david-graeber-debt-the-first-five-thousand-years.pdf

David Graeber
Debt: The First Five
Thousand Years
2009
Contents
Debt and Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Towards a History of Virtual Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
I. Age of the First Agrarian Empires (3500–800 BCE)
Dominant money form: virtual credit money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
II. Axial Age (800 BCE — 600 CE)
Dominant money form: coinage and metal bullion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
III. The Middle Ages (600 CE — 1500 CE)
The return to virtual credit-money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
IV. Age of European Empires (1500–1971)
The return of precious metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
V. Current Era (1971 onwards)
The empire of debt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2
What follows are a series of brief reflections (part of a much broader work in
progress) on debt, credit, and virtual money: topics that are, obviously, of rather
pressing concern for many at the current time.
There seems little doubt that history, widely rumored to e to an end a
few years ago, has gone into overdrive of late, and is in the process of spitting us
into a new political and economic landscape whose contours no one understands.
Everyone agrees something has just ended but no one is quite sure what. Ne-
oliberalism? Postmodernism? American hegemony? The rule of finance capital?
Capitalism itself (unlikely for the time being)? It’s even more difficult to predict
what’s about to be thrown at us, let alone what shape the forces of resistance to it
are likely to take. Some new form of green capitalism? Knowledge Keynesianism?
Chinese-style industrial authoritarianism? ‘Progressive’ imperialism?
At moments of transformation, one of the few things one can say for certain
is that we don’t re