3 ms·
> Debt: the first 5000 years Reading the synopsis, I get the impression he's basically defining different forms of IOUs as "debt" instead of "currency", and us
by makeitdouble 3y ago
> Debt: the first 5000 years
Reading the synopsis, I get the impression he's basically defining different forms of IOUs as "debt" instead of "currency", and use it as lever to posit that "debt" came before money, to then go on to explain that people live in a society and depend on each other in many intricate ways...
Not that there's anything specifically wrong with that...but is it worth a long read or am I already getting the gist of it ?
- raincole 3y agoYes, it's roughly the idea of this book. Is it still worth reading? It depends on how much you are interested in the history behind all these. I think the book is recommended so much because many people have very weird view towards the concept of "debt". Maybe their upbringing taught them debt is intrinsically bad or something.
- reso 3y agoThe book is an anthropological history of money. I wouldn't say it has a single thesis, although the idea that money has arose out of debt-relationships in different periods is a recurring theme. It starts in Babylon, where he looks at how temples acted as debt-registrars for cities and how this evolved into a currency system. He moves forward through history and theorizes why some periods are dominated by intrinsically valuable currency (boullion) vs. paper notes or other more abstract stores-of-value. I believe the final chapter covers the 1970s after Nixon moved off the gold standard.