Debt: The First 5000 Years - Extended Interview

David Graeber is an American anthropologist, author, and activist who teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London. His book, Debt: The First Five Thousand Years, is the topic of our discussion. In it, Graeber shows how debt, and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates across the world and have given rise to innumerable uprisings. He explores the history of money and credit, and how societies have been divided into creditors and debtors.
Most Americans know too well the unjust difference between how homeowners facing foreclosure have been treated, versus how massive indebted banks culpable for the economic crisis have been treated. That unequal application of justice has angered so many Americans, that it gave rise to a nationwide, and to an extent, worldwide movement under the banner of Occupy Wall Street. David Graeber is considered one of the first activists credited with getting Occupy Wall Street off the ground last year.
David Graeber's earlier books include Towards and Anthropological Theory of Value, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, and more. He also writes for Harper's, the Nation, and the New Left Review.
On February 2, 2012, Uprising host Sonali Kolhatkar interviewed David Graeber about his book and the Occupy movement.
Martina Steiner recorded this interview.

[@muffinspuffinsEE]

Sorry for downloading your book David, I am in debt to you!

[@jacob_massengale]

I think he canceled it

[@voltcorp]

pay it forward since you can't pay it back anymore

[@JoeMmt347]

We take our style of economics without any question. I wish guys like David were taught in school.

[@MrDuffy81]

They are. This IS school. I AM in class right now. Self led to the True teachers!

[@brianwheeldon4643]

Agree Joseph. Some schools might already, but I would think in the country I live, most think of this an intellectual curiosity. However, that's only because it's a liberal conservative neocolonist country (by and large) and most are what you'd call chardonnay greens. It's Aotearoa New Zealand btw. Cheers

[@username3365]

This is a required resource we view in my college's history of capitalism course.

[@aminuabdulmanaf4434]

Rest in peace David!

[@barbarajohnson1442]

😔

[@monsol402]

I love him. He was so humble and kind . A truly compassionate person.

[@blacklessnight]

He actually drank his coffee here! Woooo!

[@ctsamurai]

just started watching his videos and I was wondering if his empty/un-drank coffee cup was some kind of low key running gag in his talks.

[@applecom1de509]

21:46 a classic, though

[@huxue]

Is it a ... drinking game!

[@mcgoombs]

Wow, incredible, I’ve seen almost all of David’s interviews and this is by far the best

[@santiagoacosta777]

Protip: plug your headphones halfway in.

[@huxue]

What abt airpods

[@tigerstyle4505]

What!? 😅

[@lacdelsur]

Extremely underated comment.

[@g.bontempi691]

wow

[@bilinguliar]

1.2 GHz for Bluetooth headphones.

[@not2tees]

A thinker for all seasons, a wonderful man and mind.

[@SourovKabirII]

Perfectly said.

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

Wow. I thought William Greider's The Soul of Capitalism was great, as he presents employee-ownership efforts started by Louis Kelso, David Ellerman's co-operative economics and the master-slave relationship, and Herman Daly's ecological economics. Gar Alperovitz is also a great voice on co-operative, democratic economics. Marj Kelly´s Divine Right of Capital is excellent, and her followup Owning Our Future. I've also liked Michael Hudson's work on the use of debt. Graeber is amazing. I thought Chomsky was the only anarchist up there. I´m not an anarchist, but an interfaith UU Christian, kind of a pro-social Gandhian Christian. I want to read Graeber's book!

[@JoeMmt347]

You’re doing ur homework!👍

[@wyleong4326]

Thanks for the references! Hope you’re well and all.

[@ttthecat]

Thank you for the reading recommendations!

[@voltcorp]

ironically, one of Graeber's most famous pamphlets is "Are you an anarchist? The answer might surprise you." which is exactly what I suspect might be the case after reading your comment

[@robinhoodstfrancis]

@ Ti R² I appreciate your engagement. I´m not usually surprised by in-group categories, since as my own innoovated designation id as an interfaith UU Quaker Christian, aka Gandhian reflects my own background in psychosocial studies, eg anthropology. Still, "anarchy" is a term that seems to overstep some bounds, given a focus on local and grassroots empowerment and networking. If my sensibilities are in broad agreement with Graeber or others identifying as "anarchists", I´d be happy to hear of such subgroup classifications. However, as superordinate categories go, individuals have been subjected to methodological naturalism from science to the social sciences so much that it has clearly influenced people´s ideological materialism in various forms. Thus, my openness to religious subjects raised as an atheist humanist rewarded my curiosity in early high school already as I recognized spiritual-religious concepts, and the role of a transcendental Source and Supplier beginning with the Chinese Tao. I´m interested in all efforts in co-operative enterprise, pro-eco-social espeically and Civil Society like Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Oxfam, etc, with awareness of local reality. However, that requires understanding real individuals, and I´ve combined bio-behavioral anthropology related to symbolic interactionism in sociology, social constructionism about social movements also in soc., and A Wendt´s social constructivism. All about individuals and social interacting. All of which benefits from therapeutic psychology like basic Freud, Jung and especially their legacies in Carl Rogers, Alice Miller, John Bradshaw, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, et al. And Bradshaw is 12 step connected, in transpersonal psych. So, I encourage you to remember to seek people´s psychology of mental health to avoid the problems of rationalism and denialism. And Buddha put it well as he emphasized "lovingkindness" and truth, terms not so emphasized in Euro-American culture, although implied by UN human rights.

[@willpushback4874]

Such a concise and free thinker, I'm certain he has encouraged many people to smell the bullshit..

[@eitanmuir]

Excellent interview, thanks for sharing!

[@davidyomtobian8505]

Thanks for posting this!

[@jorgegomez524]

not everybody, the rich don’t feel oblige to pay their debts, not their credit debts, but more important, their moral debts.

[@07Flash11MRC]

They're not even willing to pay their taxes.

[@samreznek]

Graeber's book is great.

[@markavelisocal]

Thank you

[@tomgorden3762]

Awesome. Thanks

[@stonedzebra420]

my left ear loves this video

[@eddiemaxblack]

Interesting interview.... David Graeber, too, is interesting. I'm interested in reading the book. Thanks!

[@huxue]

Did you read it. It’s quite dry

[@stephentrueman4843]

@@huxue lol, all his books are pretty tough to read but they have interesting things in. if you listen to the things he says in this talk he makes some great points about society

[@bladdnun3016]

@@huxue It's a long book, but it's definitely not dry. It's my favorite non-fiction book. Incredible insights about human relations and very funny, too.

[@PJ-qx5yt]

Graeber: "Debt was used very intentionally" ... "You have all these self-sustaining communities -- we need to have all these people in debt so they will start doing wage labor so we can have exports." Sonali: "So the colonized is indebted to the colonizer for being colonized." Then they discuss how the slave trade was entirely debt-driven... by chains of debt, usually to trap people in debt thereby forcing them to either raid for slaves, or sell themselves or their family members into slavery. 21:40 - 22:10

[@horus7854]

If you like his book Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, which is fantastic, check out Kenneth Rexroth's book Communalism as well. Its a bit like Conquest of Bread but more chronological as far as the development of socioeconomic organization

[@koffing2073]

Its amazing that in a professional studio the sound quality is that bad

[@jacobvardy]

The book is well worth the time taken to read.

[@lukehauser1182]

Or listen to :)

[@tietscho]

Man such a Sharp mind! A True loss 😞

[@justgivemethetruth]

Just got this audiobook - it is really outstanding. This century will be a century of resetting the idea of what human beings are to the people of the world … and maybe we'll even get to doing something about it by the end of this century or the next. History moves so slow, and most of us will live and die in moronic way we seem to think these days. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants to get to the bottom of how we exist in the world.

[@rhianimal19]

A brilliant mind of the people, taken far too soon.

[@markmason8469]

Can you fix the sound problem? The audio is available only on the left channel. Thanks.

[@SarahAndreaRoycesChannel]

Urgs, I was fumbling with my plug because I thought it is broken.

[@chebrujo]

Some say David only spoke to the left side ;)

[@lukehauser1182]

@@chebrujo 10 points for a good intra-lefty joke!

[@aaronlopez717]

yes ! those frequency in my cell phone / even if that have o looks profesional system to broadcasting / i save a video just for the voices clear clean to heard it / for references / so important info .

[@filmolosophy]

amazing @ 31:00 - 32:20

[@thomasd2444]

1. 05:18 - 2. 10:37 - 3. 15:56 - 4. 21:15 - 5. 26:34 - 6. 31:53 - 7. 37:11 - 8. 42:40 - 45:40 - 47:45 - 9. 47:49 -

[@noelliebtsie]

Hmmm. We know there are often major power differentials and economic pressures backgrounding such "bride wealth"(etc.) exchanges, which is as good as force/ownership, play with language all you like. Anyway, thank you, Massively miss David!

[@Avery7098]

Let us stand for What is best for all Equal money system by desteni.

[@ryana42]

Does anyone know what Graeber is referring near the end regarding governor morris and new york boycott? I found governor morris on wikipedia, but I don't know where to go beyond that.

[@stoovfx3871]

I just listened to a couple of chapters. It is very reaching.

[@AirelonTrading]

Old Mercantilism was MUCH more than simple orientation towards trade policy. That's simply one extension of how the entire system was applied. Also, why I use the term: Neo Mercantilism Capitalism (if one is going to use that term towards Adam Smiths thoughts on capital allocation) would have to also include Smiths thoughts in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". Neo Mercantilism does exactly in form (if not in mechanics) what old Mercantilism did

[@jthadcast]

how can we play this in mono?

[@whitenightf3]

Will have to get his books, that lady did a great job with the interview. I live in the UK and I refuse to register for the vote. If voting really changed anything it would be made illegal. Illusion of choice is no choice. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Benjamin Franklin.

[@sayfo666]

whitenightf3 - I bet you’ve changed your tune on that one.

[@edmundozaragoza1453]

@@sayfo666 dannnngg lmao shots fired!!!!

[@AirelonTrading]

The state supported the Companies thoughts on trade. Both hoarded the resultant Gold inflows, and relied on middle age thoughts on what you do with "money". You hoard it. Smith argued that the Crown had no business in bed with East India Trading Company, and that capital's use was intelligent expansion of labor. Trade Policy was simply one mechanic. The elements (State and "Corporate") remain the same

[@AirelonTrading]

Mercantilistic thought is what Adam Smith fought so heavily in his day. Companies (The East India Company specifically) that were in bed with the crown, and so to fight the company, was in essence to fight the crown. Was it for profit? Yeup. But Smith correctly identified this was no for efficient capital flow ( Adam Smith actually didn't coin the term "Capitalist", it may have been Marx or Ricardo actually ) when the Crown enforced company rules

[@DavidByrne85]

I really dont think you can say trade policy was 'simply one mechanic' of mercantilist doctrine. Certainly that's out of step with how I've ever heard the term used, which has always been re: trade policy.

[@EyeLean5280]

Are you an expert in the field?

[@kensurrency2564]

Anarchism. Research it. Think about it.

[@tokenmcsweetleaf8006]

Mmmm Mono sound....

[@astralandrew]

@ManVersusDebt it is a v interesting read

[@hakikatyolureyahaqiqati]

David Graeber.... ❤‍🩹❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎👋🙏💐🌸🏵🌹🥀🌺🌻🌼🌷☀🌝🌞🌈💯

[@GoUkraine777]

why not fix mono like soud? easy fix

[@AirelonTrading]

It was a crown enforced "Mercantilistic" line of thought that only thought of "stacking Gold" (or hoarding money) whereas Smith correctly identified that this was not efficiently using capital. It was just hoarding corporate money through State force. He correctly showed that hoarding does no one any good, espclly the people hoarding it What do we have today? State enforced company rules. Thus why I prefer the term "Neo-Mercantilism". Its the modern day equivelant of exactly what he discussed

[@brianwheeldon4643]

Reads like you're talking about tax evasion Dan. Taking money out of the system, which can then be used in nefarious ways.

[@Jotto999]

How could you not at least fix the sound before uploading?

[@moviereviews1446]

Horrible audio. My left ear enjoyed it though.

[@coweatsman]

At 28:24 "You see the same thing in Ancient Greece where [something] women have to wear vales." What is the something? Replaying it a few times I can not pick it up. [Something] is garbled.

[@xCorvus7x]

Aethenian, I think.

[@email3021]

Also says “incidentally”

[@amanites24]

Athenian indeed. Being Greek it’s amazing but this is the first time I hear or read about the veil custom in ancient Greece! I checked this and it is 100% true as “unveiled” in a research paper by Lloyd Llewelyn-Jones titled “House and veil in ancient Greece”.

[@mamie6820]

I didn’t get his explanation on how the introduction of coinage related to slavery and prostitution, and further relevance of coinage in respect of the veiled upper class women.

[@ingridlinbohm7682]

If there is no payment of debt there will be no loans made when a person needs a loan. Payment of debt allows for a lifeline of a loan. What is wrong is when a person or a society create debts that are so large that they are unpayable. Modern society is built upon unpayable debt designed to be unpayable in order to have a continuous flow of interest payments on the unpayable balance of debt. This is why the Catholic church and Islam banned interest on debt. The Jews in the old Testament declared that there should be a Jubilee every seven years where debts were cancelled and Jesus told Christians to pray the "Lords prayer" "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those trespasse against us" which in the original Latin and Greek is Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who owe us debts.

[@KingMinosxxvi]

Empathy is not always empathic or useful any man with a mother knows this.

[@krillin876]

I thought it had more to do with protectionism. Kind of like colonial cotton farmers being forced to sell their crop to British manufactures or Monopolies given to companies like the East India Company giving them sole rights to sell products in the colonies

[@keenankramer7989]

she's real good at interviewing 🤔🤔

[@marcato53]

Did anyone feel like her cadence is actually similar to his, she must listen to him a lot lol

[@laskji]

Its not really that "you have to pay of your debts" is a bad thing. The bad thing is the manipulation or exploitation that caused the debt in the first place. Its the difference between treating symptoms and treating causes. A legitimate debt should be paid, a exploitation should not have occured in the first place!

[@lethiac698]

here I am messin with my headphone wires...

[@thomasbalckwellgorges9201]

Debt 0:53

[@MrHoyness]

Mmnn. Profound observation. PUL. . .EASE!

[@DANVIIL]

Make these greedy universities who defrauded students and or have endowments, turn over refunds to all students who paid tuition. This way everyone gets some money back.

[@krillin876]

what sepertates mercantilism from neo mercantilism. Is neo more like corporate facism,, thank you dan

[@DavidByrne85]

Mercantilsm is an orientation towards trade policy, I dont really see that it applies in the way you're using it. Least of all to the US.

[@AirelonTrading]

Davids biggest flaw, in my own view, is he keeps referring to "Capitalism" instead of accurately calling it what it is, Neo-Mercantilism. What he describes is Neo-Mercantalism to a "T". Corporate debt enforcement through State Force

[@filmolosophy]

lol @ 22:02.... the dude in the background

[@kefsound]

So?

[@debkim9747]

That's Alan Minsky, program director of Pacifica/KPFK Radio in LA. His father is the economist Hyman Minsky: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_Minsky

[@chipszed]

10 mins in and all i can tthink abt is fossilised dead labor

[@PJ-qx5yt]

I had a mindless, Friedman-worshipping, free-market advisor while achieving my MA Economics. He used to insult me in class for asking questions about the Neoclassical assumptions. Not attacking, by the way, just trying to understand. Some pretty basic question I expected answers to (Me: "But where does perfect competition actually exist?" Him: "I look out on the world and see perfect competition almost everywhere." Me: "But what if, for example, a person is a member of a class and applies a different cost benefit analysis to in-members than they do to out-members?" Him: "Classes don't exist and you can't put them in the model, it would be irrational to act any other way."). And then he would mumble something about "Marx was wrong about everything" and then wear that self-satisfied shit-eating grin of someone who knows they have power over someone else's career... Once I asked enough questions, to shut me up he would ask how I possibly passed Into Economics, and then told me to go back and read The Wealth of Nations. Best part: I had read it cover-to-cover as a political science major -- he had only ever read excerpts. Just finished reading "Debt" cover to cover and it addresses many of the questions he could not. I'll be getting him a copy of "Debt" for Christmas :) Of course, he will just dismiss the entire thing by saying something like "oh he's an anthropologist, not an economist... no math." This is to avoid reading the arguments, not to hear them and then refute them. We're fucked...

[@al-imranadore1182]

Economics is a fake science.

[@instituteforexperimentalar7493]

Influential anthropologist David Graeber, known for his 2011 volume Debt: The First 5000 Years speaks about the correlation between the cultural sphere and society. The intellectuals and the artists create an imaginary way to criticize the economic system in any era. Art can overcome hegemonic frameworks and acknowledge other possible worlds, offer us the opportunity to understand better the marginalized social entities. Social exclusion is the process in which individuals or people are systematically blocked from (or denied full access to) various rights, opportunities and resources that are normally available to members of a different group, and which are fundamental to social integration and observance of human rights within that particular group (e.g., housing, employment, healthcare, civic engagement, democratic participation, and due process). As the economic crises go deeper in time more people face the effects of exclusion. Art and social sciences can give voice to the voiceless. Especially young social aware poets can give us a clear view of the real social effect of the financial consequences. - David Graeber kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXSpXmuFhs9jiKc

[@sodalitia]

How much are you getting paid for making adverts in youtube comment section?

[@danielhutchinson6604]

Capital as a Social Structure of religious significance, can be ignored as easily as it can be respected. People appear like Sheep? Throw one into the Truck, the rest will follow. We can abandon Capitalism easier than to accept it.

[@trauco73]

The fact is that 200 years ago everyone was poor compared to today's standard of living. Capitalism and the industrial revolution have lifted millions of people out of poverty.

[@stonedzebra420]

mate most people today are poor. in America 56% of the population cannot afford a $1,000 emergency because they are living pay check to pay check. The average income is 30k a year. The average family income is 55k a year. this mindset is so stupid.

[@ReturnOfTheJ.D.]

epic audio fail - one channel only

[@antifragile914]

9:44 "..in the US" because US = World

[@kefsound]

Never borrow money!

[@al-imranadore1182]

If you're poor that is, if you're rich though borrow all the money you want and never pay back and I mean NEVER, cause being rich and paying your debts is insulting.

[@sirjtkhan795]

The abandoned apparatus physically itch because cheetah anecdotally own abaft a tight scale. entertaining, nippy t-shirt

[@al-imranadore1182]

what did you smoke when typing this??🤨

[@loardanrickshaw3060]

I wish I was in medieval England so I could separate from my wife and make profit instead of losing 50% of everything I have

[@akroma12345678910]

Separate from your wife? That would be seen as very strange, even in the US divorce rates were about 2-3%. You're saying you want to break up your family for pursuit of materialism?

[@al-imranadore1182]

@@akroma12345678910 nothing wrong with that, now that women can be sole owner of property marriage is BS any way.

[@sayfo666]

Don’t agree with his example that if America owes USD $100 billion to Japan that “you’re also in trouble”. America is no longer on a gold standard and is monetarily sovereign so with regard to its obligations in its own currency it can never become insolvent.

[@sodalitia]

monetarily sovereign? That's funny, because if not for military occupation of Japan or any other place in the world, nations across the globe could simply refuse to trade with you, get rid of all of the petrodollar and cause massive hyperinflation of US unsolvent economy. Why did you take down Saddam Hussein? To defend your soverenity? No, because he was trying to sell oil in Euros. Same Gadaffi. You see, your sovereignty is only at the gunpoint of your military machine occupying every possible country on this planet. When Bush said about talibans that they "hated your way of life" it wasn't that they hate your freedoms. They hate that you made them fear the sky with your drones. At the heart of your freedoms lies violence. It always was. Because the US is not an actual country. Its a fcn business. It's built on genocide and backstabbing each other for centuries.

If you don't want to be in debt don't borrow. If you borrow money you need to pay it back! It's that simple there is no free ride! He is talking nonsense and bullshit to not pay back money that is borrowed.

[@joingainjoingain5143]

Just got this audiobook - it is really outstanding. This century will be a century of resetting the idea of what human beings are to the people of the world … and maybe we'll even get to doing something about it by the end of this century or the next. History moves so slow, and most of us will live and die in moronic way we seem to think these days. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants to get to the bottom of how we exist in the world.