En deuda : una historia alternativa de la economía

Que els economistes van, més que res, muntar-se un xiringuito a mida en formalitzar aquest camp ja ho sabem, però aquest llibre els deixa despullats... I en el procés s'aprenen moltes coses!

Ens dóna finestres a que diferents cultures han organitzat la vida econòmica de mil maneres diferents. La antropologia està interessantíssima! Resol, en aquest cas, aquella carència de la just or ia com a successió de reis i batalles, ja que aquí apareixen en tant que poden afectar les vides de la gent.

En aquest llibre viatgem per tots els continents i des de que prehistòria fins al present, traient sic de tot arreu.

Hi veiem com la noció de propietat que tenim es remunta a l'Imperi Romà, i com d'agressiva és; com els mites dels zombis i morts vivents són ecos de les víctimes de l'esclavitud; com el budisme entrava en contradiccions i tenia monestirs xapats d'or... I com la burocràcia xinesa s'hi va encarar.

Un pou de coneixement per recordar que la vida econòmica podria ser molt diferent i complir millor el seu suposat objectiu. Que quan algú diu allò de "la naturalesa humana és xunga", en realitat parla d'una doctrina que té uns 500 anys i ens imposa una violència brutal que ha anat desfent les societats.

I que ho podem fer diferent, millor.

I read Debt right after The Dawn of Everything (also by Graeber), and my opinion of these two books is closely interlinked. The combination is an extensive unwinding of the sort of economic and social history I learned in school. I've had to re-imagine the ways that humanity developed our relationship with agriculture, with technology, and with the interplay of social obligations which we now categorize as money and economics.

The core insight and question isn't any of those individual revelations. What Graeber is trying to get you to think about is the stickiness of contemporary social relationships & structures, and the ways that we have lost the ability to imagine the possibility of change. No economic or political system has ever been as committed as ours is to narrowing the realms of the possible and foreclosing the ability to imagine other ways of organizing society. Historically, social dynamics have been much more fluid, with a significantly greater ability for groups to deliberately redefine the parameters of their politics, or simply to walk away from situations which no longer serve their needs.

In this sense, I'm reminded of Le Guin's famous statement that:

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”

In fact, Le Guin was underselling the case! The divine right of kings was a relatively short-lived novelty as a political system, which many people routinely walked away from, and which suffered umpteen disruptions and overthrows. Our contemporary political systems are at once more brittle than monarchy, and more intent and effective than any before seen at punishing defiance and making other systems seem impossible. I cannot imagine a society which aspires to total surveillance and imprisons so much of its population being anything less than terrified about the possibilities of change and people's ability to manifest that.

Truly an eye-opening pair of reads which I highly recommend.