(P/B) DEBT

Παρουσίαση

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems - to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There's not a shred of evidence to support it.
Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that 5,000 years ago, during the beginning of the agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems. It is in this era, Graeber shows, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
With the passage of time, however, virtual credit money was replaced by gold and silver coins - and the system as a whole began to decline. Interest rates spiked and the indebted became slaves. And the system perpetuated itself with tremendously violent consequences, with only the rare intervention of kings and churches keeping the system from spiraling out of control. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history - as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy. (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

1. On the Experience of Moral Confusion
2. The Myth of Barter
3. Primordial Debts
4. Cruelty and Redemption
5. A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations
6. Games with Sex and Death
7. Honor and Degradation, or, on the Foundations of Contemporary Civilization
8. Credit Versus Bullion, And the Cycles of History
9. The Axiai Age (800 BC-600 AD)
10. The Middle Ages (600 AD-1450 AD)
11. Age of the Great Capitalist Empires (1450-1971)
12. The Beginning of Something Yet to Be Determined (1971-present)
Notes
Bibliography
Index