/lit/ - Literature

OP here
Sorry, wrong pic

>>17851846
Thanks op I'll read that.

>>17851846

I don't understand how he could come to the conclusion that coins didn't exist until the modern world. It just doesn't make sense.

>>17851855
OP here. I did like that book too, but that one made me feel guilty and self aware while the book in the OP made me feel helpless and burdened by knowledge.

>This book is the biggest red/black pill you could ever take.

Not really.

>>17851940
why not?

>>17851929
His argument is that coinage comes from warring entities and social instability. Somehow pay soldiers during times in which there isn't enough faith in fellow man to uphold a debt. That most cultures had some measurement of value eventually, but that the coin that represents the Irish slave girl came after.

>>17851953
oops meant for
>>17851925

>>17851846
>This book is the biggest red/black pill you could ever take
it's not like he is saying anything that many others have pointed out before; Del Mar, Philip Grierson and their advocates

>>17851846
Based OP, I'm reading it right now. Started it a few days ago.

>>17851846
Embarrassing post OP.

Pretending that bead gifting is in any way relevant to how European economies formed is not a thought that emerges out of any sort of historical analysis.
Graeber himself would probably call himself an anthropologist - and really at that point, you'd get a better understanding of the world by doing an astrological analysis.

>>17851846
Some sort of Petersonian conservative can easily rebuttal there are necessary fictions for advanced human societies to function, Graeber mixed up arcane scholarly issues with retarded advocacy for immediate sociopolitical reforms which aren't justified by anything. However economies monetized doesn't justify trying to dissolve current relations into "gift economies" or whatever

>>17852070
Why does a Professor act that way?

>>17852081
You mean Peterson? Because he REALLY loves his daughter

>>17852070
>the world is about to end, the past is getting cancelled, art doesn't exist anymore and it's all thank to the Jewish monetary system
>anon thinks he can belittle the situation with a post to which is attached the picture of a literal clown

>>17852001
But he said it in an accessible way and I’ve never heard of the people you listed. Thanks for the recs. I’ll put them on my list.
>>17852013
Based. Keep going.
>>17852069
Sure it’s embarrassing but I’m being unironically sincere and that makes you uncomfortable. If you could point me to something equivalent you think is as good, please let me know, otherwise you’re just being a Debbie downer with no basis for your posts. It sounds like you never even read the book.
>>17852070
I haven’t got to the part where he proposes anything, nor do I expect there to be a solution, as I said before. You’re just justifying not reading the book and Peterson posting.

Embarrassing

>>17851846
It’s a materialistic view of history which I am forced to reject as an Aryan

>>17852187
Really epic shitpost bro. Do you do this offten? I'd like to see more of your shitposts on this very high quality Indonesian sausage making cuneiform tablet

>>17852195
At least you admit it instead of hiding behind a veil of pseudo intellectual assumptions about a book you haven't nor will ever read. I respect you most out of all the shitposters in this thread.

>>17852162
>I haven’t got to the part where he proposes anything, nor do I expect there to be a solution, as I said before. You’re just justifying not reading the book and Peterson posting.
I don't remember (besides maybe debt jubilee) him advocating anything in the book but I was more referencing to all the other activities of Graeber... from occupy wall street and everything else. Anyways he obviously preferred explicit social pressure instead of trickery which for all it's flaws has worked more wonders

>>17851846
>through the historical lens
there's your problem. Read Karl Popper, and fuck the haters

>>17852097
>>17852081
>>17852070
Pedo trannies

>>17852213
Ah I see. The only other thing I read by him was Bullshit jobs which was far more wacky and modern. It was something that resonated with me for sure, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but this debt book is far more intense. Instead of:
>your job is literally just to make your boss look good! Ha!
it's
>in certain areas the entire debt system was structured around slavery as a unit of measurement for social currency and subsequently became the basis for legal definitions and the societal underpinnings of everything sense

I don't really know what the dude did during occupy. Did he write like a memoir or something on it?

>>17852240
Graeber was basically the prime guy behind it and made sure no specific demands or structure could develop, so it could be just as successful as all other anarchist idiocy

>>17852303
Is there documentation of this? Long articles or published pieces? If I pick up any ol' book on occupy, he'll be mentioned?

Read this after

>>17852240
He was one of the first and most prominent activists in Occupy. He was an anarchist and anti-capitalist, so this is not particularly surprising. I'm not really sure what the other anon is getting at, aside from being derisive of Graeber's politics. If this is turning into a /Graeber/ general, I would recommend his article in The Baffler called "What's the point if we can't have fun?"

>>17851846
I've read the book it has interesting bits. Graeber has a very sour tone, and loses the point in later chapters. He also doesn't seem to get that borrowing can be seen as barter over time.

>>17852346
Holy based. Thanks anon.
>>17852337
That's a neat cover. Tell me more anon.
>>17852347
I personally really enjoy his tone because it feels empathetic to my preexisting outlook on the world, but I can see how it can ruin your groove, for sure.

>>17852312
I guess any book on it has to mention him since he played a big role, just googling comes across all kinds of stuff from him back then giving interviews

https://www.thestreet.com/politics/meet-the-man-behind-occupy-wall-street-11293836
>I'm willing to believe that the Tea Party wasn't just Astroturf in the beginning, that it eventually got subsumed by Republicans. We won't let that happen. But I'll put it this way: If Nancy Pelosi is suddenly inspired to put out a call for a debt jubilee, that would be great. Nobody is going to say that's bad because it's backed by a government we consider to be illegitimate. That won't change our long-term visions. As long as you are on the same path, what we are really arguing for is what's possible so there's no reason we can't work together.

It all reeks of the typical anarcho-kiddie attitude of wanting to avoid normal political channels and do things like camping outside as an alternative to forcing politicians to act differently.

>>17852369
>That's a neat cover. Tell me more anon.
it's the history of the enslavement and consumption of the earth by civilization, debt being a principal means. it's poetic and nicely complements graeber's more technical approach

>>17852070
>Some sort of Petersonian conservative can easily rebuttal there are necessary fictions for advanced human societies to function
So you're basically admitting that you have to rely on fantastic crap to justify the social order. No wonder you're getting wrecked by trannies and commies, you're openly admitting you're just delaying your inevitable doom.

Why should I read the grand history of an economically, legally and historically illiterate anthropologist with a very bad record for methodology?
Why should I not expect the same semantics, poor research and empty rhetoric that littered bullshit jobs?

Pure midwittery

>>17852403
post better books then

>>17852386
I just meant someone who thinks the truth of Christianity is irrelevant in comparison to its social function would view Robinsonade stories similarly

>>17852403
Bullshit jobs really seemed more like a pet project to me. His data sets and stories from Twitter followers were more him writing about an idea and fleshing it out than actually setting out to prove it for all time. This book seems like it’s rooted much more in fact and well documented research in comparison.

But if you are the same anon from that one thread about BS jobs the I doubt I could convene you. And you know no one could convince you. So that makes your post top quality.

>>17852162
I'm >>17852069
I did read it. It sounds like you might be interested in Polanyi, the great transformation which does similar things in using anthropology to try and explain social and economic developments. I don't like him for the same reason I don't like Greaber though.

A response to Polanyi and a better book, which is more historically minded is Braudels Civilization and Capitalism. It's a trilogy so check out all three if the subject interests you.

>>17852413
If you want a grand historical narrative with actually interesting ideas and rigorous research
Victor Lieberman's Strange Parallels is a very interesting work
If you want the anthropological perspective from an anthropologist whose known for taking field work to the limit unlike graeber who only did the fame and glory bits
Chris Hallpike has written multiple interesting books
He's maybe too eager on developmental psychology occasionally but the fucker did his fucking research.

>>17852380
Sounds like he’s just rewording Klages’ view of Spirit as the enemy of Soul

>>17852435
This is the first graeber thread I have posted on
It's an interesting idea though in so far as it is an idea, he doesn't really add to his predecessors who date back to I dunno
Antiquity

>>17852453
not as metaphysical

>>17852069

I think Graeber’s point about bead gifting was how social relationships were often non-monetary in the past and mediated by a bunch of rituals and varying notions of reciprocity. Money and debt are the inverse, or you could say “solution”, to this localized and divergent system of ritual and reciprocity. It is a larger scale system for organizing aspects of social life that at its most simple says “you are engaged with this person socially via this relationship of debt or payment in money”.

Graeber romanticizes the archaic and direct social organization because he sees the dissolution of that as a historically violent process. He sees money and debt as increasingly imposed on people in place of those more “informal” (from his ideological frame you could say “authentic” I think) social relations. How he charts the increasing dominance or sanctity of debt and money is supposed to indicate how at times in the past there was still a kind of informality to it that would allow for ritual debt cancellations of the kind he was talking about. It was meant to highlight its “arbitrary” nature, to convince the reader that any of their mental hangups about the sanctity of debt and money are historical. I say all of that with a lot of personal criticism of my own for Graeber, but I don’t think he was trying to suggest that those things evolved into debt and money exactly. It is more for his general project of trying to render money and debt as historical things that used to be functionally substituted with more localized social rituals and shit that indicated what you “owed” to your social group, or how you were to behave with them and what you were to commit your time and effort to in relation to them.

>>17852453
What was Klages rewording?

>>17852512
Good post. Wow. Actual discussion.

>>17852468
The thing he added was the idea within modernity. He updated the idea of bullshit jobs to a particularity. I haven’t read his book on bureaucracy so I don’t know.

>>17852468
The idea of bullshit jobs goes back to antiquity?

>>17852512
>Social domination and theocracy are better than money because some people are retarded and borrow more than they can pay back

>>17852554
no but conspicuous consumption dates back pretty far

>>17852622
not who you're responding to but when you say theocracy you're probably thinking about Abrahamic religions which existed in a system where bullion was already used to settle payments and denominate debts

>>17852512
This is a good summary of it, but surely you see the problem of attempting to generalize the rituals and procedures of one culture and context to another?

This is what bothered me most about Debt and generally about this sort of anthropological approach: by attempting to create a dichotomy between gift-giving economies on one hand and money/debt fueled economies on another we need to assume they take place inside the same space.

Now this can't be a cultural space because it is exactly the cultural difference that Graeber is attempting to underline by explaining how this cultural space is connected with the economic space.

So at that point, can we even claim that gift giving or borrowing has the same meaning in one society as in another? Does gift giving imply generosity, does it imply a tight social structure, human brotherhood? I think this is an important question which Graeber just assumes to be true.

This lack of thoroughness is what bothers me. The book tries to propose a solution to the problems of western society by sort of diagnosing this underlying issue of an imposing, authoritative debt based economy but without seriously developing the arguments. What challenges would a gift-based society face? Could this even scale? Again, the spaces he is studying and giving as examples are so restricted in area and population, the societies so rudimental there is very little to learn from them, the picture he paints so narrow. Could perhaps authoritative impulses and structures be expressed through other means in those societies beside the economic ones? Some family structures can be extremely authoritative, yet without incorporating authoritative economic obligations between members.

Ultimately the book is a political pamphlet. It attempts to associate this sort of debt-less money-less society with the left, so that his version of anarchy is the logical conclusion to left leaning political movements. The actual analysis of economic systems, of the societies he gives as examples is an afterthought.

>>17851846
>nothing we can do about any of it.
I don’t think so.
>We lost him too soon
Absolutely.
I’m also interested in Hudson’s take on the subject. You might be too.

>>17851855
DFW checked out because he went off his meds and still couldn’t write. Graeber was a cheerful insightful personality with lots more ahead of him. His death is still bothering me. It seems too convenient for the powers that be.

>>17852663
>Does gift giving imply generosity, does it imply a tight social structure, human brotherhood? I think this is an important question which Graeber just assumes to be true.

dude lmao just embrace behaviorism and stop worrying about stupid questions like that

>>17852655
Nah, when I think of theocracy, I think of very rigid social systems which uphold these bonds, usually centered on some religious system
A few posts up above, I suggested hallpike who has written on the Konso, a society whose religious views are limited to believing in the existence of certain evil spirits
They have an uh gift economy but I'm not sure anyone would like to live in as rigid and restrictive a social structure
These notions of "authentic" interactions could only pop from someone who does little field work and that lacking in rigour and investigation

https://counter-currents.com/2014/11/central-banking-and-human-bondage/

>>17852663
>159,666 words
>political pamphlet

>>17852685
I would think of religion as a little more sophisticated and doctrinaire than primitive superstitions ... anyways you already live in a society filled with all kinds of baseless beliefs governing behavior so it's not like an either or

>>17852725
You have no notion of volume
You're comparing a getting a splinter on your finger to getting impaled
The very fact that you acknowledge their existence speaks to this

How does one attain the level of midwittery to think this book is insightful?

>>17852375
>It all reeks of the typical anarcho-kiddie attitude
>why can’t you be just another normal authoritarian statist looking to overthrow the government?
Because it doesn’t work. We’re after a social revolution, not a coup. Get on our level.

>>17852403
>Why should I read
You shouldn’t. You should go away.

>>17852697
How is bitcoin going to address inequality and rapidly decaying environmental issues?
Also, why wouldn’t the state just nuke the net to confiscate/destroy bitcoin?

>>17852762
How does one repeatedly post the word midwit in a thread about a book they never read and not get any (you)s?

>>17852790
>Because it doesn’t work. We’re after a social revolution, not a coup. Get on our level.
yes retard because obviously anarkiddy experiments have been so effective at actually transforming society

>>17852833
Spain

>>17852815
I don't know, by unconsciouslyy baiting oneself into repeating it?

>>17852204
Thanks Jewish man

>>17852790
>How is bitcoin going to address inequality and rapidly decaying environmental issues?
>Also, why wouldn’t the state just nuke the net to confiscate/destroy bitcoin?
K E K

>believing Bitcoin is some apolitical alternative to central banking

Imagined being this goy'd.

>>17852512
>>17852663
Read the book over a year ago so bit rusty but my midwit take from it was:
>gift giving = a form of social contract that reinforces social bonds/cohesion, i.e. you help me out today I'll help you out later
>money = debt enforceable by violence historically by systems that develop(temples>cities>states>countries) when populations reach a certain scale, the value of money is the government having a monopoly on violence and accepting whatever currency they choose to pay taxes.
>sex/marriage has been transactionary for pretty much all of human history

>>17852833
>since something is not now, it can never be.
>Unironically uses the word “retard”
Poor dear must have heard it a lot growing up.

>>17853102
It’s some questions. Your answer speaks volumes.

>>17853163
Bitcoiners are making some bold claims, I’m just asking about it. Why the IDpol, fucknut?

>>17853604
>Bitcoiners are making some bold claims
The problem with bitcoin is it's current value is based on speculation and scarcity to some degree unlike other nation state currencies which are backed by the ability of governments ability to collect taxes and extract "work" form it's people.
Even guys like Musk saying they'll accept bitcoin is kind of meaningless value wise when he still has to transfer it into USD to pay his taxes.

>>17853163
the rise of ctrl bnking was inevitable. What follows will probably just be even more exploitative. There are no brakes on this ride

>>17853604
ngl she's cute when she's angry

>>17852815
>>17852862
Midwit btfo.

>>17851846
It's very based

>>17852069
You're not as smart as you think you are.

>>17852697
LOL

>>17852337
It fills me with joy to see real thinkers like Perlman being circulated on /lit. Almost gives me a sense of relief that the tide of pseuds arguing over who's a bigger pseud will wash away and be replaced be a new generation of posters. One can only hope.

>>17851846
Your mind is blown because youre a subwit.

>>17854185
Oh. That explains everything. How could I ever have known without you?

>>17853671
>she
That's a man

>philosophy literally starts around the same time greeks coin money
It's like the entire western cannon is built on a house of cards.

>>17851846
David Graeber is a pseud who does not understand economics. He is NOT an economist

>>17855037
>a book about the historical and sociological contexts of the ideas of debt and money over the past 5000 years should be written by an economist and not a sociologist!
I heard back in the old days they used to barter a cow for twelve woolen blankets and then the plague wiped out all the poors.

>>17855046
I havent read the book, so I cannot comment on whether he makes any statements in it that are false. I have read, however, other writings of his in which he reveals that he does not understand how the financial system works and how a central bank works

>>17853655
Guns, in other words. Though if the dollar tanks, the guns will have to look elsewhere. Not saying it’ll work.

>>17855037
Economists aren’t wizards. They don’t know how economics works half the time.

>>17855057
Well, lucky for us, most of the book about the past 5000 years of debt takes place before the 1600s.

>>17854162
It fills me with joy to see he's so respected.

>>17855057
Michael Hudson worked on Wall Street. He wrote a similar book, already posted >>17852677

>>17855065
That is because most "economists" aren't really economists

>>17855083
Ah, The One-True-Scotsman-of-Economic-Theory Theory.