically false.
- cynicalkane 5y ago
  American debt is issued entirely by Congress and the Treasury, and its monetization controlled by the Fed's Board of Governors, which is appointed by the government and independently operated. There's no means of control over these two things outside the U.S. government. There's also the FOMC, but this is relatively unessential such that it's unlikely to be related to whatever "essential truth" Graeber has in mind. In particular, they don't set monetary policy but do whatever the Board of Governors orders in that regard.

unmole 5y ago

> There are no factual mistakes in “Debt” that impact the solidity of Graeber’s conclusions or historical narratives, most inaccuracies were minor and corrected in subsequent editions without changing the character of the book or the arguments within. It's been a while since I read Debt but I distinctly remember Graber's disingenuous take on Adam Smith's famous "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." Graber argues that this is wrong because English (Or was it Scottish?) shopkeepers of the time mostly sold goods on credit and thus the customers were in fact depending on their benevolence. I don't know about you but to me that is complete batshit. The book also makes a way too big of deal about The Myth of Barter. While that is interesting from an anthropological perspective, Graber makes it sound like the bulk of modern economics is somehow based on this myth. I get why the book is popular. It posits to tackle big questions and contains the usual tropes against the state, big business, banks etc. that a left leaning audience will be more than willing to eat up. But I don't think it provides any new perspectives on economics that bear any resemblance to the real world.

quadrangle 5y ago
I don't think your summary of why Debt was/is popular will hold up to scrutiny. If you investigate with an open mind why people appreciate the book, it won't be merely because it plays up anti-state and anti-biz, anti-bank tropes. There's tons of other books that do that which people do not find comparable insightful. The emphasis of the myth of barter and the rest of the stuff about how debt works is interesting especially because it doesn't set out to make the story simpler. He makes the story far more complex and intriguing. It leaves people with the capacity to hold more lightly to our assumptions about the nature of money and power and the economy. None of these things should be taken as inevitable laws of society or something. We recognize that there are many different ways to think about these things. And the simple part is to stop thinking that we all know some supposedly obvious idea like "we must pay our debts" and to start wondering a lot more about all the complexity and presumptions that go into how debt fits into our relationships and situations. I doubt you'll find readers of Debt who come away extra confident that they now know the answer to how things "really" work. Most readers probably feel more that they have a view of how much there might be out there to understand, and they are willing to be less overconfident and more questioning about it all.