[lbo-talk] the Grundrisse and credit.

[shag carpet bomb]

I read a few chapters into Graeber and then got sidetracked to books that 
were due back to the library, whereas I purchased Graeber. I had to laugh 
when we visited the Smithsonian in DC. There was an exhibit on the history 
of money and, precisely!, you could read the exhibit as a struggle with the 
desire to tell the story of money as one we move from barter to increasing 
levels of abstraction but with an historical record that makes 
representation of that linear narrative impossible. The exhibit compromises 
by refuses to plot a linear timeline but then positions items in a way that 
allows the viewer to read his as a movement from barter to greater levels 
of abstraction.

Noticing this, I started explaining all this and an audience from Denmark 
gathered 'round and asked questions. I couldn't answer a whole lot, only to 
point them at Graeber's book.

At 08:02 PM 1/14/2012, Michael Pollak wrote:


>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
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