Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Debt existed before there was money.

All economics textbooks agree that the purpose of money was to free ancient people from the burden of carrying their products to market and to replace cumbersome and complex barter systems. What's wrong with this historical account? There is absolutely no proof to back it up.

Anthropologist David Graeber offers a startling inversion of common knowledge in this passage. He demonstrates how, even before coins or currency were invented, people had been using complex credit systems to purchase and sell products for almost 5,000 years, since the first agricultural civilizations rose to power. According to Graeber, it is also around this time that we first come across a society that is split between creditors and debtors.

Graeber demonstrates how discussions around debt and debt forgiveness have sparked several uprisings and served as a focal point of political discourse everywhere from Italy to China. Additionally, he skillfully shows how the terminology used in ancient legal and religious writings—words like "guilt," "sin," and "redemption"—was heavily influenced by discussions around debt in antiquity and continues to influence our most fundamental conceptions of good and evil. Without realizing it, we are still engaged in similar conflicts now.

A fascinating history of this little-known period, Debt: The First 5,000 Years explores how debt has shaped human history, how it affects the current financial crisis, and how it will affect our economy going forward.