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Debt: The First 5,000 Years: Difference between revisions
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Yet monetarist orthodoxy cannot see it, and therefore treats it as imaginary. | Yet monetarist orthodoxy cannot see it, and therefore treats it as imaginary. | ||
Graeber would say, with justification, that his was not the radical view here. The idea that we can atomise these vital, ineffable social interrelationships — {{author|James C. Scott}} might have called them “[[Legible|illegible]]” — to a binary pattern of quantifiable economic transactions is | Graeber would say, with justification, that his was not the radical view here. The idea that we can atomise these vital, ineffable social interrelationships — {{author|James C. Scott}} might have called them “[[Legible|illegible]]” — to a binary pattern of quantifiable economic transactions is absurd. But that — remember “there’s no such thing as society”? — has been orthodoxy in our lifetimes. For many, it still is. | ||
The distinction between a [[debt]] — quantifiable obligation to pay a sum of money on a certain date; which in its [[fungibility]] and transferability is an impersonal thing — and a personal obligation in the wider sense | The distinction between a [[debt]] — quantifiable obligation to pay a sum of money on a certain date; which in its [[fungibility]] and transferability is an impersonal thing — and a personal obligation in the wider sense (the same distinction between a [[liability]] and an [[obligation]]) is profound, and we lose something important when we ignore it. | ||
This, it seems to me, goes deep. It resonates strongly with observations by a diverse range of impressive writers – James Scott, Jane Jacobs, Rory Sutherland, W. Edwards Deming Nassim Taleb — that far from being indicators of of weakness | This, it seems to me, goes deep. It resonates strongly with observations by a diverse range of impressive writers – James Scott, Jane Jacobs, Rory Sutherland, W. Edwards Deming Nassim Taleb — that far from being indicators of of weakness and a feeble governance, a certain looseness — planned slack and redundancy — in fact speak to confidence in one’s purpose. They are vital to the durability and flexibility of any enterprise. | ||
Graeber’s point: | This is Graeber’s point: we should always leave something on the table. It leaves something unsaid; it builds trust; it strengthens ties; it reinforces the sense of relationship and personal obligation. The [[reductionist]] yen to convert all of life | ||
to to a ledger of account — to comprehensively ''monetise'' it — is folly. You literally cannot put a value on “doing the right thing”. The economic equivalent — “discharging one’s obligations” is to do the bare minimum. It is is a “cheapest to deliver” option. When the bare minimum fully discharges your contractual obligation, your relationship is moot. As we have observed many times in these pages, the ''potential'' forward value of a business [[relationship]] necessarily exceeds the present value of any transaction. | |||
Of course, the smartest firms | Of course, the smartest firms realise this; only, over their accountants’ objections, whose ledger does not. | ||
But the point goes even deeper than that, for we cannot, even if we want to, fully articulate the financial value, or risk, of our commercial situation, imperfect as our information is, and shifting as the dynamics of the landscape necessarily are. | But the point goes even deeper than that, for we cannot, even if we want to, fully articulate the financial value, or risk, of our commercial situation, imperfect as our information is, and shifting as the dynamics of the landscape necessarily are. The redundancy commerce lack and overlap is the fat we burn to adapt to our changing circumstances. | ||
===Exchange and cancellation of debts=== | ===Exchange and cancellation of debts=== | ||
An ongoing relationship implies a complicated web of reciprocal obligations (in the wider sense): these are not an imposition of a cost to the relationship, but its fuel: in a sense a relationship is a preparedness to grant, and accept, indulgences over time. That one is “obliged” is a ''good'' thing: literally, to be in a relationship is to be ''bound'' to one another. Thus, to exactly reconcile one’s outstanding obligation to another exactly — to leave nothing on the table — is to indicate that one wants the relationship to end: one wants the freedom to leave. | An ongoing relationship implies a complicated web of reciprocal obligations (in the wider sense): these are not an imposition of a cost to the relationship, but its fuel: in a sense a relationship is a preparedness to grant, and accept, indulgences over time. That one is “obliged” is a ''good'' thing: literally, to be in a relationship is to be ''bound'' to one another. Thus, to exactly reconcile one’s outstanding obligation to another exactly — to leave nothing on the table — is to indicate that one wants the relationship to end: one wants the freedom to leave. | ||