> I think Mike has contextualized Graeber's argument in Marx's work (and
> vice versa) but I'm still not convinced that there is a fundamental
> disagreement. As you say, there are obviously new things under the
> sun that haven't existed for the entire 5000 years of Graeber's
> macro-history. But as Michael says, "I think don't think we have to
> choose between Graeber's view and that of sophisticated leftist
> economics. I think they are supplementary."
Great post, Sean, you put me to shame! I think you sum up the discussion well.
It might seem disingenuous to keep saying it since I've dwelt on criticisms of (part of) Graeber's book, but I really do think there's a lot of good stuff in there as well. It is well-written, as Joanna says. As you say, the anthropology does bring a new angle - I had some real 'aha' moments reading parts where he has highlighted some cultural or linguistic survivals from old social practices and structures around debt.
> I think this is roughly Mike's position and it gels generally with his
> position in other writings (I'm thinking of the Zombie Marx piece in
> Jacobin http://jacobinmag.com/summer-2011/zombie-marx/ .) I have a
> lot of respect for this and learn a great deal from what Mike has to
> say on this front - though I admit that my first feeling is one of
> dispair. I've spent a good deal of time dabbling in my readings
> around economics. I keep up as well as I can with critical
> literature, reading many of the people he faults on this front. And
> certainly I don't want to sit in ignorance about how a theorist or
> scholar from an alternative tradition (someone like Harvey or Arrighi
> or in this case Graeber) is making a basic error in understanding how
> the material realities of an economy work. And I don't think those
> theorists would want to get it wrong, at least in principle.
I know what you mean about the despair. It depresses me that scholarly work is so Hobbesian, with so many warring frameworks and seeming disrespect between them. The other side of a continually critical attitude is that everyone else is treating your own work the same way. But I think we have to get past it and make the criticism (given and received) as non-personal as possible, and also realise that 'wrong' ideas or frameworks are as productive as 'right' ones because they force us to rethink and restate in debate. So the Graeber book is excellent even where I completely disagree because it is clearly put and provides the occasion to try to meet the challenges.
It's my specialist area so I am probably more critical than the merely interested person has to be. I'm not looking for a book to explain everything. In other areas where I'm the merely interested person, I must swallow all kinds of stuff that seems dubious to the specialist, and it does me no harm.
But I do think there are points of political substance at issue - the relationship of money to the state is extremely important right now - how much control do states have over money, how much room do they have to move, etc. Doug makes a good point that the economic importance of debt makes a big difference to the prospects of a debt-focused movement.
Mike