Graeber ( Debt: The First 5,000 Years , p. 9) offers this extreme example of the tyrannical use of debt: A French anthropologist in the eastern Himalayas in the 1970s discovered that a cast known as “vanquished ones” was in a state of “permanent debt dependency. Landless and . . . . Continue Reading »
Here is Graeber’s explanation ( Debt: The First 5,000 Years , p. 49) of the way the British monetary system has worked since the founding of the national bank in 1694: “In 1694, a consortium of English bankers made a loan of 1,200,000 pounds to the king. In return they received a royal . . . . Continue Reading »
An offhand comment from a lawyer at a cocktail party got David Graeber thinking about debt. “One has to pay one’s debts,” the lawyer said when she found out Graeber was in favor of debt amnesty for third-world countries. Debt: The First 5,000 Years was the long answer to that . . . . Continue Reading »
In a lively meditation on money based on Daniel Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years , John Medaille challenges the standard account of the rise of money. Rather that moving from barter to money to credit, Medaille suggests that the historical evidence suggests the opposite is the case. . . . . Continue Reading »
Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang assesses the South Korean economic miracle in his Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (pp. 12-15). It is indeed miraculous. South Korea has gone from being one of the world’s poorest countries to having a per capita . . . . Continue Reading »
In Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (pp. 415-6), von Mises argues that there is a link between Jesus’ announcement of “God’s own reorganization” of the world and Bolshevism. Both are “utterly negative.” Jesus “rejects everything that exists . . . . Continue Reading »
American cotton farmers gets billions of dollars in subsidies. This comes from American taxpayers. It is the only way that American farmers, who have the highest production costs in the world, can remain profitable. And it affects the global cotton market in ways that damage lower-cost, smaller . . . . Continue Reading »
Capitalism, Ryn argues, does not have any “essence” or definition. Capitalism, like democracy, exists “only in particular historical manifestations.” And those historical manifestations are dependent on non-economic factors. Capitalism can be a “neo-Jacobin” . . . . Continue Reading »
Innocuous as it may seem, Ryn (in the aforementioned book) argues that the policies guided by “equality of opportunity” and “a level playing field,” if taken literally and seriously, would mean the destruction of traditional society: “equality of economic opportunity . . . . Continue Reading »
“The market may have its martyrdoms,” wrote John Ruskin. Guided by Ruskin, I offer some Lenten reflections on business at http://www.firstthings.com/ . . . . Continue Reading »
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