David Graeber has written a critical analysis of economics* and the capitalist* system that has been met with public praise, and brings anthropological* theories on the economy into the public consciousness.
Graeber frames the book as “a big book of ideas,” rather than a textbook, and uses anthropological evidence from around the world to make Debt broadly significant.
The somewhat disorganized structure of the book limits the ability of audiences to follow Graeber’s arguments, and the fact that Graeber has no background in economics limits the willingness of economists to take the book seriously.
David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years tries to combine the resources of a wide range of academic disciplines to change the way people think about economics. But the task requires a level of organizational skill that the work does not, it might be argued, perfectly achieve. Graeber reasons through two types of discussion:
Using direct evidence from human history to challenge the common understanding of economics
Discussing moral issues in a Socratic* manner (that is, through posing and answering questions in a manner associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates).
He weaves between these modes somewhat indiscriminately, often bringing a moral discussion related to one topic into a description of history related to a different topic. Graeber also begins most of his chapters by stating the topic clearly at the beginning, and then abandoning it. For example, he starts Chapter Eight by saying that throughout Eurasian* history, money switched back and forth between periods when it was taken as credit*—a symbol—and periods when it was a commodity*—gold, for example.1 But it is hard to follow this through the sweeping historical discussion that ensues; meanwhile, he confuses matters by making moral points about violence and repression.
“David has become something of a cult figure in anthropology now. ”
James Scott, professor of political science and anthropology, Yale University
The disorganization of the book makes it hard to grasp Graeber’s central point––that under capitalism,* debt is a perversion of social obligations used to justify violence. The necessary arguments and information are there, but readers are required to stitch it together themselves.
The structural weaknesses of Debt have not kept it from becoming a prominent work of nonfiction. The “big book of ideas” produced by an established academic for a broad audience was (and remains) popular. As a genre, Debt follows in the footsteps of Guns, Germs, and Steel, an equally vast work by the scientist and author Jared Diamond.* Guns, Germs, and Steel pushed geography* as an academic discipline into the debates of economic historians* in much the same way that Graeber intends for anthropology. Nearly 20 years after its publication in 1997, Diamond’s book continues to have considerable influence as a contribution to the theory of “path dependency”*—the idea that states develop along a certain path because of predetermined factors like geography.
Debt was an international bestseller in the year after its publication (2011).2 So far, no one has challenged the factuality of the historical and anthropological evidence Graber presents, even while debating the conclusions he draws from that evidence. This suggests that Debt could become a respected academic work just as it has captured the public imagination, although more gradually and after long processes of peer review.
Graeber intends to incorporate global history and anthropology into Debt and apply them to the universal human experience. To the extent that he is successful, his reflections on economic life are not limited by geography or the present historical period. Graeber’s background as an anthropologist helps him reach out to a broad audience, because he is in the business of understanding the similarities and differences between people from different backgrounds. Debt’s individual claims are meant to remain sound and logical even as they thread their way through different cultures.
At the same time, the work’s greatest limitation is in its title—a declaration that it is only looking backward. While the book combines various insights into a value judgment on capitalism as a whole, that is not enough to lead to any policy prescriptions, beyond the single suggestion of providing more debt relief. It might be argued that this hinders Debt from making a wholly constructive contribution to the debate.
1. David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2011), 212.
2. Keith Hart, “In Rousseau’s Footsteps: David Graeber and the Anthropology of Unequal Society,” The Memory Bank, July 4, 2012, http://thememorybank.co.uk/2012/07/04/in-rousseaus-footsteps-david-graeberand-the-anthropology-of-unequal-society-2/.