On social currencies and human economies: some notes on the violence of equivalence – David Graeber
David Graeberdavidgraeber.org
On social currencies and human economies: some notes on the violence of equivalence – David Graeber
what I call “human economies”—that is, those where money acts primarily as a social currency, to create, maintain, or sever relations between people rather than to purchase things.
David Graeber • Debt: The First 5,000 Years,Updated and Expanded
How is this calculability effectuated? How does it become possible to treat people as if they are identical? The Lele example gave us a hint: to make a human being an object of exchange, one woman equivalent to another, for example, requires first of all ripping her from her context; that is, tearing her away from that web of relations that makes h
... See moreDavid Graeber • Debt: The First 5,000 Years,Updated and Expanded
The core argument is that any attempt to separate monetary policy from social policy is ultimately wrong. Primordial-debt theorists insist that these have always been the same thing. Governments use taxes to create money, and they are able to do so because they have become the guardians of the debt that all citizens have to one another. This debt i
... See moreDavid Graeber • Debt: The First 5,000 Years,Updated and Expanded
L’anthropologie nous fournit de bonnes pistes. Dans L’Économie des sociétés primitives, Marshall Sahlins remarque que l’apparition de l’argent se produit à la périphérie, lorsque l’interaction avec des étrangers devient inévitable : les premières monnaies sont créées sur les frontières, pour échanger des biens entre tribus éloignées. Au sein du gro
... See more