I never managed to finish David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years. First, I don’t enjoy the attempt to grab onto a single concept and use it to explain absolutely everything in the world. Debt is a rich topic of research as it is and I see no need to try to create some sort of a grand narrative du jour out of it. I thought we were past grand narratives anyway.
Another problem I had with the book is that it is obsessed with proving that there were matters on which Adam Smith was wrong. I don’t know whether it’s a regular thing to do among economists to argue so passionately about a theory created in the XVIIIth century. I mean, the guy’s been dead for a very long time, so how is it a big breakthrough to assume that he was wrong on occasion? I can’t imagine publishing a book in my discipline arguing earnestly that Francisco Mariano Nipho, an XVIIIth century literary critic, was not entirely right. Well, duh. This would make me look like one of those weirdos who claim that psychoanalysis is useless because Freud fucked up often enough. As if nothing happened in the discipline since then.
The main reason that I disliked Graeber’s book, however, was that it became pretty obvious quite soon that the guy had an agenda that he tried to sneak past his readers in a very inelegant way. In his recent article “Can Debt Spark a Revolution?” published in The Nation*, Graeber proves that I was right from the start. His hope for the future is debt forgiveness:
A debt jubilee, after all, affords the possibility not just of economic renewal, but of intellectual and spiritual renewal as well.
There is, of course, absolutely no proof that any spiritual or intellectual renewal will come from debt forgiveness. Evidence to the contrary, however, abounds. Graeber admits that a form of debt forgiveness has already been put in place when the taxpayers saved the failing companies from imminent ruin. So have the banks and companies we bailed out been spiritually or intellectually renewed? Obviously not. To the contrary, they pursued the same practices that led them into trouble with even greater abandon than before. They messed up, saw that there were no consequences attached to messing up, and continued doing exactly what they were doing before. There is no doubt in my mind that any further attempts at debt forgiveness will very soon lead to even greater portions of the population being even more indebted than they are today.
Graeber demonstrates exactly why the #Occupy protests have failed so miserably when he says the following:
Occupy was right to resist the temptation to issue concrete demands. But if I were to frame a demand today, it would be for as broad a cancellation of debt as possible, followed by a mass reduction of working hours—say to a five-hour workday or a guaranteed five-month vacation.
Here the article ends without any explanation of who will pay for these five-month vacations or forgiven debts, mortgages, auto loans, etc. The Treasury? Well, we all know it’s empty and up to its non-existent ears in debt. Of course, everybody wants a guaranteed five-month vacation and no debt. As well as world peace and wonderful weather all the time. But what’s the use of engaging in these silly fantasies if you are not ready at least to begin considering how they could be made reality?
* You have to be a subscriber to access the article.
Clarissa's Blog 
I read that book and enjoyed it. But I am a fan of grand narratives, as many of my age are.
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You can already get (some) debt forgiveness by declaring bankruptcy.
In the US, Chapter 7 is liquidation (individual or non-railroad business); Chapter 11 is business reorganization (although individuals can use it); Chapter 13 is individual reorganization; and Chapter 12 is individual reorganization for fishers and farmers.
One of the reasons offered to support bailing out certain businesses was that they were “Too big to fail.” Frankly, such a claim ought to set of everyone’s bullshit detectors. If a business is too big to fail it is too big. Such businesses, (especially if they are getting a bailout or when undergoing reorganization) should be forcibly broken into smaller concerns that are not too big to fail. That way, they can go under “safely” because they are no longer too big to fail. That allows bad businesses to fail, which improves the free market, and is economically better.
And another thing that should be done is requiring the upper level management to be fired if the company declares bankruptcy. Far too often Chapter 11 ends up being a get out of jail free card allowing incompetent managers to continue managing. Ending this means incompetent managers are no longer insulated from the consequences of their actions.
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Everything you say sounds eminently reasonable.
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You can already get (some) debt forgiveness by declaring bankruptcy.(Rob F)
I think Donald Trump said that was one of his best business deals, declaring bankruptcy. We can all game the system if we so chose. The truth is that many people dont feel its ethical to play that game and this the reason why some get ridiculously rich while most do not. They dont have that issue. 😉
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They created entities too big to fail when they allowed all these mergers and buyouts, and did so much deregulation.
I would (do) seriously defend default on “debt” for countries like Argentina and more.
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The US could also solve all its problems by defaulting on its debts to China, Japan, and the rest right now.
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US isn’t actually disabled by debt / strangled by IMF imposed payments, etc.
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So debt forgiveness should be based on who suffers more because of the debt according to some arbitrary criteria? That sounds like a road to disaster. It’s either everybody or nobody, whether we talk about personal debt or collective.
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No. Part of the reason Haiti never got to develop its economy, for instance, is that it started out its life owing France a huge debt for its independence, which it did not finally finish paying off until the 20th century. Then there are the various predatory loans made from 19th century forward to various other newly independent countries, sometimes with unscrupulous governments, multinationals, and state departments of foreign countries dominating them — i.e. in a practical sense they were not really sovereign. There are other examples. You can be high and mighty and say but the loan should not have been accepted, but that was then, before the birth of the currently hungry population, and it might even be good for more people than those hungry ones to include at least partial debt forgiveness in these periodic restructuring programs that go on.
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You are making the Republican argument for cutting the budget deficit at any cost right now. It’s their main talking point that the future generation in the US are being saddled with the debt before they are even born and that’s unfair.
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As an economist, I often get ridiculous attacks from other social scientists who think that economics is something that it isn’t. The internet tells me that Graeber is an anthropologist.
Interestingly, a lot of these types of attacks are also unaware of Adam Smith’s other book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and thus aren’t even just attacks on Smith.
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“You are making the Republican argument for cutting the budget deficit at any cost right now. It’s their main talking point that the future generation in the US are being saddled with the debt before they are even born and that’s unfair.”
No. US debt situation is not the same and much of the discussion is just there to justify certain kinds of budget cuts, not the other way around. Plus, if we are that broke then I guess we can’t afford the coming war on Iran. But watch us find the funds.
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Psychoanalysis isn’t entirely useless, but unless it addresses the issue of patriarchy as a form of power (and, indeed, oppression) and places as much emphasis on power structures as it does on morality, it will continue to make Freud’s mistakes.
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“Dental procedures are not entirely useless, but unless they address the issue of patriarchy as a form of power (and, indeed, oppression) and place as much emphasis on power structures as they do on morality, they will continue to make Freud’s mistakes.”
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🙂
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It’s very rare for someone to be raped whilst having a dental procedure, but I do know someone this has happened to. On the other hand, psychological rape whilst undergoing therapy is extremely common if you are a woman.
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1. Therapy is in no way connected to psychoanalysis. If you don’t know the difference between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, then I don’t think you should be saying nasty things about psychoanalysis.
2. I find the term “psychological rape” to be completely insulting. Rape is rape and “I didn’t manage to do any progess in analysis” is not rape.
3. You are normally an intelligent woman but in this one area of life you have invented a string of extremely bizarre falsehoods and keep repeating them. I keep telling you time and again that actual practices of psychoanalysis are not gender-specific. Analysts don’t tell women – or anybody – what to do. They don’t say anything, period. In analysis, the analyst’s job is to keep silent for 98% of time.
4. It is very strange when people who haven’t had a single hour of psychoanalysis lecture those who have on what it is like. There are only 2 legitimate options here: either learn what happens in analysis or stop opining baselessly. Don’t you see that you are insulting people because of your prejudices? Don’t you see that your comment is very insulting to me personally?
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Your comments sound like someone who is defending a cult and discounting my knowledge and experience in a patriarchal fashion. Read Theodor Dorpat. Don’t assume that I haven’t spent several years studying psychoanalysis and associating with those who claim to understand it deeply. You sound like you are a Muslim defending your patriarchal religion against extremists who will actually beat women and burn their faces. Just because somebody has access to knowledge that you haven’t doesn’t make them prejudiced.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/328831.Theodore_L_Dorpat
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“Your comments sound like someone who is defending a cult ”
– No, yours do. I only speak from direct experience of solving my problems. Why it bothers you so much that I am solving them very productively is a deep mystery to me.
“Don’t assume that I haven’t spent several years studying psychoanalysis and associating with those who claim to understand it deeply.”
– I don’t understand what “studying psychoanalysis” means before you have undergone psychoanalysis. Anybody who claims they have “studied” it without undergoing their own analysis are kooks. It’s like studying literature without ever opening a book.
‘You sound like you are a Muslim defending your patriarchal religion against extremists who will actually beat women and burn their faces.”
– Empty verbiage bereft of meaning.
‘ Just because somebody has access to knowledge that you haven’t doesn’t make them prejudiced.”
– You can’t have knowledge of what happens in a session unless you have been in a session. Your approach reminds me a bit of this joke where a guy says to his friend, “I don’t know why everybody admires Pavarotti so much. He has a horrible voice and every note he takes is false.”
“Have you been to a Pavarotti performance?” the friend asks him.
“No, my friend Peter sang a few of Pavarotti’s arias to me.”
🙂 🙂
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No, my arguments are well reasoned. I just need to get someone who will address them in a way apart from, “You are hysterical if you think that.” That’s not a well-reasoned response, but it is typically patriarchal. In fact, patriarchal reasoning has no other response apart from this one. “Anyone who disagrees with me is hysterical.” The way to get around making ad hominem attacks is to address whether or not psychoanalysis has a patriarchal core that can be eliminated whilst saving psychoanalysis.
I must confess I’m neutral on that matter. It may be possible to do so, but that would be in a sense to remove psychoanalysis from its Freudian roots. Would it still be the same thing in that case?
Anyway, I wasn’t criticizing your way of solving problems. I never had that in mind at all.
My views come from studying psychoanalysis and in particular finally understanding after many years how the core concepts are structured. I’ve written about this elsewhere, so I won’t go into it here.
I’d be impressed, though, if anyone who accepted psychoanalysis could address the points I make about some of its downfalls without getting into personal attacks. Even if these seem to be based on the internal logic of psychoanalysis (anyone who attacks it must be mentally unsound), the internal logic of psychoanalysis has not been proven to be universally logical.
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“I’d be impressed, though, if anyone who accepted psychoanalysis could address the points I make about some of its downfalls ”
– The thing is, I’m not seeing a list of points or downfalls that need to be addressed. I can’t debate with your believe that analysts actually say to patients “You are hysterical if you think that” because it’s like debating whether dentists hypnotize you to get your PIN code out of you. Nobody who is an actual analyst and who is in supervision would ever do anything of the kind. I’m sorry, I feel stupid even saying this because it’s so self-evident. An analyst never ever gives any diagnosis to anybody precisely because the very idea psychoanalysis is based on is that a diagnosis is meaningless.
“Even if these seem to be based on the internal logic of psychoanalysis (anyone who attacks it must be mentally unsound)”
– And again, you are inventing this. Psychoanalysis adamantly refuses to operate with the category of “mentally unsound.” Just try mentioning this expression to an actual psychoanalyst. Seriously, try. 🙂 I promise you will see one very angry and scared analyst. 🙂
“My views come from studying psychoanalysis”
– I can only repeat that “studying psychoanalysis” without first undergoing it is like studying pedagogy without ever taking a single class in any discipline or studying literary criticism without ever reading literature.
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Well, Freud did in fact diagnose Dora as a hysteric. So, although you may not have read my blog posts, nor seen any list, as I did not write in that format, you can be assured that diagnoses and psychoanalysis go together, at least if Freud is anything to go by.
As for the rest of your stuff about dentists, I have no idea. You seem to think dentists can hypnotise people?
The internal logic of psychoanalysis is as I said. The more you resist a diagnoses — and we have established that such are in fact made — the more that diagnosis is likely to be true.
If I say “I don’t like psychoanalysis” it means I desperately need psychoanalysis. If I say, “patriarchal ideology is oppressive” it means I am oppressing people for stating this.
Do I need to enter a situation where this logic would be imposed on me in order to prove to you that I understand what I am talking about?
Actually, if I entered such a situation, I would certainly never be able to prove anything at all, because the logic I have described would silence me.
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“Well, Freud did in fact diagnose Dora as a hysteric. So, although you may not have read my blog posts, nor seen any list, as I did not write in that format, you can be assured that diagnoses and psychoanalysis go together, at least if Freud is anything to go by.”
– Do you also refuse to use modern medicine based on the methods used by doctors in the Middle Ages? You will have to try very very hard to find an analyst who still relies directly on Freud’s original method and even then you won’t find one. The discipline has evolved dramatically since it was created. Just like any other discipline. In the same way, if you dismiss literary criticism based on how it was done 100 or even 50 years ago, you will be wrong.
“The internal logic of psychoanalysis is as I said. The more you resist a diagnoses — and we have established that such are in fact made — the more that diagnosis is likely to be true.”
– You cannot establish that diagnoses ARE made today based on what a guy who has long been dead DID a long time ago.
“If I say “I don’t like psychoanalysis” it means I desperately need psychoanalysis. If I say, “patriarchal ideology is oppressive” it means I am oppressing people for stating this.”
– These are your own ideas. Nobody else said anything of the kind here.
“Do I need to enter a situation where this logic would be imposed on me in order to prove to you that I understand what I am talking about?”
– Unlike you, I am actually undergoing psychoanalysis and I can assure you that nobody tried to impose any logic on me. As I already mentioned, the main issue that I’m trying to resolve in analysis is precisely how to escape from a profoundly patriarchal family conditioning. I say “patriarchal ideology is oppressive” 15 times in every session. The analyst never suggested to me that I’m oppressing anybody for stating this.
“Actually, if I entered such a situation, I would certainly never be able to prove anything at all, because the logic I have described would silence me.”
– Do I sound particularly silenced to you?
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My reading of the literature in an academic setting and my engagement with academics of a psychoanalytical persuasion had led me to my conclusions.
They seem to be very big on the notion of projection, to the extent that real, concrete relationships have little if any meaning. What has meaning is “psychical forces”. They alone determine our destinies, independently from concrete situation, culture, historical context, anything like that.
Once again, I cannot speak to your situation but in relation to mine and particularly in relation to my thesis topic, I ultimately found that (academic) psychoanalysis was a straitjacket for thought.
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“What has meaning is “psychical forces”. They alone determine our destinies, independently from concrete situation, culture, historical context, anything like that.”
– Haven’t they read a word of Jung?
“I ultimately found that (academic) psychoanalysis was a straitjacket for thought.”
– ACADEMIC psychoanalysis is a buttload of garbage. The clinical practice of psychoanalysis is the best alternative to psychotropic medication I have found anywhere.
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Okay. So we agree on something.
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What I really miss is a “can do” society, where you can say, “Look there is a problem here,” and people would say, “I see. Let’s see what we can do about it!”
That doesn’t happen and instead everything is reduced to invisible perceptions and psychological forces and power interests and psychosis, ultimately. If you don’t face reality as it is actually happening, but try to reduce it down to something that only happens in your head and in the heads of others, you are crazy.
There’s very little that would need psychologizing in a rampant fashion if actual problems were attended to.
Nobody knows how to do this anymore, or nobody wants to. In the case where somebody is bullied, the bully and the bullied are supposed to get together and talk through each other’s differences, as if power relationships were equal.
It seems that much of current psychological theory is pushing everything in precisely this wrong direction. There are realities outside of our heads, and the sooner we deal with those effectively, the less likely they are to become “psychical forces”. Otherwise, you reduce everything to psychosis and make psychosis the acceptable social norm.
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‘What I really miss is a “can do” society, where you can say, “Look there is a problem here,” and people would say, “I see. Let’s see what we can do about it!”
That doesn’t happen and instead everything is reduced to invisible perceptions and psychological forces and power interests and psychosis, ultimately. If you don’t face reality as it is actually happening, but try to reduce it down to something that only happens in your head and in the heads of others, you are crazy.
There’s very little that would need psychologizing in a rampant fashion if actual problems were attended to.”
– Welcome to the US! I think you will really like it here. This is a country where people get terrified whenever they hear the word “psychological” and everybody believes that a can-do attitude and a handful of pills can solve any issue. “Feel depressed? Just get over it. Here, take a pill. Now you are definitely ready to get over it.”
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Really? They actually solve problems in the US? I heard that they didn’t do that at all. Anyway, I said a can do society, not a can do attitude. These may be different. It’s good to solve problems, I think, because otherwise they grow and grow. Then they finally become permanent “psychological issues” when there was no need for them to be.
I’m not saying that life is made up of binaries and nobody has any genuine psychological issues. That wasn’t my point, as I’m sure you realize.
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You said you wanted: “What I really miss is a “can do” society, where you can say, “Look there is a problem here,” and people would say, “I see. Let’s see what we can do about it!”
And yes, in the US people say these things all the time. But nobody will solve anybody without addressing their psychological issues first.
“Then they finally become permanent “psychological issues” when there was no need for them to be.”
– Psychological issue are only formed in early childhood.
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We’re just speaking at cross purposes and there really isn’t any point to this conversation. It may come down to semantics.
As for psychological issues, they can be formed at any stage in life, but the ones formed in childhood are the most decisive and persistent.
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-I mean, I concur with Freud that there are actually conflicting psychological forces in some instances. Where I disagree with him is that I see these to be grounded in reality, not in the psyche as such. Dora was conflicted about power relationships, not about her sexuality. She needed Freud to clarify the nature of the power relationships that were making her confused and undecided where her loyalties should lie. Should she submit to the patriarchal rule of her father, and have a sexual liaison with some young Turk, or should she submit to more general patriarchal mores and save her virginal state for a more conventional marriage arrangement? If the issue is not articulated clearly in one’s mind because one does not fully understand the nature of power in one’s society, one may end up conflicted.
In terms of doing something rational about the situation, Freud should have explained to Dora how those power dynamics worked and then thrown his weight behind the side of the judgement that would have maximized Dora’s freedom under these unfortunate circumstances. Instead, he obfuscated the issue, making it out to be purely a sexual conflict within her head, and then sided with her father’s plan to prostitute her for his own ends.
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Debt is mysterious, to me. I’m sure that many debts are real and legitimate. They’re usually the small, specific debts, like the loan on my car. However, I strongly suspect that many of the grand international debts are dubious. I don’t trust the word “debt.” Is it real or imaginary? Large debts allegedly owed over periods of time can be warped by the “time value of money” and the compounding of interest. The possibilities for the rich and strong to take advantage of the poor and weak are endless.
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