Debt: 5,000 Years Is Enough

The biggest reason why even the most liberal prescriptions for economic growth inevitably succumb to vulture capitalism is the inability of policymakers to imagine a system not enslaved to "market" imperatives.

No, the Almighty Market is neither natural nor inevitable, and David Graeber's "Debt: the First 5,000 Years" explains why.

The book looks and sounds dull, but is anything but. Graeber convincingly explains early non-money credit systems that supported rather than exploited families and communities; explodes pernicious myths about bartering, markets and capitalism; and connects the debt system with the rise of slavery, misogyny and violence.

At the end, Graeber proposes the kind of universal debt forgiveness that was common in societies before the Greek Empire.

"... one that would affect both international debt and consumer debt. It would be salutary not just because it would relieve so much genuine human suffering, but also because it would be our way of reminding ourselves that money is not ineffable, that paying one's debts is not the essence of morality, that all these things are human arrangements and that if democracy is to mean anything, it is the ability to all agree to arrange things in a different way."

Instead, empires from Athens to Washington D.C. have "softened the edges" of debt without eliminating the burden.

"... never allowing anyone to question the sacred principle that we must all pay our debts. At this point, however, the principle has been exposed as a flagrant lie. As it turns out, we don't "all" have to pay our debts. Only some of us (the poor, the workers, the non-rich) do. Nothing would be more important than to wipe the slate clean for everyone, mark a break with our accustomed morality, and start again."

Fascinating and illuminating, "Debt" opens the door to economic ideas free of the artificial and destructive strictures of a capitalistic market.

Ideas like the ones proposed by Gar Alperovitz and Thomas M. Hanna in The Nation:

It’s time to put the taboo subject of public ownership back on the progressive agenda. It is the only way to solve some of the most serious problems facing the nation. We contend that it is possible not only to talk about this once forbidden subject but to begin to build a serious politics that can do what needs to be done in key sectors.


Elsewhere we have urged a “new economy,” a community-sustaining vision of the next stage of American development—one made up of public enterprises where necessary, private corporations in numerous sectors, and a powerful and growing mix of small businesses and firms that in general aim to democratize the ownership of capital in a nation where a mere 1 percent at the top owns just under half of all investment wealth (see Alperovitz, “The New Economy Movement,” June 13, 2011; Alperovitz et al., “The Cleveland Model,” March 1, 2010; and community-wealth.org).

Rebuilding the spirit and drive of the next progressive politics calls for developing economic ideas that make sense at every level and scale. The Tea Party, for all its inane posturing, teaches a useful lesson—namely, that saying clearly what you want has a compelling force. When progressives are being called “socialists” no matter what, there is little to lose and much to gain by clearly making the case for a long-term plan that confronts—and ultimately overcomes—the centrality of corporate power.

Read the whole thing.