Book review of David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5,000 Years." A good history of debt,
credit, and money. Weaknesses in seeing debt as central to economic development,
downplaying role of human labor, exploitation, and class struggle. This leads to a
misunderstanding of the recent economic crisis, and to a limited and inadequate vision of
a post-capitalist future. ---- In “An Anarchist FAQ,” Iain McKay writes, “…anarchists
have, traditionally, been weak on…economics (which is ironic, as Proudhon made his name by
his economic critiques)” (2008; p. 13). This is why David Graeber, the anarchist
anthropologist, deserves praise for writing a major work on political economy. He has
written, he says, a “book [on] the history of money, debt, and credit” (2011; p. 212). “My
own aims are…to understand the moral grounds of economic life, and by extension, human
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