[lbo-talk] A Critical Review of David Graeber's Debt

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] I think he does recognize the historical differences - he is
just telescoping through them e.g. arguing that because say the Roman
law was based on the institution of slavery, every system that is
based on the Roman law is therefore based on slavery.  This is
obviously laughable, but he nonetheless cites a good deal of
anthropological research that provide more than adequate social
context for economic releations.

I think the main problem of his work is that he does not acknowledge
the role of class struggle in Europe and America - which is far more
fundamental for understanding their historical development than, say,
its slavery roots via Roman law or plunder of the New World.  The
critical piece that you cite mentions this.

As I see it,  Graeber has a fish to fry with Marxists and manufacture
an intellectual basis for his anarchist anti-statist and
anti-institutional views.  I think he fails in this respect miserably,
as his views smack of neoliberalism sans the cult of money, but other
than that - his book is a nice overview of the anthropological
literature on the subject which is not well known in the US.

I do like his critique of the neoliberal economic theory, though.
Obviously it did not originate with him, but his book provides a lot
ammunition against this theoretical framework.

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."