On Graeber’s Grand Narrative
I’m still reading Graeber’s book. Maybe I’ll try to finish it this weekend. It’s full of problems, yet seems to gleefully overlook them as it attempts to create a grand narrative. Very Nietzschean. (Problems that any author who wants to create a grand narrative for thinking about past events has to embrace.)
Just look at how it’s gotten Thee Marxists all worked up. Love it when that happens. Crooked Timber’s breakdown of the book is very good. That’s a solid blog and I was thrilled to see a seminar on the book. Highly recommended. I figured MarxandSparks would get to linking to it, but Interruptions got there first. I’m not going to thoroughly read the posts until I’ve finished the book.
*** *** ***
Crooked Timber’s “seminar” on David Graeber’s Debt is some of the best content on the internet this week. It’s all worth reading:
Chris Bertram, Introduction
John Quiggin, The unmourned death of the double coincidence
Henry Farrell: The world economy is not a tribute system
Barry Finger Debt jubilee or global deleveraging
John Quiggin (slight return): The end of debt
Neville Morley: The return of grand narrative in the human sciences
Malcolm Harris: The dangers of pricing the infinite
Daniel Davies Too big to fail: the first 5000 years
Lou Brown: Good to think with
Richard Ashcroft: Money out of place: ‘debt’ and incentives
Rob Horning: Debt on the 12th planet
(Source: interruptions, via what-was-e-schatology)
