Debt: Credit Versus Bullion
This is part 11 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. In chapter 8 Graeber veers perilously close to proposing a meta-narrative, something I’m highly suspicious of. That said, it is a really...
View ArticleDebt: The Axial Age
This is part 12 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. Better than half of this book are three huge, sweeping chapters wherein Graeber does his best to synthesize basically the entire human...
View ArticleDebt: The Middle Ages
This is part 13 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. We tend to think of the Middle Ages as something that happened in Western Europe characterized by small kingdoms full of feudal lords,...
View ArticleDebt: What Muslim Caliphates And Libertarians Have In Common
This is part 14 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. Imagine a society with a deep distrust of government. In this society the government is basically restricted to matters of defense. The...
View ArticleDebt: Eternal Beings
This is part 15 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. I took an unintended break from this series, but I want to come back to conclude it with a few more posts. Let’s start with a juicy...
View ArticleDebt: Age of the Great Capitalist Empires
This is part 16 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. I’m determined to bring this series to completion even if it takes me a year. Graeber continues his historical survey with a massive...
View ArticleDebt: Apocalypse
This is part 17 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. One strange feature of Capitalism is that it appears to need a built-in expiration date. Despite its proponents describing it as the...
View ArticleDebt: What is Capitalism Anyway?
This is part 18 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. Toward the end of this book Graeber gets so damn quotable it is hard to summarize him. I just want to make you read the entire section,...
View ArticleDebt: the Beginning of Something New
This is part 19 of an ongoing series about David Graeber’s Debt. In the final chapter of his epic book Graeber tries to trace the story of American Capitalism since 1971 as a way of setting a scene for...
View ArticleDebt: the Entire Series
Most books that claim to address “big ideas” and to try to move people to a new paradigm are marketing stunts hiding some shallow rehashing of other people’s work. Not so with Debt: the First 5000...
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