An Analysis of David Graeber's 'Debt' The First 5,000 Years by Sulaiman Hakemy - Compressed

An Analysis of
David Graeber’s
Debt
The First 5,000 Years
Sulaiman Hakemy
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CONTENTS
WAYS IN TO THE TEXT
Who Is David Graeber?
What Does Debt: The First 5,000 Years Say?
Why Does Debt: The First 5,000 Years Matter?
SECTION 1: INFLUENCES
Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context
Module 2: Academic Context
Module 3: The Problem
Module 4: The Author’s Contribution
SECTION 2: IDEAS
Module 5: Main Ideas
Module 6: Secondary Ideas
Module 7: Achievement
Module 8: Place in the Author’s Work
SECTION 3: IMPACT
Module 9: The First Responses
Module 10: The Evolving Debate
Module 11: Impact and Influence Today
Module 12: Where Next?
Glossary of Terms
People Mentioned in the Text
Works Cited
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CRITICAL THINKING AND DEBT: THE FIRST
5,000 YEARS
Primary critical thinking skill: PROBLEM-SOLVING
Secondary critical thinking skill: REASONING
Debt is one of the great subjects of our day, and understanding the way that it
not only fuels economic growth, but can also be used as a means of
generating profit and exerting control, is central to grasping the way in which
our society really works.
David Graeber’s contribution to this debate is to apply his anthropologists’
training to the understanding of a phenomenon often considered purely from
an economic point of view. In this respect, the book can be considered a fine
example of the critical thinking skill of problem-solving. Graeber’s main aim
is to undermine the dominant narrative, which sees debt as the natural – and
broadly healthy – outcome of the development of a modern economic system.
He marshals evidence that supports alternative possibilities, and suggests that
the phenomenon of debt emerged not as a result of the introduction of money,
but at precisely the same time.
This in turn allows Graeber to argue against the prevailing notion that
economy and state are fundamentally separate entities. Rather, he says, “the
two were born together and have always been intertwined” – with debt being
a means of enforcing elite and state power. For Graeber, this evaluation of the
evidence points to a strong potential solution: there should be more readiness
to write off debt, and more public involvement in the debate over debt and its
moral implications.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF THE ORIGINAL WORK
Born in 1961, US anthropologist and activist David Graeber was weaned on
leftist politics, and declared himself an anarchist at age 16. He became an
anthropology professor, and his early cultural research in Madagascar
exposed him to poverty that he saw as caused by pressures to repay excessive
government debt. Through a combination of activism and scholarship he has
devoted much of his career to developing an intellectual basis for
undermining capitalism. In his 2011 book Debt: The First 5,000 Years,
Graeber uses the insights of an anthropologist to argue that debt plays a toxic
role in human relations.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THE ANALYSIS

Sulaiman Hakemy holds an MSc in economic history and development from
the London School of Economics. A writer and journalist, he has reported on
industry, politics, and culture for various publications. His background is in
the development aid and urban planning sectors, specialising in conflict and
fragile states. He is based in Istanbul and Toronto, and speaks English,
French, Spanish, Arabic, Persian, and some Urdu.
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WAYS IN TO THE TEXT
KEY POINTS
Born in 1961, David Graeber is an American professor of

anthropology* (the study of human beings, particularly human
culture, practices, and beliefs) and a social activist supporting
anarchism* (the political position that there should be no
government).
In his 2011 book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Graeber tells the story
of debt in human history and argues that money, markets* (systems
in which goods and services are bought and sold), and our current
economic system were created to help the wealthy take advantage of
the poor.
Debt gives readers an alternative to the traditional understanding of
economics.*
Who Is David Graeber?

David Graeber, the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), is an
anthropologist and professor of anthropology at the London School of
Economics* in England. He has published many books on topics related to
both anthropology and politics,* and has also been involved in international
activist movements focused on anti-globalization* (opposition to the
increasing economic, cultural, and political connectedness across continents),
anti-capitalism* (opposition to the economic and social system of capitalism,
in which trade, production, and property are held in private hands), and the
support of debt relief.
Graeber was born in New York in 1961, where his parents exposed him to
leftist politics at an early age. His mother was a garment worker and his
father fought against the right-wing General Franco* in the Spanish Civil
War* (1936–9). Both were active in labor union* politics (a union is an
organization of traders, workers, or laborers who join together to negotiate
for things such as better salaries or working conditions). While Graeber’s
father was associated with anarchist movements during his time in Spain, he
never claimed to be an anarchist; David Graeber, however, began to consider
himself an anarchist at the age of 16.
Graeber received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of
Chicago in 1997. In graduate school, Graeber won a prestigious Fulbright
Fellowship* to conduct ethnographic* fieldwork—the study of a people in
the place where they live—on the island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
While there, he saw firsthand the devastating effects that large amounts of
government debt can have on developing countries.*
Graeber has been active in protest movements for years. He served as an
intellectual leader in the Occupy Wall Street* movement, which started in
2011 and opposes economic and social inequality. Graeber has been credited
with coining the group’s anti-inequality slogan “We are the 99%.”1
What Does Debt: The First 5,000 Years Say?

David Graeber’s 2011 book Debt: The First 5,000 Years asks whether our
economic system and its morals are fair. As Graeber writes, “this book is a
history of debt … but it also uses that history as a way to ask fundamental
questions about what human beings and human society are or could be like.”2
To do this, Debt takes a critical look at some of the founding “myths” of
modern economics. It also offers different ways of thinking about economies,
using the insights of anthropology.
Since the time of the influential Scottish economist Adam Smith* (1723–
90), economics has been grounded on the idea that human relations are based
on exchange: on trading one thing for another. Graeber says this makes it
seem “as if our ties to society, even to the cosmos itself, can be imagined in
the same terms as a business deal.”3 One of the central themes in the book is
Graeber’s argument that exchange is not the most fundamental thing about
humanity.
Smith, who pioneered economics as a field of study, argued that money
was created in ancient times to make barter* more convenient. In a
moneyless barter system, something is traded directly for something else, so
that two people can do business together only if each has something the other
wants. Graeber argues that there is no evidence to show that money was
created for this purpose. Smith also claims that the state and the free market
—an economic system in which parties are free to buy and sell goods and
services without government interference—are opposing forces. Graeber, on
the other hand, says the two “were born together and have always been
intertwined.”4
Graeber says that “the very principle of exchange emerged largely as an
effect of violence,” and that money and markets find their origins “in crime
and recompense, war and slavery, honor, debt, and redemption.”5 This is an
important secondary theme in Debt.
At the same time, Graeber uses his background in anthropology, studying
human society, beliefs, and practices, to discuss the “moral basis of economic
life.”6 He suggests that human beings shift between different types of
economic interaction with one another. Of these different types, “exchange,”
Graeber argues, usually occurs among strangers.
Graeber also describes differences between the market economy and the
pre-market economy, which he calls the “human economy.” Human
economies are “economic systems primarily concerned not with the creation
of wealth, but with the creation, destruction, and rearranging of human
beings.”7 In these economies, money is not used to buy things, but rather to
maintain relations between people. When states and empires introduced
market systems, exchange became the chief form of interaction between
people.
The final argument in Debt is that money and debt have historically
alternated between virtual and physical forms. Graeber says this demonstrates
that money, debt, and the system of capitalism*—in which trade, production,
and property are in private hands—are not a fundamental part of human
nature. They are social creations that can be undone.
Why Does Debt: The First 5,000 Years Matter?

Debt was first published in 2011, and written in a time of global economic
turmoil, when many were already questioning the fairness of the dominant
economic system. Two major economic crises together have demonstrated
the devastating impact that excessive debt can have on quality of life. The
global financial crisis of 2008* was caused in part by financial institutions
lending many people far more money in home mortgages than they could
possibly repay. The government response to the crisis focused on stabilizing
the financial system by rescuing banks, rather than on providing debt relief
for individuals. In the ongoing European debt crisis,* nations in southern
Europe that have borrowed enormous amounts of money are being pressured
to reduce their national budgets in favor of repaying loans to wealthier
countries and institutions. These budget cuts have led to enormous political
fallout by worsening the problems of widespread unemployment and poverty
—issues that have led some to challenge their assumptions about justice and
debt. Graeber’s book provides a framework for thinking about these issues.
Graeber believes his arguments will only become more relevant over the
coming years: “There is very good reason to believe that, in a generation or
so, capitalism itself will no longer exist.”8 Graeber sees Debt pointing the
way toward this future reality. He urges readers to believe they can play a
role in determining the future of the system: “What I have been trying to do
in this book is not so much propose a vision of what, precisely, the next age
will be like, but to throw open perspectives, enlarge our sense of possibilities;
to begin to ask what it would mean to start thinking on a breadth and with a
grandeur appropriate to the times.”9
The author brings significant new insights into these economic issues by
examining them through the lens of anthropology. While Debt makes no
policy prescriptions other than simple debt relief, it quickly became a hit in
international activist circles. Graeber has positioned himself as an influential
voice in debates about not only debt, but about the kind of society we should
aspire to live in.
NOTES
1. David Runciman, “The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a
Movement by David Graeber – Review,” Guardian, March 28, 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/28/democracy-project-
david-graeber-review.
2. David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Brooklyn, NY: Melville
House, 2011), 18.
3. Graeber, Debt, 18.
SECTION 1
INFLUENCES
MODULE 1
THE AUTHOR AND THE HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
KEY POINTS
David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years challenges our

assumptions about modern economic life at a time when the world is
rocked with economic crises.
Graeber was born in New York 1961 to a family of working-class
intellectuals who participated in revolutionary* and anarchist*
movements: a revolutionary movement is dedicated to the
overthrow of an existing political system of governance or authority;
anarchism is the political philosophy that government should be
abolished altogether.
Graeber’s education in anthropology*—the systematic study of
humanity, especially culture and society—was heavily influenced by
his conviction, inspired by the global debt and energy crises in the
1970s and 1980s, that the world is characterized by harsh and
unequal power dynamics.
Why Read This Text?

David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years investigates the history and
morality of debt with enormous breadth and detail. Published in 2011, the
book was written in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial
crisis,* an event caused by the collapse of the American housing bubble
which resulted in mass defaults on debts, affecting financial institutions and
markets worldwide, and in the midst of the European debt crisis* (in which
several member states have been unable to repay loans to private and public
creditors).
“My childhood was full of radical politics”.

David Graeber, Interview in Radical History Review
These two crises together have exposed the weakest points of a consumer
economy based on credit* (borrowing) and debt, national economies built on
financing debt of other nations, and a global economy based on balancing the
effects of imports and exports between countries. The common thread
through all of these layers of economic woe is debt—which makes Graeber’s
work extremely relevant for students of the social sciences and members of
the public alike.
The author is the first to write a popular book that considers economic
questions from an anthropological perspective. By introducing this approach
in a book written for a non-academic audience, Graeber has popularized the
idea of taking interdisciplinary* approaches (approaches that draw on the
aims and methods of different academic fields) to economic issues. On a
more fundamental level, however, Graeber’s book seeks to challenge the
popular understanding of economics,* and to undermine the central
principles of the social and economic system of capitalism* itself (a system
in which trade and production are held in private hands and exercised for
private profit). Graeber’s views have been taken up by anti-capitalist
intellectuals and activists alike, and provide sophisticated and understandable
arguments for rethinking the capitalist system.
Author’s Life
David Graeber was born in New York in 1961. The son of working-class
intellectuals active in labor union* circles (organizations of workers founded
to guarantee things such as fair pay and decent working conditions), he was
exposed to leftist politics* at an early age. Graeber’s mother was a garment
worker. His father was affiliated with the Young Communist League* as a
student and later participated in the Spanish Revolution* and Spanish Civil
War* of the 1930s, in which supporters of the extreme right-wing regime of
the military leader Francisco Franco* fought a coalition of Spanish and
international volunteers who wanted to preserve the previous, democratic,
regime.
Graeber began to declare himself an anarchist at the age of 16.1 He
graduated from the State University of New York at Purchase in 1984, then
studied anthropology as a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
While there he won a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship* to conduct
ethnographic* research into the culture of the people of Madagascar, an
island nation east of Africa. Graeber received his doctorate in anthropology in
1997.
Graeber’s involvement in political activism began in 1999, when he joined
protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO)* meeting in Seattle.
The WTO promotes and regulates global trade, and is a symbol of the
growing connections among nations around the world. Graeber established
himself as a vocal figure in the global justice movement,* an international
network of activist groups opposed to capitalism and globalization.* In 2011,
he became an intellectual leader within Occupy Wall Street (OWS),* an
activist group that grew out of a local protest in a park in New York City.
Among other things, OWS protested against debt-relief policies that they
believe unfairly favored wealthy creditors.* Graeber is sometimes credited
for coming up with the group’s now famous protest slogan “We are the
99%.”2
Today, Graeber is a professor of anthropology at the London School of
Economics* and continues to participate in social activism.
Author’s Background
David Graeber was a teenager in the 1970s, a period bookended by major
disruptions in the global economic order. In 1971, the United States began a
process that led to the end of the gold standard,* under which the US dollar
and other currencies had been linked to a fixed amount of gold. In 1979, an
energy crisis* caused by interruptions in the supply of petroleum from the
Middle East and faltering economies in the West saw fuel prices rise sharply,
creating economic hardship throughout the economy.
While Graeber was a university student, the world saw a debt crisis in the
1980s* triggered by unregulated lending from global banks to governments
in developing countries* that borrowed (and sometimes wasted) more money
than they could repay. In response, global trade and development
organizations—the International Monetary Fund (IMF)* and the World
Bank*—forced changes that created hardships for citizens of developing
countries reliant on suddenly unaffordable public welfare programs and local
jobs. In exchange for high-interest loans that saved them from default, these
developing countries had to focus more of their budgets on loan repayment,
and open their economies to international trade. According to the
anthropologist Keith Hart,* “Graeber’s internationalism was shaped by this
wholesale looting” of developing countries.3
Graeber’s doctoral fieldwork in Madagascar also played a considerable
role in informing his politics. His views on economic inequality arose from
his research on the slave trade, colonialism,* and postcolonial power
struggles between Madagascar and wealthier nations. All of these aspects of
Graeber’s background fuel his political activism and inform the tone of Debt
and his other academic work.
NOTES
1. Stuart Jeffries, “David Graeber Interview: ‘So Many People Spend Their
Working Lives Doing Jobs They Think Are Unnecessary,’” Guardian,
March 21, 2015,
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/21/books-interview-
david-graeber-the-utopia-of-rules.
2. David Runciman, “The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a
Movement by David Graeber – Review,” Guardian, March 28, 2013,
3. Keith Hart, “In Rousseau’s footsteps: David Graeber and the
Anthropology of Unequal Society,” The Memory Bank, July 4, 2012,
http://thememorybank.co.uk/2012/07/04/in-rousseaus-footsteps-david-
graeberand-the-anthropology-of-unequal-society-2/.
MODULE 2
ACADEMIC CONTEXT
KEY POINTS
The discipline of economic history* is concerned with

understanding how and why economies develop.
The common understanding within economics* and economic
history has always been that debt and money arose to make buying
and selling easier than in a barter* system, where trades are made
directly and each party has to have something the other wants.
David Graeber is an anthropologist*—a scholar of human culture
and society—who seeks to disprove this understanding of money
and debt, and to argue that non-market* societies (societies in which
trade for private profit is not a defining feature) are not only
possible, but perhaps better.
The Work in its Context

While David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, is an
anthropologist, his book falls mainly within the field of economic history.
The book is an attempt to rethink the way that economic history has
approached the subject of debt, and in doing so it draws conclusions about
economic systems that depend on repayment of debts.
Whereas economics can be defined as the study of how people behave
when faced with scarce means and unlimited desires, economic history is the
study of this behavior, its systems, and related institutions over time.
Economic history explains how and why economies have developed, and so
its core concern is what economic systems and institutions have shown to be
both possible and sustainable.
Debt covers a wide range of subjects, but frames all of them within the
history of debt.1 We measure debt in monetary terms, so “A history of debt,”
Graeber writes, “is thus necessarily a history of money.”2 Studying the
history of money helps us understand its true function, and gives us a way to
consider its legitimacy as a basis for economic relations. This is an important
element of Debt.
“When economists speak of the origins of money, for example, debt is

always something of an afterthought … For almost a century,
anthropologists like me have been pointing out that there is something
very wrong with this picture. The standard economic-history version
has little to do with anything we observe when we examine how
economic life is actually conducted.”
David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Overview of the Field

Economic history is a young discipline, recognized as such only in the
twentieth century.3 But the history of money has been studied as far back as
ancient Greece; the philosopher Aristotle* concluded around 350 b.c.e. that
money arose as means to improve the barter system:4 a “placeholder” for
goods making barter more convenient for parties without mutually desired
goods. The eighteenth-century Scottish thinker Adam Smith* supported this
theory in his book The Wealth of Nations (1776), the first work of modern
economics.5 In the early twentieth century it was taken up by economists of
the Austrian School* (a school of economic thought that focuses on the
rationality and actions of individuals as the primary forces in an economy),
notably the Austrian economist Carl Menger.*6 This theory of money
remains dominant to this day, and supports the idea that money is simply an
extension of humanity’s natural tendency, as Adam Smith called it, to “truck
and barter.”
Another theory of the history of money was first put forward in the early
twentieth century by the German economist Georg Friedrich Knapp,* and
came to be known as chartalism.*7 Knapp proposed that money is a “creature
of law,”8 a form of credit* that originated with states’ attempts to direct
market activity. Chartalism is closely related to the credit theory of money,*
pioneered by the British economist Alfred Mitchell-Innes,*9 which considers
money a form of credit and debt. Chartalism and the credit theory of money
were highly influential10 in developing today’s dominant understanding of an
economic system, known as Keynesianism,* based on the idea that total
spending is the most powerful force in the economy. But the common
understanding of the origin of money continues to be that it emerged as an
improvement on the barter system.
Regardless of the origin of money, most mainstream economists believe
money reflects a natural human tendency for people to trade with each other.
Academic Influences
By disputing what he called the “Myth of Barter,”* David Graeber draws on
the work of anthropologists before him. Marcel Mauss,* a nineteenth-century
French sociologist considered to be a pioneer in anthropology, proposed in
his book The Gift that barter was not a natural or necessary method of
exchange in human society.11 In “Barter and Economic Disintegration,” the
renowned British anthropologist Caroline Humphrey* wrote: “No example of
a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the
emergence from it of money; all available [studies of the world’s peoples]
suggests that there never has been such a thing.”12
The British anthropologist Keith Hart* has also contributed much to the
field’s scholarship on money. In his 1986 essay “Heads or Tails? Two Sides
of the Coin,” Hart argues that money has always been both a commodity*
(something that can be traded), and a token of debt. Graeber has stated that
Hart’s essay was one of the inspirations for Debt.13
Debt also draws on unorthodox theorists like the influential German
political philosopher Karl Marx,* who in his classic book Capital (1867–
94)14 warned that capitalism uses debt to oppress people, and the Hungarian
American economic historian Karl Polanyi,* who in his book The Great
Transformation (1944) suggested that markets are artificial concepts that
were entirely created by the power of the state.15 As a result, Debt draws on a
wide variety of academic traditions.
NOTES
House, 2011), 18.
3. T. C. Barker, “The Beginnings of the Economic History Society,” The
Economic History Review 30, no. 1 (February, 1977): 4.
4. Shahzavar Karimzadi, Money and Its Origins (Abingdon: Routledge,
2013), 213.
5. A. Mitchell Innes, “What Is Money?,” The Banking Journal 30 (1913):
377– 408.
6. Graeber, Debt, 28
8. Georg Friedrich Knapp, The State Theory of Money (London:
Macmillan & Company, 1924), 1.
9. A. Mitchell Innes, “The Credit Theory of Money,” The Banking Journal
31 (1914): 151–68.
10. John Maynard Keynes, A Treatise on Money (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, & Co, 1930), 4.
11. Marcel Mauss, The Gift (London: Cohen & West, 1954).
12. Caroline Humphrey, “Barter and Economic Disintegration,” Man 20, no.
1 (March, 1985): 48.
13. Keith Hart, “Heads or Tails? Two Sides of the Coin,” Man 21, no. 4
(December, 1986): 637–56.
14. Karl Marx, Das Kapital (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co, 1906).
15. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944).
MODULE 3
THE PROBLEM
KEY POINTS
The main question concerning academics at the time of Debt’s

publication is whether the current capitalist* system, in which trade
and production are conducted for private profit, is fair to debtors.
Economists differ as to whether debt should be seen as the greatest
threat to economic growth, whereas popular activist movements
argue that capitalism itself perpetuates injustice through debt.
David Graeber uses scholarly arguments from outside the discipline
of economics* to criticize capitalism.
Core Question
In Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber is attempting to answer
several questions, some of which are academic and some of which are moral.
All of them lead to the core question: “What, in terms of economic life, is a
fair way to live?” After the global financial crisis 2008,* this was a major
concern for many economists and policy makers.
As Graeber recalls: “After 2008, for example, there was this moment that
lasted maybe a month or so, where suddenly you could talk about anything.
Everything was in doubt. Even The Economist* ran headlines effectively
asking: ‘Capitalism: was it a good idea?’ Obviously, they concluded yes;
they’re The Economist. But, nonetheless, it seemed like everything was up
for grabs. You could think big thoughts again and wonder why it was all
here. Why do we have an economy? And that lasted about four weeks, until
everyone said, ‘Shut up and stop thinking about this. It will come back if we
just close our eyes and ears and keep carrying on as if nothing is
happening.’”1
“This book is a history of debt, then, but it also uses that history as a
way to ask fundamental questions about what human beings and
human society are or could be like––what do we actually owe each
other, and what it even means to ask that question”.
Ultimately, Graeber gives only an indirect answer to the core question, by

arguing that our ideas of debt and fairness under capitalism are problematic.
In doing so, he opens the door for new ways of considering the issue in the
future.
The Participants
Another question related to Graeber’s focus––the question of how to
reconcile our ideas of debt under capitalism with harsh realities for debtors––
was part of a raging debate at the time of Debt’s publication. One camp,
consisting primarily of Western politicians and economic institutions founded
to provide loans and financial assistance for developing countries* (the
International Monetary Fund* and the World Bank*), and backed by the
American economists Carmen Reinhart* and Kenneth Rogoff,*2 maintained
that high levels of debt were bad for economic growth. They also argued that
rescuing debtors by forgiving debt would encourage more irresponsible
behavior (a principle described as “moral hazard”), so the debts should be
paid back. The opposing camp, consisting of most mainstream economists in
the academic world and including prominent Keynesians* like the Nobel
Prize-winning economists Paul Krugman* and Amartya Sen,* supported
some concessions for debt relief. They also argued that forcing developing
countries to reduce government spending until debts are repaid would be a
bigger barrier to economic growth. According to Keynesian thought, a
country’s economic output, in the short run, is influenced by the economy’s
level of total demand.
At the same time, activist movements driven by anger over economic
inequality were rallying on the fringes of the academic and policy debates.
These movements, including the global justice movement* (a network of
international social activist movements that oppose corporate globalization*)
and, later, the Occupy movement (a global protest movement against
economic and social inequality that began in 2011), were joined by radical
economists like the French scholar Thomas Piketty* in extending the pro-
debt relief position to its most extreme. They argued that capitalism itself was
unjust, as it reinforced inequality and took away the rights of debtors.3
Graeber’s work reflects this belief.
The Contemporary Debate

The debate continues between those who want to change the treatment of
debt within the framework of capitalism, and those who want to rethink
capitalism altogether. In Europe, there has been an extended struggle between
nations over austerity* budgets (budgets that force debtor countries to reduce
government spending in favor of repaying more debt). Conflict including
riots in Greece over plans to reduce spending and raise taxes have led to a
belief among many politicians and economists that austerity is politically
unsustainable as a solution to financial turmoil.4
At the same time, the activist movements have lost momentum because of
an inability to organize themselves around a clear platform. Debt is
considered important because the book pulls together the academic ideas
behind the activism. Another such book is Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the
Twenty-First Century—although Debt goes further than Capital in urging that
capitalism as a system be reconsidered. Graeber’s anarchist* politics* (his
position that governments should be abolished) and association with Occupy
Wall Street* and the global justice movement draw him into the
contemporary debate and position him as an anti-capitalist intellectual.
NOTES
1. Hannah Chadeayne Appel, “Finance Is Just Another Word for Other
People’s Debts: An Interview with David Graeber,” Radical History
Review, no. 118 (2014): 168.
2. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, “Growth in a Time of
Debt,” American Economic Review 100, no. 2 (May, 2010): 573–8.
3. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2014).
4. Amartya Sen, “The Economic Consequences of Austerity,” New
Statesman, June 4, 2015.
MODULE 4
THE AUTHOR’S CONTRIBUTION
KEY POINTS
Graeber believes we can build an idea of a fairer economic life using

anthropological* evidence (evidence drawn from the study of
human culture and society) comparing market* societies (defined by
the extent to which trade is conducted for private profit) and non-
market societies.
Graeber’s exploration of debt introduces anthropology into a public
debate that has largely occurred within the confines of economics*
and economic history.*
Debt summarizes and builds on a century-old body of work
known as economic anthropology* (the study of the ways in which
different human cultures conduct their economic affairs).
Author’s Aims
David Graeber has several aims in Debt: The First 5,000 Years. At a basic
level, he wants to clear up the “profound moral confusion”1 about what debt
actually is by building a definition of debt that is free from “the logic of the
marketplace.”2
He wants to advance the discipline of anthropology by injecting its
insights into a discussion usually associated with economic theory and
economic history. As such, the book practices a kind of intellectual sabotage
that systematically undermines the work of the eighteenth-century economist
Adam Smith* and his descendants, and strengthens the position of Graeber’s
own intellectual forebears in the field of economic anthropology along the
way.
At the broadest level, however, Graeber is trying to promote anti-
capitalism* by means of relevant and serious scholarship without falling back
on the outmoded ideas of Karl Marx* or the fringes of leftist extremism.
Graeber does not make any sweeping policy proposals, other than offering
the idea of extensive debt relief.3 But he clearly intends to inspire others to
create solutions once they have set aside their commitment to capitalism.
“One of the puzzling things about all the theories on the origins of
money that we’ve been looking at so far is that they almost completely
ignore the evidence of anthropology.”
Approach
In Debt, Graeber does not build arguments on top of preexisting economic
theory or political philosophy. He seeks only to disprove existing arguments.
Graeber believes capitalism evolved because of a series of events in world
history, and is not based on any objective economic truths. Based on this
approach, he reveals lessons about debt, morality, and markets by examining
economic history in detail.
Graeber bases his work on evidence, and is thorough in referencing his
sources. But the sheer size of the time period covered (3500 b.c.e. to the
present) forces him to trot briskly through historical and anthropological
evidence, providing his own opinions and theories where they are relevant.
As a result, the book’s chapters are not neatly tied to a central point. Graeber
quickly lays out some of his arguments at the beginning and provides the
evidence to support them as he goes along, making other key arguments at
the end.
While this would be a problem in an academic paper, the approach works
well in a book written for a popular audience. Graeber values storytelling
over technicalities, so that the reader finishes with a clear set of ideas and
opinions and plenty of examples to support them. But it is difficult to stitch
all the ideas together into a consistent theory.
Contribution in Context
One of Debt’s unique contributions is that it combines the various traditions
in economic anthropology in an effort to disprove the traditional
understanding of economics. Graeber pulls together an enormous range of
ethnographic* (cultural) studies, physical evidence from earlier societies, and
anthropological theory to conclude that money did not originate from barter*
(trade without money) and did not arise as a unit of exchange.
He also supports the school of thought pioneered by the British
anthropologist Keith Hart,* who said money has always been both a
commodity* (something valuable in its own right) and a tool for credit,* and
debt accounting. Graeber builds on Hart’s views by arguing that over history,
civilization has swung back and forth between credit and commodity forms
of money. When Graeber told Hart of this claim in person, Hart
acknowledged that he had never realized that before.
Graeber also discusses why money really came about, if not for exchange.
He then draws moral conclusions from this discussion, arguing that
economies have manipulated the concepts of credit and debt by using money
to enforce power relationships. While Graeber does not describe a new anti-
capitalist anthropological theory, he assembles many of the pieces needed to
do so.
NOTES
House, 2011), 8.
SECTION 2
IDEAS
MODULE 5
MAIN IDEAS
KEY POINTS
David Graeber writes about two key themes in Debt: the origin of
money and markets,* and the origins of the concept of “debt” itself.
According to Graeber, money and markets are tools artificially
created to convert the social obligations on which human
relationships are built into measureable “debts” people in a position
of power can use to take advantage of others.
Debt is written for a popular audience, so while making its
arguments it provides easily understandable discussions on morality
and political philosophy.
Key Themes
David Graeber wants to understand whether our current economic system,
centered on the idea of debt, is truly fair; the title Debt: The First 5,000 Years
makes it plain that debt will be the central focus of the work. His attempts to
answer the question “What is debt?” are a tool for the teaching of many
lessons about the economy.
Debt addresses three themes that work together to build a clear idea of
what debt really is:
The “myth” that exchange is the most important feature of human

behavior
The role of “obligation” in creating moral grounds for economic
relations
The artificiality of financial debt in human history.
Each of these three themes reveals something important about debt.

Graeber says that, within the language of exchange, debt is a transaction that
has not yet been completed. He also says, however, that this is not the natural
way for human beings to frame their interactions with one another. Finally,
Graeber cites historical evidence in arguing that financial debt in particular is
an artificial idea that distorts the nature of social obligations to turn them into
part of the market economy.
“Not only is it money that makes debt possible: money and debt appear
on the scene at exactly the same time.”
Exploring the Ideas

One of the core principles of economics* is that human beings relate to one
another on the basis of exchange. In Debt, Graeber seeks to disprove this by
discrediting three supporting “myths.”
The first, referred to as “the Myth of Barter,”* is the eighteenth-century
economist Adam Smith’s* notion that money arose to facilitate barter.* “The
Myth of Barter cannot go away because it is central to the discourse of
economics,” Graeber writes.1 But there is, however, no evidence in the
historical record nor in anthropological* fieldwork to suggest that barter
predates the creation of money, or that it played an important role in creating
money.2
The second myth is that of “primordial debts,”* meaning debts that have
always existed. According to primordial debt theory: “Governments use taxes
to create money, and they are able to do so because they have become the
guardians of the debt that all citizens have to one another. This debt is the
essence of society itself … and money and markets themselves are simply
ways of chopping pieces of it up.”3 Like barter, primordial debt suggests that
people interpret their relationships as transactions. Graeber rejects primordial
debt as a myth that claims money itself is a tribute to state power. He cites
anthropological evidence showing that money not only existed in non-market
societies for ritualistic purposes, but that even in market societies the function
of money was dictated by both the state and the market.
The latter point speaks to the third myth––that the market and the state are
independent from each other. Graeber argues that, in fact, the two “were born
together and have always been intertwined.”4 Money as a unit of account
originated in the temple and palace complexes of the world’s earliest urban
civilization, Mesopotamia,* more than 3,000 years b.c.e. During the Axial
Age* (a period of ancient history characterized by great advances in human
philosophical thought, normally considered to have lasted from 800 b.c.e. to
200 b.c.e.), aggressive states throughout Eurasia* looking to expand began
issuing money in the form of coins to soldiers. The rulers of these states then
demanded that citizens pay taxes using the same coins, which forced citizens
to sell supplies to soldiers in exchange for the coins to pay taxes. Markets
emerged as a result.
As Graeber puts it, the above three myths all “tend to reduce all human
relations to exchange, as if our ties to society … can be imagined in the same
terms as a business deal.”5 Graeber tries to upend these myths and suggests
that exchange is not the most natural sense of indebtedness in human
relationships.
Graeber’s second theme describes the differences between exchange-
related debt and other obligations. Graeber argues that people organize their
sense of obligation in three ways, based on:
Communism* (looking out for one another according to abilities and

needs)
Exchange (impersonally trading things of similar value)
Hierarchy (interaction between an inferior and superior). People shift
between these approaches based on the nature of their relationships,6
and exchange tends to be reserved for strangers.
Finally, Graeber argues that debt is artificial by tracing how the nature of
money has changed throughout history. He presents a vast discussion of the
history of Eurasia split into four stages:
The Age of the First Agrarian Empires (3500–800 B.C.E.; “agrarian

empires” were political bodies with economies founded on agriculture)
The Axial Age (800 B.C.E.–600 C.E.)
The Middle Ages (600–1450 C.E.)
The “Age of the Great Capitalist Empires” (1450 C.E. to the present day).
Depending on the politics* of the era,7 money alternates in form during

these stages between virtual (a symbol of credit*) and commodity* (a
physical object that has value, usually gold). This demonstrates that debt
itself is a political invention that can be redefined.
Language and Expression

Graeber has described Debt: The First 5,000 Years as “the sort of book
people don’t write any more: a big book, asking big questions, meant to be
read widely and spark public debate, but at the same time, without any
sacrifice of scholarly rigor.”8 This is reflected in the fact that 149 of the
book’s 542 pages consist of endnotes and references, a feature more common
in textbooks than in books for a mass audience.
At the same time, Graeber intended for Debt to be “an accessible work,
written in plain English, that actually does try to challenge common sense
assumptions.”9 In a disorganized but ultimately pleasant way, the book eases
the popular audience into centuries-long intellectual debates in economics
and philosophy, and provides a vast wealth of data collected from
anthropological fieldwork. As an activist himself, Graeber believes the
broader public should take part in discussions on debt and its moral
implications, rather than just scholars and policy makers.
NOTES
House, 2001), 43.
8. David Graeber, “Can We Still Write Big Question Sorts of Books?”
Savage Minds, July 31, 2011, http://savageminds.org/2011/07/31/can-
we-still-write-big-question-sorts-of-books/.
9. Graeber, “Big Question Sorts of Books.”
MODULE 6
SECONDARY IDEAS
KEY POINTS
Graeber argues that money has always been a fluid concept, used as
both a symbol or representation of credit* and as a tradable
commodity* (a physical object, such as gold).
He adds a moral dimension to his arguments by saying there is a
pattern of violence associated with debt, and that the capitalist*
system is designed to help the wealthy and powerful take advantage
of others.
Graeber connects the rise and fall of currency and the rise and fall
of slavery throughout human history as an extreme example of the
dangers of money and debt.
Other Ideas
An important secondary idea in David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years
is the relationship between debt, markets,* and violence. Graeber explores
this through his concept of the “human economy.”
One of the main ideas of Debt is that our current economic system is not
legitimate because it is built on the idea that debt is simply an impersonal
exchange that is not yet complete. Graeber argues that exchange-related debt
is part of a broader system of more personal obligations. By artificially
reducing debt to an amount of money and insisting on repayment, the
economic system alienates people from each other.
In Debt, Graeber also argues that the modern economic system centered
on debt is actually harmful. This means the book is not just an alternative to
mainstream economic history,* but also thoroughly anti-capitalist. This is in
line with Graeber’s own politics,* and provides academic justification for his
participation in activist movements.
“The crucial factor … is money’s capacity to turn morality into a
matter of impersonal arithmetic––and by doing so, to justify things that
would otherwise seem outrageous or obscene.”
Exploring the Ideas

In Chapter Six of Debt, Graeber introduces the concept of “human
economies,” which differs from the more familiar commercial or market
economy. Human economies, according to Graeber, mainly exist before or
outside of market systems and are “primarily concerned not with the
accumulation of wealth, but with the creation, destruction, and rearranging of
human beings.”1 In these economies, “each person is unique, and of
incomparable value, because each is a unique nexus of relations with
others.”2 Anthropological* evidence shows that in the human economy
money exists, but that it is not used in routine transactions for goods and
services. Rather, it is used in a ritual way in situations dealing with matters of
great importance that cannot be calculated. In these pre-market economies,
money is a way to “arrange marriages, establish the paternity of children,
head off feuds, console mourners at funerals, seek forgiveness in the case of
crimes, negotiate treaties—almost anything but trade…”3
This all changes, however, when people are removed from their familiar
realities, usually through violence. As Graeber writes, even in the human
economy “humans can become objects of exchange: first, perhaps, women
given in marriage; ultimately, slaves captured in war. What all these relations
have in common [is] violence.”4 Anthropology and history reveal, according
to Graeber, that “It is only by the threat of sticks, ropes, spears, and guns that
one can tear people out of those endlessly complicated webs of relationships
with others … that render them unique, and thus reduce them to something
that can be traded.”5
This is how physical forms of money change from ritual objects into tools
for the commodification and exchange of human beings.
In the human economy, routine interactions with trusted people take the
form of communism* or hierarchy. Exchange comes about through violence,
or the threat of violence. This can take the mild form of distrust or fear
between two people exchanging objects, or the much harsher form of the
exchange of people through slavery.
When human economies are taken over or changed into commercial
economies, violence increases. Graeber gives examples of this point
throughout his book:
The violent commodification of people as slaves in pre-market societies

The introduction of coins to fuel war machines in the Axial Age*
Today, the forced repossession of homes to make good on bank debts.
Debt asks the question “What is debt?” Graeber answers in the last
paragraph of his book: “A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a
promise corrupted by both math and violence.”6
Overlooked
Graeber’s discussion of the primordial debt* theory is both his least
developed and most overlooked. As the cultural anthropologist Bill Maurer
has written, “Everyone is captivated by [Graeber’s] critique of the myth of
primitive barter.* Yet it is a puzzle that a core element of his argument––the
myth of primordial debt––has been largely overlooked.”7
The “Myth of Barter”* is the idea that money arose spontaneously as a
solution to the inconveniences of barter; it is possible to approach the truth of
this proposition by testing evidence. But “primordial debt” is a philosophical
idea, resistant to similar analysis; the primary sources we must turn to are
ancient scriptures. Referring to sacred texts of the Indian Hindu tradition
written in about 800 b.c.e., Graeber writes that “two famous passages in the
Brahmanas* insist that we are born as a debt not just to the gods, to be repaid
in sacrifice … but also to the Sages … which we must repay through study;
to our ancestors, who we must repay by having children; and finally, ‘to
men’––apparently meaning humanity as a whole, to be repaid by offering
hospitality to strangers.”8 Primordial debt theorists say these ideas “are not
peculiar to a certain intellectual tradition [but are] essential to the very nature
and history of human thought.”9
As Graeber says, by thinking about how to repay an “infinite debt” we are
saddled with at birth, “the Brahmanas are offering a quite sophisticated
reflection on a moral question that no one has really ever been able to answer
any better before or since.”10 While Graeber says he rejects the primordial
debt myth, his own alternative philosophy can be read as supporting it: “If
one were looking for the ethos for an individualistic society such as our own,
one way to do it might well be to say: we all owe an infinite debt to
humanity, society, nature, or the cosmos … but no one could possibly tell us
how we are to pay it … Human freedom would then be our ability to decide
for ourselves how we want to do so.”11
NOTES
House, 2001), 130.
7. Bill Maurer, “David Graeber’s Wunderkammer, Debt: The First 5,000
Years,” Anthropological Forum 23, no. 1 (2013): 79.
MODULE 7
ACHIEVEMENT
KEY POINTS
David Graeber has written a critical analysis of economics* and the

capitalist* system that has been met with public praise, and brings
anthropological* theories on the economy into the public
consciousness.
Graeber frames the book as “a big book of ideas,” rather than a
textbook, and uses anthropological evidence from around the world
to make Debt broadly significant.
The somewhat disorganized structure of the book limits the ability
of audiences to follow Graeber’s arguments, and the fact that
Graeber has no background in economics limits the willingness of
economists to take the book seriously.
Assessing the Argument

David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years tries to combine the resources
of a wide range of academic disciplines to change the way people think about
economics. But the task requires a level of organizational skill that the work
does not, it might be argued, perfectly achieve. Graeber reasons through two
types of discussion:
Using direct evidence from human history to challenge the common

understanding of economics
Discussing moral issues in a Socratic* manner (that is, through posing
and answering questions in a manner associated with the ancient Greek
philosopher Socrates).
He weaves between these modes somewhat indiscriminately, often

bringing a moral discussion related to one topic into a description of history
related to a different topic. Graeber also begins most of his chapters by
stating the topic clearly at the beginning, and then abandoning it. For
example, he starts Chapter Eight by saying that throughout Eurasian* history,
money switched back and forth between periods when it was taken as credit*
—a symbol—and periods when it was a commodity*—gold, for example.1
But it is hard to follow this through the sweeping historical discussion that
ensues; meanwhile, he confuses matters by making moral points about
violence and repression.
“David has become something of a cult figure in anthropology now. ”

James Scott, professor of political science and anthropology, Yale
University
The disorganization of the book makes it hard to grasp Graeber’s central

point––that under capitalism,* debt is a perversion of social obligations used
to justify violence. The necessary arguments and information are there, but
readers are required to stitch it together themselves.
Achievement in Context
The structural weaknesses of Debt have not kept it from becoming a
prominent work of nonfiction. The “big book of ideas” produced by an
established academic for a broad audience was (and remains) popular. As a
genre, Debt follows in the footsteps of Guns, Germs, and Steel, an equally
vast work by the scientist and author Jared Diamond.* Guns, Germs, and
Steel pushed geography* as an academic discipline into the debates of
economic historians* in much the same way that Graeber intends for
anthropology. Nearly 20 years after its publication in 1997, Diamond’s book
continues to have considerable influence as a contribution to the theory of
“path dependency”*—the idea that states develop along a certain path
because of predetermined factors like geography.
Debt was an international bestseller in the year after its publication
(2011).2 So far, no one has challenged the factuality of the historical and
anthropological evidence Graber presents, even while debating the
conclusions he draws from that evidence. This suggests that Debt could
become a respected academic work just as it has captured the public
imagination, although more gradually and after long processes of peer
review.
Limitations
Graeber intends to incorporate global history and anthropology into Debt and
apply them to the universal human experience. To the extent that he is
successful, his reflections on economic life are not limited by geography or
the present historical period. Graeber’s background as an anthropologist
helps him reach out to a broad audience, because he is in the business of
understanding the similarities and differences between people from different
backgrounds. Debt’s individual claims are meant to remain sound and logical
even as they thread their way through different cultures.
At the same time, the work’s greatest limitation is in its title—a
declaration that it is only looking backward. While the book combines
various insights into a value judgment on capitalism as a whole, that is not
enough to lead to any policy prescriptions, beyond the single suggestion of
providing more debt relief. It might be argued that this hinders Debt from
making a wholly constructive contribution to the debate.
NOTES
House, 2011), 212.
2. Keith Hart, “In Rousseau’s Footsteps: David Graeber and the
MODULE 8
PLACE IN THE AUTHOR’S WORK
KEY POINTS
Graeber’s overall scholarship focuses on the more radical topics of

economic anthropology,* including equality, power dynamics, and
revolution.*
Debt is an extension of Graeber’s previous work on anthropological
theories of value,* in which he questions the ability of the capitalist*
system to accurately value the contributions of human beings to one
another.
The anti-capitalist nature of Debt supports Graeber’s reputation as
a rebel and lends intellectual strength to his political leanings as an
anarchist.*
Positioning
Debt: The First 5,000 Years builds heavily on David Graeber’s previous
scholarship and the development of his political ideas throughout his
scholarly career. It also represents a change in Graeber’s scholarly direction,
in which he turns away from the pure anthropology and ethnography* (field
study of a people’s culture or society) that characterized his work in most of
the 2000s to revisit the economic anthropology of his first book, Toward an
Anthropological Theory of Value (2001).
In many ways Debt is a logical extension of Toward an Anthropological
Theory of Value. Debt uses one of Toward’s core arguments—the inability of
the capitalist market* to accurately value human actions—as an intellectual
backdrop. To underwrite his analysis of debt, Graeber musters a great deal of
evidence from his previous works in anthropology and his own research.
“Anthropology seems a discipline terrified of its own potential.”

David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
Integration
One of Debt’s major themes is the argument that the capitalist system uses
debt as a mechanism to perpetuate inequality and abuse. This is rooted in
Graeber’s doctoral fieldwork on the island of Madagascar, where he
witnessed first hand the negative effects of large amounts of government debt
on economy and people. Pressure to repay the national debt served as both
moral and practical justification for cutting social welfare programs and
harming quality of life. Later, in 2007, Graeber would also publish Lost
People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar. Although a purely
anthropological work with a narrow focus on Madagascar, it nonetheless
introduced many of the ideas on slavery, inequality, and debt that serve as
secondary themes in Debt.1
The most direct influence on Debt from within Graeber’s own body of
work, however, comes from Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value,
Graeber’s first book, which established him as an anthropologist concerned
with the issues of economic theory. The book’s basic position is that people
and, by extension, their actions are the most important “products” of a
society.2 The implication is that the notion that values can be established
through market exchange is simply wrong: the basis for Graeber’s
exploration of debt and human economies in Debt.
Significance
Graeber was already considered one of the greatest anthropologists of his
generation well before the publication of Debt. His extensive ethnographic
work on Madagascar, which ranged from his time as a graduate student to his
publication of Lost People, was highly regarded within his field.3 After the
publication of Graeber’s books Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value
and Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, the British anthropologist
Maurice Bloch* wrote: “[Graeber’s] writings on anthropological theory are
outstanding. I consider him the best anthropological theorist of his generation
from anywhere in the world.”4
Graeber’s significant body of anthropological writing on power relations,
hierarchies, and activism, bookended by Toward an Anthropological Theory
of Value and Debt: the First 5,000 Years, positions Graeber as a pioneering
intellectual in what the anthropologist Keith Hart* calls “anthropology of
unequal society.”5 Of all his work, Debt has received the most critical
acclaim, winning the Bateson Book Prize from the Society for Cultural
Anthropology and the Bread and Roses Award from the Alliance of Radical
Booksellers.
NOTES
House, 2011), 4.
2. David Graeber, Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False
Coin of Our Own Dreams (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
3. Thomas Meaney, “Anarchist Anthropology,” The New York Times,
December 8, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/books/review/anarchist-
anthropology.html.
4. Maurice Bloch, “Letter from Maurice Bloch, London School of
Economics” (2005).
5. Keith Hart, “In Rousseau’s Footsteps: David Graeber and the
SECTION 3
IMPACT
MODULE 9
THE FIRST RESPONSES
KEY POINTS
The principal criticisms made of Debt are that David Graeber has
not adequately understood the internal debates among economists,
that he attaches too much importance to the origins of economic
ideas as a measure of their value, and that his recommendation for
debt relief is impractical.
The fact that Graeber and his detractors come from different
disciplines (anthropology* and economics,* respectively) makes it
difficult for the two to engage in a substantive debate.
Graeber’s ideas have been well received by economists outside the
mainstream.
Criticism
Debt: The First 5,000 Years was a controversial book at the time of its
publication; while David Graeber’s ideas have been ignored by most
economists, a few have expressed opposition or support. Among those who
chose to critically engage with Debt, Noah Smith* and Mike Beggs* offer the
most detailed criticisms.
Smith, an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University and a
popular economics writer, says that many monetary economists already
recognize that credit* preceded barter.* He suggests that Graeber accuses
economists of misleading the public without understanding the diversity of
views within economics. Smith also argues that Graeber’s proposal for debt
cancellation in response to overwhelming debt levels would make lenders
very unwilling to lend in the future, and would reward those bold enough to
take out large loans rather than those in need.1
“5,000 years of anecdotes is no substitute for real political economy. ”

Mike Beggs, Jacobin
Beggs, a political economy* lecturer at the University of Sydney, says

Debt is a “valuable contribution,”2 but rejects Graeber’s use of history as a
tool for undermining economic theory. “Economics studies a system, and
origins of its parts might mislead about their present functions and
dynamics,” he writes. “The answer to bad economics is good economics, not
no economics.”3 In opposition to Beggs, the economist J. W. Mason* has
claimed that the ‘big ideas’ related to economics that are presented in Debt
are legitimate. “Debt backs up each of them with an enormous wealth of
historical material, though sometimes less than clear theoretical statements,”
Mason writes.4
Responses
Graeber has been accused by many of his detractors of being unwilling to
accept any criticism. Because they are not anthropologists,* Graeber’s critics
have been unable to dispute the anthropological evidence he cites to dismiss
the Myth of Barter;* because he is not an economist, Graeber lacks the
technical knowledge to engage with the claims of economists such as Mike
Beggs who accuse him of overlooking constructive solutions to debt crises
from the field of economics. The result is that both Graeber and his critics are
left to argue over minor points rather than the merits of the book as a whole
or its broader implications.
Graeber’s main response to arguments like those of Noah Smith that debt
relief makes lenders unwilling to lend is that this has been disproven. As
Graeber points out, history has had many instances of debt relief, and the
practice of lending continues. Furthermore, “big players” (that is, the wealthy
or giant corporations) forgive and restructure* one another’s debts frequently.
Conflict and Consensus

Graeber and his critics argue primarily over petty scholarly points. The book
was published so recently that there has not yet been time for a book or an
academic work of equal academic weight to offer an opposing school of
thought. The debate is largely confined to the Internet.
In the left-wing quarterly Jacobin magazine, Mike Beggs wrote that Debt
is “another move in an interdisciplinary* struggle: anthropology against
economics.”5 This is an accurate description, as a gulf has existed between
the conclusions of anthropology and economics for approximately a century.
However, there is a clear space for cooperation between Graeber’s camp and
economists outside the mainstream. As J. W. Mason has written: “Admittedly
it takes some unpacking, but Debt’s key themes are in close harmony with
the main themes of heterodox economics* work going back to Keynes.”6 It is
likely that future economic scholarship will incorporate the anthropological
perspective.
NOTES
1. Noah Smith, “David Graeber: Debt Is Bad, or Something?,”
Noahpinion, February 13, 2013,
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/david-graeber-debt-is-
bad-or-something.html.
2. Mike Beggs, “On Debt: A Reply to Josh Mason,” Jacobin, September
20, 2012, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/09/on-debt-a-reply-to-
josh-mason/.
3. Mike Beggs, “Debt: The First 500 Pages,” Jacobin, August, 2012, 7–8.
4. J. W. Mason, “In Defense of David Graeber’s Debt,” Jacobin,
September 18, 2012, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/09/in-defense-
of-david-graebers-debt/.
5. Beggs, “Debt.”
6. Mason, “In Defense of David Graeber’s Debt.”
MODULE 10
THE EVOLVING DEBATE
KEY POINTS
As a book written for a popular audience, Debt is positioned as a key

influence in shaping the layman’s views on economics* and the
current difficulties of the global economic system.
Although unique in its approach, Debt is one of a number of books
in an emerging literature and school of thought highlighting the
tendency of capitalism* toward inequality.
Debt presents a historical, moral, and philosophical basis for the
idea of debt relief, heavily discussed today as a means of alleviating
the difficulties of global financial crises.
Uses and Problems

While David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years has been hailed since its
publication as an influential work in anthropology* and academia at large, it
has found the most use in the public sphere.1 This is in line with Graeber’s
intentions, as he wrote Debt thinking “it would be interesting to write for a
broader audience and see what kind of impact you can have on the arguments
going on.”2
Owing to the timing of its publication in the wake of the global financial
crisis,* Debt joins a great deal of literature written with the aim of inspiring a
debate on capitalism. But while other economists and political philosophers
are heavily critical of the mechanisms of the capitalist system, Debt launches
an open attack on the ideologies driving capitalism and on the system itself.
Debt’s radicalism is currently, perhaps, what prevents the conversion of its
popularity into popular action.
“If we want an alternative to stagnation, impoverishment, and

ecological devastation, we’re just going to have to figure out a way to
unplug the machine and start again.”
David Graeber, Guardian
Schools of Thought
Scholars who have played an important role in popularizing the debate on
global inequality and capitalism include the economists Thomas Piketty* of
France, Joseph Stieglitz* of the United States, and Dani Rodrik* of Turkey.
By far the most successful recent book in bridging the divide between
academia and the public over inequality is Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the
Twenty-First Century. This book does not call for dismantling the capitalist
system, but, rather, for a serious reform of its mechanics so that global tax
systems might redistribute enough wealth to undo inequality produced by
capitalism.3 Nonetheless, Capital shares some of Debt’s core features,
arguing against the idea that capitalism operates on principles of equality. As
Knox Peden has written in the Sydney Review of Books: “Though Piketty and
Graeber are temperamentally antipodal [opposites], the thematic resonance
connecting their works is clear enough.”4
In 2015, Piketty appeared to acknowledge Graeber’s analysis when he
called for an international conference on debt and the implementation of a
new strategy for dealing with the European debt crisis:* “Essentially, it
consists of three components: inflation,* a special tax on private wealth, and
debt relief.”5
In Current Scholarship
Brought together by a mutual frustration with inequality, Graeber and Piketty
have engaged with each other directly on how to move forward the current
scholarship criticizing capitalism and inequality. The two scholars approach
the debate from completely different practical viewpoints.
In Capital, Piketty supports Graeber’s idea that capitalism is a system that,
in its purest form, cannot help but create injustice: “Capitalism does not
contain an inherent tendency to civilize itself. Left to its own devices, it can
be expected to create rates of return on investment so much higher than
overall rates of economic growth that the only possible result will be to
transfer more and more wealth into the hands of a hereditary elite of
investors, to the comparative impoverishment of everybody else.”6
In line with his own intellectual background and previous work, Graeber
favors a revolutionary response to this problem. “Since the 1970s,” he writes,
“as any significant political threat has receded, things have gone back to their
normal state: that is, to savage inequalities.” Graeber’s criticism of Piketty is
that he “has nothing against capitalism itself … He just wishes to provide a
check on capitalism’s tendency to create a useless class of parasitical
rentiers* [people who live off the profits from investments].” Graeber
concludes that total debt relief and an “unplugging” of the capitalist system is
in order.7
Piketty’s response has been that Graeber’s solution—to put the burden on
creditors—is unjust. “The fact is, as I say, that the last creditors are not
necessarily the ones who should be made to pay,” Piketty has argued. Rather,
a progressive tax* should be imposed on wealth, which, according to Piketty,
“seems … a more civilized way to arrive at the same result.”8
NOTES
Review no. 118 (2014): 168.
2. Appel, “Other People’s Debts,” 168.
3. Thomas Piketty and Arthur Goldhammer, Capital in the Twenty-First
Century (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2014).
4. Knox Peden, “The Abstractions of History,” The Sydney Review of
Books, July 22, 2014, http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/capital-
twenty-first-century-thomas-piketty/.
5. Gavin Schalliol, “Thomas Piketty: ‘Germany Has Never Repaid Its
Debts. It Has No Right to Lecture Greece,’” The Wire, July 8, 2015,
http://thewire.in/2015/07/08/thomas-piketty-germany-has-never-repaid-
its-debts-it-has-no-right-to-lecture-greece-5851/.
6. David Graeber, “Savage Capitalism Is Back––And It Will Not Tame
Itself,” Guardian, May 30, 2014,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/savage-
capitalism-back-radical-challenge.
7. Graeber, “Savage Capitalism.”
8. David Graeber and Thomas Piketty, “Soak the Rich: An Exchange on
Capital, Debt, and the Future,” The Baffler, July 31, 2014,
http://thebaffler.com/odds-and-ends/soak-the-rich.
MODULE 11
IMPACT AND INFLUENCE TODAY
KEY POINTS
Debt has become a central work in the global activist community.

The work directly challenges policymakers and other members of
the international economic and governance elite to change the way
that they view credit,* debt, and the morality of the capitalist*
system.
The debate between policymakers and economists is still ongoing,
although those who favor debt relief believe they are gaining
ground.
Position
Debt has become a “must-read” in international activist circles. Public
intellectuals like Antonio Negri,* the Italian Marxist* sociologist and
political philosopher, have cited Debt in their activist writings and calls for
action. In their 2012 joint essay Declaration, Negri and American political
philosopher Michael Hardt* state, “In contrast to the myth of equal exchange,
then, the debtor–creditor relationship has the virtue of unmasking the vast
inequalities at the foundation of capitalist society.” One of their listed sources
of evidence for this statement is David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000
Years.
Even outside of the community of hardcore anti-capitalist activists,
however, Debt receives glowing praise. The book allows the reader to step
outside the boundaries of traditional economic thought, and instead ask
questions about the system as a whole. While questioning the capitalist
system is an activity as old as capitalism itself, Debt makes the exercise more
accessible to today’s audience. In a time of global economic turmoil caused
by personal and national debt, Graeber’s book offers both sympathy and
defiance.
“Graeber … has emerged as perhaps the most influential radical
political thinker of the moment.”
Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker
Interaction
The first translation of Debt was published in Germany, which, as the
primary creditor of the European debt crisis,* is often thought to occupy the
moral high ground. While Graeber thinks of debt as a social invention that is
often used to take advantage of others, German thinkers tend to view debt as
a moral absolute. In Debt, Graeber notes that the German word for “debt,”
schuld, is also the word for “guilt.” “But at the same time they realize that
[debt is] about to destroy the European Union,* which is the last thing they
want.” Debt was a best seller for 11 weeks in Germany, indicating that
Graeber’s ideas may be gaining acceptance there. German voters, it might
appear, are increasingly willing to at least discuss compromising with debtor
nations.
If Debt can be said to argue against a specific group of people, it is the
central bankers and policymakers who are responsible for resolving today’s
economic crises. The book’s success in Germany, where a leading
conservative politician praised it on the cover of the major daily Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung,1 shows that policymakers might be following the
citizens they serve in acknowledging the book’s arguments.
The Continuing Debate

Graeber’s has had some success in challenging policymakers through Debt.
The chief research economist of the International Monetary Fund* reached
out to Graeber to discuss potential avenues for banking reform.2 On the
global economic policy-making elite, Graeber has said: “While they’re telling
everyone, ‘Nothing to see here, carry on, carry on,’ in fact those guys are
panicking like crazy. You can see all these clear struggles going on where we
don’t really know what is at stake.”3 Graeber points out that even within the
US Federal Reserve,* the central bank of the United States, a growing
number of people advocate debt relief in the form of mortgage cancellation.4
Of course, it is difficult to link global economic policy outcomes directly
with the writing in Debt beyond Graeber’s own accounts, as no policy paper
from a global economic institution has yet cited Debt in its sources.
According to Graeber, there are “titanic struggles” occurring between
those who want radical change and those who do not, but the lack of any
progress boils down to inertia. While fundamental change may not occur,
there is an increasing amount of sympathy for debt relief in the European
debt crisis. “Looking back on this moment, we know the debt will be
cancelled,” Graeber has said. “Among those taking a long-term perspective,
everyone agrees on that.”5
NOTES
1. “Melville House Press Release: Debt: The First 5,000 Years,”
November 27, 2012, http://cdn.mhpbooks.com/2012/12/Debt-PR.pdf.
Review, no. 118 (2014): 171.
MODULE 12
WHERE NEXT?
KEY POINTS
Debt will be remembered as an important book for anthropologists*

because of its ability to spark a debate in economics* and economic
history* using anthropological theory and evidence.
Outside of academia, Debt is well positioned to have some influence
in policy debates because it is accessible to a popular audience.
Debt offers an immensely detailed, far-reaching, and critical
discussion of some of the most fundamental institutions and ideas of
capitalism.*
Potential
In terms of style and structure, Debt: The First 5,000 Years resembles both a
history book and a declaration of belief. Debt also challenges the assumptions
we have made over the last several hundred years about civilization, history,
and society. While it provides an alternate view of history, Debt offers almost
nothing to replace the policy assumptions that it challenges. Instead, the book
serves as a giant signpost pointing the public and the intellectual community
in a direction that may be anarchist* or reformist, but is essentially unknown.
The book will likely be remembered as a classic in anthropology for its
ability to unite the reflections and observations of anthropologists on
economic life and collectively aim them toward a common mission.
However, pure economists have proven so unwilling to break free from rigid
ideas like the Myth of the Barter* that Debt will probably remain out of the
mainstream, on secondary reading lists as an object of curiosity.
“You know radical change is coming when they call an anthropologist.”

David Graeber, Radical History Review
Future Directions
Debt charts a new course for those within academia who are interested in
alternatives to the traditional understanding of economic history. The book
argues that anthropological study, rather than the legacy of the economist
Adam Smith,* is the best way to engage with and interpret economic history.
Anthropology has offered rich scholarship in “economic anthropology” since
the writings of the pioneering sociologist Marcel Mauss* in the nineteenth
century, but until Debt the insights have not been accessible to non-
anthropologists. Because of this, the book makes way for an
interdisciplinary* academic tradition—a tradition drawing on the aims and
methods of different academic disciplines—that can develop a more thorough
understanding of money and markets.*
It remains to be seen whether new, cross-discipline scholarship will
translate into policy prescriptions. Economists have dominated policy making
for nearly three centuries, and while heterodox* ideas—ideas outside of the
mainstream—have been around in economics for more than a century, they
remain on the fringes despite evidence that may support their claims.
Graeber’s book and the ongoing economic climate imply that the various
arguments against capitalism may be converging and getting stronger. David
Graeber was invited to play an intellectual leadership role in Occupy Wall
Street.* In the midst of the Syrian Civil War* (a conflict in the Middle East
fought between those loyal to the Syrian President Assad and the rebel
militias opposed to his rule), the Kurdish breakaway region of Rojava* has
already formally rejected capitalism, taken steps to return to the “human
economies” Graeber writes about in Debt, and hosted Graeber himself to see
anarchist ideas in action.1
Summary
David Graeber’s Debt is a vast work, more than 500 pages, on the origins and
meaning of debt and money in human society. Published in the wake of the
2008 global financial crisis,* the book’s sharp criticism of many of the
foundational principles of capitalism has found an audience. Debt’s central
lesson is that the traditional understanding of economics and economic
history has hidden the real story of capitalism, which is that money and debt
allow the powerful to take advantage of the weak. War and slavery, Graeber
argues, were instrumental in creating and shaping the institutions that form
our modern market economy.
Debt uses anthropological and historical evidence to argue that money did
not arise from a natural human tendency toward bartering,* despite the claims
of Adam Smith and the economists that followed him. In fact, rather than
base their lives on cutting deals with or profiting off of one another, Graeber
argues that pre-market and non-market societies operated in the “human
economy.” People worked together to meet their needs based on complex
networks of social obligations shaped by their personal relationships, and any
barter-like behavior was for strangers who lacked mutual trust.
As rulers and states grew more powerful, however, social obligations
gradually converted into measurable, impersonal debts, which disrupted
human relationships. Graeber describes money as the tool used to calculate
debts and justify punishments for those who owed them. With five millennia
of history as evidence, Graeber argues that the commercial economy does not
reflect human nature, and that it creates complex ways for the wealthy to take
advantage of the poor. His book declares that capitalism itself is far from the
fair and equitable system many imagine, and that capitalism can be undone.
NOTES
1. David Graeber, “Why Is the World Ignoring the Revolutionary Kurds in
Syria?” Guardian, October 8, 2014,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/why-world-
ignoring-revolutionary-kurds-syria-isis.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Anarchism a political philosophy advocating the destruction of governments
in favor of stateless societies.
Anthropology the academic study of humanity and human society.
Austerity a set of economic policies intended to reduce government budget

deficits and the national debt by cutting government spending and paying
back loans.
Austrian School a school of economic thought that focuses on the rationality

and actions of individuals as the primary forces in an economy.
Axial Age a period of ancient history characterized by great advances in

human philosophical thought, normally considered as being 800 B.C.E.–200
B.C.E. (although defined by David Graeber as 800 B.C.E.–600 C.E.).
Barter the practice of trading goods or services directly for other goods or
services, without exchanging money. Barter is possible only when each party
has something that the other wants.
Brahmanas a collection of ancient Indian religious scriptures including

myths, legends, explanations of rituals, and philosophy accompanying older
scriptures known as the Vedas.
Capitalism an economic system in which trade, production, and property are

largely or entirely in the hands of private individuals or corporations.
Chartalism the economic school of thought that teaches that money arose
from states’ efforts to direct market activity rather than spontaneously to
enable barter.
Colonialism the forced acquisition, settlement, and political or economic

control of one territory by the political power of another territory.
Commodity an object that can be traded, bought, or sold.
Communism a political ideology advocating common ownership of the

means of production and the destruction of social relationship structures.
Credit the ability to purchase goods or services without immediate payment,

based on the seller’s trust that payment will be received at a later time.
Credit theory of money a collection of economic schools of thought that

teach that money is essentially a form of credit and debt.
Debt crisis of the 1980s a debt crisis triggered by unregulated lending from
global banks to governments in developing countries that borrowed (and
sometimes wasted) more money than they could repay. In response, global
trade and development organizations (the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank) forced changes that created hardships for those people in
developing countries who benefitted from public welfare programs and local
jobs.
Debt restructuring a process in which a debtor is allowed to renegotiate the

terms or to reduce the value of repayment for outstanding debt.
Developing country a sovereign state with an underdeveloped industrial base

and a low quality of life relative to other states.
Economic history a discipline of the social sciences that studies the history
and development of economies.
Economics a discipline of the social sciences that studies human behavior

and social systems under conditions of scarce means and unlimited wants.
The Economist an English-language weekly magazine covering political and

economic affairs, established in London in 1843.
Ethnography a sub-discipline within anthropology concerned with the

systematic study and graphical representation of human cultures.
Eurasia the combined landmass encompassing the continents of Europe and

Asia.
European debt crisis an ongoing debt crisis within the European Union in
which several member states have been unable to repay loans to private and
public creditors.
European Union a political and economic union of 28 European nations.
Federal Reserve the central bank of the United States of America.
Fulbright Fellowship a highly competitive scholarship offering American

students and scholars funding to conduct research or studies overseas.
Geography an academic discipline concerned with the study of the physical

features of the earth and its relationship with human activity.
Global financial crisis of 2008 the most serious financial crisis since the
Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis was caused by the collapse of the
American housing bubble and resulted in mass defaults on debts, affecting
financial institutions and markets worldwide.
Global justice movement a network of international social activist

movements that oppose corporate globalization.
Globalization the process of increasing interconnectedness among global

markets, politics, and cultures.
Gold standard a monetary system in which the value of the standard

currency is based on a fixed quantity of gold.
Heterodox economics theories, practices, and schools of thought within

economics that exist outside of the mainstream teachings of the discipline.
Inflation an increase in prices and fall in the purchasing power of money

within an economy.
Interdisciplinary drawing on the aims and methods of different academic

disciplines.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) an international organization created

in 1944 to foster global monetary cooperation by assisting international trade
and providing help in financial or monetary crises.
Keynesian economics an economic school of thought that teaches that in the

short run a country’s economic output is influenced by the economy’s level
of total demand.
London School of Economics a British public research university focused

on the study of the social sciences, founded in London in 1895.
Market an economic system in which parties buy and sell goods and
services.
Mesopotamia the name for the area of the Middle East, much of it in Iraq,
lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The region is generally
considered to be the home of the earliest human civilizations.
Myth of Barter the idea that money arose spontaneously as a solution to the
inconveniences of barter. Economists have believed this for centuries, but
many anthropologists argue that it is not correct.
1979 energy crisis an economic event that occurred in the United States in
which there was a panic about shortage of the supply of oil as a result of
political upheaval in Iran, leading to sharply increased prices.
Occupy Wall Street (OWS) a global protest movement against economic

and social inequality started in 2011 in response to the 2008 global financial
crisis.
Path dependency a theory within the disciplines of development studies and

economic history that asserts that states develop based on predetermined
factors, such as geography or prior history.
Political economy the study of economics in relation to politics.
Politics an academic discipline concerned with the study of governance,

power relations, and the state.
Primordial debt a theory among some sociologists, historians, and

economists that government taxes are an extension of ancient ideas of debt to
society, the gods, or the cosmos.
Progressive tax taxation where the tax rate increases as income increases.
Rentier a person or institution living on profits from capital, such as property

or investments.
Revolution the overthrow of a given system of governance or authority,

usually by forcible means.
Rojava a breakaway Kurdish proto-state in northern Syria.
Socratic eliciting truth in an argument through the practice of question and

answer.
Spanish Civil War a civil war fought in Spain between 1936 and 1939
between loyalists to the Second Spanish Republic and supporters of General
Francisco Franco.
Spanish Revolution a social revolution in Spain in 1936 that led to the

widespread implementation of anarchist principles in various parts of the
country during the Spanish Civil War.
Syrian Civil War an ongoing civil war in Syria between the national
government and various rebel movements.
Union an organization of traders, workers, or laborers who join together to

negotiate for better salaries or working conditions.
World Bank an international organization headquartered in Geneva that

provides loans to developing countries for capital projects.
World Trade Organization (WTO) an intergovernmental organization

headquartered in Washington, DC, that regulates global trade by establishing
trade laws and systems for settling disputes.
Young Communist League an activist organization with chapters around the

world, dedicated to promoting communism and Marxist thought among
young people.
PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE TEXT
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) was a Greek philosopher and scientist. He was the
first person known to theorize on the origins of money, claiming that it arose
spontaneously as a solution to the inconveniences of barter.
Mike Beggs is a lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney.
Maurice Bloch (b. 1939) is a British anthropologist and professor at the

London School of Economics.
Jared Diamond (b. 1937) is an American scientist and geographer. His ideas
on the path dependency of nations brought influence from the fields of
anthropology and geography to economic history.
Francisco Franco (1892–1975) was a Spanish general; following the

removal of the Spanish monarchy in 1931, and the election of a socialist
government in 1936, he participated in a coup that started the Spanish Civil
War. He subsequently became head of state and ruled as a right-wing
dictator.
Michael Hardt (b. 1960) is an American political philosopher. His writings

on class oppression and globalization have drawn on Graeber’s work
regarding debt.
Keith Hart (b. 1943) is a British economic anthropologist. He was a pioneer

in the development of the idea of the “human economy” and argued that
money is simultaneously both a form of credit and a commodity.
Caroline Humphrey (b. 1943) is a British anthropologist. She has

investigated the role of barter in human society extensively and has found
that there is no evidence to support the theory that barter preceded the
creation of money.
Georg Friedrich Knapp (1842–1926) was a German economist. He was the

founder of the Chartalist school of monetary theory.
Paul Krugman (b. 1953) is a Nobel Prize-winning American economist. He

is a prominent supporter of Keynesian economics and an opponent of
austerity.
Karl Marx (1818–83) was a Prussian political philosopher and economist.

He was the founder of Marxism and argued that human societies progress
through class struggle, especially in Capital.
J. W. Mason is an assistant professor of economics at John Jay College, City

University of New York.
Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) was a French sociologist. He is considered a

pioneer in the discipline of anthropology and is particularly known for his
theories on gift exchange.
Carl Menger (1840–1921) was an Austrian economist. He was the founder

of the Austrian School of economic thought.
Alfred Mitchell-Innes (1864–1950) was a British economist. He was a

proponent of the credit theory of money.
Antonio Negri (b. 1933) is an Italian Marxist political philosopher. He is a

prominent figure in anti-capitalist activist movements.
Thomas Piketty (b. 1971) is a French economist. He is best known for his
work highlighting the propensity of unrestricted capitalism to result in
economic and social inequality.
Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) was a Hungarian American economic historian.

He was a prominent opponent of traditional economic history narratives and
argued that markets were created and engineered by the state.
Carmen Reinhart (b. 1955) is a Cuban American economist. She argued in

favor of austerity measures in response to the 2008 global financial crisis
together with Kenneth Rogoff.
Dani Rodrik (b. 1957) is a Turkish economist and professor at Harvard

University. He is known for his work in development economics.
Kenneth Rogoff (b. 1953) is an American economist. He argued in favor of

austerity measures in response to the 2008 global financial crisis together
with Carmen Reinhart.
Amartya Sen (b. 1933) is a Bangladeshi economist. He is best known for his
work on poverty relief and development economics, and has strongly
opposed austerity measures in response to debt crises.
Adam Smith (1723–90) was a Scottish philosopher and political economist.

He is considered the father of the discipline of economics, having written its
first major work, The Wealth of Nations.
Noah Smith is an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University.
Socrates (469 B.C.E.–399 B.C.E.) was a philosopher in ancient Greece, and

considered one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is most known for
his development of the Socratic method, which involves learning through
critical discussion.
Joseph Stieglitz (b. 1943) is an American economist and professor at

Columbia University. He was chief economist of the World Bank from 1997
to 2000.
WORKS CITED
Appel, Hannah Chadeayne. “Finance Is Just Another Word for Other
People’s Debts: An Interview with David Graeber.” Radical History
Review, no. 118 (2014): 168–173.
Barker, T. C. “The Beginnings of the Economic History Society.” The
Economic History Review 30, no. 1 (February, 1977): 1–19.
Beggs, Mike. “Debt: The First 500 Pages.” Jacobin, August, 2012. Accessed
September 25, 2015. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/08/debt-the-first-
500-pages/.
Beggs, Mike. “On Debt: A Reply to Josh Mason.” Jacobin, September 20,
2012. Accessed September 25, 2015.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/09/on-debt-a-reply-to-josh-mason/.
Bloch, Maurice. “Letter from Maurice Bloch, London School of Economics”
(2005). Accessed September 25, 2015.
http://www.geocities.ws/graebersolidarity/blochletter.html.
Graeber, David. “Can We Still Write Big Question Sorts of Books?” Savage
Minds, July 31, 2011. Accessed September 13, 2015.
http://savageminds.org/2011/07/31/can-we-still-write-big-question-sorts-
of-books/.
Graeber, David. Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.
Graeber, David. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly
Paradigm Press, 2004.
Graeber, David. Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in
Madagascar. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007.
Graeber, David. “Savage Capitalism Is Back––And It Will Not Tame Itself.”
Guardian, May 30, 2014. Accessed September 19, 2015.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/savage-
capitalism-back-radical-challenge.
Graeber, David. Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False
Coin of Our Own Dreams. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
Graeber, David. “Why Is the World Ignoring the Revolutionary Kurds in
Syria?” Guardian, October 8, 2014. Accessed September 21, 2015.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/why-world-
ignoring-revolutionary-kurds-syria-isis.
Graeber, David, and Thomas Piketty. “Soak the Rich: An Exchange on
Capital, Debt, and the Future.” The Baffler, July 31, 2014. Accessed
September 18, 2015. http://thebaffler.com/odds-and-ends/soak-the-rich.
Hart, Keith. “Heads or Tails? Two Sides of the Coin.” Man 21, no. 4
(December, 1986): 637–656.
Hart, Keith. “In Rousseau’s Footsteps: David Graeber and the Anthropology
of Unequal Society.” The Memory Bank, July 4, 2012. Accessed
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rousseaus-footsteps-david-graeber-and-the-anthropology-of-unequal-
society-2/.
Humphrey, Caroline. “Barter and Economic Disintegration.” Man 20, no. 1
(March, 1985): 48–72.
Jeffries, Stuart. “David Graeber Interview: ‘So Many People Spend Their
Working Lives Doing Jobs They Think Are Unnecessary.’” Guardian,
March 21, 2015. Accessed September 23, 2015.
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graeber-the-utopia-of-rules.
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Co, 1930.
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Company, 1924.
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Century. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
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Reinhart, Carmen M., and Kenneth S. Rogoff. “Growth in a Time of Debt.”
American Economic Review 100, no. 2 (May, 2010): 573–578.
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by David Graeber – Review.” Guardian, March 28, 2013. Accessed
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and the Anarchist Revival.” The New Yorker, May 13, 2013. Accessed
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February 13, 2013. Accessed September 18, 2015.
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or-something.html.
THE MACAT LIBRARY BY DISCIPLINE
AFRICANA STUDIES
Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk
Zora Neale Huston’s Characteristics of Negro Expression
Martin Luther King Jr’s Why We Can’t Wait
Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness in the American Literary
Imagination
ANTHROPOLOGY
Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalisation
Philippe Ariès’s Centuries of Childhood
Franz Boas’s Race, Language and Culture
Kim Chan & Renée Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy
Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs & Steel: the Fate of Human Societies
Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive
E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande
James Ferguson’s The Anti-Politics Machine
Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures
David Graeber’s Debt: the First 5000 Years
Karen Ho’s Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street
Geert Hofstede’s Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors,
Institutes and Organizations across Nations
Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Structural Anthropology
Jay Macleod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-
Income Neighborhood
Saba Mahmood’s The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist
Subject Marcel Mauss’s The Gift
BUSINESS
Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger’s Situated Learning
Theodore Levitt’s Marketing Myopia
Burton G. Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street
Douglas McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise
Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior
Performance
John Kotter’s Leading Change
C. K. Prahalad & Gary Hamel’s The Core Competence of the Corporation
CRIMINOLOGY
Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
Michael R. Gottfredson & Travis Hirschi’s A General Theory of Crime
Richard Herrnstein & Charles A. Murray’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and
Class Structure in American Life
Elizabeth Loftus’s Eyewitness Testimony
Jay Macleod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-
Income Neighborhood
Philip Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect
ECONOMICS
Janet Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony
Ha-Joon Chang’s Kicking Away the Ladder
David Brion Davis’s The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution
Milton Friedman’s The Role of Monetary Policy
Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom
Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom
Karen Ho’s Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street
John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and
Money
Charles P. Kindleberger’s Manias, Panics and Crashes
Robert Lucas’s Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?
Burton G. Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street
Thomas Robert Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Population
Karl Marx’s Capital
Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom
Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations
Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly
Improbable
Amos Tversky’s & Daniel Kahneman’s Judgment under Uncertainty:
Heuristics and Biases
Mahbub Ul Haq’s Reflections on Human Development
Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
FEMINISM AND GENDER STUDIES

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble
Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex
Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
Subject Joan Wallach Scott’s Gender and the Politics of History
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
GEOGRAPHY
The Brundtland Report’s Our Common Future
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities
James Lovelock’s Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth
Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom
Mathis Wackernagel & William Rees’s Our Ecological Footprint
HISTORY
Janet Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony
Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities
Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
Hanna Batatu’s The Old Social Classes And The Revolutionary Movements
Of Iraq
Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Batallion 101 and the
Final Solution in Poland
Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France
William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago And The Great West
Alfred W. Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange
Hamid Dabashi’s Iran: A People Interrupted
Nathalie Zemon Davis’s The Return of Martin Guerre
Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs & Steel: the Fate of Human Societies
Frank Dikotter’s Mao’s Great Famine
John W Dower’s War Without Mercy: Race And Power In The Pacific War
Richard J. Evans’s In Defence of History
Lucien Febvre’s The Problem of Unbelief in the 16th Century
Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism
Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish
Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality
Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man
John Lewis Gaddis’s We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History
Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism
Eugene Genovese’s Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
Carlo Ginzburg’s The Night Battles
Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners
Jack Goldstone’s Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World
Antonio Gramsci’s The Prison Notebooks
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay & James Madison’s The Federalist Papers
Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down
Carole Hillenbrand’s The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives
Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan
Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age Of Revolution
John A. Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study
Albert Hourani’s History of the Arab Peoples
Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order
C. L. R. James’s The Black Jacobins
Tony Judt’s Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political
Theology
Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Ian Kershaw’s The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich
John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and
Money
Charles P. Kindleberger’s Manias, Panics and Crashes
Martin Luther King Jr’s Why We Can’t Wait
Henry Kissinger’s World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and
the Course of History
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Georges Lefebvre’s The Coming of the French Revolution
John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government
Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince
Mahmood Mamdani’s Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa And The
Legacy Of Late Colonialism
Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority
John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man
Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in
the Seventeenth Century
Jonathan Riley-Smith’s The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract
Joan Wallach Scott’s Gender and the Politics of History
Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions
Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War
Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic
Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War
Frederick Jackson Turner’s The Significance of the Frontier in American
History
Odd Arne Westad’s The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions And
The Making Of Our Times
LITERATURE
Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Roland Barthes’s Mythologies
Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture
Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble
Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex
Ferdinand De Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics
T. S. Eliot’s The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism
Zora Neale Huston’s Characteristics of Negro Expression
Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness in the American Literary
Imagination
Edward Said’s Orientalism
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak?
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
PHILOSOPHY
Elizabeth Anscombe’s Modern Moral Philosophy
Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition
Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
Edmund Gettier’s Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
David Hume’s The Enquiry for Human Understanding
Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death
Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling
C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man
Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue
Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations
Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality
Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil
Plato’s Republic
Plato’s Symposium
Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind
Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations
POLITICS
Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities
Aristotle’s Politics
Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France
John C. Calhoun’s A Disquisition on Government
Hamid Dabashi’s Iran: A People Interrupted
Hamid Dabashi’s Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the
Islamic Revolution in Iran
Robert Dahl’s Democracy and its Critics
Robert Dahl’s Who Governs?
Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
Frank Dikotter’s Mao’s Great Famine
Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism
Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom
Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man
John Lewis Gaddis’s We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History
Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay & James Madison’s The Federalist Papers
Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom
Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down
Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan
John A. Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study
Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order
Tony Judt’s Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
David C. Kang’s China Rising: Peace, Power and Order in East Asia
Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
Robert Keohane’s After Hegemony
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Why We Can’t Wait
Henry Kissinger’s World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and
the Course of History
John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government
Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince
Mahmood Mamdani’s Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa And The
Legacy Of Late Colonialism
John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty
John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism
Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man
Robert D. Putman’s Bowling Alone
John Rawls’s Theory of Justice
Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience
Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War
Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics
Max Weber’s Politics as a Vocation
Odd Arne Westad’s The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions And
The Making Of Our Times
POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES
Roland Barthes’s Mythologies
Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks
Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture
Gustavo Gutiérrez’s A Theology of Liberation
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak?
PSYCHOLOGY
Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice
Alan Baddeley & Graham Hitch’s Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis
Albert Bandura’s Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis
Leon Festinger’s A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
Michael R. Gottfredson & Travis Hirschi’s A General Theory of Crime
Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
William James’s Principles of Psychology
Elizabeth Loftus’s Eyewitness Testimony
A. H. Maslow’s A Theory of Human Motivation
Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority
Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature
Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat
Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein’s Nudge: Improving Decisions About
Health, Wealth and Happiness
Amos Tversky’s Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
Philip Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect
SCIENCE
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago And The Great West
Alfred W. Crosby’s The Columbian Exchange
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in
the Seventeenth Century
Mathis Wackernagel & William Rees’s Our Ecological Footprint
SOCIOLOGY
Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice
Albert Bandura’s Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis
Hanna Batatu’s The Old Social Classes And The Revolutionary Movements
Of Iraq
Émile Durkheim’s On Suicide
Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks
Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
Eugene Genovese’s Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
Jack Goldstone’s Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World
Richard Herrnstein & Charles A Murray’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and
Class Structure in American Life
Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Robert Lucas’s Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?
Jay Macleod’s Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low
Income Neighborhood
Elaine May’s Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
Douglas McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise
C. Wright Mills’s The Sociological Imagination
Robert D. Putman’s Bowling Alone
David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American
Character
Joan Wallach Scott’s Gender and the Politics of History
Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
THEOLOGY
Augustine’s Confessions
Benedict’s Rule of St Benedict
Gustavo Gutiérrez’s A Theology of Liberation
Carole Hillenbrand’s The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives
David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason
Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political
Theology
Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death
C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man
Subject Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics
Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic
COMING SOON
Chris Argyris’s The Individual and the Organisation
Seyla Benhabib’s The Rights of Others
Walter Benjamin’s The Work Of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
John Berger’s Ways of Seeing
Pierre Bourdieu’s Outline of a Theory of Practice
Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger
Roland Dworkin’s Taking Rights Seriously
James G. March’s Exploration and Exploitation in Organisational Learning
Ikujiro Nonaka’s A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation
Griselda Pollock’s Vision and Difference
Amartya Sen’s Inequality Re-Examined
Susan Sontag’s On Photography
Yasser Tabbaa’s The Transformation of Islamic Art
Ludwig von Mises’s Theory of Money and Credit

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What topics are covered in the suggested readings?

What topics are covered in the suggested readings?

What areas of study are represented in the suggested readings?

What areas of study are represented in the suggested readings?

An Analysis of

Cover illustration: Etienne Gilfillan

Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 978-1-912302-23-9 (hardback)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS OF THE ANALYSIS

‘Macat is taking on some of the major challenges in university education …

‘The Macat vision is exceptionally exciting. It focuses upon new modes of

‘The Macat analyses provide immediate access to the critical conversation

Born in 1961, David Graeber is an American professor of

Who Is David Graeber?

What Does Debt: The First 5,000 Years Say?

Why Does Debt: The First 5,000 Years Matter?

David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years challenges our

Why Read This Text?

“My childhood was full of radical politics”.

The discipline of economic history* is concerned with

The Work in its Context

“When economists speak of the origins of money, for example, debt is

Overview of the Field

The main question concerning academics at the time of Debt’s

Ultimately, Graeber gives only an indirect answer to the core question, by

The Contemporary Debate

Graeber believes we can build an idea of a fairer economic life using

The “myth” that exchange is the most important feature of human

Each of these three themes reveals something important about debt.

Exploring the Ideas

Communism* (looking out for one another according to abilities and

The Age of the First Agrarian Empires (3500–800 B.C.E.; “agrarian

Depending on the politics* of the era,7 money alternates in form during

Language and Expression

Exploring the Ideas

The violent commodification of people as slaves in pre-market societies

David Graeber has written a critical analysis of economics* and the

Assessing the Argument

Using direct evidence from human history to challenge the common

He weaves between these modes somewhat indiscriminately, often

“David has become something of a cult figure in anthropology now. ”

The disorganization of the book makes it hard to grasp Graeber’s central

Graeber’s overall scholarship focuses on the more radical topics of

“Anthropology seems a discipline terrified of its own potential.”

“5,000 years of anecdotes is no substitute for real political economy. ”

Beggs, a political economy* lecturer at the University of Sydney, says

Conflict and Consensus

As a book written for a popular audience, Debt is positioned as a key

Uses and Problems

“If we want an alternative to stagnation, impoverishment, and

Debt has become a central work in the global activist community.

The Continuing Debate

Debt will be remembered as an important book for anthropologists*

“You know radical change is coming when they call an anthropologist.”

Anthropology the academic study of humanity and human society.

Austerity a set of economic policies intended to reduce government budget

Austrian School a school of economic thought that focuses on the rationality

Axial Age a period of ancient history characterized by great advances in

Brahmanas a collection of ancient Indian religious scriptures including