The Meanings of Debt

David Graeber discusses economics at CNN.com Blogs:

…If the study of history shows us anything, it’s that it all comes down to power. The people on the top know that everything is negotiable. If there’s a real problem, you can always work something out – which is what we saw in 2008, when the financial establishment effectively convinced the both political parties to step in and take care of several trillion dollars of their gambling debts.

The rich have always been capable of extraordinary acts of generosity and forgiveness when dealing with each other. The absolute morality of debt is meant for us lesser mortals – since it’s the best means ever discovered to take a situation of massive inequality and make it seem like the victims are to blame.

…The most remarkable thing I discovered in my historical researches is that virtual money is nothing new. Actually, it’s the original form of money.

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David Graeber studied 5,000 years of debt: real dirty secret is that if the deficit ever completely went away, it would cause a major catastrophe
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Jay Kernis – Senior Producer

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