Debt: The First 5,000 Years | David Graeber | Talks at Google on HackerTube: recommended by 8 Hacker News commenters across 8 separate months, 2013–2024.
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David Graeber's Talks at Google presentation on his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, covering the history of debt, the myth of barter and the Jubilee tradition.
HN recommends it as an 80-minute way to get the gist of the book and a different view of what money is.
“this excellent talk by the late David Graeber about the history of debt”
13 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
Late to the party but wanted to make sure to contribute this excellent talk by the late David Graeber about the history of debt. It includes the concept of Jubilee. ▶ this video
in “Slack wanted to stay independent, but was unable to compete with tech giants” · View on HN
The theory of a barter economy as the origin of money has been debunked by David Graeber: ▶ this video (I find his talk fascinating). He gets into what money is around minute 19. Whether you buy his arguments or not, modern money works like this: The state requires payment of currency (fees, fines, taxes, etc), the state spends currency (of course it must spend it before it can ever collect it). The money derives its value via the demand for it from the soverign. I like this analogy that Warren Mosler uses in his "Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy": [link] The story begins with parents creating coupons they then use to pay their children for doing various household chores. Additionally, to “drive the model,” the parents require the children to pay them a tax of 10 coupons a week to avoid punishment. This closely replicates taxation in the real economy, where we have to pay our taxes or face penalties. The coupons are now the new household currency. Think of the parents as “spending” these coupons to purchase “services” (chores) from their children. With this new household currency, the parents, like the federal government, are now the issuer of their own currency. And now you can see how a household with its own currency is indeed very much like a government with its own currency. Let’s begin by asking some questions about how this new household currency works. Do the parents have to somehow get coupons from their children before they can pay their coupons to their c
in “Ask HN: What is money?” · View on HN
It's not the way I grew up, but there are group friendship patterns where friends give each other gifts just because it's what the group of friends do. It surprised me when I saw it in action. But that's because I had the same reaction as you...it costs money and I was not raised to value friendships more than money. But some people are and the world is not worse for it. It creates reciprocal obligations...debts. Here is an interesting talk on debt by the late David Graeber: ▶ this video
in “Ask HN: Should there be "computer showers" similar to "baby showers"?” · View on HN
Seems related: Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber [link] The concept of "debt" has a long history that is surprising and illuminating. A really excellent book. For a shorter version, see his talk at Google: ▶ this video
in “The language of labouring reveals its tortured roots (2013)” · View on HN
I guess the implicit question is why such obsession on fighting and weapons on the coins. Anthropologist David Graeber has a fascinating perspective ( ▶ this video ). He posits that our present assumptions about money (first there's barter, then coins and fiat money, then credit) is actually backwards. And that primitive societies rather had interlocking systems of informal credit between everyone instead, since everyone knew everyone and you only really needed to settle the difference very infrequently. And coins only really came into play as a supply logistics mechanism for traveling armies. Since a band of people traveling through town can't participate in the informal credit system. And so the taxation system created in such a way that the food producers needed to acquire an "external" currency the army had. And that this was shown archeologically where concentration of coins were denser around militarized border regions of various societies around the world.
in “Weapons on Ancient Coins” · View on HN
I think you do get this correct. It is the bank's responsibility to assign its loans properly. That's the risk they take and why they get to collect an interest. Maybe watch this video of David Graeber from start until 5:20, ▶ this video He makes the point more clearly. I mean, do I get this correct? Would you say that when people need to pay their debts, the bank gets to enforce measures despite it causing the debtor's children dying (i.e. increased child mortality)? I might have gotten you wrong here. It is not easy to parse a 100+ word sentence.
in “Varoufakis to Publish Notorious Eurogroup Recordings from 2015 Meetings” · View on HN
Yup! Fortunately you don't even have to read it from cover to cover to get the meat of it. Here ▶ this video is a talk 80 mins long Graeber gave at Google. Then once you've done that listen [link] to Robert Paul Wolff talk about the problem Ricardo, Smith, and Marx tackled. This one is a bit longer and it is tougher going but the pay-off is immense. –– What this New York Times article and the recent Bloomberg [link] (“Why Wages Aren't Growing”) article that hit the front page here have in common is that they both refuse to recognise that Marx's critique of capital was correct in his day and it _remains_ correct. The next part is important. We _must_ separate the critique from his proposed solution. To be very clear I can agree with Marx's critique but I do not have to agree that central collectivisation is the solution. The very simple observation is this. For-profit capitalism over time will cause (a) workers to be exploited to the point where they can't actually take part in the society they're a part of (which hurts the capitalist too!) and (b) wealth gets concentrated inefficiently. What the New York Times and Bloomberg (and many others) outright refuse to admit is that _Marx was right_. Universal Basic Income. What is that but an alternate solution to collectivisation? Same applies to profit-sharing. It's the reason why charities are non-profits because we all recognise the alternative would be unseemly. The Tobin tax (taxing certain international financial transactions) is a
in “How Big Banks Became Our Masters” · View on HN
I find the "8000 years" claim in the parent comment to be interesting. My understanding is that it is false, and that metallic money is a way, in which armies impose themselves over populations. This talk by anthropologist David Graeber illustrates my point ▶ this video
in “You can't beat politics with new technology all the time” · View on HN
You can't unbundle a person or partially punish a person. The people in power won't agree to such a situation. These mistakes happen collectively within the institution. I think the only way out would be to start with a moral clean slate for everyone like the debt cancellation e.g. Biblical Jublee [0] [1] [0] [link] [1] ▶ this video
in “India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces” · View on HN
David Graeber on basic income - [link] David Graeber: "DEBT: The First 5,000 Years" | Talks at Google - ▶ this video
in “Money as a System of Control (2017)” · View on HN
Graeber's point was that barter is not used in small societies. In debt-ed social relations were the means of negotiated trade. Paying for things with currency was how one dealt with strangers in a spot trade. In our world most interactions are alienated transactions with strangers, thus money is used. ▶ this video
in “Conflict reigns over the history and origins of money” · View on HN
This reminds of what David Graeber said about debt: ▶ this video He mentions that historically, cultures tried to keep people indebted to each other, and not settle the debt as is in fashion now. The reason was to keep people doing favors to each other.
in ““Thank You” in Hindi and English Mean Very Different Things” · View on HN
Imagine skipping i in debit. Or just say deb - it will be close. I always pronounced it somewhat like this. [1] The worst thing is that i had heard the word pronounced by native speakers hundreds of times and did not notice. Now i am not even sure that b is there in [1]. Here is another example that certainly has b[2]. 1. ▶ this video 2. [link]
in “Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'” · View on HN