![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/85\/2011\/11\/debt_first5000years.jpg\" "\\"debt_first5000years\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nYesterday, along with Stephen Colbert<\/a>, I had a little fun with the Occupy Wall Street <\/em>protests. Enjoying Colbert\u2019s humor by no means throws me in with the camp of the \u201cunconcerned\u201d who perhaps think these protests are a complete waste of time.<\/p>\n Instead, line me up with the folks who say, \u201cHouston, we have a problem.\u201d And though I can quote Catholic teachings on private property<\/a>, private enterprise, etc., all day long (and I\u2019m hungry to learn more), I haven\u2019t exactly shied away from sharing blunt facts<\/a> on the wide disparities American citizens have endured over the last 35 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n A little over two months ago, I shared some thoughts with you<\/a> about the Old Testament concept of the Jubilee, written by the author of the book on the history of debt you see above. \u00a0That fellow is named David Graeber, and what follows is an interview he gave recently with Kevin Depew, former Editor-in-Chief of the financial infotainment website Minyanville<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n It turns out that Graeber became involved with the Occupy Wall Street<\/em> movement shortly before I posted his thoughts on the Jubilee back in August. Since then, the movement has spread to over 1200 cities \u2019round the globe. This interview, which was just posted today as a podcast, as well as via transcript, may be of interest to you.<\/p>\n Because certainly, something is rotten in the state of Denmark <\/a>. Otherwise, we wouldn\u2019t be interested in Greek debt default fears and \u201cwhat it all means.\u201d Spending a few minutes with Depew and Graebel, \u00a0with a commitment to doing so with softened hearts and open minds,\u00a0may help clarify a few things about the Occupy Wall Street<\/em> movement for you. I\u2019ll turn it over now to Kevin Depew.<\/p>\n ****<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMoney is the root of all evil\u201d \u2013 so goes the old adage. In today\u2019s hyper-connected globalized market, a more accurate aphorism might be \u201cdebt is the root of all evil.\u201d We see this in the crushing Greek and American sovereign debt, in the housing market where scores of homeowners are being foreclosed upon because they are unable to pay their mortgages, and in the amount of loans students have to take on to go to college these days \u2013 all of these different debts threaten to take down the house of cards that is our hyper-connected global financial market.<\/p>\n But why is it that when countries in bad shape restructure debt or when corporations drowning in debt declare bankruptcy, they are applauded, but when you and I fail to pay up on what we owe to banks or when we become bankrupt, it is seen as a moral failing? That\u2019s the paradox David Graeber explores in his new book,\u00a0Debt: The First 5,000 Years.<\/a><\/p>\n Kevin Depew<\/strong> David Graeber<\/strong> Kevin Depew<\/strong> David Graeber<\/strong> Kevin Depew<\/strong> David Graeber<\/strong> And one of the things that really fascinated me was the moral power of the idea of debt. I would tell stories to people, very sympathetic people, liberal lawyers, well-meaning do-gooder types, and you\u2019d tell these stories about horrible things. You know, in Madagascar, for example, the IMF came in with these policies, you have to cut the budgets because, god knows, we can\u2019t reduce the interest payments you owe to\u00a0Citibank <\/strong>(C<\/a>), they owed all this money. And they had to do things like get rid of mosquito eradication programs, as a result that malaria returned to parts of the country where it had been wiped out for a hundred years and tens of thousands of people died and you had dead babies being buried and weeping mothers. I was there, I saw this sort of thing. You described this people and the reaction would be, well, that\u2019s terrible, but surely people have to pay their debts. You\u2019re not suggesting they cancel it or default, that would be outrageous.<\/p>\n And it seems like, it\u2019s hard to imagine any other issue where people try to come up with excuses for doing things that would kill 10,000 babies. But here they were doing it.<\/p>\n So what is that strange, moral power that the idea of debt has over us that seems to trump any other form of morality. That\u2019s one of the questions that I was trying to answer in the book.<\/p>\n Kevin Depew<\/strong> David Graeber<\/strong> Kevin Depew<\/strong> If I could just, these are a couple of sentences from the book and this is near the end, I don\u2019t think it gives much away, but it touches on exactly what you just talked about. And this is David writing, quote:<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems to me that we\u2019re long overdue for some kind of biblical-style jubilee, one that would affect both international debt and consumer debt. It would be salutary, not just because it would relieve so much genuine human suffering, but also because it would be our way of reminding ourselves that money is not ineffable, that paying one\u2019s debts is not the essence of morality. That all these things are human arrangements and, if democracy is to mean anything, it is to the ability for all to agree to arrange things in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n End quote.<\/p>\n Now, I read that because it touches on, how did we get to this point where debt indeed became this\u2014it goes on, at least until recently with Occupy Wall Street, it goes without question that it\u2019s a code of morality that we have to live up to. How did we get to this point?<\/p>\n David Graeber<\/strong> The very origins of money have, certainly coins, have much more to do with war mobilization, states conquering places, than they do with actual\u00a0trade<\/a>, which tended to be conducted as credit arrangements, but were inherently more flexible than the ones we have today. That sort of inviolability comes more from the process of shaking people down than from the process of actually people making deals and arrangements with one another.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s a stream\u2014so that very morality of debt has a lot to do with it. For example, in almost all the great world religions, they talk about debt as if paying your debts is morality. In fact, even the word for debt, sin and guilt are often the same. That\u2019s true in Sanskrit, that\u2019s true in Aramaic. The Lord\u2019s Prayer doesn\u2019t actually say, \u201cForgive us our trespasses,\u201d it says \u201cForgive us our debts just as we forgive our debtors.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, the trick is, you don\u2019t actually forgive your debtors, do you?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read the rest, and more stories on the OWS<\/em> movement, over at Minyanville<\/em><\/a>. Also, interesting discussions over at Mark Shea\u2019s place<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday, along with Stephen Colbert, I had a little fun with the Occupy Wall Street protests. Enjoying Colbert\u2019s humor by no means throws me in with the camp of the \u201cunconcerned\u201d who perhaps think these protests are a complete waste of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,36,37],"tags":[87,31,63],"class_list":["post-3712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-living","category-working","tag-economics","tag-in-the-news","tag-paradoxes"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>
\nOkay, I\u2019m Kevin Depew from Minyanville and joining me on this podcast is David Graeber, author of the new book,\u00a0Debt: The First 5,000 Years<\/em><\/strong>. Welcome, David.<\/p>\n
\nThanks.<\/p>\n
\nNow, just in a way of providing some of your background for our listeners. David teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London and has written numerous books on a wide range of anthropological and economic topics. He\u2019s written for\u00a0Harper\u2019s<\/em>,\u00a0The Nation<\/em>, [Mute<\/em>] and the\u00a0New Left Review<\/em>, and you\u2019re frequently introduced by the media as a, quote, \u201cactivist and anarchist,\u201d end quote. How\u2019s that for an introduction?<\/p>\n
\nWell, that\u2019s more or less right.<\/p>\n
\nOkay. Well, David, I want to talk to you about Occupy Wall Street, of course, and what\u2019s happening with this global movement. But\u00a0business<\/a> first. Your book,\u00a0Debt: The First 5,000 Years<\/em>, tell me about how the book came about.<\/p>\n
\nWell, I\u2019d been actually, in a way, it emerges from my involvement in other activist projects. I was involved for many years in the global justice movement and one of the big issues there was the Drop the Debt campaign, structural adjustment policies, all those things that we\u2019re really mobilizing against were enforced through debt.<\/p>\n
\nIf I can just read a couple of sentences from the book, because\u2026<\/p>\n
\nSure.<\/p>\n
\nI was fortunate to get it earlier in the spring when your publisher sent me a review copy. And it really is a fascinating book, so I\u2019ve recommended it to so many people, because it\u2019s a completely different way of looking at debt and most of us, especially in the financial media, were used to approaching this from within the structure, within the framework we deal with and looking at it in pure economic terms when you bring this other, anthropological attachment and approach to it.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s a really interesting question and the best answer I could come up with, after surveying 5,000 years of religious texts, moral texts, economic texts, political texts, pretty much everything there was to bring to bear on the subject, was it has a lot to do with war and violence.<\/p>\n