Debt: The First 5,000 Years: Difference between revisions

To incentivise parents to pick up their kids on time, the centre introduced a small but meaningful “late fee” for those who were more than ten minutes late. But rather than this reducing late pick-ups, average delinquency in those centres ''doubled''. What happened? The Gneezy surmises: the fixed penalty put a ''monetary value'' on the inconvenience: it converted a ''moral'' obligation into a ''financial'' one. In doing so something meaningful was lost.

That something is the motivating force behind this highly entertaining, learned, and stimulating book. David Graeber’s history —and there’s plenty of history, right back to the myth — yes, myth — of the foundation of money in [[barter]] — poses this central question: what happens when we reduce our sense of morality and justice to the language of a business deal?  

“What,” Graeber asks in the first chapter, “does it mean when we reduce moral obligations to debts?”

Now we denizens of the financial services industry should understand that David Graeber did not come at this question from what we would call a conventional place. He was an anthropologist, not an economist or a historian, and of the anarchist left: he was instrumental in establishing the ''Occupy Wall Street'' movement. But it would be a grave mistake to write off his book as a Marxist screed. There is so much of value here: in challenging conventional, lazy and simplistic ways we have at looking at the world. It is well researched and thoughtfully argued. Graeber perfectly understood conventional wisdom. It is just that he was ... what’s the word? — oh that’s it: a ''contrarian''.