On Sat, 14 Jan 2012, nathan tankus wrote:
> is this element what people (eg Doug and Julio) think is missing from
> Graeber's work and analysis?
It's great stuff, and a hugely important idea. And it is a difference that is invisible in Graeber because he's looking at something else.
But to be fair to Graeber:
a) Graeber's way of using the word "credit" to simply refer to all debts is the normal way of using the word. It's Marx's use that's idiosyncratic. Marx is creating a new word use, and using it for precisely the opposite purpose, namely to focus on what is different between capitalism and all preceding systems rather than to focus on what is same. It's not that one POV is right and one is wrong. They are simply looking at different things.
b) This passage also shows in passing where Marx (and just about every other economist) is wrong and Graeber is right:
> (Money itself is a form for suspending the unevenness of the times
> required in different branches of production, to the extent that this
> obstructs exchange.)
I read that as a parenthetical refer by Marx to an age of barter that precedes the use of money. Which, as Graeber shows definitely, never existed.
Michael