Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Creator(s): David Graeber | Grover Gardner |
Medium: book | audiobook |
Date Reviewed: 5 February 2025
Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤
Like everything I’ve read from Graeber, I appreciate the overall argument that he’s making and I find the evidence he marshalls compelling. At the same time, there’s a density to the latter that I admit having trouble following, so I don’t always see how it leads to the overall argument.
Even with those caveats, I’m happy to endorse this read. I’m interested in how Graeber explores the relationship between moral thinking and economic modeling—as I posted earlier, I also find his thoughts on the moral dangers posed by abstracting interpersonal obligations into quantifiable debt with the help of money.
I imagine I’ll want to come back to this one!
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Currently reading David Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” and while it’s really dense, one clear theme is how money has the power to abstract our moral thinking in dangerous directions. This NYT blurb seemed relevant.
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