Graeber finds a deep tie in the anthropological evidence between debt and violence and dishonor and reminds us that being in debt is a social construction (much more than a mathematical fact) and thus can mean different things. The book first looks for the foundations of money and debt, both in human morality and culture (Chapters 2 through 7). I do not make any claim to completeness or having picked all the cherries. Sometimes I summarized the gist of an idea, sometimes I simply cited important or well-written paragraphs that capture the gist well by themselves. Instead, I provide here the shortest summary I can come up with in three minutes and then leave the reader with a chronological collection of notes I made while reading. I decided therefore to write neither a review nor a complete summary. In fact, I only got a feeling of the big picture of Graebers line of thought by compiling this post. It is so full of anthropological evidence as well as Graebers own interpretation of circumstances that it is not easy to keep all of them in mind, much less to make out the big picture that Graeber wants to paint. I found a lot of things to think about in here and very much enjoyed reading it. This book has a lot of insight to offer about the background on which we should lead current discussions about debt and money.
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