[lbo-talk] Debt

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Thu May 3 06:25:39 PDT 2012


Michael S: "> Relatively lenient bankruptcy law seems to have been one
> of those local quirks of the postwar Golden Age. There are
> some survivals of it; but the trend is clear; we need
> to re-establish debt slavery."

[WS:] But this sums the entire point that any political-economic arrangement cannot be understood outside its specific social-historical context, no? Financially measured debt can be a good thing when it is used to ease personal bondage that "human economy" (Graeber's term) sometimes creates, but a bad thing when it leads to debt slavery under a different set of conditions. A summary condemnation of it because at one point it led to debt slavery is like summarily condemning knives because at one point they were used to kill people.

In other words, we need to look into "uses and gratifications" that any cultural, economic or political instrument provides to flesh-and-blood individuals under specific socio-historical circumstances. Generalized statement of the kind X is bad (or good) because it was originally used for bad (or good) thing amounts to cognitive telescoping that crops out the context and creates an illusion of proximity where none exists.

I am a bit ambivalent about Graeber's writing style for that reason. He cites and impressive number of historical sources and provides ample examples of different outcomes in both human and monetary economies. On the other hand, he seems to go on tangents or even jumping into conclusions that pander to his anti-statist (anarchist?) sentiments even though they contradict the narrative he constructed elsewhere in his book.

I understand that his goal is to provide what anthropologists call a "thick description" rather than to assemble evidence in support of a theory - and his book on debt seems to fit that mode well. But I cannot help but notice that he does a lot of cognitive telescoping e.g. in his discussion of the slavery under the Roman law and its connections to modernity, which practically equates Roman slaves being torn apart by wild beasts with the 9-5 wage work schedule. Phleeeze!

I am still convinced that his main thrust is to dislodge the so-called neoclassical theory as basically an 18th century fairy tale dressed up in mathematical equations - and I think he does that rather effectively. I think this "dismal discipline" richly deserves this treatment. I call it "discipline" because it is not a science by any stretch of imagination. In its macro- version it is a system of defining and accounting for certain types of human behavior, and in that respect it is akin to a legal system. Nobody in his right mind would call a legal system a "science." In its micro-version it is either applied mathematics or a fairy tale as Graeber that have nothing to do with historical reality and have little predictive value. In both versions it is the underpinning of ideologies that legitimate the interests of different socio-economic classes, either capital owners or labor (and it is almost always "either/or" and almost never "and.)

This I see as the main and valid contribution of his work. True, he also panders to his leftists audiences by sprinkling his book with tangential remarks against the state and capitalism, which the anarchists and their fellow travelers probably love - but in my view it is nothing more than just window dressing.

-- Wojtek

"Modern conservatism is just a neoliberal gloss on medieval domination."



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