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Debt: The first 500 years - I found it extremely interesting.
It has definitely changed my view on what money is and how it came to be. And how political money really is, like a king can say from now one 1 gold coin equals 11 silver coins etc. Another one is the book "And forgive them their debts" by Michael Hudson talking about ancient debt jubilee in the middle east. If i'm not mistaken one of the sources for debt: the first 5000 years book.
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The one on debt or on bullshit jobs? From what I know, the book on debt is indeed quite influential in financial circles, although I find that a third of its content are entertaining passages on tribal societies. And the bullshit jobs book is a reiteration of the earlier essay. While the essay is concise and straight to the point, the book has dubious assumptions and generalisations that are there for attention-grabb…
Appears that he had wrote more books than what I knew. What a positive revelation. The one I liked was "Debt". Do you have a link to the article about bullshit jobs?
It's strange to see this upvoted on HN of all places. Some marxist inspired ramblings with no clear conclusion. Fact is that the free enterprise system works very well when you let it work and this is backed by a lot of empirical data.
Common misconception, examples are the 40hr work week and banning of payment in scrip in the 1800s. Another example is that monopolies require legislation or they have the effect of “seizing up” the dynamics of a functioning marketplace and turning toxic. Semiconductor patents being made public and telecom copper being made open to use by other companies are both pretty well understood examples of legislation that he…
ok, then what of the cryptocurrency drug markets? those were created by govt?
no. there’s so many instances of unorganized humans doing trade. markets are just a more organized form of trade, and goverment is but one way to achieve that organization.
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Appears that he had wrote more books than what I knew. What a positive revelation. The one I liked was "Debt". Do you have a link to the article about bullshit jobs?
Here it goes: http://gesd.free.fr/graeber13.pdf
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Common misconception, examples are the 40hr work week and banning of payment in scrip in the 1800s. Another example is that monopolies require legislation or they have the effect of “seizing up” the dynamics of a functioning marketplace and turning toxic. Semiconductor patents being made public and telecom copper being made open to use by other companies are both pretty well understood examples of legislation that he…
> Markets are created by governments and don’t just spring from anywhere whole cloth. ok, then what of the cryptocurrency drug markets? those were created by govt? no. there’s so many instances of unorganized humans doing trade. markets are just a more organized form of trade, and goverment is but one way to achieve that organization.
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I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist.
>I believe that David Graeber was an Anarchist not a Marxist. Anarchism can be capitalist or communism. Anarcho-communism for example. In a proper free market, the telephone poles would have 50 wires, most of which wouldn't be functioning. Afterall, how would anyone provide you internet? Without government regulation any startup has to put their own wires up. This leads to rats nests of wires. Tons of expensive wires…
> Communism: a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.
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Common misconception, examples are the 40hr work week and banning of payment in scrip in the 1800s. Another example is that monopolies require legislation or they have the effect of “seizing up” the dynamics of a functioning marketplace and turning toxic. Semiconductor patents being made public and telecom copper being made open to use by other companies are both pretty well understood examples of legislation that he…
> Markets are created by governments and don’t just spring from anywhere whole cloth. ok, then what of the cryptocurrency drug markets? those were created by govt? no. there’s so many instances of unorganized humans doing trade. markets are just a more organized form of trade, and goverment is but one way to achieve that organization.
Indirectly yes, right now one of their biggest selling points is not being in the legal realm of government regulated markets.
If the government were to legalize drugs/endorse crypto that dynamic would heavily change, the black variants of these markets would lose quite a big part of their appeal and thus the demand for them and ultimately their market share.
> goverment is but one way to achieve that organization
There has to be some form of authority enforcing rules, or else you end up with a very anarchistic form of "market" where everything goes. That "everything" ranges from mundanities, like making a "business model" out of cheating people, to selling people like property because when there's a buyer, who has the right the stop me from selling?