[lbo-talk] Of flying cars and the declining rate of profit

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] I have mixed feelings about Graeber's book on debt.  It reminds
me, in a way, of a cab driver picking a fare at the JFK Airport and
promising a ride to the financial district but instead taking him on a
grand tour of Far Rockaway, Jamaica, Brooklyn,  Queens, Uptown,
Chelsea, Lower East Side  and then dropping him off in Chinatown and
saying "you can walk to Wall street from here."  Not that the ride was
not colorful and interesting - and generally worth taking - but it
often makes the rider wonder "why the fuck are we here?"

Having said that, however, I think his take on neoclassical economics
is right on target.  He portrays it as a form of social engineering
that is legitimated by 18th century fairy tales that are oblivious to
the way humans conducted economic exchanges, and which does serious
damage to the social fabric surrounding those exchanges.  Not exactly
a novel idea - institutional/social economists have been arguing that
since Veblen if not earlier, but unlike Veblen, Graeber quotes a
wealth of anthropological research.

BTW. The inspiration to my new sig line comes directly from Graeber's
book on debt.

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."