Debt: The First 5,000 Years pdf

大卫·罗尔夫·格雷伯 (David Rolfe Graeber) 是一位常驻伦敦的人类学家和无政府主义活动家，他最著名的作品可能是他 2011 年的著作《债务：前 5000 年》。 他是伦敦经济学院人类学教授。 1998 年至 2007 年，他在耶鲁大学担任人类学助理教授和副教授，专攻价值理论和社会理论。 大学决定在他有资格获得终身教职时不重新雇用他，这引发了一场学术争议，以及一份有超过 4,500 个签名的请愿书。 2007-13 年，他继续成为伦敦大学金史密斯学院社会人类学的读者。 他的活动包括抗议 2001 年在魁北克市举行的第三届美洲峰会和 2002 年在纽约市举行的世界经济论坛。 格雷伯是占领华尔街运动的领军人物，有时被认为创造了“我们是 99%”的口号。

Debt: The First 5,000 Years pdf 大卫格雷伯

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it. Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors. Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history—as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.